by James, David
“Gee, I feel like such a prude.”
“Don’t worry, dear, you still have a lot of time to try new things.”
I decided to come clean. After all, from what I had just learned from Regina, I’m sure my marital story paled in comparison to anything she had lived. “Well, yes, I moved here with my husband, Alex, and he decided to come out of the closet,” I confessed, then took a swig of my sidewinder, raising it in front of my eyes in a toast to Regina and the secrets we were about to share.
“Oh, honey, you talk like you’re the first one to marry a gay man. Judy Garland married one, and Liza’s still marrying ’em. Hell, I married one myself!” Regina boasted.
“You did?”
“Yep, third one. Franklin Garfield.”
“So let me guess . . . you had no idea when you married him.”
“Hell no,” Regina replied with utter certainty. “I married him because he was gay!”
My eyes narrowed as I sat forward in my chair. This was something I had to hear.
“And may I ask why?”
“The same reason you probably did. He was kind, caring, smart, knew how to dress, conduct himself, and he was dynamite in bed—the usual things a woman is looking for.”
I was astounded. “So you knew from day one?”
“Sweetie, he worked in the wardrobe department at RKO . . . with Travis Banton, for God’s sake.”
To most people, the name Travis Banton would’ve meant nothing. But since both Alex and I were big fans of the classic black-and-whites of Hollywood, we not only knew who Travis Banton was, but we could name the stars who insisted on his artistry to make them look fabulous on-screen. Take the outfit and gloves Marlene Dietrich wore in the escape sequence in Desire. Alex and I were the perfect couple: fag and fag hag.
But I wanted to get back to the matter at hand: Here was the first woman I had encountered since my divorce who had married a gay man. Purposely. I wanted to get to the big answer, the why, in an attempt to better understand why I did what I did.
“So, Regina, did you end up divorcing at some point?
“No, dear, he died six years into our marriage. A light fell on him and killed him during a run-through.”
“Regina, that’s terrible!”
“Yeah, well, I miss the son of a bitch. Best husband I ever had!”
“So you were married after that?”
“Three more times,” Regina said proudly. “I marry ’em and I bury ’em.”
(Regina had obviously discovered the secret of eternal life: Devour your mate after coupling. Not such a bad idea, really.)
“They all died?”
“Nearly all. One had a heart attack. One drove his car off a cliff.”
“Off a cliff?”
“Yeah, no big deal. He was a real Don Yawn.”
“Don’t you mean Don Juan? He cheated on you?”
“No. Yawn. He was a real dud in bed.”
“So another had a heat attack?”
“Yup.”
“Wow,” I uttered, “you put the Kennedys’ bad luck to shame—to have so many tragic incidences.”
“Incidences?” Regina huffed. “Sweetie, there was a lot of drinking in those days. Lots of people fell off barstools and died, drove off cliffs, or more ingloriously, drank themselves to death. Nowadays, the stars write books about it and make a million dollars. But back then, you didn’t talk about it—you just did it. Everyone was pretty much plastered a lot of the time.”
“So, Regina, can I ask you a personal question? I know we just met, but I have to ask this.”
“Shoot, sweetie.”
“So you never felt embarrassed about marrying a gay man?”
“No, never.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“And you never felt foolish, knowing that other people looked at you, knowing that your husband was gay, and yet here you were with this man, pretending to play the role of man and wife?”
“Nope. Now it’s my turn to ask you a question, Amanda.”
“Go ahead.”
“Did you ever feel embarrassed or foolish about being with this Alex?”
“Well, no . . . not really. I was in love with him.”
“Then why did you ask me those questions?” Regina said, smiling with an all-knowing smile.
“You know, Regina, that’s what I’d like to know.”
We continued to chat for some time about gay husbands, living in Palm Springs, and the general shortage of good, available men nowadays. I looked at my watch and realized that, unfortunately, I had to go and be responsible and work for a living.
“Me too,” Regina confided. “I’ve got a curtain call at six o’clock.”
“Curtain call?”
“I’m on the stage.”
I was confused. “I didn’t realize there was a stage in Palm Springs.”
“Oh, yes, dear. The Follies. You haven’t seen it?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never seen it.”
“It’s a musical/burlesque review. All the actors are over fifty-five. I’m seventy-six. Mamie is eighty-one. We tell jokes, we sing, we dance, we wear great costumes, we’ve got great sets. Here,” she said, getting up from her chair and then disappearing into her kitchen. She returned with two tickets, which she held out to me.
“Here, take ’em, come see the show. It’s a real hoot.”
“I’ve heard about it but have never been.”
“Well, good. Now you have no excuse for not going.”
Palm Springs surprised me again. It was like the desert around us. The average tourist looked out over the vast untamed desert and saw nothing but sand and dead things. But Palm Springs, and everything around it, was teeming with life . . . more than I had ever imagined.
Regina and I eventually parted, but as I negotiated the hazardous minefield that was my future front yard, I caught myself smiling. Regina, though she was a little odd, was the first person besides Alex with whom I had made a real connection. Oh sure, Alex and I met a lot of people in the year since we had become residents of Palm Springs, but I never really felt like I could confide in them. Or expect them to understand me. But Regina, she cut right to the chase when it came to my marriage and subsequent divorce. The real clincher was when she got me to confess that my time with Alex had been the best of my life. Actually, it wasn’t much of a confession—it was more of an acknowledgment.
“Then I am advising you never to forget that,” Regina said earlier, shaking a liver-spotted finger in my face. “Never forget.”
But I often did. Let me correct that: I usually did. Despite all the good things about myself and my life, I had trouble acknowledging them. I knew the culprits: My self-esteem had been short-circuited by my negative grandmother, mother, church, and a handful of baleful teachers who had obviously received their teaching degrees from Taliban bomb makers.
I managed to amble home under the slowly lifting haze of the sidewinder, stepping over nails, pieces of plywood, and dried buckets of drywall mud. I eventually found my phone again (which seemed to move from room to room under its own power) and put in a call to my stager, Ronald. Alex and I had used him several times to put some life into empty houses we had to sell; he was reasonable, and he could fill a place practically the next day. Since the house borrowed heavily from the mid-century modern Alexander houses that made Palm Springs so desirable in recent years, Ronald said the staging was a no-brainer. A George Nelson surfboard coffee table, a Saarinen tulip dining set, blah, blah, blah. I would let him in later this afternoon at Boulder Drive; then he’d take his measurements, draw his plans, and take his pictures. He would have the furniture in place by the end of tomorrow. Perfect. Things were going smoothly. I liked when things ran smoothly, when order was reigning, keeping everything in its proper place. I felt comforted, safe, and happy. Life was good.
CHAPTER 4
Never Wear Prada to Meet the Devil
The next day, Ronald arrived with a
trailer full of furniture, rugs, pictures, pottery, and all the accoutrements needed to help the decoratively challenged envision what a house could look like when it was filled with furnishings that actually coordinated with each other. Within three hours, 2666 Boulder Drive looked damn good, considering the walls were to remain the requisite slightly-off-white-but-not-too-much-to-offend-anyone eggshell. Once Ronald had left, I did a last-minute runaround of the place just to make sure everything was perfect for tomorrow’s agent caravan. On Wednesday, the agents of the Palm Springs Board of Realtors would arrive in droves by car or bus (yes, some firms actually had their own busses that ferried their agents from house to house) and would buzz through this house like locusts, grab flyers and anything complementary, then head off to the next location. My time slot was for 9 A.M. to 11:30 A.M., which was good. The agents would be fresh and not yet be sick of seeing another poorly decorated, overpriced house.
Satisfied, I checked the house once more, giving in to my anal-compulsive side, and tested each window latch and door lock, locked the front door, and left the key in the electronic Supra keybox so that any other agent who wanted to see the house before tomorrow morning could. All they had to do is enter their code, point their electronic key at the keybox, and voilà! The key would pop out, it would record that agent’s visit, and they could see the property any time of the day or night.
I drove home, then watched a documentary on Agatha Christie, followed by a program on the life cycle of dolphins. I slept that night with dreams of the Queen of Crime herself spouting blasts of air through a blowhole in the back of her neck while she clapped her flippers and demanded more kippers.
The next morning, I awoke, had a leisurely breakfast, showered, read the newspaper, dressed for success, and decided to get to my house 45 minutes early to spruce it up and get ready for its first showing. I got into my Land Cruiser, checked to see if I had my Supra key, briefcase, and trays of croissants, scones, and other breakfast goodies, and closed the door, slamming the door on my skirt. Damn. I opened the door to release my skirt, only to reveal a huge foot-long grease stain where the door had sunk its teeth into it. There wasn’t enough time to change. Maybe I could just turn it around backwards and stand behind a kitchen counter. Great. Just great. The only thing I needed now was for my car not to start, I thought to myself. I turned the key in the ignition. . .and nothing. I tried it again . . . and nothing. Once again. Nothing. I pumped the gas pedal a few times and waited, then tried the starter again. Nothing. Of all the fuckin’ days for my battery to die! And for Edwin to be out looking for countertops. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Thinking fast, I ran into the house, desperately trying to find the phone book. I flung open drawers, closets, tore at piles of clothes, and still no phone book. I called directory assistance and asked for the name of a cab company, jotted the phone number down, and called. The phone rang and rang while I nervously looked at the minutes tick away on my watch. A tired old voice finally answered the phone, sounding like the owner had a mouthful of sand.
“Yello.”
“Ah, I need a cab right away,” I pleaded.
“Where are you located, missy? What city?”
“Palm Springs. Central.”
“Can’t help you there, sweetie. We’re in La Quinta.”
I hung up. Now why the fuck would a company call itself the Coachella Valley Cab Company and only handle rides in La Quinta? I called back directory assistance and got the operator to give me three cab companies with the name Palm Springs in it. Calling around, I discovered that all the cabs were already reserved the day before by people needing to get to the airport first thing in the morning. They could pick me up in an hour, but I needed one right away.
I whipped out my cell phone and dialed Alex but got his voice mail. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn! I ran out to the street to look in Regina’s driveway to see if her ever-present powder blue American four-door land yacht was sitting there, ready to launch, but it was gone. Nowhere to be found.
I thought about taking a bus or hitching a ride, but decided against both courses of action. First, I didn’t even know where the nearest bus stop was or how often they ran, and second, there was a lot a surrounding desert to be buried in, so hitchhiking was out of the question. As I stood there in my cracked and stained concrete driveway, my eyes followed a particularly large fissure in the pavement into the garage where I spotted the solution to my problems: my fancy-pants road cycle. I figured that I could lock the heels of my pumps into the pedals (which only accepted a special racing shoe with clips) and I could be there in less than 15 minutes. Fuck the food. I threw my handbag over my shoulder, hopped on the bike, and began pedaling away, amazed and very self-satisfied at my resourcefulness. After six blocks, however, I heard a sickening crack and looked down to see the heel on my right shoe hanging by a small strip of leather like a fractured limb. I hit the brakes and came to an instant stop, forgetting that my left heel was still wedged in the pedal, causing me to topple over onto the side of the road. Fuck! Even though plenty of cars zipped by and could clearly see my predicament, not one of them stopped to lend me a hand. Not one. I sat there motionless, trying to reassess the situation in my mind, then attempted to get up, only to discover that my hair was tangled in a cholla cactus. I knew enough from hiking in the desert not to touch the cholla needles, since they stuck to just about anything that brushed up against it. Fingers, hair, clothes—anything. So I stood there on the side of the road, straddling my bike in a business suit, one and a half heels, with my hair securely wrapped around the limb of a cactus, wondering what to do next. “FUCK!” I screamed.
In times like these, the common person would panic. But since I had attended several outdoor survival training schools with Alex, I stopped, rested, assessed, and created a plan. Or was I supposed to stop, drop, and roll? First, I would try and untangle my hair from the cactus carefully, then use my comb to remove the fine needles that had lodged there. Easier said than done. There was so little distance between the cactus and my head, I couldn’t get back far enough to see which way to start unwinding my hair. I tried to unwind to the left, but met resistance after an inch, so I reversed my course and tried to unwind to the right. This wasn’t much better. Then a thought occurred to me—a horrid thought. I had a pair of scissors in my purse. This was the last thing I wanted to do, but even worse was the idea that if I didn’t free myself soon, my close quarters with the cholla could mean getting the needles in my eyes, so it looked like I was going to have to play hairdresser. Holding myself stiller than a mime with rigor mortis, I made small jumping motions with my shoulder, which caused my handbag to take small leaps down my arm until it could be reached with my left hand, which had far more freedom of movement than the right. I clicked the purse open, rummaged around inside until I managed to stab myself in my index finger with the sharp scissors. Another “FUCK!” Taking the scissors in my left hand, I moved the scissors from the base of my hair slowly outward until I could feel the sharp spines of the cactus, then cut, and repeated the procedure, and cut and repeated until I was free. The blood from my stabbed finger had undoubtedly seeped into my hair.
I got back onto the bike and did what any normal, warm-blooded woman would have done in the circumstances: I took out a compact and looked at my face and hair in the mirror. Then I did the only other logical thing: I cried. And cried. And cried. It wasn’t just the needles in my hair, face, and scalp; my running mascara; my dirty face and bloody hair that looked like it was styled by Stevie Wonder that made the tears come gushing out. It was everything. I was trying so hard to get over my divorce, the feeling of being so foolish, of trying to be independent and making a go of things myself and being a success, and now it seemed that everything was still blowing up in my face. There just was no letting up. The Fates were against me, and they were perfectly intent on kicking me while I was down.
I took one more look in the mirror and suddenly realized that there was now another face in the reflection that I hadn’t noticed
before. It was Amanda Thorne, who transformed herself into a successful real-estate agent in the tony city of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, bought a mid-century home designed by Brayton Thorne—Alex’s grandfather—a woman who bagged the most eligible bachelor (forgetting the gay part) in the office, who traveled to places on earth people in my hometown of Waterford only dreamed about, and moved clear across the country to Palm Springs and hit the ground running. The divorce, my cursed house, the car not starting—these were just temporary setbacks. I had survived these kinds of things before and I will survive them again. So I picked myself up, brushed myself off, got on my bike, and pedaled like a person who had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
The rest of my trip went off with no more accidents. When I arrived at the house, my worst fear was waiting there to face me: over 50 agents who were just arriving in busses and their own cars to see my listing. Some were starting to leave.
I hopped off my bike and tried to keep my head held high as I walked the bike to the front door, hobbling like a person born with two left feet. Scrape, clunk, scrape, clunk—I walked like Marie Antoinette to the guillotine. I felt that if I kept my dignity, the other Realtors would be amazed at how composed I was, despite the fact that I looked like I had just barely won a death match with a very pissed-off eagle.
I opened my purse to retrieve my Supra key, tossing away several twigs that had made their way into my bag. I calmly entered my personal identification number and pressed the Enter key, pointing the electronic key at the lockbox on the door. The box chirped a tiny chorus of beeps, and I heard the slide-out tray lock release and promptly plopped the key into my hand. Okay, fine, I could do this, I told myself. Once these people saw Ronald’s mastery of décor and the over-the-top luxury of the home, they would forget all about my appearance, and ooh and aah and be dazzled and race to pull out their cell phones to call their clients to make an immediate offer on 2666 Boulder Drive.
My vision was shattered when I opened the door to the house. Inside, it looked like Snoop Dogg and his entourage had stayed overnight in the place. Tables were overturned, one cracked in half, sofa cushions were scattered all over the floor, fabulous fifties highball glasses were smashed to bits everywhere you looked. This was not good. I pushed the door open slowly, and as it opened wider, the scene revealed even more damage, followed by what was clearly a dead man lying on the carpet, the uncomfortable-looking sprawl of his body telling the whole story.
