The Abstinence Teacher. Tom Perrotta

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the weight he'd put on in the past couple of years. At thirteen, he must have been an angel.

      “Father John was a sweet, mixed-up man.” Gregory smiled wistfully at the memory. “He died of AIDS, but none of the parishioners would admit it. To this day, they still call it cancer.”

      “Thirteen's too young,” Randall insisted. “I agree with the abstinence people on that.”

      “Maybe,” said Gregory. “But the other kids had been calling me a fag since second grade.”

      “So?” Randall said. “What's that got to do with anything?”

      “I don't know.” Gregory looked thoughtful. “It was just kind of a relief to make it official.”

      “You were lonely, and he took advantage,” Randall said. “You should at least be able to see it for what it was.”

      “It happened to me,” Gregory snapped. “Not to you. So don't tell me what it was.”

      “I just don't think it's right,” Randall muttered.

      “I guess I wasn't as lucky as you.” There was an edge in Gregory's voice that Ruth hadn't heard before. “I didn't meet Mr. Perfect on the first day of college and have a storybook romance.”

      “Honey, I'm not criticizing. I'm just trying to make a point.” Randall turned to Ruth. “Don't you think thirteen's too young?”

      “Everybody's different,” Ruth said after a brief hesitation, reluctant to take sides in the dispute. “It's hard to generalize.”

      “That's too easy,” Randall shot back. “You're a mother. Do you want your daughters having sex at thirteen?”

      Ruth shrugged. “I hope they wait till they're in college. But a lot of people don't.”

      Gregory pounced. “Did you?”

      Ruth poked at her sag paneer for a moment before answering.

      “I had my first real boyfriend in college,” she said. “There were a couple of weird experiences in high school, but I didn't really know how to process them.”

      Randall and Gregory traded prurient looks, allies again.

      “Weird experiences,” said Randall. “Now you've got our attention.”

      “Come on.” Gregory made a coaxing motion with his hand. “Don't hold out on us.”

      “It was nothing,” Ruth insisted. “Just, you know, the standard groping.”

      “The standard groping's always been good enough for me,” Randall said.

      “As opposed to the substandard?” Gregory inquired.

      “Even that's better than nothing,” Randall said with a laugh. “Who wants another Kingfisher?”

      RUTH HAD trouble falling asleep. This was often the case when she'd had too much to drink, and she almost always had too much to drink when she hung out with Randall and Gregory. She'd gone to their house after the restaurant, ostensibly to watch a Margaret Cho video, but they'd gotten sidetracked. First they headed down to Gregory's basement studio to look at his latest work, an unusually large installation that placed several French Resistance Fighter GI Joes in a maze of soulless office cubicles, each doll staring at identical miniature computer screens displaying the smiling face of the late Pope John Paul II. Ruth was puzzled by the piece until Gregory explained that it was an allegory designed to illustrate the way that existentialism/atheism had lost ground to organized religion in recent years as a result of the widespread anxiety generated by the ever more intrusive presence of digital technology in our lives.

      “Wow.” Ruth was impressed. “You really packed a lot into it.” Gregory seemed pleased. “Art is all about compression.” “It took me three months to round up those action figures,” Randall said, reminding them of his own contribution to the project. He wagged a finger at Gregory. “From now on you're going to have to start working with Barbies.”

      “Yeah, right,” Gregory muttered, as if this quip had been intended seriously. “That'd be really original.”

      Randall smiled the way people do when they're hurt and trying not to show it, then herded them upstairs to try out a recipe for chocolate martinis that he'd cut out of last Sunday's paper.

      The experiment was not a success. After a couple of sips, they dumped the vile concoction into the sink and switched to Manhattans, a much safer bet. While Randall mixed her drink, Ruth picked up a MotoPhoto envelope resting on the table and shuffled through the pictures, which documented the Massachusetts wedding of Dan and Jerry, two of Randall and Gregory's oldest friends. They made for a striking pair, one man tall and bald and amiable in a black tux, the other in white, bearded and stocky and a bit too intense. The two grooms danced cheek to cheek, fed each other cake, and posed with their elderly parents, who smiled gamely, if a bit uncomfortably, at the camera. Randall had found the ceremony to be incredibly moving—like a dream, he said—while Gregory took a darker view, knowing what he did about Dan and Jerry's troubled relationship.

      “These guys break up every six months or so,” he said. “They only get back together because they're so devoted to making each other unhappy.”

      Ruth laughed. “Sounds like a lot of couples I know.”

      “Dan and Jerry have every bit as much right to a bad marriage as anyone else,” Randall said.

      “People shouldn't get married just because they can,” Gregory said.

      Randall glared at him, his face flushed from a combination of alcohol and anger.

      “Everything doesn't have to be perfect, you know. You just have to love each other for better or worse.”

      Gregory turned to Ruth. “This is about us, you know. He's mad at me for not proposing.”

      “I'm not mad ax. you,” Randall insisted. “I just can't figure out why you're so scared. We've been together for twelve years.”

      “I'm not scared,” Gregory said. “I just don't see the point of getting engaged if we can't get married.”

      “We're making a commitment,” Randall said. “Once it's legal, we'll be first in line.”

      “Let's cross that bridge when we get to it,” Gregory said.

      “Forget it.” Randall's face tightened into an unconvincing smile. “It's really not worth fighting about.”

      “Who's fighting?” said Gregory. “We're having a calm discussion.”

      Randall drained his martini.

      “Let's just watch the movie.”

      It was already after ten. Ruth tried to make a graceful exit, but Randall insisted she at least watch the first ten minutes, where Margaret did the hilarious imitation of her crazy Korean mother. She reluctantly agreed, but then got sucked in and stayed to the bitter end, by which point both her hosts had fallen asleep—Gregory dozing in an armchair, hands resting on his belly, and Randall snoring softly on the couch, his face naked, СКАЧАТЬ