Beautiful People: My Family and Other Glamorous Varmints (29 page)

Thwap!

My Jonny slaps me on the bum, yanking me from my reverie. He kisses me good-bye and Rollerblades off to his clay commune.

So what if I’m forty-two! Life is great! We are happy!

A fourteen-year age difference is nothing as long as you are with the right person and you have the right attitude! May-December romances are not such a big deal: animals have them all the time, and so do celebs! Liz Taylor and Larry Fortensky! Anna Nicole Smith and whatever that guy’s name was. Krystle and Blake Carrington!

Like the Carringtons, Jonny and I adore each other, and that’s what counts.

I run to the window and drop a pair of his underwear four floors onto his departing head. He shakes his fist at me.

“I may not be young, but I’m definitely
young at heart
!” I yell and let forth a peal of theatrical laughter.

*  *  *

Two months later. Thanksgiving. It’s time to meet the folks. Panic.

Everything I have heard about Jonny’s family makes me slightly uneasy: They sound so alarmingly respectable. There are no loonies or lobotomies. Despite his bohemian trade, my Jonny is, or so it seems, just a nice upper-middle-class Jewish boy from a New Jersey farm town. His grandfathers were not hard-drinking bon viveurs, they were judges, both of them. These pillars of the community devoted their lives to reprimanding and sentencing the likes of me during my plaid-bondage years. Among all this upstanding citizenry, I can find only one tiny soupçon of scandal or intrigue: Jonny’s paternal nana and zadie were first cousins.

On this unsullied landscape, Jonny’s recent disclosure about his sexual orientation looms quite large. Though generally
supportive, the Adler family are, according to Jonny, still “coming to terms” with the fact that he is gay. Inbreeding = no problem. Gay = oy veh!

A new challenge is about to test their mettle, in the shape of moi. They are about to confront the reality that their youngest son not only is a friend of Dorothy’s but has fallen madly in love with a known homosexual d’un certain âge.

My panic about the Jersey trip increases. I am convinced that, at the very least, I will get arrested for trying to cross state lines with a twinkie.

What to do?

There is no time for a rejuvenating face-lift, or even a skin peel. I could tape up my face, but that would involve keeping a hat, or a wig, on all weekend.

Botox? In 1994 it was still being tested on gerbils. Maybe I could go to the Botox headquarters and tell the researchers that I am a gerbil and get me some.

Makeup? I want Jonny’s family to think Clint Eastwood, not Gary Glitter.

I take the only possible course of action open to me: Back-lighting! I decide to accept Jonny’s invitation but to remain softly lit for the entire weekend. This will obviously present myriad challenges, but hey, it worked for Blanche DuBois in
A Streetcar Named Desire,
and it would work for me.

Blanche deluded everyone about her age and her past by lurking in the shadows and refusing to go out until it was dark. It worked like a dream. Everything would have been fine if that nasty, common Mitch (Karl Malden) had not come along.

Mitch: I’ve never had a real good look at you, Blanche. Let’s turn the light on here. (
He tears the paper lantern off the lightbulb. She utters a frightened gasp.
)

If it hadn’t been for that prying Mitch, Mademoiselle DuBois would probably have made it all the way to the insane asylum without anyone guessing her age.

*  *  *

One chilly Friday night in late 1994, Jonny and I barrel into the Holland Tunnel. Maybe
barrel
is not quite the word. I have always been a bit of a slow driver. Once I was pulled over by a cop on the Hollywood Freeway and given a ticket for going thirty miles per hour. I was enjoying the view, what can I tell you?

While I drive, my Jonny tells me bloodcurdling stories about our destination, the southern New Jersey farm town of Bridgeton. His description makes Reading, my lackluster birthplace, seem like Monte Carlo. The Beautiful People have certainly never been to Bridgeton. The only Bridgetonian celebrity Jonny can cite is a flamboyant black cross-dresser, nicknamed Charlie Powderpuff. Charlie made headlines in the local paper after being beaten to death with two-by-fours in an alley.

Welcome to the lovely Garden State!

We pull up in front of a groovy modern home, circa 1968. My geriatric driving has served me well. Night has fallen. One point for Blanche!

Inside, Jonny’s family—parents, Cynthia and Harry, and brother and sister, David and Amy—are waiting in the ultra-mod family room. I dash into the fray and position myself in front of the TV. Confidently backlit by its powerful rays, I brace myself for introductions.

The greetings are warm, effusive, but brief. Everybody is preoccupied. It is clear that they had been awaiting our arrival with a certain amount of impatience.

Suddenly there is a mad dash to the kitchen, where many cruel, unforgiving fluorescent lights blaze. I peer cautiously round the corner. The entire family, including Jonny, is clustered around the kitchen table like a pack of dogs. They are shrieking at the tops of their lungs, and they appear to be feeding.

Every now and then a family member comes up for air. I see to my horror that they were all masticating large, pinkyred, pungent boiled crabs.

The specter of inbreeding looms over the repast.

“Blue crabs,” yells Jonny in an outdoor voice between mouthfuls of foul-smelling crabmeat. “It’s a South Jersey thing.”

I wonder if the shouting is a result of inbreeding, or is it, like the blue crabs, simply “a South Jersey thing.” And then I remember that Harry, Jonny’s dad, is deaf.

I’m starting to relax. Snarky, hilarious, warm, and welcoming, the Adlers have the makings of ideal in-laws. As an added bonus, Amy and Jonny’s mom, Cynthia, are vain and attractive. Blanche is beginning to feel quite at home.

Then everything goes all nasty.

The crab course is followed by a local delicacy: an enormous platter of deep-fried mishigas.
13

The subject of sleeping arrangements has come up. Harry jump-starts the mishigas by suggesting that I might like to sleep on the couch in the den.

I can see his point. My Jonny’s bed is quite narrow, and at the end of the day, my Jonny is also his Jonny, and he is protective of his Jonny. Harry is not about to relinquish his Jonny to the backlit, middle-aged stranger in the faux chinchilla sweater.

Jonny gets irate. He takes offense that I might not be permitted to sleep with him. Amy and David get to sleep with their boyfriends and girlfriends, et cetera. This is discrimination!

Feeling like the world’s biggest pervert, I shrivel further into the shadows. By this point I am identifying more with John Wayne Gacy than with Blanche DuBois. I scamper upstairs and hide in the bathroom.

Breathe!

I compose myself by taking inventory of Cynthia’s cosmetics. This proves to be a moderately effective mishigas antidote. As I contemplate her various applicators, I wonder how many sables have to die to make one of her oversize blusher brushes. Look at all these eye shadows! How often does she recolor her lids? Is blue eye shadow over, or so totally over that it’s just totally
back
? Ah, mascara! I’ve always been jealous that women got to wear mascara and men didn’t. Who wouldn’t want to wear a product called Ultra-Lash? And look how the packaging has changed over the years! It seems like only yesterday that Betty and her contemporaries were spitting into those adorable little cakes of black pigment and then attempting to apply it to their lashes with those horrid, clogged, little mini-toothbrushes.

Gradually, the cringing mishigas subsides. I find that I am left with a vague feeling of amusement and familiarity. I like
my new in-laws. I begin to suspect, with growing relief, that Jonny’s family might be just as insane as mine, if not more so.

I open the bathroom door and creep down the corridor toward Jonny’s room. Suddenly I hear a “psst!” It is Jonny’s sister, Amy. She beckons me toward her room.

“I want to show you my new dress,” she says breathily, sounding like, and resembling, Anne, the “Gillian Girl” from
Valley of the Dolls.

Perching on the corner of her bed, I relax and survey the scene. Though Amy is in her thirties and holding down a grueling and very grown-up job at a fancy New York law firm, her childhood bedroom still has an eerie, doll-strewn, prepubescent quality. It is about to get a lot more eerie.

With a ceremonial air, Miss Adler opens the doors to her closet.

She pulls out a nifty Dolce & Gabbana cocktail dress, the kind of thing Sophia Loren might have worn in one of her streets-of-Naples 1960s movies. I give it the thumbs-up, and we bond over our mutual love of a good frock.

I am just about to rejoin the mishigas festival downstairs when I notice a series of rectangular boxes nestling on the top shelf of her closet. These boxes are larger than a shirt box but smaller than an old-fashioned gown box. Intrigued, I ask about the contents. Amy smiles enthusiastically and grabs the nearest box. After much untying of ribbons and uncrunching of ancient tissue paper, she proudly holds up a dress. It is a tiny, summery Shirley Temple number with embroidered yellow flowers and a very full skirt. It’s about twice the size of an oven mitt.

“I wore it to kindergarten with matching yellow stockings. Every day I would twirl around and show the boys my underwear. I had many admirers.”

I am speechless. Being of diminutive stature, I am quite tempted to try it on myself.

Encouraged by my enthusiasm, Amy unfurls another frock and then another. Together we take a wistfully fascinating tour of her elaborate and meticulously maintained childhood wardrobe. Box after box is opened and then lovingly closed again. There are special occasion dresses in dark satins and pastel organdies. Day dresses are plaid or tweed or cotton gingham for summer.

As she shows me each frock, Amy recounts the occasion upon which it was worn, the picnics, the bar mitzvahs, the weddings and birthdays. It is a sentimental trip down memory lane, and one which seems to give Amy herself a surreal amount of dreamy pleasure.

I am feeling quite jealous, and just a tad resentful.

No wonder I can’t remember anything pleasant: I didn’t have the right frocks!

Whereas I can remember only the jarring occurrences—the flashers, the dentures, the pustules, the tarts, and the embarrassments—Amy seems joyously and effortlessly focused on all the magical Hallmark moments. None of the events she describes are particularly memorable. However, with the aid of her frocks, she has found a way to reconnect with the joy of each occasion.

“What a fabulous childhood you must have had,” I remark as I admire the fagoting on a purple linen number.

“Yes, it was perfect,” replied Amy, “utterly, utterly perfect.”

Jonny interrupts our tête-à-tête. He has resolved the issue of sleeping quarters and instructs me to follow him.

I skip down the hall toward his bedroom feeling totally at home. My new sister-in-law is not only gorgeous but completely cuckoo. In fact, Jonny’s entire family are every bit as deranged as mine, only they live in New Jersey, are slightly in-bred, and have Marimekko shades on every window. We have far more in common than I would have ever imagined. Though I have successfully managed to stay backlit for the entire evening, I am beginning to suspect that I might be wasting my time.

Jonny’s bedroom, like Amy’s, is frozen in time. It looks as if nothing has been moved since junior high school. Every surface seems to be covered in toy cars and Snoopys. I decide to go to sleep quickly, before I start to feel creepy and pervy again.

*  *  *

The next morning gets off to a good start. Over breakfast, I bond with Jonny’s brother, David, who has devoted a substantial amount of his late twenties and early thirties to researching the eating habits of the late, great Elvis Presley. He has befriended the cooks who fried squirrels for Elvis and the loving housekeepers who unwittingly clogged the Presley bowels and arteries with fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. Magnanimously, he agrees to share some of the recipes with me. I leap up to grab a pen and run smack dab into . . . Granny.

Jonny had previously warned me about the charismatic and combative Granny. She (age ninety) and Jonny’s mum,
Cynthia (age sixty), were recently asked to leave Saks Fifth Avenue after a mother-and-daughter shopping trip disintegrated into a nuclear explosion of mishigas.

Granny had not been part of the previous evening’s crab-munching reception. Having retired to her bed early, she was now fighting fit and ready for some action.

Granny fixes her unwavering gaze on me.

The house is so white and mod and stark, there is nowhere for me to hide.

Granny corners me in front of the toaster oven.

I am struck by her appearance. For a woman her age, she is exceptionally chic, impeccably accessorized, and amazingly well-coiffed. Or at least her wig is well-coiffed.

We stare into each other’s eyes.

The New Jersey sunlight pours in and illuminates our standoff, our respective outfits, and our ages.

I feel as if I’m in a movie.

I am Blanche.

Granny is playing the part of Mitch.

Maybe Granny originated the role of Mitch.

Her piercing gaze deconstructs my ensemble. Is that a look of disgust or envy? I can’t really tell. Maybe she has never seen a man wearing faux chinchilla. She seems displeased. Maybe Granny is a fur activist. Her eye is drawn to the ring which adorns my pinkie. It glints. Finally she focuses on the large fur hat which I have elected to wear indoors because it is, in fact, quite chilly.

Granny puts two and two together and comes up with Charlie Powderpuff.

Granny retreats to her room.

I lean nonchalantly on the toaster oven and attempt to conceal my cringing panic by exuding an aura of international savoir faire.

I half expect her to return to the kitchen swinging a two-by-four.

Granny remains in her room. Granny weeps audibly.