“Yes, Charles. But, you know, honey, he wasn’t gay. He is a dear, dear man who had …” such a long pause “ … has your mother’s heart.”
“You must be kidding! Charles?” I say with such disbelief that I can tell it temporarily injures her. “Sorry,” my voice lowers. “I just always thought he was, in fact, gay.”
In a quiet, almost inaudible, voice, she continues: “He is such a good man. So generous and gentle.” I see her travel in time, eyes downward, inward. “He was the love of my life.”
Charles? I started riffling through my memory’s Rolodex of all the scenes where Charles is present. Coming over to the house. Bringing an envelope from the office. Sitting at the counter when I came home from school. Leaving suddenly. A Saturday when my mom got dropped off by Charles, saying my dad was staying longer at the work BBQ. Then I remember, as clear as if it were yesterday. My God! The day I walked in on them with lips locked. How could I have forgotten? How old was I? Five? Six? It all starts adding up. How could I have not seen it? Remembered it?
I sit there for a few moments engrossed in my own thoughts, “So what happened?”
“Not much. He wanted to marry me, but I wouldn’t leave your father.”
“Why?” my voice rising.
“Because it wasn’t right.”
“What wasn’t right?”
“Honey, please, don’t push me. You can’t understand. You have a career, your own home, but things were different for me. I didn’t want to take the chance of losing it all. I didn’t want to give up my home, my family, my life.”
I am exasperated. I move in my chair, lean into the table, “But you didn’t have to give anything up! You could have divorced Dad, married Charles. I would have understood.” How can I tell my mom that I would have been so much better off if I had known she was happy?
“Where is Charles now? What about after your divorce? Why didn’t you look for him? Do you still love him? Does he still love you?” I had a thousand more questions.
“I haven’t seen Charles since he got married. I remember your father got him a box of illegal Cuban cigars. He showed them to me so proud: Got these for Flamer Charles. Can you believe it, Phaedra? Who would have known? I still think the guy is gay, just a cover-up. But shit! What a beauty he got himself!”
“Was it a cover-up? I mean, not gay, but was he marrying her to get back at you?”
“No … and this is the hardest part,” she says while choking on her words.
“Mama, only if you want—” but of course I want her to finish.
“Charles finally left me. He said it was too hard, all the lies, all the hiding. You know, Thair, I loved … love him so much. That sort of love is permanent even if you can’t be with the person. It feels like yesterday when he told me that he would not see me anymore. No one has ever made me feel like he did. It’s unexplainable. Remember the story I used to tell you when you were a little girl about Zeus and how—”
“Yes, Mother, of course I remember.” It’s the single childhood story that has screwed me up for life. Always looking for that other half.
“Well, Thair, I think Charles was my perfect half. I found it and I let it get away,” her voice cracking as she speaks.
We stay like this, sitting at the table, a big uneaten turkey between us, cold bean casserole, with silence, her lugubrious love story hanging heavy in the air. Finally, I take her hand, and she continues, “I think once he decided to close his heart to mine, it allowed him to love again. I met his wife years later, an accidental encounter. She had no idea who I was, of course. She talked about him with such admiration; such intense love shone in her eyes when she talked about ‘her husband.’ She couldn’t have been pretending. I know Charles got the one thing I didn’t. He got to fall in love again.”
“Is he still married?
“Yes, with three kids and a new baby granddaughter.”
“So you still talk to him?”
“No,” a sudden sadness sweeps over her face. “Your father sends me his annual Christmas letter, and in it, he usually writes a few lines about all our old friends.”
My first thought is I don’t get these letters. My second response is shock. “You and Dad still communicate?”
“Well, not often. You father always liked to write. That was how he romanced me in the first place, with these long, seductive letters, at least one arriving weekly when we were apart, the months before our wedding.”
My father a writer? I didn’t know that about him. The truth was, I knew very little about him since he was never around, and I know even less now. He lives in Florida with a new wife and her two children. He visits about once a year, but our time together is always a bit awkward, a bit forced. He usually comes with his wife; they stay in a hotel, and while his wife shops or takes her boys to Disneyland, we have breakfast or lunch. I have never been open to meeting my stepbrothers; I’m not jealous or angry, just indifferent. But there are things I do care about. Oftentimes I want to ask about his bad behavior, his infidelities, but I just don’t know what it would solve. And it’s not like I hate him—well, not anymore. He’s sort of a non-entity. I guess since he was never present, his absence once more is not surprising.
I know popular psychology would blame my father—the lack of a solid male figure in my life—for my failed relationships, my desperate search for true love, but I don’t believe that crap. I have one solid parent who loves me unconditionally, more than most people in this world have, so when I hear of those sorry cases, people who blame all their problems on “not having my dad around,” I have little mercy. There’s a Greek proverb that says: to pedi then orfanevi apo patera, orfanevi apo mitera—“Children do not become orphans because they lack a father; they are orphans if they are without a mother.” As a modern thinker, I think the definition can be extended to one good parent—I don’t think gender really matters. What children need is love, love from at least one good mother or father or grandparent or adopted parent or guardian.
And I am lucky to have that one parent. And despite everything my father did, my mother never says one bad word about him. If she can be civil to him, then so can I.
“Mama. Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Just thanks. And I am really sorry about Charles.”
“Me, too.”
We go back to eating our cold Christmas Eve dinner.
14
South Coast Community College, California
April, 2001
“I am tired of your bullshit. The way women like you are so damn homophobic. I was going to drop the class without saying a thing to you, but, shit, I really liked you.” She says this to me after our class, in an empty room, while shaking her head back and forth, long peppered dreadlocks gathered at her nape with an elastic band.
“The first few essays, you really got me to think. The first fucking teacher who appreciated my writing. You even said my writing was brilliant, but I can’t stand to hear your damn homophobic opinions anymore.” I stand there speechless while this statuesque black woman rambles on. My first instinct is to call security, but I always liked Angela, trusted her commentary. She is a good student, probably in her early forties; a strong, articulate woman who does write brilliantly.
I keep looking into her eyes, not wavering; for some reason, despite the plethora of expletives, I am not nervous. She must have a reason to berate me so. But what was going on? I knew she became quiet once the section on gender studies began, so I thought the material may have been a bit too controversial for her. She wears a little gold cross around her neck, and when I taught this section of the class last semester, the religious fanatics in my class either shut down or became combative. Had I read her phlegmatic disposition incorrectly?
What is she saying to me? Homophobic? I am anything but homophobic. Has my Socratic questioning regarding these issues been misinterpreted? What have I said that makes her think I am against gay people? Was it when I pointed to students as they sat in the circ
le and said: “Okay, statistically speaking, you, you, you, you, you, not gay. You,” as I pointed straight at a muscular, white guy: “Gay.” Everyone in the class roared with laughter. I smiled, too. But wasn’t laughter the first step in discussing issues that make people uncomfortable? Then I continued, “You, you, you, you, you, not gay. You—gay.” This time it was a thin Filipina, a little less laughter. My point was that we don’t know who is gay. There may be more people who are gay, or others who see themselves somewhere else on the sexuality continuum rather than at one hundred percent heterosexual. You can’t just look at someone and say that the very masculine man or that the feminine woman you see is straight. One never knows. And it’s okay. My final point was supposed to be about compassion and acceptance, equality, but where had my little class experiment gone so wrong?
Angela continues to yell at me: “And you know what? I’m gonna tell you something. It’s not easy living in the world as a female. In that respect, you know what I am talking about. But being black is hard. And it’s a whole lot fucking harder to be black and a lesbian. So when you try to make a point and get the whole class laughing at gay people, I take great offense because you have no idea how it is!”
I have no idea? She’s right in one respect. I don’t know what it is like to be black, but gay? Or more accurately: not straight? I do know something. I’m a woman who has been dreaming about my one-day-woman-lover incessantly. It’s almost been a year, and I can’t get her face out of my mind. So when she says I have no idea, inside I’m screaming: no. You have no idea.
I have not told anyone about my experience—not Rick or Frank, not even Emily, my best friend of twenty years. It is my secret. But today I want to share it. I have to share it.
“Angela, please calm down.” Her shoulders lift, visually tighten, in response to my words. “Can we please go to the cafeteria and grab a cup of coffee and chat for a bit? Please.” I think she sees the desperation in my eyes, hears the weakness in my voice.
After she cools off a bit, her voice lowers to a normal decibel, “Okay, but I am still gonna drop your class.”
We walk without talking; once we sit down, I sense that she is curious as to what could possibly temper the situation. The blood moves through my veins, and I am actually relieved to finally share my story, knowing she will understand. At least I hope she will.
The details pour out. How I watched her for hours, for weeks, for months. How I finally went to her. I tell Angela that the woman and I made love. How it made me feel. Angela sits there speechless. Finally, she whispers, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Really.”
Then, without realizing it, I am crying. I got something off my chest that I have been carrying for so many months. It feels good to tell another human soul of my experience, about how confused I am. How I haven’t dated or even looked at another man or woman because I don’t know what I am. I feel like a fake. That’s why I have been talking about gender in class because on a purely academic level, I can separate myself while trying to learn. I went to Greece to figure out who I am and returned more confused than ever.
As we sit in the cafeteria, I tell Angela about James. I explain that I have always been a heterosexual woman, and my experience was not a reaction to weak or bad men in my life. Of that I am certain. And it wasn’t just exploration. I had opportunities in college to experiment if I had wanted, a cute, drunk girl saying: “Hey, let’s kiss to get that guy’s attention,” but I was never interested, never curious. What I experienced with that woman on the beach was so different. It felt like love. I tell Angela all my feelings as if she were my closest friend, forgetting that she is still my student. The poor woman sits there listening, not interrupting, only nodding her head, her body slanted into mine, making me feel like it’s okay to take so much of her time. Her gentle manner allows me to talk for what feels like hours.
Finally, she speaks, “Professor Wright, I ain’t no therapist or nothing but, honey, I don’t think you are gay. Of course, I would love to say you are because I have a lotta girlfriends that I am sure would like to get to know you, if you know what I mean”—I can’t help laughing—“but I think you are just confused. I think you may not be as straight as you thought you were, and yeah, maybe you could love a woman, but I think you just got a chance to experience something special. You got to love a person. Not because she was a woman necessarily. She could have been a man who came every day into that magical cove and disrobed in front of you. It could have been a man who sat there and entered your life. It could have been a man that you made love to. It just happened to be a woman. What you got was the chance to love a person from afar, then up close. And you got to understand what a lot of people on this earth never get to know, and that it doesn’t really matter. Man or woman. No preconceived stereotypes rammed down your throat. No society dictating what’s right and what’s wrong. Honey, you got to love. You didn’t see color, race, religion. Or even gender. It was visceral, instinctual, pure, natural. If only others were more open, then they would see that there are a helluva lot of people out there to love.”
As I sit and listen to this powerful woman, a sense of ease encompasses me. She is slowly nursing me back from the sexual dead. “Can I give you some advice?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“Don’t be afraid. Just let yourself go. You have to date again. You can’t sit home every weekend and watch old movies and just meet friends for coffee. That’s not living.”
That’s not living. That’s not living. That’s not living. I can’t get that phrase out of my mind. But what choice do I have? Start going to bars? Join a dating service? I hear there is this new thing that is happening, spreading like wildfire: online dating. But none of it is for me. I do have hobbies. I love to hike, travel, go to art shows, poetry readings, the theatre, but lately I haven’t met anyone. The truth is I haven’t been open to that stranger’s smile or the comment of, “So, what did you think of that piece?” I am closed, and it is time to open up. Maybe I will even start writing again.
Part II
Growth
15
Encinitas, California July, 2001
I’ve spent the last few weeks, after finishing the semester, rereading the two stories I wrote about Yiayia and Mama to help me decide where I could start mine. At eighteen years old, they were both at the threshold of marriage; at eighteen, I was still a child. Maybe they were, too, but times were different, and they had so few choices. Today it seems we have so many choices that we are juggling rather than achieving balance, and usually something, or someone, gets dropped.
Maybe others have felt the same confusion or emptiness when a partner walks away; maybe they have felt the pressure from our parents’ generation to get married, make babies. I’m hoping my stories can entertain, maybe even help, but, mostly, my desire to write has always been to understand. And just like Foucault stated, “I write precisely because I don’t know yet what to think about a subject that attracts my interest.” And understanding women—their choices, my choices—has always been important to me. I think what we are all looking for, ultimately, is a way to feel at home within our skin.
My odyssey has been a quest to answer this question: can we only feel complete in the arms of our soul mate or can we find this wholeness alone? Or is mere contentment with someone the solution for loneliness? Even with Circe and Calypso—gorgeous goddesses who tempt Odysseus and with whom he has extended affairs—he just wants to go home. He feels right and good only in the arms of Penelope; he is at peace only with her. These myths of love, these elusive Other Halves, have been my focus, but something strange has happened in the last year.
I genuinely feel at peace without anyone by my side. Sappho said that above “war, children, and family,” the most superior feeling on this “black earth … is what you love.” And from Oprah and Gloria, I learned that one must love—above all else—oneself. As corny as it sounds, I think it’s true: a love for oneself is the most difficult thing to a
chieve, yet the most important.
So as I sit here, contemplating words of Sappho, Steinem, Homer, and Foucault, I decide that I will write using a third-person perspective; calling myself “Thair,” instead of “I” will allow me to go deeper. And that’s ultimately the whole point: to uncover, peel back the layers, and make sense of my role in this world. Unlike Aristophanes, I can’t roam the streets of Plaka to discuss the importance of life and love with other writers, but I do have the privilege of time, so with a few months off from teaching, it’s time to finally commit my own story to paper.
Thair’s Story
Rancho Fierno
Late August, 2001
Standing at her mother’s entrance, Thair searched for the keys in her purse, found the one for the front door, and slipped it into the lock slowly, every action taking so much effort. As soon as she had the door open just a crack, a cold blast of air seized her neck and shoulders. It was about ninety-eight degrees here in suburbia; very little would have made her drive inland, except that her mother had called and sounded a bit desperate.
“Honey, do you think you could come over after your morning class to do me a small favor?” Thair’s mother was being a bit mysterious; maybe she had bought Thair something for her condo. She loved surprises, or maybe she had scheduled another chance meeting for her daughter. A few years ago, when she was still dating James, her mother had invited Thair over for dinner. A surprise sat in Phaedra’s living room: the surprise being a sixfoot man, her mother’s idea of Prince Charming. Phaedra said Rick just happened to stop by, a handsome man indeed, a real estate agent. A chatty man, he had asked Thair if she thought of selling her condo since it was probably worth a lot more since she had bought it. Then, they dove into conversations about sunlight versus artificial light. They had chemistry and the conversation flowed. He asked Thair if she liked Coke or margaritas with Mexican food, if she liked driving a sports utility vehicle, a sports car, or sedan. She told him she liked sunlight, Pepsi with fish tacos, and that she had a Jeep she was selling since she had just purchased a Miata. They laughed and shared stories. Thair’s mother had stayed in the kitchen and when she looked over at Thair, she smiled and mouthed: “I knew you would like him.”
The Greek Persuasion Page 9
