Page 31 of Asking For a Friend

“That’s another thing. You need to go to that damn party. Just show your face and prove you’re the better man. That you’re strong, independent, and successful, and that you’ve done it all without them.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you. I’d better go. It’s getting busy in here. Please think about everything I’ve said. And I’ll see you in your spot tomorrow.”

The idea of going to my parents’ party to prove a point has been in the back of my mind. The thought of taking someone with me is another idea I’m toying with. A fake date. I’m sure Connor would oblige. In fact, he’d be all over it. He can camp it up like the true queen he is. I’ve seen him in drag. Think Marlene Dietrich.

I call him. “Connor, it’s me. I need you to do something for me.”

I explain my idea, and just as I thought, he’s in. “You don’t want me in drag, but you want my diva out and proud?”

“Yep, and it’s on Saturday. Black tie, of course, because my parents aren’t pretentious one bit. Can we meet up to get you outfitted?”

“Ooh, ooh, can I have one of those corset waistcoats? They are so sexy. I’ve seen one in a gorgeous plum colour.”

I can’t wait to see the look on the faces of my father and his prominent guests, and I love it. “Absolutely. In fact, we should both wear them. Where did you see them?”

He gushes over a new store online, and I type it into the search bar of my browser. He’s right. They are stunning. “They have a concession in Selfridges,” I tell him. We arrange to meet there after he finishes work tonight.

I get back to work, trying to forget about where I’m going at the weekend. It’s not easy to do, though. The expression on my father’s face when I’d finally plucked up the courage to tell them I was gay is etched in my brain. He went puce, his mouth turning into a vicious sneer, and narrowed his eyes so that his pupils resembled black pinpoints. Then he shut down and left the room. After that, I was nothing to him. If anything, his contempt for me intensified. Everything I’d been to him before that moment had gone. He hardly spoke to me, passing any messages through my mother.

Then I met Michael. He offered me the chance to leave. To walk away before I was pushed. And I loved him, or at least what I thought was love. Okay, Michael turned out to be a knob and dumped me about six weeks later. I didn’t go back home, not after my father’s parting words that I was a dirty faggot and to never come back.

So why am I going to their Christmas party? I must be crazy.

Or maybe just curious. If it’s true he’s got a terminal illness, then looking him in the eyes one more time can give me closure. If I don’t, I’ll always be curious why he’s adamant I attend. Does he want to apologise, make amends for his vile behaviour since I was sixteen? For his foul parting comment, or is it exactly what my mother said, and I’ll be a pawn in his potentially last business deal? Whatever it is, I’ve decided to go.

The house is visible from the end of the street. There have to be at least ten or twelve large, detached, ostentatious houses before my parents mock Georgian monstrosity.

“Fucking hell, Lando!” Connor gasped out the expletive with an embarrassed laugh. “Your folks don’t give a shit about the price of electricity.”

The cab continues slowly down the street, caught in a line of other taxis. It takes at least five minutes to reach the house. Hundreds of fairy lights wrap around the white pillars and cover the portico, highlighting the edges of the four wide stone steps.

The cabbie shakes his head as we pay him. “Have a good night, mate.”

“Highly doubtful, but thanks.”

Connor holds out his hand for me. We both have heavy winter peacoats on, but he’s wearing fitted black trousers, a tight black shirt, and a plum corset waistcoat. I couldn’t resist buying another for myself. Mine is a deep forest green, and they complement each other perfectly. We forewent the tuxedo. No way are we hiding these works of art under a stuffy black jacket.

A smartly dressed man accepts my invitation and directs me to another equally swanky man who takes our coats. The house I grew up in hasn’t changed much. Tall pillar candles hide the austerity of the hallway. A carpet nearly the same shade as my waistcoat partially hides the black-and-white-tiled floor. The stairs, with more candles on every step, sweep up to the right to the balustrade covered in faux ivy and more fairy lights. The effect is pretty but totally over the top.

“I pity the company that had to deal with all my mother’s ideas. They’ve probably had to go from tasteful wonderland to tacky. In my mother’s book, more is more. I dread to see the other rooms.”

Connor snorts but takes my hand again and leads me to the open double-width doorway. We stop in the formal living room lined with fake trees. Who the fuck has fake trees? “It’s a nightmare version of Narnia. I don’t think the ice queen will ever be defeated in here.”

Speaking of, my mother enters, her eyes going wide. Then in a dramatic gesture that would be better off on the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Company, she holds her arms wide. “Orlando! My precious boy!”

Jesus, talk about how to silence a room. Every one of the guests in the room stops talking and stares at us. “Well, she sure knows how to make an entrance,” Connor mutters through the side of his mouth.

I don’t focus on her, though. I study the man who has ignored me for the last ten years. For someone who told me he was dying, he looks surprisingly well. Have I been played? It looks like it if the sharp, eagle-eyed glare and the twitch of his thin lips are anything to go by. I mumble to Connor as both my parents approach.

He gives my hand a squeeze. “Do you want to leave?”

“No, not yet. Let’s hear the real story.”

Connor pecks a kiss on my cheek, then rachets his gay up another level. He makes a show of putting his hand with fingernails painted the same plum as his waistcoat on his waist, cocks his hip, and raises one of his perfectly shaped eyebrows.

We both take a step back as my mother tries to embrace me. Yeah, no. That’s not going to happen.

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