1 Chapter 1

Eve Kendall and Me

Eve Kendall. Why I am on a train heading from New York to Chicago can be understood in reference to Eve Kendall. She was a character played by Eva Marie Saint in Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.” She meets Roger O. Thornhill—Cary Grant—on a train from New York to Chicago. He happens to be on the run from the police (and James Mason) and sneaks onto the Twentieth Century Limited at Grand Central. They meet in the dining car and, realizing his predicament, she hides him in her compartment. Where they spend the night. And it being Hitchcock, a lot of stuff happens. This is the one that ends up at Mount Rushmore.

That movie, which I first saw when I was sixteen or seventeen, is one of my favorites. But I did not want to be Eve Kendall. I wanted to be Roger Thornhill doing whatever he was doing to the gorgeous blonde Eve Kendall. It led to a lifelong love of train travel.

Me? My name is Beth Jenkins. I am twenty-nine and work as a graphic designer in a large Manhattan law firm. I grew up northwest of Chicago.

And the train? I was going to my former house. I was going because I received a call two days before from my dear sister Marcie. My father—who I neither saw nor spoke to in over three years—wanted very much to see me, she said. He was fading fast and it was time for us to make peace.

Why hadn’t we spoken in three years? I am gay. When I was last “home” at Christmas over three years before, I was not in a committed relationship but one reason I moved to New York was the hostility I knew I would face were I to come out, not only from my parents but from the rest of my conservative Catholic family too. So, I kept it a secret. There was no need to do otherwise.

When I visited once or twice a year, I fielded the inevitable how’s-your-love-life questions with vague answers. Again, it did not much matter. I had not met the woman with whom I wanted to spend my live, and there was not the when-will-you-tell-them? pressure a lot of gays go through. I was in Elmwood Park for Christmas, as I say, over three years ago. My mom and dad were there with my two sisters, the aforementioned Marcie and Sheila, and their husbands, and Tim, my only brother, plus Dorothy, his wife. Marcie and Sheila each then had two kids—they each have one more now—who were there too, it being Christmas. Dorothy was seven months pregnant with their first.

That last fact is what started it. It was a bit mild for a Chicago Christmas and I went to church with everyone. After presents were opened, I took a walk with my sisters and Dorothy. It’s a quiet neighborhood with little houses close to one another. The lack of traffic makes it conducive to walking in the street and waving at the neighbors as we go.

We were doing fine on this walk until Marcie and Sheila decided to put pressure on me to finally get married and get pregnant so I could become part of the “family.” Move to Chicago and we’d have weekends at the house. Marcie said: “You won’t be really part of this family until you have a little girl or a little boy of your own.” The balance of the walk—thankfully cut short by Dorothy’s condition—was a tag team on my love life.

As I say, I had plenty of practice deflecting this kind of talk and I thought I succeeded until about ten minutes after we were back at the house and sitting in the living room. My father was on his second, maybe his third, Scotch when he did it.

“Beth, sweetheart. We are all sick and tired of you waiting to just settle down with someone. Your mother and I would love another grandchild. Enough of your excuses. Don’t tell me you’ve not had the chance to meet some—”

“Daddy. I do not want to talk about it.”

Marcie could not resist jumping in: “You avoid the topic so much, maybe you turned into a lesbian since you got to New York.” And she laughed.

To which my father, “No daughter of mine is turning into one.” He turned to me and with a smirk said, “Your mother and I raised you right. Just tell us you’re trying to find the right man,” and he turned back to the others with a triumphal air.

I was in an armchair with a vodka tonic in my hand. My second. I should not have. I knew it. But I could not take this anymore. Every holiday. Just tell us you’re trying to find the right man.

The delay in my response caused the others to shift to other topics and I could—should—have waited. I didn’t.

“Marcie’s half right. I’m a lesbian but I was one before I ever left for New York.”

You could hear a pin drop in the sudden silence except for Dorothy asking Sheila, “What’d she say?” and I didn’t catch Sheila’s response only Dorothy’s not entirely unkind stare.

I took a large sip of my drink and sat back. My father was the first to say anything. He again turned to me.

“You’re kidding. Seriously. You’ve always been normal.”

“Father. Everyone. I am not kidding. I’ve never been with a man. I never want to be with a man. I only care about women. I don’t have a steady one now, but my dream is to have one someday.”

The silence drew my mother from the kitchen. Wiping her hands on her apron, she looked around and asked what was wrong. My father was frozen in place, staring at me.

He was still staring at me when he said, “Your daughter decided to tell us, on Christmas, that she’s a homosexual. On Christmas. That she only likes other women.” His attention turned to his wife. “She doesn’t intend to be part of this family. That she doesn’t intend to have children. That—”

Which is when he ran out of things to say about me.

“Is this true?” My mother, now looking at me. I cannot say where anyone else was looking but I can say they were silent and waiting to see what happened next.