Elroy squared his back and said, “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Huberly. Your son has told me so many wonderful things about you.” Elroy looked her up and down while he spoke, the same way he evaluated everyone the first time he met them. He could see she’d been an attractive woman at one time. Though she’d filled out over the years, she still had a nice figure and medium-length brown hair the same color as Kyle’s. She wore jeans and a simple white blouse; no jewelry but a gold wedding band. Elroy saw traces of makeup, but nothing more than some foundation and a hint of lip gloss. Kyle and his mom were not identical, but Elroy noticed the family resemblance immediately.
“Call me Patty,” she said. “We’re not formal around here.” Then she looked Elroy up and down as if she were evaluating him now. And he knew with that one statement he would have to be careful with her. He’d run across her kind before. She was the sweet quiet type who didn’t wear a lot of makeup and pretended to be simple while she plotted and calculated her next move. Oh, he so wished he’d slept with Kyle at least once. That would have given him an edge with which she wouldn’t have been able to compete. He’d never met a mother yet who could compete with him.
Elroy sent her his warmest smile. “Thank you for inviting me to your lovely home. It’s just as I’d imagined it would be.” This was true. He had imagined the worst. The best way to handle the sweet ones was by being even sweeter. And no one could be sweeter than Elroy when he wanted to be.
Patty led them into a family room off the kitchen with brown shag carpet and beer barrel tables next to brown and orange colonial furniture. She introduced Elroy to two small children watching a vacuous TV show that had loud piercing characters. The most expensive piece in the ugly room was the humungous TV, no doubt a place where Oscar and son Jeremy sat and watched football games all weekend, drinking beer and eating processed meat sandwiches. The room even smelled of stale beer and pretzels. Elroy wanted to put his hands over his ears, but smiled at little six-year-old Cadin and four-year-old Lorna and told Patty they were adorable. The rude little fuckers didn’t even look up at him or their Uncle Kyle. They didn’t say a word. They continued to watch the TV with glazed eyes and empty heads.
While Patty went back to the kitchen to prepare a dinner that smelled like crotch rot, Kyle and Elroy sat at opposite ends of the sofa in the family room. Elroy glanced at the fake Christmas tree and made a face. It was one of those newer fake trees that could be assembled in three parts, and pre-lit. It had been shoved into a corner next to a brown brick fireplace with a fake log and it rotated in constant circles. The ornaments were all plastic and it looked as if they’d been thrown on the tree instead of hung with care. Elroy sighed and took a quick breath. He never thought he’d see the day when he found a room where the fake wood paneling was the best feature.
Kyle pulled a book out of his backpack and started to read. Elroy pulled his phone out of his pocket and tried to find a signal. But they were too far out in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere to get onto the Internet. He couldn’t do social media, he couldn’t check his e-mail, and he couldn’t even look at porn. He wound up reading a copy of People that had been left on the dark pine coffee table next to three half empty glasses of orange soda and a crushed beer can. The cover had been torn and he couldn’t find a date of publication. When he opened the magazine and started to read about Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s sordid affairs, he had to wonder how long that magazine had actually been there. He’d met Ben Affleck at a charity event in Boston last year and he was married now to a wonderful woman. He was just as adorable and now a successful, well-respected film director. And that annoying, self-promoting Jennifer Lopez was doing some kind of a reality show he couldn’t name. It made him smile to read the old article long after they’d broken up.
From what Elroy could gather from the limited information he had, Kyle’s stepdad and stepbrother were at work. Elroy wondered about all that talking that Kyle liked to do, because now that Kyle was in batshit, backwoods Vermont with his family, he barely said two words aloud. Now that Elroy would have liked him to talk more, he locked his lips together and buried his face in a book. At one point, Elroy wondered if he’d forgotten how to talk. Evidently, the stepdad and son of Huberly and Sons Construction were both out finishing up a kitchen remodel in the next town. Elroy had overheard that when Kyle’s mom answered the telephone.
The sister-in-law, the mother of the two hideous little children who never stopped watching TV, came home from work a few minutes after Elroy and Kyle had arrived. Although no one made it clear to Elroy, he eventually managed to figure out she worked at a local tavern called Buddy’s Joint. At first, Elroy’s face lit up. From where he sat on the sofa he happened to be looking at the back door and could see anyone enter. He only caught a glimpse of her and she was out of sight again. But so far she was the only one who looked like she knew how to have a little fun. She had big bleached blond hair, long campy red fingernails with sparkles, and she wore a short black cocktail waitress uniform that showed cleavage cinched to her chin. Her figure was trim and she wore high heels taller than most of the drag queens Elroy had seen in Provincetown during Halloween weekend. For a moment, he actually grew excited. But the minute she opened her mouth to speak, Elroy lost all hope with her as well. Kyle’s mom asked, “How was your day?” and the sister-in-law said, “I swear if those fucking fags at Buddy’s don’t give me a raise soon I’m quitting.”
She said this after she’d walked through the door, before she knew Elroy and Kyle had arrived. Elroy figured she hadn’t seen his car because he’d parked beside the big old pick-up truck. She was in the kitchen with Elroy’s mom and hadn’t even taken her coat off yet. Elroy sent Kyle a glance and Kyle stared down at his book with a red face.
After a moment of silence, the sister-in-law bounced into the family room with a huge fake smile and said, “I didn’t know you boys were here. Well, isn’t this nice?”
Elroy stood up to shake her hand. After the fag remark it was too late to be sincere so he faked a smile. His first-impression theory kicked in; he’d never been wrong.
Kyle closed his book slowly and stood up next.
“I’m Babe,” she said, extending her hand to Elroy. “You must be Kyle’s little friend from school.” She looked him up and down, taking an extra second to stare at his crotch.