As the nervous newcomer I greet him first, shouting, “Hi George! How are you?”
“Well, I’m fatty-gay as always!” he yells back, giggling uproariously.
David cringes and says under his breath, “He’s been using that joke forever. He thinks it’s funny because it sounds like French for ‘fatigued.’”
I think it’s a great joke. Luckily George repeats it one more time in case I didn’t hear—“Je suis fatty-gay!”—and tightens his kimono around his big belly. He is the gayest grandpa I’ve ever seen and I love him. He not only loves the Royal Family but he knows them. Or rather, he’s met them, but he acts like he knows them.
“Does Jack know his grandpa is gay?” I whisper to David as we make our way up the steps to his house.
“Grandpa’s gay?” Jack says in mock surprise.
“Wait!” George scolds. “You passed right by the flowers. Go back and look at them.”
I do as I’m told and scurry back to see the poinsettias. “Gorgeous!” I say. “Just amazing!” But when I look up everyone has already gone into the house.
“I have to keep the door shut or my girls will get out,” George explains. He’s referring to his dogs. “Hello, Sweet-heart. You’re looking lovely.” He kisses me on the cheek, with one hand held to the side in case anyone wants to kiss his ring.
“Those poinsettias are gorgeous, George!” I gush.
“They weren’t cheap, let me tell you,” he says.
“Listen, I’m the only cheap thing that is going to be in this house!” I practically scream—just to show him how excited I am about having a campy Christmas. And to tell him that the best gift David could have gotten me is having a gay dad.
“Tell Lauren that she doesn’t have to be gay just because Grandpa is,” I hear Jack say to David as they walk into the living room.
Meanwhile, back at the follies, George is saying, “Sweet-heart, if the gardener comes around you’ll see the definition of cheap! He is truly N.O.K.D.!”
“Okay,” I bite. “What does N.O.K.D. stand for?”
He grabs my arm. “Not Our Kind, Dear!”
“I love it!” I yell, just like a drag queen. I’m clapping like I have fake nails on and flipping my wig around and pulling my penis back into my butt to make a vagina. I lean into him—so we can keep our sisterhood tight—“But you don’t mean he’s Mexican, do you?” I prepare to fling my head back and hoot, but George is silent. He does the polite thing and pretends I didn’t say anything.
He continues leading me through his castle and I follow, complimenting whatever my eyes land on. “I love that blue vase. Would you look at how you stacked those magazines! I love that, and I love that, and I really love that. Dammit, I love everything on that side of your face.” Soon George leaves me standing in the middle of the living room, alone with my “I love that” Tourette’s syndrome, so he can give David instructions for the meal.
During the thirteen years that David and Hannah were married she always cooked with him. They prepared all the meals for all the special occasions, working side by side and feeding thousands. It was their special thing. But I’m not kidding when I say that if someone handed me a red pepper and asked me to wash it I’d have to ask, “Is there anything special I should know before I do?”
Realizing that I’m not going to see David all day since he’ll be cooking like an indentured servant, I try to pull him aside for a minute. He asks me not to do so, explaining that he’s busy. So I’m forced to follow him around like a nervous little geisha, asking him if he’s doing okay and if there’s anything I could do to help and whether he’s mad at me. But the question I really want answered and finally ask is, “Are you guys going to have a moment to remember Hannah? Like a prayer/remembrance circle or anything?”
“I don’t know, Lauren,” David says. “Maybe. We didn’t make any big plans to. Why? Do you want us not to?”
“Yeah!” I say. “That’s right! I’m a monster! If I see you guys join hands I’m gonna scream, ‘STOP! STOP REMEMBERING HER!’ Geez! Come on!” All I wanted was some sort of heads-up. I don’t want to be getting high in the bathroom and next thing I know I’m being called to pass a candle.
Usually my insanity serves as a calming lullaby for David. When I start screaming and throwing books at my face he gets so relaxed he could curl up and nap. But right now he has to cook so instead he hugs me and says, “Have a glass of wine. Don’t worry. Everyone wants you here. Okay? I’m trying to cook for twelve people. Go talk to my dad.” Then he pushes me out of the kitchen.
“Oh, that’s nice,” I say. “Being pushed away from someone on Christmas. That’s a nice holiday feeling. That brings back a lot of great adopted memories of adopted Christmases.”
In the living room, George is holding up a ’60s family photo of a white plastic tree with nothing but big fluffy pink poofs all over it. “Gee, do you think they suspected anything?” he says and hoots with laughter. We continue the tour past the piano. “Look at this photo of David—isn’t he gorgeous? I have friends who grab this picture and say, ‘Oh my god, he’s gorgeous, who is he?’ And I say, ‘That’s my son. Isn’t he gorgeous?’ And they just can’t believe it.”
“That you have a son, or that he’s so gorgeous?” I ask.
“Both,” George answers.
I spot a picture of David’s ex-girlfriend—the one he dated right before me—on the mantel. She is holding Jack on her lap. Their faces are touching. The only time Jack’s and my face have touched was ... never. Suddenly I’m sure what George means is that his son is gorgeous and his grandson is gorgeous and Hannah was gorgeous and I am a troll.
“Come here, Lauren. I have to show you something else.”
We pass by Jack, who has turned on the TV and turned himself off. We whiz right by David, who is in the kitchen doing something culinary—I think they call it “chopping.” I find it show-offy, so I ignore him.
When we arrive at the pantry, George throws the door open dramatically and says, “I’m worried that we’re going to run out of paper towels. What do you think?” He gestures to a stack of about thirty rolls in the cupboard. I start to react, “Oh my—” and he pulls me over to the refrigerator. “Oh, David ...” he singsongs, still looking at me, “I’m worried that we’re not going to have enough olives.” He grabs the refrigerator door handle, then pauses—“What do you think?”—and flings open the door to reveal a giant vat of olives taking up a whole shelf. “And I do hope,” he says, hurrying over to the dining room door, “that everyone won’t mind having just a simple Christmas dinner.”
Once again he throws open a door, this time revealing a scene that looks like the roped-off section of a museum. Every setting has an ornate gold plate and bowl for every course. Even the salt has its own gold bowl. There are gold bowls to wash your fingers in. There might as well be little gold servant boys standing next to each chair to wipe our mouths.
My face hurts from maintaining an expression of awe and wonder for every big reveal, but I keep it up. “George, it’s unbelievable!” I say, beaming like Miss Alabama. I turn toward the wall, take a few deep breaths to relax my facial muscles, and then I plaster the huge “Oh my god! I love it!” smile back on, whip my head around, and continue.
I thought we had reached the grand finale, but he grabs my arm. “Oh, Lauren, you have to see this.” I’m whisked to the study and directed to admire a picture of him and Prince Andrew together. “We just love Prince Andrew,” he says. I assume he means the royal “we” but it turns out he means himself and his whippets.
David’s brother, sister-in-law, their two daughters, and a few other friends arrive, which means a whole new crop of people to compliment. “I like your shoes! I like your thick hair! I like your ... ability to let me like you!” I say.
The teenage daughters do the exact same thing Jack did when he came in—they pull their own plugs and shut off. The rest of the adults stand around catching up with each other, I guess since they haven’t had a chance t
o do that since the car ride together.
I feel like an outsider. But I’m supposed to be an insider. I’m here with my family. But it’s not my family. I feel guilty even using the word “family” because it might be considered an insult to the original family.
I attempt to keep clinging to Grandpa George, but I get the feeling he’s done with me. After we’ve whooped at all his best fabulous-gay-man lines together, we have to actually have a conversation. I start to tell him how my lesbian friend Karen is in Nigeria shooting a documentary, and he looks at me like I just used very bad manners—like mentioning the poor starving children to the Queen.
I decide to try hanging out with David again. I need my “What are you feeeeeling?” fix. I like to ask him this question every ten minutes or so, and the amazing thing about David is that he always answers—sincerely and for hours, if necessary.
I walk in at the exact moment that David is telling one of the attractive blonde family friends, “I’d have sex with you ... no problem,” in the form of him handing her a butter dish and actually saying, “Oh, thank you. It’s like you’re anticipating my every move.”
I continue right out the other door, making sure David sees me and knows that I’ve heard him make his indecent proposal. He runs after me and I turn around and wish him a Joyeux Noël by spitting, “Don’t touch me! I’m not kidding. Don’t fucking touch me.”
He grapples with me in the hallway, trying to kiss my cheek. “Lauren, I have to keep cooking!” he says. “Don’t be like this!”
“Be like what?” I yell. I pull away, almost knocking over a Ming vase in the process, and go join the other adults who are now talking in hushed tones in the dining room.
Someone is saying, “She was one of the most selfless and giving people I’ve ever known. Really.”
“Hey, are you guys talking about—” I almost say “me” but realizing the joke is not okay, I stop myself. Instead I lower my voice and say, “Hannah?”
They are.
Seeing an opening for family bonding, I continue. “You know, we have this mug that was Hannah’s that I refuse to use. David hands it to me sometimes, but I just can’t. It’s just so her—the style of it, the feel it. Plus I’m so paranoid I might break it. Oh my god, if I broke that mug. When I first moved in I wouldn’t even wash it.”
Thinking things are getting a little heavy, I change course. “Of course that was a while ago. Now I’m using it to pound nails in the wall!”
The group’s eyes turn in unison toward the room where Jack is watching TV.
“Let’s keep our voices down,” George says.
I want to leave—just walk home. Maybe walk all the way home to Indianapolis, to see my mom and dad and have a real Christmas. One where we eat cream cheese stuffed into cream cheese. Where we sit and watch the cats pee on the Christmas tree. My sister will scream at her son, “STOP HITTING YOURSELF!” and my other sister will fight with me about putting her eight-year-old on Prozac. They will get angry at my big-city, liberal ways and I will refuse to eat salami. Then Mom will get a migraine, and Dad will apologize for loving his new grandson—the one who is hitting himself—more than he ever loved us. And we will forgive him because he’s sweet and old now. And, of course, because it’s Christmas.
But I’m here. What am I doing here? David and I are a mess. We’re not even alike. He’s so domestic—I’m a barfly compared to him. He and Hannah had a mature relationship, a marriage, a son. I had a marriage once too, but it was mostly my husband and me hanging out in bars. I can’t start all over again with a family that has had so much pain. It will always be heavy and sad and dreary and serious and ... and then I see the teenage girls sitting on the couch. My potential future step-nieces. I’m so happy to see girls. Girls like to talk and complain. And laugh. And judge. My people.
Both of them are beautiful and young and tough. Their faces are totally impassive—completely stoic and bored. But just because we’ll probably never be actual step-relatives doesn’t mean I can’t reach out.
“Hey, what’s going on with you guys?” I ask.
“Okay,” Lizzie says. “I want to go down to the basement to look at Grandpa’s record collection, but Allison is freaked out by basements.”
“Why are you freaked out by basements?” I ask. Which launches Allison into a monologue.
She stares vaguely toward the window the entire time she’s talking, as if she’s gone blind. “Okay. A good friend of a friend of mine—and this story really is true—okay? Well, she was with her babysitter and they were in the basement. They wanted to play this game—like a board game—but there was this clown statue in the way.”
I interrupt. “A clown statue?”
She continues, looking a bit confused by my confusion. “Yeah. A clown statue. So the babysitter called the parents and was like, ‘Hey, it’s the babysitter—we want to play this game but the clown statue is in the way. Is it okay if we move it?’”
I try to interrupt again, but I can’t get my words out because I’m laughing. Allison stares at the wall like an irritated blind teenager and waits for me to stop laughing before she continues.
“Anyway, she said, ‘Is it okay if we move it?’ and the parents were like, ‘Clown statue?!? What clown statue?!? GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!’ Okay? So it turned out that this homeless midget was living in their basement and he dressed up like a clown so the kids wouldn’t be scared. The kids would come up from the basement and be like, ‘We were playing with the clown,’ and the parents would say, ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ because they thought it was just like an imaginary friend. And whenever an adult would walk by, he’d just freeze—like a statue. That’s why I hate basements.”
By this point I am laughing so hard I can’t physically laugh hard enough. I stand up and walk around to get some oxygen. The teenagers are staring at me like I’m crazy—like they have no idea why I’m laughing, like I’m sick for laughing at the tragic story. Which makes me laugh harder.
“What is so funny?” Lizzie asks. “Why are you laughing? It’s true!” She’s clearly insulted by my lack of sympathy for what her friend’s family went through.
Before I can answer, dinner is served. Giddy from the joy that the cousins brought me, I enjoy every bite of the feast served on the Queen’s golden dishes.
David is thrilled that I am no longer having an anxiety attack and also that the ham is both salty and appropriately sweet. Gay Grandpa George is thrilled that his son is not only gorgeous but helped him save money on catering. And Jack is thrilled to tell his cousins about a friend who had his stomach pumped after getting food poisoning at the Olive Garden from the eight different kinds of sperm that were discovered in the Alfredo sauce.
Much to the relief of all the cousins present, there were no cream-based sauces on our Christmas table.
As soon as we get in the car I tell David and Jack the clown story, which they eat up like George’s gourmet fruitcake (which was thankfully nothing like a fruitcake but more like a rum cake and awfully good). Initially Jack is insulted that we are laughing at his cousins’ painful story—he doesn’t get why it’s so funny. But eventually, after I retell it five or six times, he gets it and he starts giggling so much he even forgets to demand that we put the Wu-Tang Clan back on.
We laugh at the idea of the children coming up from the basement telling their parents that they were “playing with the little clown down below,” and at the probability of a babysitter checking in with parents before moving a clown statue. We dissect the premise that a homeless little person living in a basement would decide to dress like a clown to appear more like a harmless statue. (Whatever his survival dictated, we decide.) We discuss the issue of why midgets, or “little people,” are still used as punch lines and how we all hate that cliché, but that somehow, in this case, well, it works.
So at long last I have a cherished Christmas tradition—a precious gift that keeps on giving well beyond the actual holiday:
Jack says, “Clown statue,” an
d David says, “What clown statue?” And I scream, “GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!!” Then we do it again until the laughter dies down and I start worrying about where we’ll spend Easter.
ABROAD
At some point during the seventh grade I realized my dream of a modeling career was never going to materialize. Models—even plus-sized ones—are required to have a certain grace and relaxed ease shining from their symmetrically pleasing facial features. While my eyes were both the same size, they always seemed uneasy, harboring a perpetual look of, “What the hell is happening?” I couldn’t help it—the shock of dealing with other people always registered on my face.
When I first saw the painting The Scream, I’d wondered if Edvard Munch had gone to my high school in Indianapolis.
The only other kids who shared this look of permanent bewilderment were the foreign-exchange students. Of course their excuse was that they didn’t speak the language, but I related to their confused expressions, which seemed to ask, “What am I doing here and what is wrong with these people?”
Though I enjoyed a rich dating life with my fellow Hoosiers—dating the first gay soprano in the history of our high school’s show choir, as well as other accomplished closeted homosexuals—I decided to reject all suitors of Midwestern descent.
Instead, I loved every scruffy Lars and pale, frail Henri who came through our school. Dipping their strange brown crackers into Oma’s rabbit-bladder soup from ye olde country, they were like magical beings from a magical land called “anywhere but here.” They might be butt ugly, with badly cut bangs, but I didn’t care. I loved them all.
My fantasy was that in another country a heartier gal like myself would be more appreciated—not just for her fortitude to withstand famine but for her strong thighs, which could help clear the stumps from the field when it was time for planting. In case the Clydesdale needed a break.
A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body Page 11
