The Truth About Josh

This Sunday, Lelia dragged herself home almost at 10pm. There was a charity event at her church and she helped cleaning up.

All was quiet in her apartment: her husband, Nick, had already dozed off, and her 19-year-old son Josh showed no sign of life, apparently playing his video game in his cave that Lelia insisted on calling "room".

She ate her cold dinner and headed for the bathroom. There, she removed her eye makeup, nostalgically inspected her reflection in the mirror and mounted five hair rollers onto the top of her head. Tomorrow she was going to look fabulous… at least sort of.

Half asleep, Lelia opened the bathroom door and froze. A young prostitute in a ridiculously short white something came out of Josh’s room!

“Who are you?” asked Lelia in a suddenly weakened voice

The girl whisked back and shut the door. The constrained laughter followed.

Embarrassed and perplexed, Lelia got back to the kitchen and took a sedative. How could Josh pick up a whore and bring her home? she thought in horror.

She waited for him to come out and explain himself, and surely an hour later he showed his face.

“What is this fallen woman doing in our apartment?” asked Lelia, trembling as her senses were obviously betraying her.

Josh yawned and had a glass of water. He was smiling like the happiest fool on the planet.

“Yeah…she’s fallen all right,” he echoed. “Fallen in love with me.”

Lelia’s heart sank. “Do you see what she’s wearing? This excuse for a dress is only good for streetwalking.”

Josh was awfully patient with his mother and gracefully explained that Bella’s seemingly indecent dress was “just a blouse”.

“She took her skirt off to look sexier,” his shameless remark put Lelia off.

“For me?” she gasped and felt how her eyebrows flew up rather involuntarily.

“Oh yeah,” Josh laughed with sarcasm.

Lelia stared at her precious boy—tall, unshaven, curly black hair covering his chest. What happened to my baby with his rosy cheeks and those cute dimples? ran through her mind. Oh Lord, it seemed they f—

Lelia couldn’t even think about ‘it’ and her son in the same sentence.

“Let her come out,” she asked, having collected all her bravery. “I want to look at her.”

Josh shook his head. “No way. You freaked her out. You’ll see her tomorrow.”

“Is she staying overnight… here?”

“Yep.”

Lelia couldn’t sleep a wink. Listening to Nick’s untroubled snoring, she raised herself on her elbow and felt about the bedside table for the pack of condoms. She bought it last year, God knows what for.

Do the kids now have rubbers of their own? Lelia just guessed. What if not?

She remembered all she had read about AIDS and other STD and, unable to bear the weight of responsibility any longer, tiptoed to Josh’s room.

Dim light was coming from under the door. Are they sleeping or not? Lelia couldn’t be sure, but braced herself and went down on her fours.

She tried to peek through the narrow crack but could not see anything except for the bed’s leg and the girl’s high heels.

With the strike of her nail, Lelia shoved the condom pack through the crack. The squeak followed, then a chuckle, and then the carton slipped back to her. No one said a word.

Lelia rose to her feet and went to the closet where Josh kept his jeans. She sneaked the condoms into his pocket and decided that in the morning she’d make Nick to have a serious conversation with their son. The boy should know he is in grave danger.

When Lelia woke up, Nick was out of bed and voices were coming from the kitchen.

She hurriedly grabbed her bathrobe from the chair, took off her hair rollers and put on some lipstick. Her heart was beating harder than when she was going on her own first date.

The kitchen was full of smoke: as always, Nick burned the eggs instead of frying them. Josh and the girl were sitting at the dinning table.

“Here’s Mom!” Nick roared with delight as if nothing special had happened earlier. “How many eggs do you want?”

Lelia felt ashamed for Nick’s worn out pants and his T-shirt with a bright description across his bear belly: “I’m Sexy And I Know It”. His morning attire was certainly not helping the situation.

Josh wasn’t a pretty picture either, with his black bristle and disheveled hair, but the blonde sitting next to him was plain gorgeous. Now her questionable blouse was complemented with an elegant skirt and a tailored jacket.

“Mom, this is Bella. Bella, this is Mom,” said Josh.

Lelia kept it civil and they shook hands. That was when she noticed an exceptionally beautiful ring on the girl’s finger.

“Bella is a fine jewelry designer,” Josh rushed to explain before Lelia had a chance to jump to another scary conclusion.

Oh well, Lelia thought, a girl like that should know to appreciate Josh’s golden heart.

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translated from the Russian by the author and edited by Camilla Stein