Real Live Boyfriends Read Online Free PDF Page A

zoo?” I asked.
    Nora looked at me funny. “No.”
    “Yeah, well, there are gay penguins. That’s a documented fact. But these particular gay penguins kept trying to steal eggs from the straight penguins.” Nora looked at me like: where was I going with this?
    “They would steal an egg and leave behind a rock as substitute,” I continued. “To try and trick the biological parents. Then the gay ones would adopt the egg. Zookeepers kept taking away the egg and giving it back to the bio parents, and they kept stealing another one, again and again.”
    Nora shook her head in disbelief.
    “It’s true,” I said. “Finally the gay couple had to be segregated from the other penguins with a little picket fence, because they wouldn’t stop trying to get a baby of their own.”
    “Okay. What’s the point?”
    “The point is, they shouldn’t have done what they were doing, and even though they were penguins, they probably knew it; I mean, they were doing the worst, meanest possible thing to their friends and neighbors—but they just couldn’t stop, because they wanted a baby so, so desperately.”
    “What happened?” asked Nora.
    “Well, for a while they were ostracized, but finally zookeepers gave them an egg to take care of, from a straight penguin couple that had rejected one. And the gay penguins were so happy! They turned out to be excellent dads.”
    “Cool.” Nora shifted from side to side.
    “I mean, penguins in general are excellent dads.
    The dads hatch the eggs, pretty much. But my point is these guys weren’t sociopaths or crazy penguins or anything. They just couldn’t behave like normal people when they wanted a baby more than anything in the world. It was like the intense wanting made them psycho.”
    “Ruby.”
    “What?”
    “You still haven’t gotten to the point.”
    “I’m the gay Chinese penguins,” I said. “That’s the point.”
    “What?”
    “I know what it’s like to want something so desperately you feel like you can’t stop trying to get it,” I explained, “even when it’s not supposed to be yours.
    I know what it’s like to do something wrong, really wrong, because you want the thing so badly you can’t help it. And I know what it’s like to have everyone hate you for doing it too.”
    “People can help things,” said Nora quietly. “Saying you couldn’t help it isn’t fair.”
    Ouch.
    “You made a choice to take Noel,” she said. “Don’t act like it wasn’t a choice.”
    Okay.
    Was that true?
    Can people help behaving badly? Are we always able to say no?
    My uncle Hanson can no longer help himself.
    Alcohol grips him and makes him do things—like it’s bigger than him and he’s weak in comparison with it.
    But shouldn’t he be stronger? Shouldn’t he quit, or join a program, or get therapy, or something? Is he, in some way, choosing alcoholism the way Nora was saying I chose to pursue Noel?
    If you think the person can’t help it, you can forgive him more easily.
    If you think the person should help it, you get angry.
    But if you think the person can’t help it, they’re probably not going to change.
    And if you think he should help it, there’s some hope.
    “Maybe it’s easier for some people to help things than others,” I said to Nora. “I think it’s easier for you than for a lot of people.”
    “Possibly,” said Nora. “But I don’t think the penguins should have stolen eggs.”
    Part of me wanted to say: You should have forgiven me ages ago. You should have tried harder to understand me. Noel never liked you back, so he was never yours to start with.
    But then I thought: She came to the funeral. And I am not at all sure that after everything that happened between us, I would have come if it was Nora’s grandma who died.
    For all her rules and accusations, Nora is definitely the kind of person who will show up at a funeral. And say the right thing. And bring flowers.
    She had done that today. Which was something like an