Keeping Options Open
Crawling out of the closet isn't easy. One wants to do it with a great amount of panache, which is hard to do when people react to your announcement by spit their wine spritzers out in your direction and shout, "Dear God in Heaven, I SLEPT with you, how can you be gay?!"
Then he looks at you and asks, "Did I...do it?"
"No, Vince. Sleeping with you could make almost anyone gay, but you didn't convince me that I...what metaphor would you like better? Putt from the green?"
He's staring at his fists, which've sunk knuckles-deep into the mashed-potatoes, "It was the ass-kissing angle, wasn't it? I looked at your kiester and the very POWER of my gaze on your buttocks turned you into a rug.."
I block his words out with another full glass of brandy, which is thrown down my throat in haste to be rid of the sound of his voice.
Middle-aged men are so difficult. Especially when you're dumping them for another woman.
"Vince, please don't make a scene. This is an extremely expensive resteraunt- getting spit on the silver is a sin here."
Vince's eyes are still locked on his mashed-potato-coated fists, "I am NOT making a scene," He insisted firmly. Then his face brightens, "Do you think she'd let me watch the next time you're...."
"The brandy is really good here," I interrupt him, pitching another glass of it down my throat. When you're used to slugging down boilermakers with six-foot men, holding your liquor becomes less of a problem.
He touches my hand and slops mashed potatoes all over the onyx ring she gave me last week. "You're a terrific woman, Trish," He tells me, his fingers slippery with butter, "I hope she makes you happy."
I smile, "She does."
His grin takes on a naughty, McMahony verve and I can see right through him. I withdraw my hand, "Not that way, Vince."
He returns to his veal scaloppini and I return to my chicken salad. Just when I think everything might be easier from now on, he lifts his head and utters for what I know is only his own benefit, "Why can't I pick a woman? I throw my money around, all for what? Nothing! The old witch dumps me and I turn this one into Ellen DeGeneris: The College years."
I smile at him, my voice comforting, "Vince, dear..you know you should just buy a pony."
***
I no longer fear burglers. Coming home to my apartment and finding the door unlocked, raggedy tank top and shorts pitched over one chair or another, and my Barry Manilow album being played at top volume isn't a shock anymore. I latch the door behind me and take off my trench coat, not surprised at seeing a quite-familiar figure wiggling her way through one of Barry's songs, stuffing her mouth with the contents of a Capt. Crunch box.
"Why don't we we live together whether love lives or dies..." She sings, her back to me, drawling out each syllable like a country singer, "at least we'll know we tried...we've both been burned before...but now we know this love is sure and there'll be no more sorrow..." She gestures with the tip of a wooden spoon held in her other hand like Celine Dion on an ego-trip.
"Aren't those my Scooby-Doo panties?" I ask her, surprising the life out of her. The Captain Crunch box skitters across the floor and she turns to face me.
"Don't scare a girl like that when she's lip-syching!" Molly cries, placing a hand to her chest, which is cloaked quite nicely in my Violent Femmes tee-shirt.
"Ey, you're the one eating my cereal in my kitchen in my underwear, Lover." I point out, fetching the pan and brush and, without a thought to the expensive designer outfit that covers my being, brushes up a pile of spilled sugar pops.
She frowns down at me, "I was gonna do that," She insisted, turning off a burner and withdrawing something from the oven, "Pizza? It's triangular and delicious!"
Molly's trying to quote the Simpsons again, and I can't even remember the episode she's referring to, "No thank you. Vince likes to feed a breakup instead of starving it." I dump the cereal and get up.
"Aww, how did it go.." Her expression is nervy and clearly embarrassed as she asks, "We still have jobs, right?"
I nodded, "It was all about him tonight," I laughed, "He thinks he made me gay."
She laughed, "Hah," She saunters up to me and wraps her arms around my neck, slowly, a sinuous gyration disguised as a plebeous mode of transportation, "I thought that was MY job."
I'm not going to explain to her that she didn't exactly spur me along on the path to discovery of my own sexual identity, but I decide to allow her ego the luxury of a lie. I press my lips to hers and we shift across the room to the tune of the music.
She stops kissing me and presses her face to my shoulder, smearing foundation across my jacket lapel. I don't mind, rocking her in my arms and allowing everything to simply flow away.
I'm listening to the words, the lyrics, and they spur me into saying, "Mol..how would you feel about moving in with me?"
Her eyes darken and instantly reflect a wariness that I've never seen before, "Here? What's wrong with my place?"
I frown, "Mol, you share your place with Spike."
"But it's a ranch house; it's huge, we have room for one more person."
I shook my head, "Mol..I just burned a bridge for you, why can't you do the same for me?"
Her face darkens; shit, I've said the wrong thing, "I like living with Spike. It's easier for two people to support a big place than for one to, you know."
"Easier to live with another person or easier to live with your ex-lover?"
Her button nose screws upwards, "I don't want to go through this again, Trish."
A resolution comes easily to mind, "What if you live with me part time? Keep some of your things here but stay there whenever you need to?" I'm quite desperate now.
She mulls over this option, then her eyes brighten, "I think that could work...I really think it could." She smiles brightly and drags me to the bedroom, "Come on, I want to show you something..."
"Your appendix scar?"
She rolls her eyes and shoves me onto the bed, "Oh, you!" She exclaims.
I only laugh as she pounces on me. I knew that shed've never agreed to stay here unless she could keep her place with Spike; her own sense of independence and security in case this...thing..we had going didn't work out.
A lady must keep her options open, after all.