Design for Loving

by Doug Sanford

  But very soon—the news cycle being what it is—other stories took over and things calmed down.

  “Best thing I ever did—turning down all those interviews,” said Bart. “They’re leaving me alone, at least for now.”

  “But doesn’t the lack of publicity hurt the show?” asked Leslie.

  “You sound like you’ve been talking to Dorie. She’s on the same kick. But things will pick up. They’ve still got a few more plot twists in store, and the Emmy awards are coming up in a few weeks.”

  He was right.

  Chapter 46

  That year Jay and Norm both insisted Bart submit his name for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, a significant step up in terms of categories. Mt. Sinai Heights itself was nominated in the Outstanding Drama category, and the writing team was nominated as well. While the show and writers had been nominated many times before—but never won—they really felt that the Shaun coming-out story would finally give them a significant edge.

  And it did. Bart, the show, and the writers all took home Emmys. Jay was ecstatic. This was the first time the show had ever beaten out General Hospital, and he felt, probably rightly, that the wins validated his decision. Lynette finally had the revenge on ABC that Norm had said she’d been seeking.

  The three of us attended the ceremony, this time with Jay’s blessing, and there was no noticeable reaction in the auditorium, other than the usual applause and cheering, when, after his win was announced, Bart kissed both Leslie and me before going up on stage to accept the award.

  And at the backstage press conference, neither he nor Jay got a single question about Bart’s personal life. The reporters were interested only in their reactions to having finally won, the part they felt the gay plot line played in the win, and the plans they had for the future of the show.

  The next day, we had a chance to relax and recover. Bart was off. As it did each year, the show had taped the episodes for the day of and the day after the Emmys in advance. After the post-awards parties, no one would have been in any shape to work on those days. Leslie had finished with classes the Friday before the Emmys, and I had made no appointments for that day, so we were all at home.

  We had a late breakfast in the kitchen and had moved into the living room. Leslie was at one end of the big couch, and Bart was on the floor near her playing with Zach. I was at the other end of the couch watching them. Zach had been crawling around actively for a few months now, and they had a game they would play with him. They’d take a bright soft plastic ball and roll it around on the floor and Zach would crawl after it. At some point, Bart tossed the ball up to me.

  “Come get it, Zach,” I called to him and held out the ball. He crawled over to the couch, waiting for me to roll it on the floor as I usually did. When I put it on the coffee table instead, he just sat there for a minute or so and then, to the astonishment of all three of us, got up on his knees, reached up to the edge of the coffee table top, took hold of it, and pulled himself into a standing position. This was a first. He’d never stood by himself before. He then let go of the coffee table to reach for the ball and promptly fell on his butt.

  I started to yell with excitement, and Leslie loudly whispered, “Shh. Keep quiet.”

  Smart mother.

  Zach giggled, got back into a crawling position, reached for the coffee table, and again pulled himself up to a standing position. Same thing. Letting go of the coffee table to get the ball, he fell back on the floor, and giggled. He’d discovered a new game.

  Leslie got up, quietly backed out of the room, not taking her eyes off Zach, and called Jeanine. By the time they were back, Zach was up again, but this time he somehow realized he had two hands and kept one on the coffee table edge and swatted at the ball with the other, knocking it to the floor. He let go, fell down, and giggled again, this time crawling toward the ball.

  We all cheered, smothered him with kisses, and congratulated ourselves on how clever he was. I don’t think he had the slightest idea what all the fuss was about.

  Bart retrieved the ball, threw it to me, and I put it up on the table again. Zach looked up at it, pulled himself up again, remembered to steady himself with one hand, swatted the ball onto the floor, fell back on his rump, and giggled again.

  Bart went for the ball and threw it to me again, and just then the phone rang.

  Leslie picked up, listened, and then said, “Would you mind saying all that again—from the very beginning? I’d like to put you on speakerphone.”

  “Mrs. Rastin-Miller? This is Rose from Dr. Waghelstein’s office. Your test came back positive, and it shows that you’re pregnant.”

  “Yes!” in a loud voice from Bart, who rushed over to kiss Leslie.

  “Wow,” from me.

  And, after taking her off speakerphone, “Thanks very much, Rose. Yes, I’ll call after things quiet down here to schedule an appointment.”

  Bart scooped Zach off the floor, sat down on the couch with him, holding Zach up in the air. “Zach’s gonna have a—a what? I guess it’s too soon to tell, huh?”

  “Yes, kid. It’s too soon to tell. Even I know that.”

  “‘A sibling’ will do for now,” said Leslie.

  Bart pushed Zach up in the air. “Zach’s gonna have a sibling. Zach’s gonna have a sibling. That just doesn’t have the same ring as ‘brother’ or ‘sister,’” he complained.

  “If you bounce him around anymore, Mr. Bart, he’ll spit up all over you,” said Jeanine, taking Zach from him. “Congratulations, Ms. Leslie. I’ll put him down for his nap now if that’s all right.”

  Bart pulled Zach in closer to him, trying to keep Jeanine from taking him, but she just stood in front of him and looked at him without saying a word. He relinquished Zach like a schoolboy caught in a prank, and she took Zach, held him for each of us as we kissed him goodnight before his nap, and took him off, leaving the three of us alone.

  A silence fell over us. It was one of those moments where everything seemed to have fallen into place. Bart’s insistence on letting people know who he was and who we were had worked. His career couldn’t have been in a better place, and our life as a family no longer had to be hidden. Zach was growing, and a new brother or sister was on the way.

  It was a comfortable silence; each of us in our own contemplative space. Bart swung into his favorite position on the couch between us and snuggled up closer to Leslie, his head in her lap, as she ran her fingers through his hair and at the same time turned to smile at me who was absentmindedly massaging his feet in my lap.

  Well, this is where the movie would end—with problems solved and the hero and heroine—or in this case, the heroes and heroine—safe and together, kissing or cuddling. Then, fadeout, music, and the credits roll.

  However, I must admit that I find those film endings totally unsatisfactory. I always want to know more.

  But there was so much we—there on the couch—couldn’t know.

  We couldn’t know that Bart would eventually move from Mt. Sinai Heights, which maintained and even increased its lead over General Hospital, to become the writer and star of a very popular major network sitcom which would run for nearly ten years and, as a result of the opportunities he had there, would transition into a very successful career as a full-time director and producer in both television and film, with more Emmys and also Oscars in store for him.

  We couldn’t know that Leslie would be appointed to a full professorship at UCLA soon after completing a major book on the novels of Jane Austen which turned out to be both a scholarly and popular success. She would refuse to stop teaching even though there was certainly no financial need for her to continue. Then, as a result of her reputation for explaining so clearly the culture of the nineteenth century to a twenty-first-century audience and a chance contact at one of our many parties—once we were all out, we ended up doing a lot more of that home entertaining that Bart liked so much—she would be asked to become an advisor to the BBC and PBS on their Masterpiece productions.
She would eventually become a well-known on-screen host of the program. The irony of her moving to a front-of-the-camera position as Bart moved into a behind-the-camera position would be lost on none of us.

  We couldn’t know, but would probably assume, that Zach and Carol Sue, as his new sister, to be born January 14, 1998, would be named—despite their parents’ busy careers—would never lack the care and attention of their mom, dad, and papa, which was the name Bart and Leslie decided the children would use for me, so much better than the Uncle Marc which I’d feared in earlier days. As they grew, they would have no difficulty at all understanding the difference between their dad and their papa, and they gave the same love to both of us.

  And we could not know that Romarc Properties, which Robin and I finally named our business, would grow in terms of both staff and income to become one of the major realty firms in the LA area mostly because we would be the first to take advantage of so many of the computer-based technologies that became available in our field.

  We couldn’t know but would probably expect that there would be some setbacks along the way and that things wouldn’t always be perfect. However, satisfactory solutions would be found, and we would have as happily-ever-after an ending as anyone has a right to expect in real life.

  But that night, as Bart and Leslie most likely contemplated the future with the new baby, I couldn’t keep my own thoughts from moving in the other direction—backward—thinking how much Bart had grown and changed, but realizing that he was still the same amazing person I met on the phone that August night ten years before when, without having the slightest idea of what I was about to set in motion, I dialed a number and said, “Hey, Kevin. You feelin’ horny?”

  THE END

  ABOUT DOUG SANFORD

  Doug Sanford is the writing name of a current resident of Tucson, Arizona, who, after getting his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University and a master’s degree from the University of Illinois, began his work career as an English teacher in a near-north high school in Chicago. From there, he moved out of the classroom into a writing and editing position with the Board of Education in the Department of Government Funded Programs.

  After just one too many of those remarkable Chicago snowstorms, he moved to join friends in the more hospitable climate (“it’s a dry heat”) of Tucson. There he balanced a day job as a business manager in an office with a night job running a mail-order first-editions book business, neither of which brought him the enormous wealth he’d confidently anticipated when he moved to the Southwest. The advent of the internet brought an end, in different ways, to both of those positions, and he is now confronting the enemy by managing an online business which he runs from home.

  He has been in a 28-year relationship with another man, and the two of them were legally married in California in 2008 during the “window” between state-sanctioned legalization and voter-imposed de-legalization as a result of Prop 8. Just to be on the safe side, the two were again married in Arizona in 2014 once the U.S. Supreme Court declared marriage equality to be the law throughout the United States, enabling them to file a joint tax return.

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