Page 121 of Love on the Main Stage
“Oh, God! Elisabeth, what did you do?” Pappa asked. “We have always said not to send nudes! Who is this boy? I am going to string him up!”
“Lars, everyone sends nudes!” Ingrid declared. “Calm down. No one will care that much.”
Everyone stared at the woman who had just outed herself.
“What? Everyone does. Don’t look at me like that, Keir,” Ingrid said in very curt Norwegian.
Paul brought a toy back to his mother from where he’d been playing in the corner. Her face softened, then brightened, and the whole room moved on.
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “I’ve never made a tape. Everyone can just stop judging me.”
“It’s really so PG,” Cici clarified. “But it’s massive because of the context.”
“I furrowed my brow. What? What tape. If that documentarian did something with that tape at Miragelite?—”
“This wasn’t them,” Cici said. “I thought so, but no. This tape appeared on the Internet about an hour ago. No one knows who posted it, but they are assuming it was either a stagehand or another contestant.”
She held out her phone and played a clip of me and Mary talking. We kiss and then I leave. My soul left my body watching it. The room fell silent, leaving me wondering what would be said. I braced for the inevitable admonishment that I’d broken protocol and dared kiss someone in public, while panicking about what must be hitting Mary right now. I expected to feel violated, but I mostly worried about the impact on Mary.
“Betty, are you dating the UniVox girl?” Pappa asked, confused. “She’s… not a boy.”
The UniVox girl. I bristled.She’s so much more than that, Pappa!
“She was dating someone?” Mamma asked.
“Yes. I thought he was a boy from Gothenburg. But… she wouldn’t tell me anything.”
I didn’t brace for pearl-clutching or further invalidation. This was a time for action.
I held out my hand. “Can someone bring me my mobile phone?”
Cici’s handler shook her head.
“They took your phone while we figured this out. I instructed them to do so,” Cici said.
“Well, fuck! Come on, Cici, this is important!” I pled.
“No. No. Not until we figure this out. I am… I am sorry, but… I can’t permit it. We must wait for Pappa to get back for the final call. We’re here to come up with a solution.”
Mamma sat Cici’s mobile on the table, “Sweetie, why didn’t you tell us?”
“Are you seriously offended right now?” I asked.
“Well, you should have told us that you liked women,” Mamma said. “Did you not trust we’d be understanding? Or did you forget that I was raised by lesbians?”
Nat said, “I know it’s not the point, but Raised By Lesbians would be a great band name.”
“Nathan, do not make me smite you down,” Mamma groaned. “Not helping.”
I had to laugh. Nate was good for that much. He often had a temper and could be misguided, but he loved us all hard. Humor was the way he stopped himself from flying off the handle.
“I didn’t know what to say,” I said. “I fell in love—hard—and it didn’t matter to me that Mary was a woman. I love her for who she is. That’s all. This is why I need my phone?—"
“But you never liked women before?” Pappa said, confused.
We can hash this out later after I check with Mary. My mind screamed. Suddenly, this conversation I dreaded with my parents wasn’t my number one fear. My worry was that Mary felt deserted or that she was still in danger.
“I did. I just didn’t feel comfortable saying anything about it. I never thought I was gay enough. I suppose if I’d dated a girl in my early twenties, I would have told you but doing that—as us—isn’t easy. It’s not that I didn’t think you’d love me. Ingrid and Keir know. They loved me. They like Mary. It’s that… living like a royal and being with a woman isn’t like the easiest thing. And yeah, I’m a little worried about Uncle Olav’s reaction?—”
