How old was I? How old? How very old, indeed: seventeen, a high-school graduate and pretty. My mother told me I was pretty and she told me I was smart. Our talks about sex and men and other things had continued on an irregular basis but they always ended with the thought of my being a pretty boy, one who could succeed in the family business on my looks alone. Of course, she would always say, I had more than just my looks. I had the music I had listened to all my life, the books I had absorbed in spongelike fashion, the inherent good taste in clothing, jewelry, art, all of which I had inherited from Granny Elaine. I was very special. I should use my talents well. Those were the thoughts drummed into my head between the ages of thirteen and seventeen.
As I stood on the platform at my high school graduation, wearing a snappy yellow cap and gown, holding my diploma in my left hand and shaking hands with the dean of boys, the principal and the guest presenter for the day with my right hand, nothing could have been clearer to me: I was pretty. I came with additional advantages, but I was pretty. That was that.
My graduation was special because Mr. Compton and Tooie were there and Freddy came as well. Mikhael declined the invitation, but he presented me with a special, private one of his own, for later in the evening. I had, of course, accepted his gracious gesture and said I would be there when I could. My family were doing a dinner in a restaurant and those were always special affairs. Even Brianna, my sister, was going to be there.
I hadn’t seen Brianna for three months. She had gone to Europe with the man she was devoted to at that time. It was difficult to arrange, but she had flown home to New York to be with me, with the family, on this occasion and I was supposed to be grateful to her. For some reason I wasn’t.
It was 1963 and the whole social structure around us had changed. The first disco in the United States, Whiskey a go go, had just opened, Charles DeGaulle had vetoed England out of the European Economic Committee, and the Jesus cloud had appeared in Arizona. The Beatles were the biggest thing in music and Tab, the first diet soda, had just appeared on the soft drink market. Nuclear proliferation protesters marched on London, Dr. No, with the hunky James Bond of Sean Connery was playing in theaters and, on the day of my graduation, Pope Paul VI succeeded Pope John XXIII as the 262nd Pope.
Freddy was all agog over the Pope thing. I don’t know why it meant so much to her, but she called me on the phone to talk about it in the early morning.
"Do you think it will change things for Mikhael and his father?" she asked me.
"No. Why would it?" I asked.
"Well, they come from a Catholic country, Max. Maybe this new Pope will get in there and intercede for them to return."
"Bring back the throne, you mean, and face the consequences."
"Not just the throne, but them."
"You put too much credence to Mikhael’s story," I said to her.
"You don’t think he’s the heir to the throne?" she asked.
"Well, I think one day he’ll get the chair," I said, and I laughed heartily at that, but Freddy didn’t.
"You’re being mean-spirited, Max."
I didn’t think I was, but I agreed with her, humbly, just to keep the conversation moving. Freddy could be so adamant about things when they related to Mikhael and she still had no idea about our romantic arrangement. It has been more than two years and she still hadn’t caught on to us. It always struck me as funny. She and Mikhael were three years older than me, but it had never hindered our friendship, but they were older, further along in most things, and they should have been more adult than me, but I always felt like their elder when we were together.
"Have you seen him lately?" I asked her.
"No. He’s always so busy. I wish I knew with what."
"I see him now and then," I said selfishly, almost with a meanness that was new for me.
"I know you do. You mention it a lot."
"Sorry. I don’t want to rub it in."
"It’s just a phase," she said and it took me aback.
"What do you mean?" I mumbled.
"Well, you know, there’s a time when boys need the companionship of other boys. That’s where he’s at right now."
I was stumbling into dangerous territory here. I was going to have to be very careful how I spoke and how I sounded.
"All boys need time alone, without women around," I said.
"Oh, I know," she said. "My mother warned me that boys, men, boys could be difficult and secretive and such."
"Yeah, well, we’re still searching for, you know, identity."
"I know. Girls don’t have to do that."
"Girls are lucky."
"Yeah, right, lucky."
That had taken place that morning. By afternoon, when she turned up and sat with my parents, she was different, more truculent.
"I thought Mikhael would be here," she said abruptly.
"He couldn’t come."
"Well, why not? What’s more important than this today? Not that stupid Pope thing!"
"He just couldn’t come. He had other plans."
"I’ll kick his royal butt," she said. "Friends don’t just blow off friends for a Pope. I’ll have to tell him a thing or two."
"Whoa, Freddy, slow down." I was about to make a mistake like none I had ever made before. "What’s with you? Are you angry at him for not coming to my graduation or angry with him for not being here with you?"
"You little snob," she shouted at me. "Why would you think I was making myself more important than you?"
"Freddy, hold on!"
"I don’t care what you think about me, but I’m not selfish. I’m not the one in yellow here. I’m in a sedate dark blue. I don’t have to be the center of anyone’s attention."
"Hey, we had choices and I liked this color."
"Well, you look like a pea-hen, Max. It’s ridiculous."
"Freddy, that’s...."
"I don’t care how it sounds. You should have been more of a boy."
"More of a boy?"
"Yellow is not a boy’s color."
I gasped as she shouted that out at me in front of my family and my schoolmates.
"You’re supposed to be my friend, Freddy, not my critic!"
"It’s no wonder Mikhael stayed away today. He would have been gagging at the sight of you in that gown."
"Mikhael loves me in yellow," I shouted back at her not hearing my own words and how they sounded. "He says it’s a color that complements my complexion. I wore this for him and he didn’t even bother to show up!"
There was a silence that followed that statement that someone really could have cut with a trowel. I don’t remember ever hearing so little reactive sound before or since.
"What are you telling me?" she said quietly after the long silence threatened to become pre-civil war in its intensity.
"Nothing," I said hastily.
"Max," my mother chimed in, "what is all this?"
"Nothing!" I repeated emphatically.
"Maxie, we need to talk," my dad said.
"I don’t need to talk about anything," I declared. "I’m going to change my clothes now and we’ll just go out to dinner like we planned."
"Maxie, don’t walk away like that. You insult your mother."
"I don’t... and I don’t care either."
I stormed off toward the changing room, unaware that Brianna was right behind me.
"Hey," she said touching me on the shoulder, "don’t just storm off like that. Not from them, and not from me. I came a long way to be with you today and if you’re about to say what I think you’re about to say, I want to be close by and the first to shake your horny little hand."
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," I said to my sister.
She shoved me down onto a long bench in the boy’s locker room and straddled it, looking straight at me.
"You know, kid, it took me a long time to get where I am. And here you are, at seventeen, still a kid, and you’ve got a prince on string."
"I don’t know what you’re saying."
"You’ve got a god-damned prince dangling."
"I don’t...."
"Come off it, it’s as plain as plain can be." She laughed. She threw back her head, the way she used to when we were both still kids living at home, and she laughed a deep, dark, Colleen Dewhurst sort of laugh. It was sexy and it was dirty and it was infectious. I found myself laughing too.
"Come on, tell me everything. Brianna wants to know."
Her hands were on my shoulders and her eyes were staring directly into mine and, for the first time since Mikhael and I had shared that first kiss, I confessed it all to someone. Every detail of our affair came out, everything about my experience in the chair, the Lidskialfa. By the time we finished talking she knew more about my affair with Mikhael than I thought I knew.
"It can’t go on, you know," she said, "you’re not in his league."
"I know."
"We’ve got to talk to Daddy about this. He needs to know what levels of love you’ve attained. He’s got to do something for you."
"No," I told her. "I’m going to college. I’m not going into the business."
"The hell you’re not. You’re a natural. You’re Granny Elaine all over again."
"No."
"Oh, yeah. If I could take you to Europe with me you’d be set up in a day. A day, Maxie. You’re a looker and you’re smart and, except for this yellow thing, you’ve got good taste. One day. I promise you. You’ll never have to worry again about your future. One day in my hands with my connections."
"NO!"
"Keep your voice down," she said calmly, almost serenely. "Get dressed and let’s go out to dinner like we all planned."
I did as she instructed me and joined the party.
It was fun. I can say that about the dinner party. Freddy had calmed down again and no one spoke about Mikhael or Freddy’s outburst or anything having to do with my verbal indiscretion. The party was focused on my graduation and celebration.
Tooie had wrapped a gift for me and it was so beautiful I was reluctant to open it, but she showed me how to preserve the bow by removing the lid of the box on one side only and so I did it and found, inside, a beautiful suit of shantung silk.
"Wear it well, kiddo," Mr. Compton said. "Success in how we dress is true success."
"Crap," said his wife, Tooie the lesbian. "Success, kiddo, is measured in who we dress with."
"That’s weird," Freddy whispered to me.
"Yeah, but it’s okay," I reassured her.
My parents gifts would come later, privately at home, but Freddy had brought something to give me and she handed it to me after giving me a sweet kiss.
"I hope you understand it," she said, and she blushed. My mother applauded her quietly and Tooie leaned over the table to kiss Freddy, but Mr. Compton pulled her gently back into her seat.
In the box was a small statue of three monkeys. One had its arms wrapped around its mouth, one around its eyes and one around its head, covering its ears. I looked at it for a moment, not quite realizing what she was saying in her present. I didn’t have to wonder for long.
"Remember the day, when I was still recovering?"she asked. "Remember how we all sat there together, with our heads together and our hearts together too?"
"Sure I do."
"That’s us." She smiled the sweetest little smile imaginable.
"That’s the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil chimps," my father said.
"It’s more than that," Freddy said. "It’s Max, Mikhael and me."
"How do you see that?" Brianna asked her.
"Well, Max never says an evil word, I see nothing bad in anyone and Mikhael won’t hear about anything that isn’t pleasant."
"That’s so clever," my mother said to her. "How did you ever think that up?"
"I just notice how we are," she replied.
"Well, it’s a lovely present for Max, dear."
"I love it," I said to her. "I’ll always love it."
"It’s a thing of beauty," Tooie added.
"You’re my best friend, Freddy. We’ll always be that. We’ll always be best friends." I hugged her and what she whispered in my ear as we hugged sent a chill down my spine.
"We’ll always be best friends, Max, we will, even after Mikhael and me are married. With all this excitement about you, you didn’t even notice my engagement ring."
Came the dawn.
End of Part One of "Small Ironies"