The Art of Love

by Anne Whitney

  “That hula-hooping bitch started doing Bjork!” Derek yells with exasperation. “Bjork! At Legendary! And it wasn’t even the cute musical style song where she goes ‘Shhh’ a shit-ton; it was one of those artsy songs with like a keyboard and some animal noises or something. I don’t think they were real instruments; it might have just been cats. Anyway, so she’s got Bjork screeching like a human sacrifice, and then there are strings of cheap looking pearls being flung over her while she’s in the worst fitting body suit ever. And then she has the gall to call it art! What a pretentious bitch!”

  “She sounds very familiar,” Viridian says, holding back a laugh.

  “Why does it all have to be art?” Derek asks with his mouth half-full of noodles. “Can’t I just dress up, lip-sync to Kylie and fondle a totally willing participant without someone trying to tell me how it symbolizes my daddy issues or the human condition?”

  “Fuck Freud!” Viridian exclaims.

  “Yeah, fuck Freud!”

  Derek’s phone goes off in his jacket pocket to the tune of Cher (of course), and he quickly answers.

  “Hey, Mom,” he answers with a smile.

  I look at Viridian with surprise. After the quick but very revealing family conversation I had with Fitz earlier, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t even the least bit intrigued by the extended family drama. Derek stands in the corner as he takes his call and tries to keep a hushed tone, but he looks far happier to be talking to his mom than I imagine Fitz ever would. He laughs frequently and ends the call with, “I love you,” and a hello to his step-dad and little brother.

  “Sorry about that,” he says as he sits down again. “I forgot to call her last night, so she’s checking up on me.”

  “Mama’s boy,” Viridian says under her breath, earning her an elbow to the arm.

  “Do you get on well with your family?” I ask, too curious not to.

  Derek shrugs. “I talk a lot with Mom and my half-siblings, and I’ve no complaints with stepdad number two - mom deserves a nice guy for a change - but I haven’t talked to my dad since I came out.”

  “That didn’t go well?”

  He shrugs. “About as well as you would imagine. Typical homophobic, over-compensatory macho denial, a lot of mentions of the ‘F’ word, the whole ‘I never want to see you again’ spiel. Very dramatic.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? It was awful, of course it was, but my mom didn’t care one bit and that was all I cared about. It’s not like dad and I ever did the cheesy father-son bonding sessions anyway. For some reason, he wasn’t a fan of musicals.”

  “Tonight, Derek is playing the part of a flaming stereotype.” Viridian punctuates her statement with the clatter of cutlery against a plate as she finishes her meal.

  “I, Derek Hayes, acknowledge my state as a stereotypical gay man, and I work it!”

  As Viridian and Derek laugh, I think about this casual confession and feel the need to make my own. I need to be honest about something, for once.

  “When I was thirteen,” I start. “I found a pair of red shoes in a thrift shop. They were tattered and frayed, but I fell in love with them and decided I just had to have them. I paid my $2 for them and took them home, and then I decided I was going to decorate them. I’ve been making my own clothes since I was about nine, so this was nothing new to me. I didn’t have pretty shoes like everyone else at school. I had badly fitting boots that workmen wear.”

  “Marina,” Viridian says, her tone filled with caution. “You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”

  “It’s okay,” I insist. “I want to.”

  Derek takes my hand and squeezes it encouragingly.

  “Anyway,” I continue. “I dug out some old ribbons and felt, cut out all these little love hearts, then glued them to the shoes. Looking back, they were kind of ridiculous, but I adored them. I’d never had anything pretty like that.”

  I tear up a little at the memory of those shoes. Such a small part of a lifetime of hurt, but a moment that broke me in a way that I’d never experienced before.

  “I wore them one night while cooking dinner and he spotted them. He quietly asked me to take them off, looked at them, and then held them over the stove until they were ashes.”

  “Oh, honey,” Viridian says, her voice strained. The tears blur my vision, but don’t spill. Maybe, for once, I can control my emotions.

  “I cried, of course, but not as much as I used to. Crying too much never ended well. He looked me in the eye and told me that good girls didn’t wear shoes like that. Only girls who wanted trouble wore things like that, and they deserved whatever happened to them. I was a good girl and did what I was told. So I cleaned up the mess and served up dinner. I think that may have been the first moment that I realized what I lived with wasn’t quite normal.”

  Silence smothers the studio for a minute or so, interrupted only by my slurping of noodles. I wipe away the tears and finish my meal as Derek and Viridian struggle to find an appropriate response to what they’ve just heard. So many of my childhood memories have blurred together to form an indecipherable mess of constant gloom, but a few stick out painfully in my brain, impossible to forget. Those shoes, a memento of many hours of painstaking work and love, went up in flames as my dad remained so eerily calm, and it was his reaction that made me question the life we lead together.

  When he got truly angry, screaming and slamming his fists against any available surface, now that was something I could process. Why would anyone get so angry unless something awful had been done? If he got angry and there was nobody else around but me, then of course it must have been my fault. As a child, I understood how things worked because I knew nothing else. But when he was calm like that, I didn’t know what to do. I was sure he was angry, but he didn’t look it and I still felt responsible for whatever failures had happened. Anger meant loss of control, calm meant complete authority and deliberate cruelty.

  Do as you’re told, Marina. There’s a good girl.

  “Sorry,” I say, pushing aside my food, all appetite gone. “Talk about a conversation downer!”

  Derek stands up and hugs me from behind, rocking me back and forth comfortingly. Nobody says anything for a while. I don’t blame them. When Derek finally speaks up, it’s to change the conversation.

  “I need to get ready for the evening,” he declares. “It’s going to take a lot of work to take on Little Miss Hula-Art-Bitch. V, do you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  As Derek begins to strip in the middle of the studio, I wonder if casual nudity is a requirement for our circle of friends. I keep my eyes focused on a tub of some fragrant rice dish still left from our feast.

  “You bitch!” He suddenly yells.

  “I’m sorry?” I say, utterly confused, turning to see Derek down to his purple boxers and clutching an extravagant teal ballroom gown.

  “She’s resorted to sabotage now!” he screams. “Stupid bitch!”

  “We have got to expand your vocabulary, honey,” Viridian says, sighing, clearly used to this type of outburst. “Let me take a look.”

  Derek shows her a large slash up the back of the dress, clearly made with a pair of scissors. The sleeves are more torn shreds of fabric than anything else. What must have been a very striking and classy dress is now more suited to cleaning rags.

  “Jeez, this is a mess,” Viridian says, inspecting the garment. “Do you have anything else you can wear tonight?”

  “That’s not the point! Do you have any idea how much that cost me? I’m going to murder that bi...”

  “I can fix that,” I interject. The pair of them looks at me a little funny. I continue, “Really, I can.”

  “Sweetie, I appreciate the thought, but I’m not sure this thing is salvageable.”

  “Of course it is.” I take the dress and hold it up, assessing the damage. It’s a mess, but I’ve repaired and altered far worse. I had to for most of my adolescence since buying new clothes to acc
ommodate my growing frame was out of the question. “Just remove the sleeves, tighten up the skirt and reduce the length. Maybe make it backless, if that’s manageable.”

  Derek looks at me with suspicion. “Can you do it in an hour?”

  “If you’ve got a sewing machine, I think I can. I’d need to plan it out a little but it’s not a drastic job.”

  He thinks about it for a while and I wonder if I’m up for the job. Sewing and clothes making were a complete necessity throughout my life, one I originally resented but grew to love, and something I excelled at thanks to many long hours of practice. My grandmother’s creaking sewing machine provided me with some much needed solitary comforts during tough times.

  “Okay, Marina,” Derek says. “Go for it. Get out the sewing stuff, V. I’m going to get ready for everything else.”

  I begin to clear the table of plates and food to give myself some work space, happy to have a new challenge to focus on instead of being someone else’s project. New friends, new distractions and new happiness were things I could most certainly get used to.

  CHAPTER 20.

  Apparently, my tailoring of Zinnia’s show-stopping gown went down a storm, so much so that Derek picked me up after work the next day, bringing along a purse full of fabrics and sewing materials as a present. After a long day of waiting tables and clearing up after some over-eager lunchtime drinkers, his presence provided instant relief. My thoughts had been frequently plagued with images of a particular artist throughout the day, and the distraction it had created almost resulted in a few broken glasses. I could function without Fitz - I wasn’t completely helpless, after all - but trying to straighten out my own thoughts and feelings proved to be an entirely different and more complicated challenge.

  “I come bearing gifts!” Derek announces as he hugs me and kisses my cheeks loudly. “After your sartorial intervention last night, you are the talk of Legendary.”

  “I’m happy I could help, I guess,” I reply, patting down my hair. The bob may be fashionable but it’s impossible to tame without strict styling. Frizz stands up in the damn night air, ruining the illusion of perfection.

  Even I had been surprised by my sewing skills last night, tweaking, cutting and stitching together a sleek cocktail dress with ragged remnants. I could only have dreamt of making such glamorous pieces for myself when I had begun sewing for the first time, inspired by old pamphlets and guides I’d found in my grandmother’s attic after she’d died.

  Derek pulled it off far better than I ever could have, thanks to some ingenious padding and tucking (another new experience to add to my list - imagining the pain of taping and flattening all the man candy shocked me to bits). While Derek had begged for me to accompany him to his show so I could “rub it in that rough bitch’s face”, I still wasn’t in the mood for a big party and declined, expressing my preference for a quiet night. That didn’t stop him from calling us up at 3 in the morning, drunk as a skunk, to brag about how fabulous he had been.

  “I’m taking you out for dinner,” Derek says, looping his arm around mine.

  “You don’t have to do that. I was happy to help a friend out.”

  “That was a favor, darling. What I am proposing is a business deal.”

  Sushi confuses me.

  While Derek quickly orders a number of items without even looking at the menu, each with names I can’t pronounce, I struggle to pick something. Eventually, after the waiter’s impatience becomes obvious, Derek chooses my dinner for me, and I sheepishly apologize for the delay.

  The sushi itself is interesting, rolls of rice packed full of vibrant colors, strange mixtures wrapped in seaweed, and raw fish perfectly cut into equal portions. Eating raw fish takes some getting used to, and I’m not entirely sure if I like it or not. Still, I eat away as Derek regales me with tales of his drag days, focusing heavily on one of his many rivals, someone called Cassandra Clue.

  “She just walked into the room and expected to win right away,” he says, more in Zinnia mode than Derek mode. “Just because that bitch is famous, that doesn’t make her good. She’s been playing the same tired old tricks for years now, and they were all tired when she stole them from far more talented queens.”

  “Did nobody call her out on it?” I ask. I’m still not quite sure what he’s talking about - it’s all related to that drag queen reality show he was on and lost awhile back - but feel it is best to just nod and ask appropriate questions at regular intervals. He’s on a roll.

  “Of course we did, but she’s got some creepy rabid fans. Like, bunny boiler-level fans. Fatal Attraction-level and all that. But even those lapdogs are moving onto fresher meat. Who wants a comedy queen who recycles her own jokes, and they weren’t even her jokes to begin with?!”

  “A comedy queen? What’s that?”

  “Exactly like it sounds. I go more for glamour than comedy, but I was still funnier than that hack. I haven’t even talked about her shoes!” Derek flicks away his bangs, fallen from his perfectly coiffed bouffant in the passion of the moment. “It is so nice to have someone new to talk about this with. V and my darling brother kept threatening to have a court order taken out on me to prevent me from bitching about it.”

  “I don’t mind listening,” I admit. “It’s all so new to me and I’d love to know more.”

  “Well, today is your lucky day!” Derek pushes his plates aside and pulls out a notebook from his bag. He opens it up to reveal sketches of dresses and shoes, surrounded by fabric selections and scribbled notes. “So, I can’t sew. I can hot glue the shit out of things, but that’s not the same thing.”

  “Really?”

  He shakes his head. “Not a stitch. V used to do it for me, but she’s been pretty busy lately. I tend to buy custom pieces, but it isn’t cheap and I need more than expensive taste to keep up with the competition. That’s where you come in.”

  “Okay,” I say, still a little unsure as to where this is going.

  “I need someone to help me with my outfits. Tailoring, fixing, creating, that sort of thing. You can work wonders with a sewing machine and your talents are being wasted in Rachel’s cafe. I’ll buy all the materials and I’ll pay you for your time. Think about it, our combined talents could snatch a lot of wigs off a lot of heads.”

  “Why would we need to tear their wigs off? I don’t get it.”

  He seems amused by my bewilderment.

  “I’ll also throw in some drag education. What do you say? Up for it?”

  “Well...” I start, drawing out the syllable as I think about my decision. While it would be a lot of responsibility to keep Zinnia looking top-notch, I desperately need something to fill my time outside of work that doesn’t involve extended emotional strife. Anything that allows me to spend more time with Derek couldn’t be bad, either.

  “I’m up for it,” I say.

  “Excellent!” Derek claps excitedly like a seal. “You and me, baby, we’re going to own this. Ooh, I can’t wait to see the look on that faux-quirky hula fruit-loop once she sees what we’ve got in store. I swear, her face last night after I rocked it in your miracle work was priceless. Let’s see her brag about her NYU degree that daddy paid for now!”

  We sit for a moment, Derek relishing in the moment of realizing his plans falling into place, me giddy with the excitement that someone actually appreciates what I can do besides sit here and look pretty. My smile begins to fade and I take a bite of the sushi, letting the piece of salmon melt in my mouth. Raw fish tastes delicious and disgusting all at once - soft, cool, and slimy. I swallow slowly and watch Derek snort and laugh at some joke only he can hear, or some conquest he believes he is sure to make with my help.

  "Have you talked to Fitz recently?" I ask him.

  Derek seems caught off guard by my question. He looks up, chopsticks in hand, holding onto a little roll of seaweed and fish, and crinkles his nose.

  "He texted me to ask if I'd talked to you," Derek says. "But I didn't reply. He needs to take a break from all this,
and so do you. I mean, seriously, you've known my brother for a few weeks, tops. Sit down, think about things, and realize that lust does not equal love at first sight.”

  I shrug my shoulders and sink backward into the chair, thinking about the situation for a moment, and eventually realizing that he's right. Viridian was right. Everyone besides me is right, which is like a punch to the jaw that takes the air right out of me.

  “Do you believe in love at first sight?” I ask.

  He shakes his head and swallows a giant bite of sushi. “I believe in lust at first sight. You see some hot guy, all different and strange and new, and you're like, ‘Damn, I want myself a piece of that.’ Then you have the problem of having to get to know this person, which can't happen overnight. You have to sort out all the stupid issues, like how he hates things you love, how he wakes up at 6am and you don't get up until noon, how he doesn't drink and you're a complete lush. It's things like that, things that make a relationship hard, and you're never going to know that when you barely know the guy for a moment in the great scheme of things we call life.”

  “But-”

  “And let me say something about my brother,” Derek says, cutting me off. He puts his elbows on the table and leans forward. “I know Fitz better than almost anyone besides maybe Viridian. He's a strange creature, and what you know about him - the Fitz you know - is not the full Master Fitzroy experience. You've barely even cracked the surface of the giant Fitz Prison Camp beneath the tattoos and muscles.”

  I drop my eyebrows low in consternation, but simply nod in understanding. Derek goes back to eating and a slight silence overwhelms us against the backdrop of the lively, crowded sushi restaurant. A waitress refills our water before running off toward another table, the happy couple waving her over for the check.

  I watch the chaos around me - the bustle of lives, the slow breaths people take as they smile, the quiet concern on the chef's face as he carefully slices the fish. Everything is so beautiful and graceful, while my life is a giant, slow-to-unfold car crash that consumes everything before bursting into flames.