Waltzing with the Azaleas

Jo Lauer

"We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been—a place, half-remembered,
and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere,
there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats.
Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will
celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins
our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing.
A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free."
—Starhawk, Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex & Politics

Chapter 1

"You're not going to puke, are you?" Jessica cut her speed back to a crawl. Her variegated
ponytail, auburn and grape this week, swung abruptly over her left shoulder.
     "I'm not going to puke," Cory mumbled. "I hate that word."
    She paced herself parallel to the curb, just in case. "You look a sort of avocado."
     "It's just the jacket."
     "Well, then, why do you wear it?"
     "Could we talk about something else?" Cory drummed his fingers on his knees.
His cuticles were jagged from nibbling and picking. The old neighborhood crept by in a
white coating of winter broken by slashes of barren trees.
     He leaned forward and wiped away the vapor that clouded the windshield on his side.
     "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to do that? It leaves streaks," Jessica said.
     "I was never allowed to ride in the front seat," Cory mumbled, brushing a tuft of hair from
his forehead. "Turn right at the next corner. It's the blue house on the right," he instructed.
     Jessica pulled up in front of a wooden two-story, with a large lawn that sloped to the curb.
Hints of red brick peeked through the blanket of snow suggesting a sidewalk. "Do you think
she's already there?"
     "Not if we're on time," Cory said ruefully. Jessica cut the engine. The temperature dropped
immediately as the Midwest winter gray enveloped the car. Jessica re-zipped her parka and
shoved her hands into her mittens.
     Fighting a shiver, she said, "Tell me again why I'm here?"
     "Because you're my best friend. And that's what best friends do," Cory said. He slipped his
gloves on and reached for the door handle.
     "How many years since you've been back?" Cory sensed she was delaying the inevitable
with her prattle.
     "I was seven when Mother died," he said. "Aunt Lavinia took Catherine and me in, and
leased the house. Life went on, more or less."
     "You okay, really?" Jessica laid a mitten-swaddled hand on his arm.
     Yeah. Thanks," he gave a weak smile. "Let's go."
     The frigid air sliced through Cory like a cleaver as he kicked at the snowy pathway,
uncovering just enough brickwork for a foothold up to the porch.
     "Holy Mary, Mother of God," Jessica squealed as she hugged her parka tight around her
and followed in his steps.
     By arrangement, the key was under the mat, although in this small burg it would have been
safe to leave the door unlocked, even open, in good weather.
     They stomped remnants of snow and slush from their shoes, powdering the dark blue porch.
It reminded Jessica of foam on the ocean.
     "I don't suppose they left the heat on?" she hoped out loud.
     Cory jiggled the key, swung the door open, and stepped into the vast, dark cavern, a place
you'd expect to see ghosts floating aimlessly. Jessica hesitated, wrinkled her nose at the dank
smell, then followed close behind Cory, pulling the door shut after her.
     "I thought childhood houses were supposed to look smaller when you went back to them as
an adult," Cory mused.
     "Where's the thermostat?" Jessica asked. Cory pointed to the wall on the left.
     He stepped to the right, into the hallway, and jumped at the reflection in the built-in mirror.
Suddenly he returned to the memory of another day over a decade ago in this same spot…
----------------------

Chapter 2

The tree lights sparkled like handfuls of diamonds hurled into the night sky.
     Five-year old Cory, cocooned in a fleecy white blanket, a passable imitation of an evening
gown, stood before the hall mirror outside the living room and carefully draped shimmering
strands of tinsel over his head, one by one, to create the perfect hairdo. He looked beautiful.
He wiggled his toes in his mother's pink satin mules and smiled.
     "Christ, Cory, that's my lipstick you've got smeared on your face." Catherine swept into the room.
She grabbed a fistful of tinsel hair. "Jesus, you're such a little freak. Mother!" she howled.
Her white-blonde pony tail trailed like jet vapor as she took the stairs two at a time.
     Cory looked at his reflection. A few remaining strands of tinsel dangled in front of his small
cherub face, hung unevenly from his shoulder and then slithered like a silver snake down his leg
to lie crumpled on the floor by his foot. Shame turned his cheeks crimson.
     Devon Broadhurst descended the stairs as if carefully picking her way down a precarious
mountain path. She paused half way down, leaned a leathery elbow heavily on the railing,
and regarded her small son standing there like her worst nightmare. The words,
‘Devil's spawn' floated into her mind, and she grimaced.
     Devon wheezed and pounded her chest with her fist. "Cory, how many times have I told you
not to touch Catherine's make-up?" It was rhetorical, she knew. She descended the remaining
stairs, one heavy footfall after the next. Cory held his breath. She shook her head tiredly. Her
scraggly black hair was plastered against her cheeks. "And, take off my goddamned slippers."
     A five-beat cough rattled her sunken chest, and she fanned herself with her free hand.
"You look like a whore. What were you thinking?"
     She didn't wait for a reply, merely wrapped her long, bony fingers around his scrawny arm
and dragged his non-resistant body toward the bathroom.
     Cory was doing an apt impression of Raggedy Ann. His mind was cotton batting, his feelings
were numb, his body trailed along behind Mother. The pink mules sat abandoned on the cold
hardwood floor of the hallway.
     The white cream was in stark contrast to the cobalt blue jar, and the pungent scent of Noxzema
filled the small room. Latching onto a tuft of his hair, Devon jerked Cory's head back and smeared
his face with the cleanser. The fumes stung his eyes and made them water. She wiped his skin
roughly with a handful of paper towels from beneath the sink. Her face was a study in disgust.
     "I'm sorry, Momma," he whimpered, peeking up at lips clamped shut like a turtle's mouth,
and eyes that were slits in her withered face.
     He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be sorry for—the emphysema that wracked her lungs,
for being a failure as a son, a freak, wanting to be beautiful—but he knew he was supposed to be sorry.
     Devon dropped the pink-smeared towels on the sink counter. She slumped to her knees, grabbed
Cory, and pulled him roughly to her bosom in a suffocating embrace. Her dressing gown smelled
of cigarette smoke sneaked in her upstairs bedroom. Tears fell from her red-rimmed eyes and
soaked his hair as she sobbed, "Oh, Cory, Cory—what will become of you when I'm gone?"
She rocked him back and forth.
     Another series of coughs blew over the top of his head like tornadoes touching down,
skipping, touching down. He hated it when she talked like this. She wasn't going anywhere.
She couldn't. She was his mother...
...

In Room 207 at The Crossroads, Jessica turned up the heat and then clicked on the television
that was bolted to the wall. She bounced on the queen-sized bed closest to the bathroom.
     "Not bad," she judged, stifling a yawn. "Although I could probably sleep on an ice floe after today."
Cory clicked the television off.
     "Hey, that was a rerun of To Tell the Truth," Jessica complained.
     Cory sat down opposite Jessica on the remaining bed. "Can we talk?"
     Jessica fluffed the pillows and leaned against the headboard. "Shoot," she said.
"Are you missing David?" She referred to the thirty-four year old man Cory had been dating for
the last few months.
     "We broke up." Cory kept his eyes focused on a spot on the flowered bedspread.
     Jessica gasped. "You what? When were you going to tell me?"
     "Look, I know you didn't approve of David—"
     "It's not that I didn't approve, exactly," Jessica interrupted. "But, Cory, he was just so old! You two
were in sort of different worlds. You've only been out for three years—and....," they sat in the
uncomfortable silence that usually accompanied any talk of David.
     "I know. You're right. He wanted to settle down, white picket fence and all that. I think he's having
a mid-life crisis." Cory grinned, glanced over at Jessica, then back down at the bedspread. "Jes,"
he cleared his throat and shifted his position. "I don't think I want to date gay men any more."
     Jessica's mouth hung. "Cory, I hate to mention the obvious, but you've just obliterated the entire
playing field of possibilities." She shook her head back and forth slowly, trying to grasp any logic
she might have missed.
     Cory stood and paced the small room. "I've been thinking," he said as he passed the end of her
bed, turned and headed the other direction.
     "Uh huh, and—" Jessica prompted after a moment.
     "I've been thinking for a long time," he passed by again.
     Jessica stood, grabbed him by the arm, marched him to the end of the bed, and sat him down.
She sat opposite him, knee to knee.
     "A long time—"
     "I don't think I'm really gay," he said quietly.
     "What?" Jessica slapped both hands to her cheeks. "Why am I always the last to learn these
things?" she sputtered. "Oh, Cory, it isn't me, is it? You haven't fallen in love with me, or something,
have you? Please, say it isn't so," she said, horrified at the possibility. "I'm queer as a camel
in a swim suit."
     "Relax," Cory said. "I don't want to date girls." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I want to be one.
A transsexual."  He sighed heavily, his shoulders drooped, and he peered up at her through heavy
eyelashes. He'd never said that word aloud.
     Jessica sat in silence. He watched as countless expressions washed over her face
without so much as a single muscle twitch. She released the breath she'd been holding
in a whoosh.

(To be continued.)

Copyright Novella by Jo Lauer

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