“I am sorry to have been detained,” he said in a velvety Spanish accent. “How may I be of assistance?” His eye contact with Freddy promised a main course of polite attentiveness with a side order of flirty innuendo.
Little did he know subtlety wasn’t on Freddy’s menu.
“I hate to bother you,” Freddy said. “But my friend thinks this is disgusting. What’s your opinion?”
Freddy picked up his bowl and gave it another long, sensuous lick. It was a mortifyingly vulgar display that only he could pull off, and just barely at that. He finished with a final wipe around the rim with his finger, which he sucked into his mouth with the subtly of a voice mail from Mel Gibson.
“I think,” the waiter said thoughtfully, taking out his order pad, “you should have this.” He wrote ten digits followed by his name.
Freddy tucked the paper into his front pocket. “Bring me another bowl of this and I might call,” he said.
“Right away, sir.” He scurried off, with a more obvious wiggle to his butt than before.
“Another?”
I asked incredulously.
“Waiter or dessert?” Freddy asked. “I’m not sure which indulgence you’re objecting to.”
“I’m talking about what you’re going to eat.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down, honey.”
I rolled my eyes and snorted.
“Lovely,” Freddy observed. He reached into his pocket and handed me the waiter’s number. “Here. Just in case you ever need to piss off Tony.”
“You’re not going to use it?”
“I have Cody,” he said nonchalantly.
Wow. This from the guy who didn’t do the “dating thing.” I decided to let it pass. This might be a stage in Freddy’s evolution that went better unrecognized. At least by him.
“So,” Freddy said, “Brent had a bad feeling, huh? He wanted to give Lucas his parents’ number in case something happened to him?”
“No,” I said. “That’s just it. Brent was almost completely estranged from his family. His father wasn’t just antigay, he was rabidly homophobic. He kicked Brent out of the house when Brent was still a teen. They had no contact at all.
“A few weeks before he went missing, though, Brent got something in the mail that worried him. Someone sent him an article in the mail. Anonymously. It was clipped from a fundamentalist magazine Brent knew his parents subscribed to at home. It was about an extreme form of reparative therapy.”
“Like, for a shoulder injury? ’Cause, if so, I’d like to see it. I was doing flies at the gym the other day and—”
“No, not that kind of therapy. This was for repairing homosexuality.”
“Like, making it even
better?
”
“No, you nut, like making it go away.”
“Oh,” Freddy said. “Like that scam Harrington’s son was running.”
Freddy and I had come across a similar program when my friend was murdered.
“Kind of,” I answered. “But that one, at least, was voluntary. Unethical, sure, but no one was
forced
into it. It was also kind of New Agey and based in psychology.
“The one sent to Brent was worse. It regarded homosexuality not as some kind of undesirable lifestyle but as a cult. It was a deprogramming program. The ‘patients’ are kidnapped. They’re subjected to confinement, mind control, and mental abuse until they conform.”
After Lucas told me about the letter Brent had gotten, he showed me some papers from Web sites he’d printed out about these kinds of programs. Deprogramming forces people to abandon their participation in a religious, political, or social group. Since the believer is unlikely to volunteer for this kind of change, deprogramming involves kidnapping and arm-twisting.
Often, deprogramming is arranged for and paid by relatives. Most typically, it’s the parents of adult children who foot the bill. They claim they want to help their children, but where do you draw the line? Is it an act of love to take someone against his or her will? Are you saving your child, or is it just another way in which parents seek to control him or her?
On the other hand, some cults
are
dangerous and are manipulative themselves. They prey on the insecure and weak, exploiting their alienation by promising acceptance for allegiance.
It’s a dull cliché, but you have to ask yourself: Do two wrongs make a right?
In this case, obviously not. Being gay is natural for some people—it’s who we are. No one had to coerce me into liking dick. I had that one covered by myself.
Freddy looked appalled. “Is that even legal?”
“Not as far as I know. It’s been challenged in the courts and hasn’t fared well. But that doesn’t stop some people from trying.”
“So, did Brent ever figure out who sent him the article?”
“He figured it was his older sister. The father is very controlling, and he made it clear that no one is supposed to be in touch with Brent—he’s exiled until he’s willing to change. Anyone who breaks the dad’s rules is subject to equal banishment.”
“Nice guy,” Freddy observed.
“Brent’s older sister is the only one who dares to buck her father’s edicts. Not too much—Christmas here, birthday call there. She didn’t sign the article, but it was postmarked from her town. Brent figures it was her way of warning him without getting in trouble with their dad.
“Bottom line: Brent didn’t want Lucas to call his parents if something happened to him. He wanted Lucas to call the police and tell them it was probably his parents who did it. And then he wanted Lucas to send them the picture.”
Whether Brent’s sentiment of love and forgiveness was sincere, or if he just wanted to make his parents feel remorse for what they’d done, I didn’t know. Maybe a little of both.
Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.
“Oh my god,” Freddy said. “That’s like, the worst thing ever. And I thought my parents were evil when they wouldn’t buy me a pony for my fifteenth birthday.”
“You still wanted a pony when you were fifteen?”
“Did I say ‘pony’?” Freddy asked. “I meant to say ‘subscription to
Playgirl
.’ So, now that Lucas knows Brent’s gone missing, did he call the cops and rat out Brent’s folks?”
“No. Two days after Brent told Lucas about the letter, he told him not to worry about it. He no longer thought his parents would do that to him.”
“What happened?”
“Brent never said.”
“So, why doesn’t Lucas call the cops anyway?”
“Like I said, Brent was sure his parents had abandoned the idea. But if they found out Brent heard they’d looked into it, they’d know the sister was the one who gave him the heads up. He loved her too much to get her into that kind of trouble.”
The waiter came over with another dessert for Freddy.
“This one’s on me,” he purred.
“Maybe later, I really will put some
on
you.” Freddy winked. “With some whipped cream, too.”
The waiter walked away with a big grin.
“I thought you weren’t going to call,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t flirt,” Freddy said. “He did give me free ice cream after all.”
“That does look good,” I couldn’t help admitting. “Think I could score some, too?”
“That depends,” he deadpanned. “What are you willing to do for it?”
“Ask nicely?”
Freddy handed me his spoon. “Dig in, baby.”
“That’s all it took?”
“After tonight’s conversation, yeah. Life can be ugly, sometimes. Friendship’s like me—it makes the world a little prettier.”
33
Top Secret
The next day, I found out what wasn’t pretty. Me. At least, me aged and uglied up via the expert application of latex and makeup by Steven Austen.
It was the day I’d been trying to avert but couldn’t avoid. In two hours, my mother and I had an appointment at Families by Design, where we’d be posing as the world’s worst candidates for adoptive parenthood.
Making me appear older involved adding heavy jowls, deep wrinkles, and an ashy complexion. Steve dulled my natural blondness to a mousy brown, then threw in some gray streaks for good measure.
In the mirror was an unflattering combination of myself, my father, the guy who played the father on
Happy Days
and Gollum from
Lord of the Rings
. It wasn’t a good look for me.
Was it convincing? I wasn’t sure.
“I couldn’t go as heavy on the makeover as I would have if we were working on film,” Steven explained. “The camera and lighting can be manipulated to hide a multitude of sins. But this is real life, and you’re going to be meeting people face-to-face. So, I had to be more subtle with the appliance work.”
“What do
you
think?” I asked Steven.
“I think . . .” Steven paused, searching for a tactful way to put it, “you look more like someone who’d be involved with your mother than you did before.”
Which I took to mean that while Steven hadn’t managed to make me look quite as old as my mother, I was at least believable as prey for an energetic cougar.
Speaking of which . . .
“Darling,” my mother cried, entering the room. Steven had done what he could with her earlier; now she was emerging from the rest of her makeover.
Steven had done a better job with my mother than he had with me, proving that subtraction is easier than addition. He’d used putty to fill in the lines in her face and a thick foundation to cover all but her deepest wrinkles. A pinker-than-usual tone in her makeup and thick false eyelashes made her look noticeably younger without being so obvious as to cross her over into drag queen territory.
Further enhancing the illusion was the new hairdo. The beautician had covered my mother’s hair, which she always wore in her signature beehive, with a red wig shaped in a more youthful bob. It was a convincing, well-done job.
Lastly, the show’s stylist, a young straight girl who’d been dying to make my mother look more contemporary since the show’s first day, really went to town. She dressed my mother in a chic cream-colored Donna Karan jacket and matching skirt that was slimming and flattering. It wasn’t obviously flashy or trying-too-hard, but it was somehow much hipper than my mother’s usual matronly pantsuits. It also looked outrageously expensive, which was an impression we were shooting for.
The stylist accessorized my mother’s neutral outfit with bold jewelry and a bright gold belt. They attracted attention without being overly ostentatious. It was a smart move, as anything that drew someone’s eye away from our faces was bound to help.
One of the problems we had was making sure no one recognized my mother as the star of
Sophie’s Voice
. Her image was getting pretty well known. While having someone—anyone—other than her pull off this sting would have made this easier, she insisted on doing it herself.
“They don’t,” she explained, “give Diane Sawyer an Emmy for someone
else’s
investigation.”
With her new makeup, hairstyle, and clothing, I had to admit my mother was probably suitably unrecognizable as the Long Island hausfrau hostess. We tried to get her to tone down her distinctive New Yawk manner of speaking, but no matter what we did, she sounded like Madonna after the pop star weirdly acquired an English accent. So, we let that pass.
As for me, I still didn’t know what the hell I was doing there. For some reason, my mother had decided I’d be the perfect person to help her pull off this stunt, and whatever Mama wants, Mama gets. At one point, I pulled her aside to ask if she didn’t think she’d be better off accompanied by a professional reporter (not to mention one closer to her age).
“Darling,” she said, as if my insecurity were the problem, “I
believe
in you. Remember how you helped me that time with Dottie Kubacki?”
My mother was referring to a debacle of an incident where she’d talked me into spying on one of our neighbors she’d become convinced was having an affair with my father. That little stunt had left me with an almost broken tailbone and an equally painful memory of the suspected adulteress in her three hundred pounds of naked glory.
“Who could I possibly trust more than you, darling?” my mother asked. “You’re always there for me.”
My mother wasn’t perfect. But she loved me unconditionally, and that counted for a lot. Plus, she never arranged to have me kidnapped and brainwashed into being straight. You had to add points for that, too.
Sure, she was high maintenance. But most worthwhile things are.
I let myself enjoy what I was pretty sure were likely to be the last nice thoughts I had for her today.
At least I didn’t have to worry about my accent—with my mother in the room, I rarely got a word in edgewise. Today, that’d work to my advantage.
My mother gave Steven a hug. “You’re a genius, darling. He looks awful.”
She grabbed me by the arm. “Get up, old man.” She dragged us to a full-length mirror mounted on the wall.
I was already in my costume for the day. A conservative Hugo Boss suit with a red power tie. They had it specially tailored to accommodate the padding they strapped to my belly and shoulders, making me look bulkier and out-of-shape. They also had me in elevator shoes, bringing me to a more respectable height of five feet six, an inch taller than my mother.
“Just look at us!” my mother exclaimed. “Don’t we make a gorgeous couple?”
I wouldn’t go that far. Nor did I quite get the whole reverse-Oedipal vibe. But, yeah, we did look close enough in age and style that we could pass as something other than mother and son.
At some point, Andrew must have come into the room, because he was the one who answered.
“You know,” he said, and I could hear he was being sincere, “I think this could work.”
“Of course it’s going to work!” my mother assured him. “We’re going to be the Jewish Woodward and Bernstein by the time this is done.”
I was pretty sure Woodward and Bernstein were the Jewish Woodward and Bernstein. At least, Bernstein must have been. I wasn’t sure about Woodward.
My mother gave us one last look in the mirror, squeezed my hand, and grabbed her stylist. “I think,” she said, “we’d better go find me a purse. The right purse will be key.” They hurried out of the room.
Andrew took her place by my side. Seeing that everyone had pretty much fled the room as soon as they could, he leaned over and whispered hotly into my ear.
“Wanna know how good that Steven is? I can honestly say if I were meeting you for the first time, looking as you do now, I would not, at this moment, want to fuck you.”
“Gee,” I gushed. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Of course, knowing that’s you under all that, I’m kind of turned on in a perverse way. It’d be like making it with you and not making it with you, all at the same time.”
“Well, you’re going to have to keep that nauseating three-way as a fantasy,” I said. “Mustn’t smear my makeup and all that.”
We reviewed our plan on the ride over to Families by Design. We were in our tricked-out video van, full of equipment rented by our tech guru, Laurent. From this command center, they’d be monitoring and taping every moment of our interview. My mother had a video camera concealed in her brooch and a backup in the temple of the stylishly thick eyeglasses she wore, which she didn’t need, but which further altered her appearance.
I was also wired, with my camera hidden in my tiepin.
The small devices wouldn’t record more than grainy, heavily pixilated images, but that was adequate for the job. It would give the footage a realistic spy-cam quality. And while it was hard to get good video from this kind of equipment, the sound would be clear and capture everything that was said. That was its most important role in gathering the material we’d need to prove if Families by Design was, in fact, unforgivably lax in assessing its potential parents.
“Now, remember,” my mother said to me, “you must turn and look at me frequently. Not just your head, darling, your whole body.”
“If we’re there adopting a child together,” I said, “I assume they’ll believe we’re a couple. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to constantly gaze adoringly at you. Wouldn’t want to overdo it.”
“It’s not that, darling. It’s just that the cameras I’m wearing aren’t going to capture
me
. I need you to get my reaction shots with that clever little one you’ve got on.”
Not for the first time, I concluded that my mother’s greatest talent was to make and keep herself the center of attention.
Andrew handed us fake IDs and made us run through our cover story again. He’d already had the production staff prepare the false documents and applications we used to set up the appointment. The most important part of our deception was establishing me as a wealthy investor whose start-up funds helped build three of the five most popular online social networks, making me very rich, indeed.
I’d had input into the planning of our fake identities. What no one knew was that the character I was playing was based on a real customer of mine back in the days I was hustling. Not only was my client fabulously wealthy and a brilliant venture capitalist, but he was also a motormouth. I’d learned enough from him that, if I had to, I could speak believably about how I’d made my fortune through the art and science of angel investing.
Our assumed names were Murray Goldsberry and Zorah Heffelbergen. We decided to pose as an unmarried couple to create the first of many considerations any reasonable adoption agency would want to ask about. Not that unmarried people couldn’t adopt, mind you, but it was a point of information worth exploring in a culture where married couples enjoyed certain rights and responsibilities that would affect a child’s well-being. But, trust me, being uninterested in tying the knot was the least of the Goldberry/Heffelbergens’ problems.
I couldn’t wait to see what the folks at Families by Design would make of the others.