Say Cheese

by Michael P. Thomas

  Felix replied to this line by snapping a shot. When Shep blinked the flash out of his eyes, they posed again, all smiles, for another.

  “I love that movie!” Felix gushed.

  “I can play Lydia the Tattooed Lady on the piano,” Shep said, referencing Tracy’s little sister Dinah’s most triumphant scene.

  “You’ll have to show me some time,” Felix said with a sleepy grin. “That’s a line I haven’t heard before.”

  “Wow,” Shep said. “I’m impressed with myself. I wouldn’t have thought there could be a pickup line you hadn’t heard.”

  Felix laughed. “Right, cuz nobody’s ever dropped one on you before?”

  Shep shrugged. “What’s your favorite?”

  “I’m a traditionalist,” Felix said. “‘I’ve lost my phone number, can I have yours?’ ‘Shall I call you for breakfast or just nudge you?’”

  Shep laughed. “Nobody’s ever used that on you.”

  “Has so. Then he kicked me out in the morning without so much as a Pop Tart to go. I was like, Dude... nice follow through....”

  “No kidding. I mean, if you’re gonna use it....”

  “Right? You don’t have to buy me breakfast, Mister Starving Artist, I get it. But you could at least have some eggs in the fridge.”

  “A piece of toast...?”

  “Okay, confess—what’s the worst line that’s ever worked on you?”

  Shep lowered his eyes. “He was really fine, though....”

  “Uh huh. What’d he say?”

  “We’re at Pride, right? In Atlanta? Big ol’ country-lookin’ boy comes up to me, says, ‘You know what my shirt’s made of?’ I go, ‘What?’ He goes, ‘Boyfriend material.’”

  Felix laughed. “He musta been fine.”

  “You wanna know how fine he was?”

  “How fine was he?”

  “He wasn’t even wearing a shirt, and I let him get away with that line.”

  “What a pushover!”

  Shep laughed with a shrug: Guilty.

  Felix did a backbend over the bar, showcasing a slice of taut, tan tummy, and then straightened up in his seat with another bottle of bourbon. Shep held his finger toward the weighted bottom of his glass to indicate he only cared for a sip, smiled when Felix honored the request. Felix poured an inch over the two ice cubes in his own glass, and then raised it for a clink.

  “Let me ask you something, Sheppy.”

  Shep laughed. “Is it ‘May I call you Sheppy?’ Cuz the answer is ‘Heavens, no.’”

  Felix waved away this concern, leaned in close. “How come you’ve never told me I’m handsome?”

  Shep’s heart sank. He was funny, he had good taste in movies, even seemed to have a little bit of a sarcastic streak. And apparently he’s every bit as self-centered and insecure as every other wannabe L.A. dipshit. How disappointing.

  “I don’t know,” Shep said. “I guess I figured you must know by now. Doesn’t everybody tell you you’re handsome?”

  “All the time,” Felix said. “It’s all most people see when they look at me. Guys don’t care if I’m nice or I’m mean, if I’m smart or I’m stupid....”

  “It’s not all I see,” Shep said, surprised by this unexpected turn. He wasn’t begging for empty praise at all.

  “I know,” Felix said. “And I like it. Tell me, Sheppy—what do you see?”

  “I see... passion.”

  Felix raised a suggestive eyebrow. “Not yet you don’t.”

  Shep smiled. “Not that kind. You know—Passion. Life. I see you laugh, I see you sing. I see you dance across the room when your favorite song is on.”

  “So you are watching my ass!”

  “Hey, I said your looks aren’t all I see, I didn’t say I leave my eyes at home when I come into work.”

  Felix smiled. “You’re not so bad yourself. You wanna know what I see when I look at you, Sheppy?”

  Shep drained his drink and set his glass on the bar with a thunk. “Tell me.”

  Felix leaned in again, teetering on the edge of his stool. “I see the next man I’m gonna kiss.”

  “Talk about a line.”

  Talk about a kiss....

  THE RICKETY We’ll Take You There! Lines MD-80 smacked the Texas runway, bouncing along on taxi until Shep glanced out the window to see if perhaps they’d landed on a dirt road in error. Shortly, the flying bucket of bolts lurched to a halt at the gate, and Shep wasn’t surprised to see two women on their knees in the jet bridge kiss the ground as he hurried past.

  His pal at the ticket counter in New Orleans had given him a printed card with little more on it, as far as he could tell, than his name and the airport code L-A-X, and sent him on his way with instructions to roll up at the gate for the earliest Los Angeles departure he could find and hope for the best. He scanned the departure screens and spied an 11:15 flight. It was eleven o’clock now. If he was going to get on that plane, it would have to be close by. He was still too full of all-you-can-eat bacon to be running through airports, especially in his flip flops. Gate 52, the screen said. He looked around. He was standing at Gate 48. Hot dog!

  It was twenty after eleven by the time he finally tracked down Gate 52, just in time to see the carnival-colored airplane taxi out of sight.

  “But I wanted on that flight!” he cried.

  “Now you tell me,” cracked a wide-hipped, high-haired youth in a powder blue V-neck sweater lounging in a chair by the departure door. “It had seats on it, too. Where’ve you been?”

  “Running around this M.C. Escher airport hell looking for Gate 52!” Shep said. “We came in to Gate 48! How is that half an hour away from Gate 52?”

  Once he found Gate 50, two steps away from Gate 48, he’d turned in circles at the end of the concourse for five minutes in frustration. Where the hell was Gate 52? Surely this airline would have all of its gates gathered together. There was a sign overhead with an arrow for Gates 51-60, which he tentatively followed, but it seemed to be pointing backward—he passed Gate 48, Gate 46, Gate 44—surely he wasn’t supposed to hurry through a hall of down-counting 40s to find Gate 52?

  The Hall of Forties spit him into a white-tiled food court. It was filled with plastic tables, ringed with rows of leatherette loungers, and thronged with people in short shorts juggling pizza boxes, and takeaway coffee cups, and suitcases, and neck pillows, and paperback thrillers, but it was certainly a dead-end on the road to Gate 52. He had to ask a passing custodian as she rearranged the oversized trash bags in her oversized plastic wheelbarrow, and even when she pointed out the entrance to the Hall of Fifties, Shep asked her again, carefully enunciating, certain she’d misunderstood the nature of his inquiry.

  “It’s hard to see,” she said patiently, “don’t ask me why. See the Chinese place?” She pointed again.

  That he did see, and he told her as much.

  “Okay, and see the Subway?”

  “Right next to it?”

  “That’s how it looks from here. The concourse is right between them.”

  “Why isn’t Gate 50 by Gate 51?”

  She shrugged. “Why are the Kardashians famous? The world is a crazy place.”

  “Especially the Houston part of it.” Shep lit out with a quick over-the-shoulder, “Thanks!”

  “Yeah, it’s definitely annoying,” agreed the pear-shaped young agent currently ruling over the Gate 52 domain. “Especially when I have to work one flight over there, one flight over here, the next flight over there....” He levered himself up from his chair and lumbered toward the counter. “You can see I’m not a runner.” He had a helpful, if unhurried air, and Shep took care to dial down his frustration, intuiting the importance of an airline ally when trying to fly standby.

  Still, he had to ask: “I don’t suppose they’d come back for me.”

  “Are you Oprah?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Would they come back for Oprah?”

  The age
nt scoffed. “If I’m not gonna call it back for some hot guy, you think I’m gonna call it back for her?”

  Shep affected a shy face and looked down at his feet. “Aw, shucks.”

  “Oh,” the agent said. “I was just talking hypothetically. How embarrassing for you.” He winked, and Shep laughed.

  The agent sidled up to his computer. “Okay, for real,” he said, “what’s your story?”

  Shep spilled. “I’m trying to get home. I missed my flight in New Orleans this morning, the girl there said I should come here and go standby to L.A.”

  The agent—his airline employee badge identified him as ‘Carlos’—clacked at a few keys and scrutinized the screen in front of him. “Well,” he eventually said, “I wish she hadn’ta told you that. Flights to L.A. today look terrible for standbys. Noah had less demand for seats on the Ark.”

  “She said people miss flights all the time.”

  “Yeah, well, look at you,” Carlos quipped. “Two so far today and it’s not quite noon.”

  “Yeah, she kind of used me as an example, too. She said all I need is ‘one poor sap’ to miss his flight.”

  Carlos chuckled without taking his eyes off the computer screen. “Well, you might need a few more saps than that, but I’ll put you on the standby list for the next L.A. flight. It leaves in an hour and a half from Gate 54.”

  “And I’ll get on that one?”

  “Oh my, no. It’s way oversold. But you’re already here, so what the hell?”

  “But I’ll get on something...?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “Is that possible?”

  Kindly, gently, Carlos shook his head. No.

  When he didn’t get on the 12:55 p.m. flight, Shep wandered back to the food court. He debated between the sauce on cardstock that passes for airport pizza and the vinegar on spaghetti noodles that passes for airport Chinese before settling on two croutons atop a pile of lettuce masquerading as an eleven-dollar Caesar salad. When he didn’t get on the 3:20 p.m., he rustled up a giant coffee in a cardboard cup and slouched in a leatherette lounger to text Felix an update on his lack of progress.

  Felix sent back a sad-face emoticon almost immediately, and then a message: I was just about to leave for the airport, so excited to see you. I want to take you out tonight. We got plans! Are you showing enough leg? lol.

  Shortly, Felix messaged again—miss u wanna kiss u 143—and sent along another photo. Even sitting dejected in his airport corner, Shep couldn’t help but let out a laugh. By itself, the photo was nothing especially spectacular—any old arm’s-length selfie snap of two West Hollywood fags in tank tops making exaggerated Whoops faces. If you hadn’t been with them at the cafe that morning, you wouldn’t even have noticed the ambulance in the background....

  THE SEX had been straight-up fantastic. Okay, maybe not at first—Felix had been so eager, bless the little beaver, he shot his first load in Shep’s hand when Shep had just barely rolled the condom over his tip. But Felix was also an enthusiastic and hospitable receiver, and after some restorative foreplay, which included some foot worship that Shep was surprised to find arousing, Shep sunk in and enjoyed a long and scenic Felix-back ride that culminated in a veritable geyser of Goodwill Toward Man. Or, more accurately, of Goodwill All Over the particular whip-waisted, round-rumped, caramel-coated Man of whom he presently found himself sweating and panting on top.

  They slept like puppies in a basket. Snuggled in a corner of Felix’s bed, they stirred only occasionally, to pull the other closer, or to plant tiny kisses on the nearest bit of naked, until the sun’s triumph over the flimsy pull-down blinds insisted on its due recognition. Now Shep knew Felix’s morning breath, and Felix the extent of Shep’s spectacular dishwater bedhead. Felix had seen Shep’s alarmingly hairy ass, and Shep discovered that Felix wasn’t necessarily a grower or a shower. There was nothing left to do but stroll hand in hand down the street, plunk down for a couple of Ernestine’s bottomless mimosas, and make moon eyes at each other over two eggs and toast.

  Ernestine’s was always crowded. It was out of the question on Sundays—Shep sure wasn’t gonna stand around on the sidewalk for two hours waiting to be served a plate of Ore Ida hash browns he could just as easily cook up at home—but even on a Wednesday morning like this one, there was a bit of a wait for one of the good, back patio tables. Herself never a fan of the pre-rooster wake-up, Ernestine didn’t even turn her ‘Open’ sign until ten, content to make a killing off dudes in the up-all-night, sleep-all-day service industry. Waiters, bartenders, strippers—most of them gay, most of them with the same morning-after under-eye baggage behind their sunglasses, all of them loaded up with cash and hoping for a little hair of the dog. The food was basic, tasty, and cheap—for West Hollywood—and even though you were practically shoulder to spray-tanned-shoulder with the guys at the next table, everyone was too caught up in his own New Love or Bad Break-Up to give you anything but an appraising once-over followed by total privacy.

  “But you must have come to L.A. with a dream,” Felix insisted, gingerly testing, then quaffing, mimosa number three.

  “I guess,” Shep said. “But it pretty much came true last night.” He made a great show of batting his eyelashes over the top of his champagne flute.

  “Oh, brother.” Felix laughed, although his blush was genuine. “Waiter,” he jokingly called, “can I get some macaroni to go with this cheese over here?”

  “I’m serious,” Shep said around a laugh.

  “You are not,” Felix said. “Nobody just comes to L.A. cuz it’s where the dart landed. That’s how people end up in Albuquerque, maybe, or Madison, Wisconsin, but not Hollywood.”

  “Well, what about you?” Shep riposted. “You’re just randomly from here. It’s not like you came in on the Greyhound bus with stars in your eyes and your clothes in a grocery bag.”

  “That’s cuz God took one look at me and instantly recognized my box-office appeal, but knew I’d be scared to death to set foot on one of those busses. He saved me the trip is all.” Felix pulled a fraidy-cat face. “Yeesh, the Greyhound. Can you imagine? Remember that guy got his head chopped off?! No, the drive from Commerce was quite far enough, thank you.”

  “And have you done much acting?” Shep asked.

  Felix shrugged. “I mean, I haven’t been discovered yet, as you can see. Slinging plates for Raul isn’t just research for the role of a lifetime. Or even a role on Lifetime, for that matter. I’ve done some independent stuff, a couple webisodes, like that. Looks like I’m gonna have to be one of those guys who ‘pays his dues’. Annoyingly.”

  “But you go to auditions and all that?”

  “Sure. My agent’s pretty good. I trust her, anyway. She doesn’t waste my time, but she tries to get me out there. She’s pulled a couple guys up from commercials to sit-coms, and she’s practically in charge of finding grown-ups for the Disney Channel. Parents, teachers, the wacky neighbor—Shirleen reps almost all of them. She says I’ll hit, I just have to stay in shape and go where she sends me.”

  And so they talked about acting. They talked about television. They talked about movie stars of old, and about how many of them you’d see if you watched The Love Boat on DVD.

  “I mean, it wasn’t just Ted Knight and Charo on every episode,” Felix said. “I’m talking about Oscar winners. Olivia DeHavilland and Joan Fontaine, for Heaven’s sake! One day you’re in Gone With the Wind, the next you’re playing Captain Stubing’s Great Aunt Fanny? I wish they’d reboot that show. I’d have someplace to go when I’m yesterday’s news. I could find love with the lounge act, surprise them all: Grampa’s still got it!”

  Shep laughed. “Maybe you could spearhead a revival. It can’t be that hard. All you need is a stowaway, a jewel thief, and a case of mistaken identity for each episode.”

  “Sounds like you know your Love Boat,” Felix said admiringly. “Maybe that can be your Hollywood dream.”

  “Okay, you really want to know my Hollywood dream
?” Shep asked.

  “I do.”

  “More champagne, that’s my Hollywood dream.” He signaled their waiter, and just like that, it came true.

  They cracked each other up brainstorming through ever-more elaborate Love Boat plots:

  “Naturally, her father doesn’t approve because he’s not the right sort....”

  “What he doesn’t approve of is how short his shorts are....”

  “I see Raven-Symone as the former Broadway star whose agent books her on the cruise but forgets to tell her it’s unpaid.”

  “So she has to cocktail to pay her fare, and Isaac falls in love with her.”

  “This shit writes itself.”

  Eventually they fell quiet, although they continued to gaze, tittering, into each other’s eyes. Felix reached across the table and took Shep’s hand. “I had a great time last night, Sheppy.”

  “Me too,” Shep said with a laugh. He’d lost the battle where the sobriquet ‘Sheppy’ was concerned, although it had eventually been made clear to the rest of The Boyz (and Frieda) at the Clarion that it would only be tolerated when it issued from Felix, and then only with an unwavering eye roll.

  “I think I might kinda like you.”

  “Forget The New Love Boat,” Shep said. “Your true calling is obviously epic love poetry. Or at least romantic greeting cards.”

  “Don’t mock me when I’ve had mimosas,” Felix dramatically scolded. “We’re having a moment, here, jackass. I’m saying....” But he trailed off, saying nothing. Rather, he looked over Shep’s shoulder with something of a gobsmacked expression, riveted to an unfolding scene that Shep was eventually compelled to turn and take in. He, too, was aghast. Yes, the evident drama had unfolded behind his back, but even Shep found that excuse unconvincing, and certainly Felix had no excuse at all—the burly paramedic on the pushing end of the collapsible gurney was so close to Shep that he could have picked his pocket without extending his elbow.

  Heaven only knew what had happened, but it had happened mere feet away, and had apparently involved the calling of 911, and the storming-in of paramedics. Shep could only infer a certain amount of commotion, and crying-out, and running-around, as the gravity of Felix’s orbit had apparently pulled him right out of the world he’d previously known—they’d noticed nothing. Not anyone falling to the floor, not any approaching sirens, not even paramedics administering aid at Shep’s feet. By the time Felix’s flabbergasted gaze had drawn Shep’s attention, it was a done deal. The patron—Patient? Dead guy? There wasn’t a sheet over his face, at least—was on the gurney and being wheeled away. Felix’s mouth was still hanging open, and Shep was mortified. Sure, they’d had mimosas, but nobody was drunk. Were they that into each other? Shep could barely be bothered to send up a prayer for the man’s recovery. All his mind had room for was the thought, Somebody help me, I’m in love....