Page 4 of Meant to Be

CHAPTER 3

Joe

Growing up, I didn’t have a father or siblings but was very close to my aunts and uncles and cousins, especially on the Kingsley side. Sadly, my father’s death wouldn’t be the last tragedy in our family, not by a long shot. The year after he passed away, my father’s second-oldest sister, Betty, died in a house fire (on Christmas Eve, no less); the following year, my three-year-old cousin Eloise wandered out of their yard in Sag Harbor and drowned in their neighbors’ pool; and when I was eight, my oldest cousin, Frederick, died in an avalanche while skiing in the French Alps.

People called it the “Kingsley curse.” The phrase infuriated my mother, perhaps because it also terrified her, especially when my cousins and I were having a good time. We loved to take risks on land and water, and I was typically the ringleader—surfing, skiing, hang gliding, rock climbing, you name it. Someone was always being hauled off to the emergency room for one mishap or another, which we cousins wore as badges of honor, keeping a running tally of stitches and broken bones. My mother didn’t find any of it even remotely funny and lived in a constant state of dread that I’d be critically injured. I guess I can’t blame her forthat, given what she and our family had been through, but it still seemed unfair. She wanted me to follow in my father’s footsteps, and to me, a sense of adventure came with that territory. I wasn’t as smart as my father, but I could be asbraveas he had been, if only my mother would let me.

Fortunately, my father’s mother (whom I called Gary, because I couldn’t pronounce Granny when I was little) understood me and gave me the freedom to be exactly who I was. The only thing that she asked of me was that I fulfill my own unique potential. She made me feel special, and when I messed up, she was always the first to forgive me. I adored her, and never turned down the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with her, whether at her home in Southampton or her apartment on the Upper East Side. I especially loved when she would pick me up from school and walk me over to Tavern on the Green for ice cream. We had some of our best conversations over hot-fudge sundaes and root beer floats.

“Tell me what’s going on in your world, Joey,” she’d always say.

I knew that unlike other grown-ups, who were just going through the motions, my grandmother was seeking an interesting answer.

One afternoon when I was about ten, she asked the question, and I told her about Charlie Vance getting bullied at recess.

“Why was he bullied?” she asked, taking a dainty bite of whipped cream while I took a spoon and dug down deep into mine.

“Because he’s a sissy,” I said.

“And what makes him a sissy?”

“You know. The usual sissy stuff,” I said, explaining that Charlie couldn’t throw a ball to save his life and was afraid of spiders and talked with a goofy lisp. And the most egregious example: he was rumored to play with his sister’s dolls.

My grandmother nodded and said, “Hmm. And when people tease him, do you stick up for him?”

“Yeah,” I said, which was true, but she may have guessed by the look on my face that my efforts to stand up for Charlie were halfhearted at best. Mostly, I just wanted him to fall in line and stop being his own worst enemy.

Gary suddenly put her spoon down and stared into my eyes. “Joey. Are you aware that Charlie might be homosexual?”

I gazed back at her, processing this. It had never occurred to me that Charlie was gay—nor had it crossed my mind that anyone our age could be—but I wanted my grandmother, the wisest person I knew, to think I, too, was wise in the ways of the world. I somberly nodded.

“And if that’s the case, Charlie is going to have a very difficult life, Joey,” she said. “He can’t help who he is, and you need to do everything you can to ease his way.”

“I will, Gary,” I said, feeling ashamed that I hadn’t done more for Charlie to date, and that what I had seen as tomfoolery by my more rambunctious classmates actually had shadings of cruelty.

“You’re a natural leader. People listen to you,” she continued. “I’ve watched you in action.”

“Where?” I said, picturing my grandmother holding up binoculars to the school yard fence.

“When you’re with your cousins,” she said. “All the time.”

I looked across the table at my grandmother, feeling so proud.

“Did I get that from my father?” I asked. “Was he that way?”

She shook her head, which shocked me. “Don’t get me wrong. He was a good-hearted boy like you are,” she said. “But he wasn’t as outgoing or brave.”

I stared at her, finding it hard to believe that I could, at any age, be braver than someone who became an ace fighter pilot andastronaut. I said as much, and my grandmother explained. “He grew into a leader, but he wasn’tbornone. It didn’t come naturally to him. Not like it does for you. That’s a superpower, Joey. And you need to always use that power for good.”

She went on to talk about advocacy and activism, and her work for women’s suffrage when she was young, and how much still needed to be done for women and minorities.

“I can see you in that fight for equality,” she said. “And maybe it all starts here. Defending Charlie. Will you do that for me? For him?”

I sat up straighter and promised her I would.

In the weeks that followed, I put the kibosh on all bullying of Charlie, and I did it in grand style. Rather than simply defending him on an ad hoc basis, I befriended him, and he was damn near popular by the end of that school year. I know that probably sounds arrogant, but it’s the truth. I was pretty pleased with myself.

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