Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) (20 page)

“
When they were small.” Her distant tone grows slightly warmer. “Mikhail and I have known them for years.”

I find a knife and turn it over, looking at the edge. “Do you think I have any chance of getting Mikhail to shake my paw before we go?”

“
He believes what he believes,” she says.

At least we’re talking now. “I know,” I say, “but I was hoping that getting to see us together, and meeting me, would maybe...” I chop some cucumber, thinking of how to put it. “Get him to admit an exception.”

She checks the oven, then goes to the cupboard and starts taking out spices. “Devlin was a good cub, growing up.”

“
He still is,” I say. “Really caring, really just a wonderful guy.”

“
He used to be respectful.”

I really have no idea where she’s going with this. “I don’t know anyone more sensitive to other people.”

“
He’s always been sensitive,” she says. “I don’t know if I even know him now.”

That’s a bit startling. “What—why? Because he’s—” My tongue trips over the word “gay.” I don’t know what might be a red flag word with her. “With me?”

She measures out spices, quietly. I try another tack. “What were his girlfriends like? In high school, I mean. He told me you made one of them cry.”

I can smell the spices as she mixes them in the bowl. It looks like she’s smiling. “She insulted my dinner. She said it was ‘interesting.’ I told her that interesting would not be so bad for someone as plain as she was.”

I raise an eyebrow, even though she can’t see it. “You don’t seem like someone who would say something like that.”

“
Oh, she had been very prim all night. She thought she was better than we were. I knew she was no good for Devlin.”

I take a breath. “Do you think I am?”

She doesn’t respond to that right away, but this time, I don’t fill the silence. Finally, she says, “I don’t know Devlin any more.”

It’s possible that Dev really has changed that much, that he and his parents have grown apart. I know that situation all too well. But I don’t really believe it. Hurt like this only comes when there are real feelings. If they’d grown apart, everything would feel more stale, more calcified.

It’s not like identifying as gay has completely transformed Dev’s personality. He’s matured, but that has nothing to do with being gay. Perhaps, I may modestly say, it does have something to do with it indirectly, as it brought my influence to bear on him. Then I think about sneaking around his parents’ hallway naked and I decide that perhaps I’m not as mature as all that.

“
He’s not that different.” I finish the cucumbers and look around for something else. “Do these carrots get chopped too?”

“
Yes.” It’s very quiet where she is. I glance back at her and she’s not moving, just staring down at the counter.

“
I’ve known him for almost four years,” I say. “Since junior year of college.”

“
Gregory comes home once a month,” she says. “Even the month he got married.”

Mama’s boy, I think. “He has a different life. Where’s his practice?”

“
Just outside Gateway. He tried to open something here in town, but there just wasn’t the business there is in the big city. He has a lovely little house out there, too. Has Devlin shown you pictures?”

“
No.” I set to chopping carrots.

“
It’s a two-story house, fifty years old. It’s so pretty. They have a lovely neighborhood, too. Alexi is so happy there.”

I try to remember whether Alexi is Dev’s sister-in-law or nephew. Nephew, I think. “Are there good schools there?” I ask, which should be appropriate no matter which it is.

“
Gregory made sure of that. Alexi will be starting at the highest-rated school in the state next year. They already got his application approved. Gregory did some work for one of the administrators.”

She goes on while I finish chopping the vegetables. They go into a steamer, and then the conversation stalls again. She checks the oven and goes to the cupboard to get place settings. “Can I help?” I ask again.

She keeps her back to me. Her tail, which had been waving freely, is curled around her legs again. “Would you go tell Devlin and Mikhail that dinner will be ready in five minutes?”

“
Sure.”

My own tail is drooping as I head to the closed door of the den. Not a lot, just a little. I hesitate before knocking at the door, perking one ear to listen in. But they’re not talking about me; they’re talking about football, about the Millenport game, father and son sharing that moment. And Dev sounds happy. He sounds proud. I raise my fist, knowing that my re-entry into the room will mute that bond, that happiness. I hear his father say, “You’re strong, you’re tough. Better than that Bixon,” his voice rough, and Dev’s half-hearted protest.

Bixon is Gateway’s running back, the wolverine Dev will be going up against in a week and a half. He’s fast enough to get around Pike easily, which means when they run to the weak side, he’ll be Dev’s responsibility. I hope Dev can stay out of the way of his claws.

Dev might be better than him. He might not; it’s close. But it’s good to hear his father tell him he is. I raise my paw and knock.

Of course, the mood chills, and stays chilly all the way to the dinner table. The roast beef is good, tender and juicy. I haven’t had this much red meat in the past year. There’s not much talk. I discard the subject of Dev’s Today Show interview, or anything else that relates to his recent coming-out. Finally, in something like desperation, I ask about Gregory and how his practice is going.

Dev gives me a look, but it starts his mother talking, and even his father chimes in, though not to me. His mother doesn’t really talk with an accent, but every so often I catch it in his father’s voice, when he’s talking fast or loud. When I hear it, I can’t help it; I expect him to say, “
Bozhe moi!
” like an old Bond villain. I bite my lip so I don’t smile when this happens, and I just focus on the spiced veggies, which are better than last night’s.

It’s Dev who turns the conversation back to football. In the middle of his mother talking about the case Gregory won before the last one he won, Dev abruptly says, “You know, the Firebirds haven’t been four and two in over fifteen years.”

“
I remember that team,” his father says into the silence. “Went nine and seven. Lost in the playoffs to Gateway.”

I don’t remember that team, or that year. Probably it was a year or two before my dad started me watching football. But we come back to this year, talking about the players who are doing well, and when I see an opening, I toss in, “There’s only four or five weak-side linebackers playing better than Dev right now.”

Dev’s father looks up from his second helping of meat, first at me, then at his son. He nods, slowly. “Not so many good plays this last game,” he says.

I rattle off three plays Dev made that saved big gains and possibly scores. “He just makes them look easy.”

His father doesn’t say anything. After a moment, Dev mumbles, “The boars didn’t block very well.”

The conversation falls into silence. We go back to cleaning off our plates, most of us done eating.

When his plate is clear, Mikhail looks between the two of us again. “Fox,” he says, pointing to me and standing, “come walk outside. Duscha, clear the table. Devlin, help her.”

Dev’s mother half-rises from her chair. “Mikhail,” she says, with, it seems to me, a note of warning.

Mikhail looks back at her. She doesn’t give ground or say anything further. I’m not sure if I should stand up or not, but I follow Dev’s lead and stay seated. The silence is just starting to make me want to say something when Dev’s father just hmphs and says, “Do not worry.”

Dev looks at me as we both stand. I give him an encouraging smile, trying to echo the same words to him as I brush my chair off and follow his father out to the door. Despite my attempted assurance to Dev, my fur’s prickling and I’m braced for the worst.

Mikhail walks down the steps and stops there. As I descend the lowest one, he glances toward a large maple in the neighbor’s yard overhanging the sidewalk, a black patch in the dim evening light. The nearest streetlight is two houses down in the other direction. We’re partly lit by the light from the house, but there’s a thick cloud cover and bushes around the yard, and the prickling in my fur isn’t helped by the numerous and deep shadows in and around them. I catch a few scents of neighborhood residents, but I don’t know this area, don’t know who belongs and who doesn’t, don’t know if the heavily masculine scents are just midwestern testosterone, like in some areas back home.

Dev’s father just folds his arms and waits for me. I consider for a moment walking back up two stairs, so I can look down on him the way he’s looking down on me. Of course, that would be admitting that it bothers me. So I stay where I am, looking up at him, trying not to think about how his broad shoulders and huge paws remind me of Dev. It’s easy to see where Dev gets his physique from. But he carries himself taller, beyond the two inches or so he has on his father. His father’s shoulders bow forward, just a bit, his ears marked with old scars that I can still see, even in the half-light from the house.

He exhales. I can see his breath in the moist, cool air. “I want you to listen good,” he says. He doesn’t leave me space to respond, but I incline my head, ears pointed politely toward him anyway. “I have nothing against you personally. I have a good friend who’s a fox. I know people who are...”

“
Is this where you tell me to stay away from Dev?” I jump on the pause, keeping him from getting his speech out. “If so, we can skip that whole part and get to the end, where you respect me for standing up for myself.”

His brow lowers. “I did not say I respect you.”

“
I respect you.” It’s not even a lie. Much.

That surprises him, but he shakes it off. “You will stop seeing Devlin.”

“
No, actually, I don’t think I will.” I remind myself not to get up on tiptoe. But I do fold my arms, mimicking his pose, staring back as intensely as he is.

“
His life is hard enough, with football. You are making it harder for him.”

“
From where I stand,” I say, “I’m making it easier for him. The only one making it harder is the one who won’t accept his boyfriend into the family.”

I want him to flinch when I say ‘boyfriend,’ but he doesn’t. “There is no place for you in this family,” he says.

“
Then there’s no place for Dev here,” I say.

“
I agree.”

That one catches me off guard, but I stay calm. He’s searching my muzzle for a reaction. “Dev still loves you,” I say quietly. A shadow moves past the window looking out onto the porch. The living room, I think. But it doesn’t stay there.

“
And we love him. But if he brings shame on this family with his love of money, of attention, we will cast him out rather than encourage him to continue.”

“
Cast him out?” I can’t help it; I raise my voice.

He doesn’t say, “
Da
.” He just nods. “It would hurt us to do it.”

“
It would hurt him,” I say.

He nods. “So you understand.”

“
But you’d be the ones hurting him. He won’t forgive you.”

“
Perhaps not.” His eyes look steadily down at me. “But he will blame you.”

Of course he won’t, I say, but of course, he will. Not consciously, but he’ll always think of me as the reason his parents won’t talk to him. He’ll hate them openly and me secretly. I glance back at the warm light of the house, empty of shadows now, and then back to Mikhail’s cold eyes. “You don’t know your son very well,” I say, as smugly as I can manage. I don’t know what I’m trying to do. Provoke him into a fight? Get him so mad he loses control? The outcome’s not likely to be good for me, either way. My ‘fight or flight’ response is dialed pretty much all the way to ‘flight’ at this point, but I stand still. I think of Dev, up there in that press conference. If he can stand up for himself there, I can stand up for myself here.

There’s a rustling over by the maple tree, but I don’t think any passer-by is going to poke his muzzle up the path and say, “hey, what’s going on here?” Dev’s father’s eyes flick in that direction before returning to me. “We know him well enough. Better than you.”

“
So you’d turn him against you just to also try to turn him against me.” It feels like the temperature out here has dropped several degrees. “What will the neighbors think?”

He snorts. “Good neighbors respect family privacy.”

“
Translation: why tell them, when you think he’ll choose you over me.”

“
We are family.” I think he’s trying to out-smug me. “He will always come back to us.”

“
You’re a sick bastard.”

“
It would hurt us more to see him be,” and here he leans down toward me, “a public spectacle of a faggot.”

“
They have nicer words for us now,” I say. “Queer. Gay. Person.”

He shrugs. “I did not enjoy being called ‘Sibey’ as a cub. Other cubs used that name, I made them stop. You want me to stop, you can make me stop.”

“
I’m not going to fight you,” I say. In staring at his eyes, I managed to briefly forget about his huge biceps, his barrel of a chest. All the same power as in Dev, but arrayed against me now. I try not to let my ears or tail betray my accelerated heartbeat.