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Marc St. James collapses backwards against the Suarez’s front door.
All these years hiding a secret that his mother easily could have seen, were she not in the habit of only seeing what she wants to see.
All these years living in fear of his mother one day finding out the truth about her son.
Years spent pretending that various boyfriends were just “good buddies” of his. Begging his few most trusted female friends to come over and hang out in order to throw his mother off the trail. Then once he started working at Mode, pretending that he and Amanda were dating and dragging her along to every family holiday.
Marc hadn’t been exaggerating when he told his mother that if he didn’t get the truth out now, he may never be brave enough again. He probably still wouldn’t have had the nerve, if it wasn’t for what his mother said about Betty’s family- especially Justin.
Lord knows that Marc and Betty aren’t anywhere close to being friends (more like coworkers who playfully dance in and out of being enemies), but that just makes what Betty did for him tonight all the more touching.
Allowing Marc and his mother to intrude into their home and join them for dinner on hardly any notice. Pretending to be dating Marc despite the fact that he’s hardly, if ever, had a nice word to say about her.
She even did a surprisingly good job memorizing facts about Marc to make their relationship more believable. Even Marc can admit that if there’s one thing you can say about Betty Suarez, she doesn’t do anything by halves.
What his mother said about the rest of the family was already enough to prompt Marc to jump to their defense, but it wasn’t until she said what she said about Justin, that Marc had truly heard enough.
Though they were being directed at someone else, in that moment Marc heard all the words that he was terrified of hearing his mother say to him when he was Justin’s age. That he was
“swishy”, unnatural, a problem needing to be corrected.
So, Marc told her that if she really thought all those things about someone as kind as Justin, then maybe she should open her eyes for once and take a good look at her own son. And what did his mother do? Reject him- just like he’d always feared she would.
She did it with less yelling than Marc used to imagine as a kid whenever he pictured how this conversation might go. It absolutely guts him to wonder if the only reason she didn’t, is because there were witnesses.
Marc looks up when Justin pops his head around the corner.
“Hey.” Justin gives him a halfhearted little finger wave. “What happened? I was upstairs in my room, and I saw your mom taking off from my window.”
Marc sighs. Good- hopefully that means Justin didn’t hear the parts about him or his family.
“I came out to my mother.” Marc makes a face that’s somewhere between a smile and a grimace. He can tell by Justin’s reaction, that it lands a lot closer to the latter.
“Oh... I’m guessing it didn’t go well?”
“You could say that.”
Justin doesn’t apologize or try to tell him it’s ok. He just looks at Marc for a moment before holding out his hand.
Marc gives him a questioning look, but Justin just wiggles his hand in the air insistently. Curious, Marc gives in and takes Justin’s hand and suddenly he’s being pulled along up the stairs.
The outside of Justin’s bedroom door looks about the same as the others, but inside is a theater kid’s paradise.
Justin notices him looking around in wonder at all the various playbills hung on the walls. “Cool, right? I had to sit through some seriously tense trading sessions to get some of these.”
“What did you have to do to get the original Fiddler on the roof?”
Justin snorts. “You do not want to know.”
Marc glances around for someplace to sit. Justin has a matching pair of pink, shaggy faux fur beanbag chairs. (He does his best to look cool and dignified while sinking down into one of them, though that’s pretty much impossible when it comes to beanbag chairs.)
Justin starts sorting through his cd collection. “Who are you in the mood for? Beyonce? Regina Spektor?” He squints at Marc as if trying to visualize which artist would suit him best. “Christina Aguilera?”
Marc waves a hand. “Whatever you want.”
Justin pulls a cd case from the middle of the stack. “I think this calls for Pink.”
“So, what are we doing up here? You don’t have to babysit me. I promise I’m fine.”
“Please-” he scoffs. “All my life, I’ve been very careful to avoid situations that might result in me babysitting.”
Justin pops the disc into the cd player and then skips over to grab a stack of magazines from the bookshelf. “I just figured, hey- How often do I have a Mode employee around to talk to?” He glances to the side and purses his lips a touch awkwardly. “Except for Aunt Betty… Anyway! I have every issue of Mode that came out for the last ten years. I thought we could flip through some of them together. Maybe you can give me an insider’s perspective.”
“Well.” Mark smiles, flattered despite himself. “I am the eyes and ears of that place...” He makes grabby hands in Justin’s direction. “Alright, give one here.”
-
The house is quiet when Betty finally arrives home from once again running off to Daniel’s rescue.
Betty follows the quiet sounds of people yelling passionately in Spanish, to find her father sitting in his favorite armchair in the living room watching his soap operas.
“Hey, dad. Is everyone gone?”
Mr. Suarez tears his eyes away from the cat fight currently happening on screen. “Everyone except for Marc. I think he and Justin are ‘talking fashion’ upstairs.”
Betty raises her eyebrows and Mr. Suarez just shrugs.
“Huh. That’s nice,” Betty says, genuinely meaning it. “I’m going to head upstairs for the night.”
“Alright,” He smiles. “Love you, mija.”
“Love you too.”
Betty heads upstairs. She’s about to knock on Justin’s door, before thinking better of it at the last second. Curious, she leans in and presses her ear against the door.
“Ah- and here she is wearing that satin jacket,” Marc says in a bitchy tone.
“You know, I never understood why that was such a big deal,” Justin responds curiously.
“Oh my God! Ok, get this. Fey Sommers was close friends with the designer who made that jacket. Sure, the jacket was sold to the public, but it was originally designed in Fey’s honor, and he gave the original garment to Fey as a gift.”
“Ok, so?”
“So, Fey never got the chance to wear it. She died shortly after he gave it to her. And then what does that model do next year on the anniversary of Fey’s death? Go to a big movie premier, wearing the jacket.”
Justin gasps. “No! Ok, that’s just in poor taste.”
“Mmhm. Her reputation in the fashion world still hasn’t fully recovered.”
Betty smiles and quietly creeps away from Justin’s door.