"Gimme my fucking shirt, Forman." Hyde snatched it out of my hands.
I was trying to convince Hyde to call in sick. It wasn't going as smoothly as I'd hoped. "You woke me up five times last night with the coughing. Did you even get to sleep at all?"
"I'm fine. Stop being such a damn mother hen." He glared at me, giving me a good look at the dark shadows under his eyes, and pulled his shirt on.
In my imagination beforehand, it'd gone like this: I said 'Steven, you're still sick. I'll tell Roy you can't make it in today. You get some rest.' And then he said 'Thanks for looking out for me, Eric.' And then I said 'I love you,' and he said 'I love you, too,' and we kissed.
He was not saying his lines right. Instead, he was swearing at me and getting dressed for work. Looking after him worked a lot better in theory than in practice. "Dammit Hyde," I said, "you look like hell."
He slipped his sunglasses on, ran his fingers through his hair once, and gave me a thin smile. "Better?"
I tried a different tack. "C'mon, man, you work in food service. You shouldn't go to work sick."
He sighed. "So I'll just bus tables today, and Roy can do the cooking." Then he sneezed. He winced and rubbed his temples, like he had a headache.
"Why?" I asked, feeling like pulling out my hair in frustration. "Why do you suddenly have a work ethic?"
He shrugged. "Same reason as everybody else - I need the money. And we might have to leave soon."
That was a scary fact, and I couldn't argue with it.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Mom was frying sausages and eggs, wearing her bathrobe and with her hair still in curlers. "Good morning, boys!" she sang out.
"Morning, Mom," I mumbled.
"Morning, Mrs. Forman," Hyde said. And then a second later he sneezed. Catching his breath, he started coughing.
"Oh, good Lord Steven," Mom said, looking up with a frown, "you're not going to work like that. Go back to bed."
"But Mrs. Forman-"
"Bed. Now." She gestured with her spatula.
Hyde looked at her, and then at me, and then back at her. He shook his head a little, and I thought I heard him stifle a laugh. "Yes, Mrs. Forman," he said meekly, and went right back the way he'd come.
Mom turned on me, her hands on her hips. "Eric, why didn't you tell Steven to stay in bed? He sounded just awful!"
I didn't know whether to laugh or scream. I forced my face into a calm mask, and said "Well, Mom, I did." My voice came out only a little bit squeaky. "But he doesn't have to do what I say, does he? It's not like we're married, or something!"
Work was hectic, since we were one man short. Even so, I worried all day about what was happening at home - whether Jackie or Kelso had spread the word about the crimes against nature being committed in the Pinciotti and Forman households. Kelso didn't have a shift at the hotel today, which was kind of good because it meant I didn't have to face him - but bad because he could be anywhere, saying anything to anyone. When I pulled back into the driveway at the end of the day, it was with a definite sense of dread.
As soon as I got out of my car, I heard Hyde calling my name. I looked around and saw him coming around from the front of the house, wearing just jeans and a sweater, no coat. My anxiety level spiked up a couple notches.
"What's wrong?" I said. "What are you doing out here?"
"I had to catch you before you went in. We have to talk." He looked serious, but not panicked.
"Out here?"
"In the car." He went around the Vista Cruiser and let himself in the passenger side.
I slid back into the driver's seat, slammed my door, and turned to him. "What's going on? You're supposed to be in bed-"
He shook his head. "I slept all morning, I feel a lot better. Look-"
All of a sudden I realized the car reeked of alcohol. "Hyde, have you been drinking?"
"Eric, I told Kitty."
"What? You told her what?" Not about us. He couldn't mean he'd told her that.
"About us."
"You what?!" I yelped.
He grimaced. "Your mom got me drunk, man."
"She what?!"
He frogged me in the shoulder. "Stop saying that! I'm serious, Eric, Kitty got me drunk. Do you know what a hot toddy is?"
"Um, hot water and lemon juice and honey?" It was a drink Mom made when anyone in the family had a cold.
"Yeah, and a double shot of whiskey."
OK, that was not the same recipe she used when she made them for me.
"She got me drunk," Hyde repeated, "and then she drilled me. It was like the CIA, man. She knew something was wrong, and she wasn't going to stop until she found out what. She started asking what happened to my hands, and what really happened to Jackie yesterday, and before I knew it she was asking about the time we both went out driving all night, and the time I went up to your room in the middle of the night and stayed 'till morning....She notices everything, man. You don't think she does, but she does."
I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry. "What exactly did you tell her?"
"Everything," he said, sounding unreasonably calm.
He couldn't mean that. He couldn't. "Hyde, did you tell my mother we had sex?"
"Yep." He nodded a couple times, slowly. "I sure did."
"Oh God." I let my head drop down to thud against the steering wheel. We were dead. "What did she do?"
"She, uh, yelled at me a little," Hyde said, sounding thoughtful. "And then she cried. And since then she's been in the kitchen, cooking."
"And she kicked you out of the house?" I asked, lifting my head again.
"No. Why-? Oh." He looked down at himself, and plucked at his sweater. "No coat. Kitty wouldn't kick me out without a coat, man. Red might. Not Kitty. I just came out to warn you before you went in the kitchen."
I couldn't believe it. All day I'd been terrified that Jackie or Kelso would tell my parents - but it was Hyde who did. "We could leave right now," I said, wrapping my fingers around the steering wheel. I had my emergency escape bag right in the car - I'd brought it with me to work, just in case. I had my wallet.
"No. You have to go talk to Kitty." He put his hand over the ignition so I couldn't put the key in. "She wants to see you."
"Hi Mom."
Mom looked up from the bowl of batter she was whipping. Her eyes looked red. "Eric. Sit down at the table."
Hyde came in behind me, closed the door, and tried to head for the basement.
"Stop right there, Steven. You sit down by Eric." Mom's tone did not allow for opposition. Hyde did what she said.
"I - I made coffee," Mom said, coming to the table with three mugs. "Now, we don't have much time before Red and Laurie get back home." She got out a bottle of whiskey and poured a healthy splash into her coffee.
"Can I get some of that, Mrs. Forman?" Hyde asked, nudging his mug towards her.
"Certainly not, young man."
"C'mon, Mrs. Forman, you already gave me half the bottle in those hot toddies."
Mom's eyes widened guiltily, and she looked at me, then at Hyde, then back to me. "Ha ha," she laughed uncomfortably. "Those were medicinal." There was an awkward pause. "Oh, what the hell," she said, and poured a bit of the whiskey into Hyde's mug, and a bit into mine even though I hadn't asked for it. "We're all adults here, right? Adults who can live their lives however they want to, no matter how wrong and unnatural that might be. Ha ha."
I took a drink of my coffee, suddenly wishing she'd put more whiskey in it. "OK, Mom, you know about Hyde and me."
"I need a cigarette," Mom said abruptly. She sprang up out of her seat and back to the drawer where she hid things. She came back with a cigarette and a box of matches. We waited while she tried four or five times to strike the match against the side of the box, but it wasn't working - and then the match broke. "Damn it!" Mom burst out. I winced. Hyde took the box out of her hand and shook another match out. It caught the first time he struck it, and he held the flame up to the end of her cigarette. I noticed his hand was steady. Mine would have been shaking like leaves if I didn't have them wrapped tightly around my mug.
Mom took a long drag from the cigarette. "So, Eric, is what Steven said true? The two of you are lovers now?"
Lovers - it was a good word. She could have used a lot of worse ones. Maybe this was a hopeful sign. "Um, yeah. We are." Unlike my hands, there was no way to steady my voice.
Mom made a soft, choking noise, and took a drink of the coffee. "My baby is a homosexual," she said to no one in particular, and pressed her hand over her mouth to try to stifle a sob.
"I'm sorry, Mom," I said helplessly.
"What happened, sweetie?" She had trouble getting the words out. "Was it because I mothered you too much? Because I didn't approve of your engagement to Donna?"
Hyde silently got up, and came back with a saucer for Mom to use as an ash tray. I barely noticed. "Mom, it doesn't have anything to do with you. I just...love him."
Mom let out a high-pitched sob, but managed to get herself under control again with another long drag on the cigarette. The tip glowed red. "And you, Steven?" She turned to Hyde. "Do you love my son?"
"I do, Mrs. Forman." He was the only one of us speaking in a clear, calm voice. I wondered if he got his control from the Zen, or from the large amount of whiskey my mom had apparently given him earlier.
Mom shakily ashed her cigarette over the saucer Hyde had put in front of her. "You're children. What do you know about love?"
It was probably a rhetorical question, but Hyde answered anyway. "I know what life's like without it, Mrs. Forman."
"Eric..." Mom looked at me, so sad. "I wanted you to have a family of your own...children...."
"I still can, Mom. We can...adopt, or something."
"What?" Hyde said, looking startled.
"OK, um, we can talk about that later," I said quickly. "Mom, are you going to tell Dad?"
"Ha, ha," she laughed desperately. "Good Lord, no. Your father would... he would... it wouldn't be good. No, we're all going to pretend that everything is normal."
We survived dinner. I developed new respect for my mom's acting abilities. She'd cleaned herself up and had dinner on the table by the time Dad and Laurie got home. The kitchen was icy cold, since she'd had all the windows open to let the cigarette smoke blow out, but she told Dad she'd been having hot flashes all afternoon. That also explained any oddities in her mood, as well as the fact I was clearly walking on eggshells around her. Hyde skipped dinner - Mom gave him a plate to take back up to my room, and told him to stay out of sight until he'd sobered up.
After dinner, I got out of the way fast. I went down to the basement.
Fez was on the couch, watching TV. "Hi, Fez," I said cautiously, stopping at the bottom of the stairs.
"Hello Eric." He got up and turned off the TV. "So, is it true what Jackie says? You and Hyde are doing it now?"
"Uh..." There was no point in lying to Fez. "Yeah."
He shook his head, laughing softly. "I certainly did not see this coming."
Well, he wasn't freaking out, screaming or crying. This was the best reaction we'd had from anyone so far. "So you're, uh, OK with it?" I asked, tentatively coming around to sit on the chair by the couch.
"Why would I not be? Jackie certainly cannot get Hyde back now. My chances with her have improved." He grinned.
"So, um, you've talked to Jackie. What about Kelso?"
"Yes, I saw them both earlier. Kelso seemed as upset at Jackie was." Fez looked puzzled. "I am not sure why - I would think he, too, would be pleased that Hyde is out of Jackie's picture."
I sighed. I hadn't thought Kelso would take it well. At least Fez was still talking to me. "Has Jackie told anyone else? Besides you and Kelso?"
"No, I don't think so. She stayed at Kelso's house last night, in his sister's room, but I think she just told Mrs. Kelso that she had a fight with Donna." His eyes lit up. "So it is also true about Donna and Naomi?"
I nodded.
"Jackie seems just as upset about them, and I cannot understand why," Fez said. "If I accidentally saw two girls kissing, I would not scream and run away!"
"It's not quite like in Playboy, Fez. I don't think they'd let you join them."
"Damn." He pouted briefly. "So, what do your parents think about all this?"
"Mom just found out today and she's...well, it went better than I thought it would. She cried a lot, though. We're not going to tell Red." I gave him a sharp look. "Fez, you can't tell anyone, OK?"
He made the zipping motion over his lips. "You can trust me, Eric."
I felt a soft moan escape me. "No I can't. Damn it, Fez, you can't keep a secret to save your life! You told everyone about your own gay dream about Kelso!"
"Well, I did not know it would get me in trouble," he snapped.
"OK, well, you know now. And that's why you can't tell anyone about me and Hyde!"
He nodded, his expression softening into something like sympathy. "I understand. Eric, I will talk to Jackie and Kelso and try to make them understand, too."
"Th-thanks, Fez." I suddenly felt my throat tightening, almost like I was going to cry. I hadn't dared to imagine that any of my friends besides Donna would actually accept me and Hyde being together.
Fez startled me by coming over and giving me a hug. "Do not be scared, Eric. It will be all right."
"Thanks," I said again, surprised and touched, and hugged him back.
After Fez left, I stayed in the basement and watched TV until pretty late. When I went upstairs, Mom was still in the kitchen, just taking a tray of muffins out of the oven.
"Hi Mom. I thought you'd be in bed."
She looked at me with tired eyes. "Eric, honey, I can't stop you and Steven from...doing what you do together, but I don't want you doing it in my house. I want you to sleep in the basement tonight."
I felt a pang of hurt, but I said "OK." It would be pointless to argue. As long as she didn't tell Red, I'd do pretty much whatever she wanted.
Mom got out a table knife and started prying the muffins out of the tin onto a cooling rack. I saw there was already a loaf of banana bread and a fresh-baked cake sitting out on the counter. The kitchen was sweet with their mingled scents.
Obsessive baking - my mother's way of quietly freaking out.
I started to head for the basement, but then I remembered the cot was still upstairs in my room. I turned around. "Mom...."
"Yes, Eric?" She shook the last muffin onto the rack, then looked around as if trying to figure out what to do next.
"I do love him. I wish you could be happy for us."
She looked up at me, her expression pulled tight as though she were in physical pain. "I believe you, sweetie. I saw you two grow up together. And I just want you to be happy. But this...this is going to bring you nothing but pain and suffering. The world will turn its back on you. You don't understand what you're getting yourselves in for."
I was lost for a moment in a memory: myself saying almost the same thing to Donna when she broke our engagement and told me she was gay, at Thanksgiving.
I shook my head slowly. "You're wrong, Mom. We do understand. I've had the shit beaten out of me before because some guys thought I looked like a faggot." I waited for her to scold me for my language, but she didn't; she just pressed her fingers over her mouth, squinched her eyes, and made a little squeaking noise, trying not to cry. "That was a couple years ago and it scared us so much that we...I...thought we could never be together. But now I've realized that the worst possible thing would be going through life without him. Nothing else scares me as much as that."
Mom turned around so her back was to me, and started sobbing. Her shoulders shook, and she muffled the sounds with her hand pressed over her mouth. I felt indescribably terrible. What kind of son was I, making my mother cry like that? "Mom?" I went over and hugged her; she leaned into it, pressing her face into my shoulder. "Mom, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry it had to be like this...."
Hyde was asleep on my bed when I went into my room to get the cot; I managed not to wake him. I set the cot up in its usual place in the furnace room, piled it with blankets, and turned off the light.
I'd never realized before how dark the furnace room got with all the lights off. I'd never been in here at night without Hyde before. There were no windows, of course. The only illumination came from the eerie flickering of the furnace's pilot light. The basement was freezing, and the noises were strange. Not long after I lay down the furnace came on, and its rumbling filled my mind and seemed to make the cot vibrate under me. I wondered how Hyde ever managed to sleep down here.
As soon as I thought of Hyde, I was hit with a sense of loneliness so intense that tears pricked my eyes. We'd slept together for just two nights in a row, but already the night felt wrong without him. And this was his room. All the blankets smelled like him, giving me the feeling I should be able to roll over now and bump up against him.
One night apart wouldn't have been so hard to deal with if I'd had some certainty that we'd be together again soon. I didn't have that. Our situation had never been stable or safe, not since our first night together two weeks ago - and now that Mom knew, something had to give.
More than anything, I wanted to go back up to him. But I couldn't, because of Mom. So instead I went out to the Vista Cruiser, where I'd left my schoolbag. I took out the teddy bear he'd given me for Christmas, and took it back to the furnace room with me. I made myself a cocoon in the blankets, with the teddy bear pressed tight against my chest. I clutched the sad, worn, beautiful thing, and breathed deeply of Steven's scent, and imagined being happy together somewhere, someday.