he was not, so everyone called him queer. “What's wrong?” He sat down quietly in a chair and waited for Lionel to unload.
“Nothing. I don't want to talk about it.”
John looked at the ceiling quietly and then back at his friend. “That's a dumb way to handle it. Why not get it off your chest?” And then, suddenly he suspected that it had to do with him. “Did I do something to upset you, Li?” He looked so worried and hurt, that Lionel walked over to him and gently touched his cheek.
“No … it has nothing to do with you….” But it did, and he didn't know how to explain it to him. “It's nothing. My father just pissed me off.”
“Did he say something about us?” He had correctly sensed that Ward had been staring at him the other night. “Does he suspect?”
Lionel wanted to be vague, but John was too sharp. “He might. I think he's just feeling around.”
“What did you say?” John looked concerned. What if he said something to the Wells? They had so much to hide. What if they had him arrested, or sent away, or … it was terrifying thinking of it all, but Lionel kissed his neck and spoke to him soothingly. He knew how worried he got.
“Relax. He's just talking off the top of his head. He doesn't know anything.”
John had tears in his eyes. “Do you want me to move out?”
“No!” Lionel almost shouted the word. “Not unless I go too. But we don't have to do that.”
“Do you think hell say something to my Dad?”
“Stop being so paranoid. He just made some cracks and he pissed me off, that's all. It's not the end of the world.” But to pacify Ward, Lionel went to Alabama with him, to watch Greg play ball, and it was the most boring weekend he had ever spent in his life. He hated football almost as much as John, and he had nothing to say to Greg. Worse yet, there were endless painful silences with his Dad, who went berserk as he watched the game when one of their star players suffered an injury and the coach put Greg in his place, just in time for Greg to score a touchdown in the last two and a half seconds of the game and win for his team. Lionel tried to feign the same excitement as Ward felt but it just wasn't there, and he was desperately relieved on the flight home, as he talked film to him, and tried to explain what he was working on. But as he had felt that he might as well have been on the moon as he watched Greg play, his father looked at him as he described his latest avant-garde film.
“Do you really think you can make money with something like that one day?” Lionel looked at him, stupefied, it was a goal that had never entered his mind. They were trying out new techniques, stretching the language of film to its utmost. Who gave a damn about making money on it? This was much more important than that, and the two men stared at each other in confused disbelief, each convinced that the other was a fool, yet feeling the burden of pretending that they respected the other's views. It was a terrible strain for both of them, and they both looked relieved to see Faye waiting for them at the gate. Ward talked endlessly about Greg's extraordinary touchdown, crushed that she hadn't watched it on TV, and Lionel looked at her as though he couldn't have stood a moment more. She laughed to herself, knowing them both so well and how different they were, yet she loved them both, just as she loved her other son, and the girls. They were just all very different people, who needed different things from her.
She dropped Ward off at home first, and then said that she would run Lionel home, and come back in time for a drink with Ward. It gave her a few minutes to talk to her oldest son, and commiserate over the boring weekend he had had.
“Was it terrible, love?” She smiled at the look on his face, and he groaned as he leaned his head back against the seat after they dropped his father off at home. He had never felt as exhausted in his entire life.
“Worse. It was like going to another planet and trying to talk their language all weekend long.” She wondered