Читать книгу Between Boyfriends - Michael Salvatore - Страница 10

Monday mornings on the set of If Tomorrow Never Comes are like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory before the tiny Oompa-Loompas stick their tiny chocolate time cards into the tiny chocolate time card machine and man their tiny chocolate stations. It’s all boring book scenes without the jaunty yet repetitive music. And like Mr. Wonka’s factory it can also be a dangerous place to be. Unless you learn to follow the instructions from the network brass, ignore the phone calls from every actor’s agent, and stay far, far away from the show’s resident diva.

Miss Loretta Larson hates every morning, afternoon, and evening spent in fictional Wonderland, but she hates Monday mornings the most. Mainly because she spent Saturday and Sunday in a drunken stupor trying to forget that on Monday morning she once again has to take up residence as Regina O’Reilly, the grande dame of Wonderland. Loretta is a bitter, angry, lonely actress, but the fans adore her so even though she is also a bad actress, she’s one lucky lush. For the past twenty-eight years Loretta Larson has repeated the same facial expressions, vocal inflections, and cosmetic injections, yet somehow manages to keep the fans of ITNC entertained with her performance and obsessed with her persona. They worship at her 100-percent-proof, liver-unfriendly altar and, thus, everyone else who works with Loretta worships her as well.

“Loretta!” I exclaimed, clutching my Venti skim, extra-hot, light-whipped peppermint mocha (which I will refer to henceforth as my Starbucks Usual). “Love the poncho.”

“Some fuckin’ Mexican immigrant wanted to charge me fifty bucks for it on the Upper East Side,” she exclaimed in her trademark raspy voice. “I said, ‘You’re not even allowed on the Upper East Side!’ I tossed him a twenty and told him to give me the poncho or I was going to call INS.”

“Damn those leaky borders,” I replied.

Before I could tell her how the yellow angora of the poncho almost perfectly matched the yellow jaundice of her skin, the Loretta everyone knew, hated, and fawned over announced her arrival in typical Monday morning fashion.

“People!” she shouted very much like the male passengers on the Titanic when they were told there really were no extra life jackets. “Where’s my fucking coffee?!”

Experience had taught me that when Loretta screeched, you had to get out of the way or risk being trampled by the throng of interns, entry-level producers, personal assistants, and nervous executives who inevitably responded to her banshee cry the way the Oompa-Loompas responded to Mr. Wonka’s piccolo whistles. (Which I always believed was a nod to Captain Von Trapp’s ingenuous way of calling his children to order before Maria swooped in from the mountains and offered the captain two new favorite things to wrap his lips around.) My adrenaline kicked in and I, along with my trusty Starbucks Usual, sought cover in the first office I could find, which luckily was the site of the production meeting I was almost late for.

“Steven!” cried Laraby Simmonson, my boss and a closeted homosexual.

To be honest, no one knows if Laraby really is gay, but he is definitely gay-ish. And all that’s needed to start a rumor about the sexual status of a single man working in the soap opera industry is the ish part. Personally, I never understood the fascination about Laraby’s sexual preference because he looked like a cross between Dick Cheney and Jeff Stryker. Even if he did possess an incredibly long, thick and mouthwatering dick, he was also fifty-something, short, balding, pasty, and when he wasn’t being arrogant he was being charming in order to persuade you to believe in or do something you knew in your gut was false and evil. But in defense of all the “Is he or isn’t he?” rumors, Laraby is the only person I know who can transfeminate from frat boy to sissy queen in three seconds flat. And transfemination usually occurred on Monday mornings as a tonic to thwart Loretta’s hungover harangues.

“Dude!” Laraby shouted like my college dorm buddy. “We went up one-tenth of a point in the ratings!”

“That’s great news,” I said with a fake smile since I had already heard the news over the weekend.

Then Laraby shifted gears and sounded like my other college dorm buddy, who went to bizarre lengths to try and catch glimpses of me partially or fully naked.

“That’s fabulous news, Stevie! We should celebrate. Is it too early in the morning for canapés? What about a mixed fruit parfait? Chez Vouvez downstairs has the freshest berries all year long, all year long, can you believe it? And the chef, Roget, who I think is from Prague, puts them in the most darling parfait glasses that have slender necks and plump bottoms. They remind me of my mother. What do you say, Stevie? Should we do it? Should we celebrate?”

At that moment I realized even if Laraby was gay, I didn’t care. I was not the canapés, parfait, or Vouvez type. I like things simple. And he was a very complicated man.

“Why don’t we just raise our coffee cups in honor of everyone’s hard work?” I said.

A light mist appeared over Laraby’s eyes as suddenly as a San Francisco fog. My words had touched him.

“Your simplicity and honesty never cease to amaze me, Steven,” Laraby said as his eyes welled with water. “Perhaps one night we can go to dinner. Some place simple, and talk about the simple things.”

I took an extra-long sip of my Starbucks Usual (which I will refer to henceforth as my SU) and was contemplating how to articulate a response that wouldn’t get me fired or groped, when the rest of the production staff barged into the room. Perfect timing is a soap’s mainstay.

“Bitchola is in rare form this morning,” cried Lourdes, the continuity girl. “She got all up in my face crazy cuz I told her that hot coffee is only gonna make her hot flashes seem hotter.”

“Did she throw her coffee in your face?” asked Leon, the lead director.

“No, she spit it on me,” Lourdes replied, showing us her coffee-stained shirt. “I’m letting the stains settle, then I’ll sell it on eBay to one of her psychotic fans. Give me a bitch, I’ll make bitchinade.”

“Excuse me,” Laraby said as a cue that the Loretta-bashing should cease. “I’d like to propose a toast.”

With the same conviction that Brigitte Nielsen once adopted to convince Sly Stallone that she would remain faithful to him even if the Rocky franchise went bankrupt, Laraby explained that despite the harsh truth that the world of soap opera had seen much better days, ITNC was still able to perform a miracle every now and again. At least one-tenth of a miracle. And before we entered the madness that is Monday morning, he wanted us to raise our coffee cups and pay homage to all of those who helped make this mini-miracle come true.

While no one was looking, Laraby raised his coffee cup one-tenth higher in my direction and winked at me, just like Frank had at Starbucks less than twenty-four hours before. I smiled weakly; was this a sign from above that I should sprint to my office to call Human Resources, or to call Frank? Regardless of what signals I was being sent, the phone calls would have to wait; Monday morning had begun and all else, including my Frank, would have to be put on hold for the next nine hours. When I’m at work, I am all business.

A half-hour later I ran to my office to check my messages while there was a break in taping. Lorna and Loretta were in the middle of a crucial scene that was an extension of last Friday’s cliffhanger in which Lorna as Ramona reveals to Loretta as Regina, Ramona’s older sister, that she has always known that Renata, their baby sister, never died in the boating accident five years ago, but has been in a coma in a secret location somewhere near Butte, Montana. It was this final part that was holding up production. Loretta was having yet another emotional breakdown because unbeknownst to the head writer, Loretta was, in fact, born somewhere near Butte, Montana, but had been run out of town when she was sixteen years old after her father discovered she was pregnant by one of the ranch hands. She got a botched abortion, was told she could never have children again, and that she could also never return to Butte or the surrounding area as she had shamed and defiled her family’s name. Some people have every reason to drink. And when I checked my machine and realized Frank still hadn’t called me back I felt like I was quickly becoming one of those people.

Fortunately I’m obsessed with planning so my day wasn’t as horrible as it could have been. I had prepared for what I knew would be a HINE—which is pronounced Hi-Nee and stands for Highly Intense Neurotic Experience—and forwarded my home phone to my work phone so during the day I would only have to check the messages left on one phone and not two. Seven years of therapy had not taught me how to corral my uncontrollable neurotic thoughts, but it had taught me how to make them seem more controllable.

Three hours later, while the writers were trying to decide if Renata should be moved from her secret location in Butte to one near Boise, Idaho or Cheyenne, Wyoming, I raced to my office again. Still no message from Frank, just one from my mother asking if Lorna Douglas had agreed to sing for the Salvatore DeNuccio Tenants Group. Frank may have disappointed me with his inconsistency, but my mother never would. At four hours and counting, I made my assistant check my messages, but Frank still remained silent. Five hours later I couldn’t help myself and walked out of a budget meeting claiming a weak bladder. When I realized I was still in the no-Frank zone I almost threw the phone out the window. My mother, bless her heart, remained consistent and left two more messages of increased urgency about Lorna and her New Jersey debut. I wrote Lorna & Salvatore on a Post-it and put it on my desk to remind me to deal with this matter when my head wasn’t drowning in thoughts and images of Frank.

Seven hours later Frank still hadn’t called me. I didn’t care that Loretta was taking valium with a bourbon chaser or that Laraby kept winking at me, all I could think about was that rat bastard Frank and how if he didn’t call me I would trump every psychologically challenged actor who ever appeared in our show by having a petit mal seizure right on set. I knew I needed to change direction or else I’d spiral out of control quicker than Jackée Harry’s career, so I counted to ten and reacted the only way a normal, red-blooded American gay man would: at five o’clock I sent an emergency e-mail to the boys and told them to meet me at Starbucks at six. I had to vent over a Venti.

“Why hasn’t he called me?” I questioned my friends as well as the universe.

“Why are you shaking?” Lindsay asked. “Are you hooked on Dexatrim again?”

“It’s my fourth Starbucks today,” I replied shakily.

“Honey, did you eat?” Flynn inquired.

“I had some baby carrots around noon.”

“Mama need starch,” Flynn said, tossing me a Yogurt Honey Balance bar. “It’ll absorb all that caffeine.”

“Not to mention the shock that your Mister Regular is probably just another regular two-timing, phone-number-tossing, no-good Chelsea boy with a killer smile and a cold heart,” Lindsay added.

“Sounds like someone’s channeling Patsy Cline after the plane crash,” said Gus in his perfect British diction that always sounded vaguely pompous and condescending, but because it also sounded more intelligent and superior than any American voice ever spoken, it was a sound that we all loved. “It’s only been one day, Steven.”

“Could you stop thinking rationally for a moment?” I asked. “I need your support.”

Gus ran his manicured fingers through his close-cropped, gray-speckled ebony hair as he pondered this request. He took off his titanium and matte black-framed Modo eyeglasses and stared at me with eyes so blue they would have humbled Paul Newman.

“Can’t I do both?”

“No, Gus, you can’t!” Lindsay replied. “The only time both works is when the Russian pairs figure skating team wins the Olympics because some Russian judge bribed a cash-poor French judge and the Canadians get robbed of their gold medal and the only way to make things right is for the Olympic Figure Skating Commission to give gold medals to both teams. If you haven’t noticed, that is not happening now. Steven does not need rationality and support so stop thinking old-man thoughts and pony up some positive vibes.”

“You know, Lindsay, Steven isn’t the only one who could benefit from rational thought,” Gus said, sounding completely pompous and condescending.

As always, Flynn decided to moderate this impromptu gay men’s group therapy session.

“Boys, there is no I in gay. But there is a Y. So let’s remember why we’re here,” Flynn said with a remarkably straight face. “We’re here to help Steven.”

As expected, Lindsay spent the next several minutes apologizing for his outburst and explaining why some words like both make him relive the injustice that is the modern day Olympiad. We all told him that we understood. We didn’t specify that what we understood was that he was psychologically damaged from the events in Norway and every four years when the Winter Olympics rolled around his skates had to be confiscated or else he would use them as razor blades to end his pain finally and symbolically. That was something that was simply understood.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with his phone,” Flynn offered.

“Maybe he got called away on a business trip?” Gus blurted out.

“Or maybe he had a family emergency,” Lindsay added. “You love family oriented guys.”

This show of support was catching on faster than a daisy chain among out-of-work actors in West Hollywood.

“Ooh! I know!” Flynn shrieked in a higher octave than normal. “Maybe, just maybe someone in his family tragically died. That would be wonderful.”

“That would be horrible,” I said.

“Yes, but no,” Lindsay interrupted. “Horrible for Frank, but a wonderful way for you to show how comforting and consoling you could be to the grief stricken. It’s the perfect Boyfriend Test.”

“That’s right! Show him your Mother Teresa side,” Gus offered. “But remember to dress like Princess Diana. Didn’t they make the cutest couple? I personally think Mother Teresa died of a broken heart.”

“What if Frank’s just not interested?” I asked meekly.

Like a bad hostess I had brought the party to a grinding halt and dismantled the chain of supportive daisies. The group was forced to regroup and contemplate a different approach.

“Well, honey,” Flynn began weakly. “That is a possibility.”

There was another awkward pause as we all reflected on how well gay men can flip-flop even when they’re not in bed. Maybe what happened was that Frank got caught up in the magic that Starbucks creates and before he thought it out completely he jotted his phone number on a newspaper and thrust it into my eager hands. Then maybe when Frank got outside and breathed in real air and not Starbucks magic-air he realized offering himself to me was a mistake. Maybe he knew I wasn’t worthy.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked.

“Nothing is wrong with you!” Flynn and Gus cried out in unison.

“You don’t spend enough time on the treadmill!” Lindsay added.

“Shut up, Lindsay,” Flynn reprimanded. “Steven, there isn’t anything wrong with you. It’s the gay species, our interactions are very intricate. Like the relationship between Carrie and her mother in Carrie: The Musical.”

Everyone at the table, including me, let out a collective moan, for Flynn had once again compared something important and real to the Broadway stage’s biggest flop, the musicalization of Stephen King’s horror classic Carrie. About five people saw the show in ’88 and Flynn was one of them. Since then he had become an evangelist for the singing telekinetic and at any moment could and often would wax rhapsodic over the melody that was Carrie’s pain regardless of the fact that it had nothing to do with the present conversation. Like right now.

“Gay men are their own worst enemies,” Flynn began. “They, like Carrie and Mrs. White, superbly played by Outer Critics Circle nominee Betty Buckley, are victims of their own psycho-sexual-socioreligious dogma.”

“Flynn, we’re talking about some bloke who forgot to ring Steven back,” Gus corrected.

“It’s a symptom,” Flynn continued. “A symptom of the society that we have collectively created. Its structure is weak and if we don’t mend it, it will crumble.”

“Just like the way the gym crumbled at the end of the movie?” Lindsay asked, trying to sound like an innocent commentator when he was really a guilty instigator.

Flynn responded the way we all knew he would. He took the bait.

“I’m not talking about the movie!” Flynn barked. “The movie is a manifestation of Brian De Palma’s fear of Hollywood. A fear that made him turn from the source material—Stephen King’s straightforward, yet poetic prose—and run into the dictatorial arms of the movie studio machine. Brian didn’t trust his source, like gay men don’t trust theirs. They want to constantly be like the blockbuster and appeal to a wider audience instead of being happy to appeal to a niche market. Carrie: The Musical isn’t afraid.”

“But Carrie: The Movie was scary,” Lindsay said, unable to remain silent.

“Yes, it was scary!” Flynn freaked. “Because it was a prime example of how yet another talented filmmaker bent to the whims of the Hollywood dictatorship.”

“What about the hand coming up through the grave at the end?” Lindsay asked. “Tell me that wasn’t scary?”

“That isn’t even in the book!” Flynn screamed. “And now yet another gay man has bent to the whims of the gay male society. ‘Here’s my number, call me. No, wait, I can’t trust my instincts so when you call I won’t return your phone call.’ If gay men want to be trusted by each other and the hetero world, they have to begin by trusting themselves and stop playing this endless game of push me–pull me.”

“Ah yes, the old llama dilemma,” Gus commented.

Flynn didn’t even hear Gus’s Doctor Dolittle reference; he was still under Carrie’s musical spell.

“We as a community—and I am not including lesbians, bisexuals or transgendered peoples because they need to stop piggybacking and create their own community ’cause they’re sucking the life force out of ours—must take a cue from Mr. King and Michael Gore, the wildly misunderstood composer of Carrie, and explore the psycho-sexual-socioreligious dogma that we have allowed to dictate our framework before that framework ruptures and traps us within our own fear.”

Flynn was finally finished. He took a gulp of his coffee to refuel and waited to see if his didactic words had any effect on his pupils.

“So what you’re saying,” I started, “is that Piper Laurie really wanted to fuck the shit out of Sissy Spacek and then knife her to death so she didn’t have to deal with her emotionally anymore.”

“My insight is wasted on you people!” Flynn shouted.

“Give it one more day,” Gus said rationally. “Then if Frank still hasn’t called you back you can call him again.”

“I have a better idea,” I said. “Why don’t one of you call Frank right now to see if he’s around? That way I’ll know if he’s busy or just uninterested.”

“Even if Frank answers, it won’t tell you anything,” Gus rationalized. “It’ll just tell you that he’s home.”

“And not interested in calling me back!” I said, sounding as pathetic as I knew I would.

“Is this about Jack?” Lindsay asked.

The silence this question stirred was deafening. If this were a scene from ITNC the end credits would roll or we’d at least cut to a commercial. Everyone at the table knew that my ex-partner Jack DiRenza had told me to leave his apartment and his life four years ago on July fourth (forever ruining for me a day that to the rest of the country is a cause for celebration) and everyone at the table had shared their advice as to how best to move on, as well as their shoulders for me to cry on when I didn’t think moving on was an option. But everyone at the table also knew that Jack was more than just an ex-partner. He was the love of my life and the man I thought I would grow old and happy with. No one at the table, including myself, ever thought he was the person who would push me from his life because he felt tied down, or as he so eloquently put it, “too bored with the whole commitment thing.” So like most fragile elements of a person’s past, Jack had been carefully packaged and stored somewhere just out of reach. Now Lindsay had ripped him thoughtlessly from the distant emotional shelf I had placed him on and the result was shocking.

“Lindsay!” Flynn scolded. “Don’t say the J-word.”

“Steven, I’m sorry,” Lindsay said. “But it has to be said. This is not the first time you’ve freaked out since Jack broke up with you. It’s becoming a pattern. So before it gets out of hand and you waste any more time hurting yourself you have to admit if your reaction to Frank’s tardy response is a result of your split with Jack.”

An odd thing happened when Lindsay spoke sense; it caused those listening to pause. But within that pause was quite a bit of action. First the listener had to remind himself that it was indeed Lindsay speaking. Then he had to repeat his comment silently, ignore the surprise that his comment included not one figure skating term, process his comment, ignore the surprise that his comment actually contained sense, and articulate a response. After a few moments the pause was over.

“This isn’t about Jack,” I said.

“Are you sure, hon?” Flynn asked.

I looked at my three closest friends—Flynn, Lindsay, and Gus—and realized I had to be honest. And I knew there was no reason why I shouldn’t be. They chose to be in my life and I chose to let them stay. They had to take the good with the bad, since they knew that I had done and would continue to do the same for them.

“It’s not about Jack, it’s about me,” I said. “I’m really tired of looking for someone, but I’m not ready to give up. I’m scared that I don’t know the difference between some jerk who throws his number at me just so he can get laid and a nice guy who would like to get to know me on a deeper level.”

I could tell from the looks on their faces that such honesty was not what they’d thought they’d hear when they were summoned to Starbucks. But I could also tell from their expressions that I had hit upon a shared truth. They understood me, which is exactly what friends are supposed to do.

“You have to let go and let gay,” Lindsay said.

“What?” I responded.

“Let go of everything that is holding you down and be your gay self,” Lindsay explained. “Let go of your impatience to find your soul mate, your preconceived notion that every new guy you meet will be your soul mate….”

“And Jack,” Flynn finished. “You have to let him go too, Steve. Not only Jack himself, but what the two of you shared. For a while you had perfect. And now you don’t. That doesn’t mean you’re never going to have perfect again. It just means that perfect now means something a little bit different than it did when you were with Jack and now you have to figure out what perfect means to you.”

I looked at my friends again, closer this time and without the Pity Party eyes. It was then that the light dawned on me.

“Did you all swallow Dr. Phil pills with your Viagra this morning?” I queried.

“A bit too sappy?” Flynn asked.

“It was fine up until the perfect part,” I said.

“I thought that was a bit over the top myself,” Gus remarked. “But I’m British. ‘Thank you’ is considered over the top in some parts of the U.K.”

“I stand by everything I said,” Lindsay declared. “You’re handsome, you’re hot, Flynn tells me you’re hung. If I were you I’d be freaking out why loser boy didn’t return my phone call. But remember, I saw him too and I don’t think he’s worth pining over.”

“That’s ’cause you were on a Dick Button rampage,” I said, reminding Lindsay.

“Again?” asked Flynn and Gus, once again in unison.

Lindsay’s face scrunched up the way it did when he was about to do some incredibly difficult jump on the ice. He looked like he was going to do a triple-triple combination, but instead he just banged his fist on the table.

“That man just annoys the shit out of me! I’d love to take his two Olympic medals and shove ’em—”

“Thanks, guys,” I said politely, shutting Lindsay up.

“For what?” Flynn asked as a representative for the group.

“For reminding me that when a crisis arises I should simply”—I paused for effect—“let go and let gay.”

“To letting go,” Flynn said, raising his cup.

“And letting gay,” we all responded.

So for the second time that day I found myself raising my coffee in honor of some intangible notion. And for the second time that day while I sat with my arm outstretched, my coffee raised, and a fake smile plastered on my face, I was consumed with the same persistent thought: why hasn’t Frank called me back? And then another thought popped into my head: why can’t I just let him go?

I answered my questions almost immediately thanks to Lindsay’s earlier advice. Like some people just can’t be anything other than gay, other people just don’t want to be let go.