The Home For Wayward Ladies (2 page)

“Don’t make a fuss,” I beg. “Like all the ones who came before and didn’t cum, he’s not worth the saliva.” I had hoped this subject could stay buried in the dirt where it belongs. I don’t want Hunter to know that there are other men, especially when he seems so pleased to find out that there are. 

“Don’t let him fool you, Hunt,” Nick says. “I caught this one sucking face before Big Dick Rick dragged me back to our place by my short curlies. Eli’s guy was a real looker, too.”

“Ok, fine,” I say, exasperated, “I don’t know what lies Nick told you, but I’m happy to sprinkle some truth. I’m sure our Lady made mention that this gentleman was a few years outside the boundaries of my ethically permissible age bracket. Still, he had a smile like a small town weatherman and I knew from the moment he beckoned me from across the crowded room that he was going to pick up my tab. As you may have noticed, I’m in no position to turn down the company of moderately handsome men nor the free cocktails they’re willing to supply.”

Nick and Hunter share a smirk so I take off my glasses and clean them with the napkin in my lap. Any excuse to look away.

“He told me off the bat that he was only in town for a few days. He was visiting the city with his sister and her kids to show them Central Park and the Guggenheim, that kind of shit. It didn’t faze me that we were two ships passing as long as his intention was to dock in my port. He said he had his own room at the W Hotel so I let him tell me I was beautiful even though it didn’t sound sincere. He got totally shit-faced, enough so that I told him I’d put out if he bought me a pony. I figured he must have money because he didn’t flinch before asking, ‘What color?’ Naturally, when somebody offers to buy you a rainbow pony, you oblige as they swirl their tongue in your mouth like you’re a cup of Jell-O pudding.”

I don’t hesitate to tell the Ladies every salacious detail. “He felt so big pressed against me. When he finished nibbling on my ear, he whispered how he wanted to take me back to his room. He wanted to sit on the edge of the bed so I could mount him like a bronco. My cock on his stomach and his tongue in my mouth, he wanted his hands cupped around my ass - to, ‘spread me open to push deeper inside.’ Go ahead and smell my neck. His stink of Aqua di Gio still hasn’t washed off a full night’s sleep later.”

Nick and Hunter clap like seals while I stand with my nearly empty bucket of fish. This patented brand of bullshit is exactly what brunch is for. But something about last night was different. For the first time in a long time, I don’t want to laugh with the Ladies about feeling like Judy Holiday in
Bells are Ringing
. But that’s the show they paid for, so that’s the show I’m obligated to perform. 

Nick offers excitedly, “All I can say is that I hope for your sake he was a better fuck than Big Dick Rick.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I reply.

“Why in blue blazes not?” asks Hunter, his nose crinkled like I farted at the table.

“Because I didn’t fuck him. It wasn’t until I felt his hand on my crotch that I realized he was wearing a ring. Now, I’m no Oda Mae Brown, but I could see in a psychic flash that his ‘sister’ was his ‘wife’ and those ‘nephews’ were his ‘sons.’ I walked out of the bar while he was in the bathroom, grateful that I could still close that door without having had to open up my heart.” 

Their conciliatory groans make me wish instead that I was telling them about how I’d finally met the one, how I plan to settle down with the pleasant forecast of my husband’s weatherman smile, where there was only enough rain for the grass to grow so my rainbow pony had something to munch in the backyard. But I suppose it was my own fault to have kissed him like he was worth the fantasy of wanting something more.

“So, as it turns out,” I add, “I wasn’t special enough to be his one and only. Hell, I wasn’t even special enough to be his only one.”

“I can’t believe he was married,” Hunter says.

“And to a woman no less,” replies Nick. He scratches at the stubble on his collarbone while searching impatiently for the waitress to drop off the check.

It’s obvious that I’ve led them down the wrong path. They have forgotten what to say when I’m not yet ready to laugh at my own misery. Wanting to cheer the mood, I limp to the punchline. “I guess the moral of the story is: I’m not getting a rainbow pony.”

“Or a married stallion for that matter.” When Hunter says this, he imbues confidence that I can do better, even if it’s not him. He knows as well as I do that the old man last night wasn’t worth my time. And when Hunter reaches across the table to touch my arm, I can’t help but agree. The connection makes me shiver, and not just because I have to pee. That tremor takes with it all traces of the promise I made to myself this morning at 9:43.

Nick raises his champagne flute that still has a sip of mimosa remaining. The pulp from the orange juice is cemented in flecks around its rim. “Let us take from Eli’s tale of woe a reminder: on the bright side, we’re all going to die alone.”

“Here, here,” I say, tongue planted so firmly in cheek that it nearly presses through to the other side.  

Hunter does not budge. “I will not lift a glass until someone says something nice. Knowing how I remain the bachelor most eligible to invoke optimism, I’d like to offer that we will always have each other.”

“Those are my options…?” I reply, “Dying alone, or always having each other? Side by side they’re tough to tell apart.” Hunter shoots a look that means I’m supposed to shut the fuck up. I raise my glass to the inspiring agony of maintaining the status quo. When I drink, I swallow hard.

2

NICK

“If you’re not getting the work that you deserve, don’t wait. Find a basement and produce your own show. Even if only your parents come, you have to do the work.”

A lot of teachers have given me this cockamamie advice throughout my illustrious twenty-two years. Thankfully, I’ve always had the sense to ignore them. When those naysayers set their sights on me, I’d jam my fingers in my ears so deep they almost met in the middle. I knew better. To listen to a solitary syllable of their hate-speak would only prove to tempt the fate of failure. And, despite what my résumé would have you believe, failure is something that Nick Applebaum does not do.

Ever since my Ma pushed me out into this cruel world and the doctor slapped my ass, I’ve been singing. By the time I was six years old, it was already pretty obvious to everyone who has eyes that I was born to be a show queer. I used to put on little performances for my Ma, Tilly Applebaum, in our semi-detached house in Marlboro, New Jersey. I would lead Ma by the hand to a seat on her bed. I’d give her a program that I’d scrawled in Crayola and then retire to my dressing room: the master bedroom’s walk-in closet. I wore one towel as a headdress and another as a cape. That closet also served as my stage. After I threw open those doors, I would sing for her every melody I’d ever heard.

As you can imagine I didn’t stay in that closet for long. Thankfully, when the time came, Ma didn’t make a tsuris. As staunch as she could be, she was generally liberal-minded. She never seemed to care about the fact that I was born a homosexual (and not just any homosexual, but the limp-wristed, pillow-biting kind). But how I got her to finally throw up in her mouth was during a performance of my Closet-Cabana when it finally dawned on her, “Shit. My son’s going to be an actor.”

Luckily for me, Ma figured the best way to piss off her ex-husband (and my estranged father) was to encourage my artistic agenda. She enrolled me in a theater class at the JCC. Who knows - maybe she thought I’d get my feet wet and then want to get out of the pool? Her inability to predict the future, however, was something of legend. And thank God for that. If she was ever smart enough to see past the end of her nose, she wouldn’t have taught me to talk; rather, she would have ordered my spiteful mouth be sewn shut faster than her cesarean flap. But, without me to yell back, there’d be no one left to volley with at all after my father left her for a younger woman (which gave her plenty to yell about).  

So, when Ma cut a check to the JCC for their summer session, she didn’t flinch. I guess she figured, “why not?” It was my father’s money paying for it anyway, taken from the child support some judge ordered him to pay after he was ruled in contempt of marriage. Sure-- Ma would have preferred to spend that money engraving my monogram on a baby’s first briefcase than on my first pair of Capezio jazz flats. Still, she paraded around town like her sacrifice would only make me love her more. Typical Jew, proving the Catholics don’t know a thing about what it takes to be a martyr.

On the day of my first lesson, Ma didn’t bother to come inside. In fact, she didn’t bother to come to a complete stop before pushing me out of the car. The woman who did her hair always seemed to be squeezing her in for an appointment, so Tilly couldn’t dare be late. I never felt so happy as when I hit the curb and watched her drive away.

I could tell in an instant that my teacher, the spiritually refined Ms. Constance Bauer, was the antithesis of all things Tilly Applebaum. For that, I loved her. She wore her hair natural- oily and grey- and when she bent at the waist to reach for my sticky hand, that oily, gray hair fell from behind her ears to flank her cherubic smile. Ms. Bauer led me into a theater that was flooded with light from every angle. I stood in front of the small cluster of girls who were sitting Indian style (because that’s what we called it in those days). To little six year-old me, girls were still a point of fascination and not just because some day they were going to grow titties. Rather, little six year-old me was fascinated with girls because they got to wear their hair in braids and were granted access to all the toys that my father had forbidden. I was so eager to walk among them. Having devoted years to studying the coquettish ways of the Disney Princess on VHS tape, I was certain I would fit right in.

“Girls, settle down,” Ms. Bauer called in her willowy rasp. Her hands pressed down upon my shoulders like there was a possibility I might try to run. Little did she know I was never going anywhere. “This is Nick. He’s going to be joining our class, so let’s give him a big, warm welcome.”

The girls sprung to their besocked feet and rushed toward me like a tidal wave. They wrapped their arms around me for long enough that we began to breathe in unison. From that moment on, my Ma’s house was merely the place I slept: the theater was my home.

For the rest of the summer, Ma was subjected to an endless stream of idolatry for all things Constance Bauer. I didn’t notice my affection was boiling her blood until the last week of class when my Ma snapped like a Twizzler in a vat of Clorox Bleach. (If you knew my mother, you’d be amazed she lasted that long.) When Ms. Bauer called to invite her to our final presentation-- a version of
Aesop’s Fables
that had me as Aesop, my first title role-- Ma pulled her calendar from her purse and said that she would be there if her canasta group was willing to reschedule. I mashed her angular face between my palms and spoke my truth, “I don’t care if I see you there or not. Ms. Bauer’s going. To me, she’s all that matters.”

The pitch my Ma used to scream back at me made our dog scratch his ears. “If you think I’m such a terrible person, then maybe you should go live with your father!” We both knew that to be an empty threat; she’d paid the lawyers good money to make sure that Pop only saw me every other Pesach. Still, I rolled my eyes, dismissing her banshee wail. Nothing makes that woman angrier than a stony silence. You’d be better off telling her she’s got shit for brains than not telling her anything at all. And since she took such pride in teaching me everything she knows, she should have known I’d been trained to pay her back for that outburst. All in due time.

That Sunday afternoon, I was barely nervous for my star turn as Aesop. That is, I was barely nervous until my mother parked the car and tried to follow me inside. “What are you doing?” I said as she walked me to the door.

“The same thing I’ll be doing financially for the rest of your life if you choose showbiz for a career: I’m supporting you.”

I didn’t have time to fight her although I was more than willing. I had to put on my cotton ball beard, so I let my Ma stay. All things considered, the show went pretty well (even though I was upstaged by Jessica Morgan when she pissed in her tights shortly after her entrance as the Grasshopper). At the end of the show, I took my bow like Ms. Bauer had taught me. My Ma was in the front row wiping away tears like our little
Aesop’s Fables
was better than the national tour of
Miss Saigon
. Feeling that my performance was something to be remembered, I refused to take off my cloak when I walked right into Ms. Bauer’s outstretched arms.