My Best Man (31 page)

Amity’s eyes flash at the thought of having a house in Highland Park.

“Bonbons?” I ask incredulously. Then I push past them both and sail out of the house.

Nicolo’s mother comes to the door, stands behind the screen,

doesn’t ask me in. “Qu quiere us ted sea or she asks formally. “Nicolo,” I say. “I want Nicolo.”

“No de sea hablar conus ted she tells me.

“I have to explain,” I tell her. “Please.”

“Estd muy enojado,” she warns.

“I know he’s angry. And I know he doesn’t want to talk to me. But I can explain. Please tell him I need to talk to him.”

“Wait on the porch,” she says, converting to English. “He is showering himself. I’ll tell him.”

She closes the door and I sit down on the concrete steps, shaded by the large oak tree that rises from the lawn. The afternoon heat is just hitting its stride, and locusts are buzzing in drones. What am I going to say? I’d need a whole afternoon and a bottle of tequila to explain it all. I doubt he’ll give me but a couple of minutes to lay it out. I try to collect my thoughts, but it’s like trying to round up a swarm of flies.

Fifteen minutes pass, maybe twenty. I scour the trees, search for signs of the locusts in concert. And pan the sky, decide which clouds are friendly, which I would avoid. And watch the heat waves rise from the paved street until they dissipate into the atmosphere or scatter by the force of a passing car. And study the gait of the occasional pedestrian, determine his life circumstances by the way he walks. Guess the contents of his shopping bags or why he chose that particular breed of dog on the leash. I watch well, fed robins land on the shaded areas of the neighboring lawn and turn their heads sideways until they see movement in the earth and dive into the soil with their beaks and miraculously pull out a worm. And I watch the sun move in the sky, slowly, rearranging the lawn’s shadows ever so slightly, but enough that I notice. An hour has passed, maybe more. He’s not coming out. I knock again. No one answers. I leave.

When I return home, Amity and my mother are gone. I take the longest shower of my life because I don’t know what I’m going to do when the shower ends. I hate washing the smell of horse off my body. It is so connected with my happiness in the past and in the present. It’s depressing to watch the suds slide the memory

off my body and whisk it down the drain. I wash my hair several times, until my fingers eventually look like shriveled potato skins. I turn the shower off and reach for the towel.

After shaving and dressing, I pick up the phone, call Nicolo. There’s no answer. No person, no machine. Nothing but endless unanswered ringing. I’m starving, so I drag myself to the kitchen and lift the lid on the chicken and noodles that are simmering on the stove. They smell heavenly. As I take down a bowl from the cupboard, I see a peach pie cooling on the windowsill, and the leftover flour remnants on the counter make me almost forfeit the noodles and go straight for the homemade pie. God, she’s thought of it all, hasn’t she? Dressed in that gingham apron, her hair pulled demurely back from her face with a yellow ribbon, she looked like some housewife from the 1950’s. As if she was born to cook and clean and give friendly advice to her family. I’ll bet my mother ate it up, just as she will the pie.

I scarf down the chicken and noodles, which are wonderful, and wash them down with the sun tea Amity brewed on the back porch. Then I take the pie down from the sill and cut a piece. I eat it. Then another. And when I’m through, I wash my plate and stick it in the dish rack, open the cupboard under the sink to access the trash, and reach in to throw my paper napkin away. Newspaper is sitting in the wastebasket almost to the top, which is strange because I emptied the trash this morning before heading out with Nicolo. I push down on it to make room, and something below it collapses with a crunch. I’m curious, so I lift up the papers to find the box the pie came in. Ha! She went to a bakery and bought a pie, then heated it until it was warm before my mother arrived. She even sprinkled the counter with a slight amount of flour and strategically placed the rolling pin to the side.

I dig farther, under the bakery box and find the container from Goldman’s Deli the container that held the chicken and noodles before she dumped them into the pot on the stove.

In other words, I’ve been eating a crock of shit. I can’t help but laugh, though it’s a bitter laugh at best. No one can serve it up like Amity, with such panache, style, and sincerity. The apron, the hair ribbon, the little bit of flour on the tip of her nose—which was probably cocaine. Amity is the most gracious manipulator. She slings as much shit as Winston, but she does it in a way that makes the recipient enjoy it. My contemptible lying brother should take lessons from my congenial lying girlfriend he’d make swifter progress and ruin everyone’s lives more pleasantly.

How smart of Amity to innocently thwart the possible consequences of my corazrn being offered to Nicolo—a man who would desire my heart in full, not some package plan with triple occupancy and meal ticket included.

Now Nicolo has no interest in my heart, and why should he? I deceived him, let him think he was the only one for me, while all along I was engaged to be married to someone else. And why wouldn’t Amity protect herself from me? I deceived her as well, telling her I love her and offering her a future, while freely leaving my heart open to attach itself to Nicolo. I’m a failure as a gay man and as a straight one.

I’ve got to get out of here. I grab my gym gear and head out to work off the decoy food.

At the gym, I hoist the weights as if they are Styrofoam, my anger providing me with greater strength than I’ve ever known. I heave them up and down, blowing out all my rage, then slam them down on the floor. And it doesn’t go unnoticed by me that the weights on the bar can take all the slamming and dropping I can offer, but remain solid and unchanged. And I realize I’m going to have to get nimble if I’m going to outsmart Amity, Winston, Nicolo, and myself.

By the end of my workout, I’m completely drained. I shower, once again lingering under the hot stream of water, unable to formulate a plan, but aware that I need one. The guy next to me in the

would. When I look at him he remains absolutely still, his eyes not flinching, challenging me to make the next move. I do. I turn the water off and leave. I’m determined to get Nicolo back.

At home, I fall on my bed. A heavy sleep. Dead sleep with no dreams. The kind that feels as if it was induced by drugs. And when I wake, I hear the voices of Amity and my mother, and I know the nightmare has begun again. I drag myself to the edge of the bed and try to summon the energy to stand. “Yoo-hoof” Amity calls. How the hell could I be attracted to someone who actually yells yoo-hoo? I’m angry that she’s hoodwinked me and my family, so angry I want to shoot her, but the headlines would be too humiliating: GAY FLIGHT ATTENDANT SHOOTS GOLD-DIGGING FIANCIE-ALSO FLIGHT ATTENDANT. I push off the bed, walk to the milT or on the back of my closed door, and peer into it. There are pillowcase marks on my face that look like scars how perfect. Winston slices me up, Amity covers the gashes with powder, and my mother waits in the background with my account at Merrill-Lynch. And Nicolo is nowhere to be found.

I open the door, walk into the living room, and find Amity and my mother in matching outfits. Black stirrup pants, black little flat shoes, shortsleeved white cotton blouses with red polka dots, and matching small black leather purses on long shoulder straps. My mother is even wearing her hair down, which I’ve never seen her do in her life.

When she sees me, Amity commands, “Come on, Susan. Hit it!”

They put their arms over each other’s shoulders to form a little kick line and sing while doing kicks:

We walk alike, we talk alike,

we even shop for clothes alike. What a wild duet!

We are Petries.

Laura Petries in our pants!

Mary Tyler Moore would sue. So would Patty Duke. Amity and my mother break from each other and laugh. They’re both acting as if the whole scene with Nicolo didn’t happen. No wonder my mother finds Amity to be such a great chum: They’re two positive peas in a pod of denial.

The ladies who lunch are surrounded by shopping bags and boxes. On the fireplace mantel are two glasses of wine. Amity keeps sniffling, and I suspect she’s been excusing herself to the ladies’ room throughout the day and snorting little spoonfuls of coke, unbeknown to my mother. I don’t know how she’s obtained it. I haven’t been giving her cash, and she blows her paycheck long before she sees any cash out of it. “The valet thought we were sisters,” my mother giggles. “He must have been drinking,” she adds, her hand to her throat.

You must have been drinking, I want to tell her. Instead, I say, “I don’t blame him you two do look like sisters. What did you buy?” I’m friendly, interested, eager to see the spoils. I can tell Amity doesn’t trust it, but my mother is thrilled to model the spoils.

Amity joins with my mother to show off the skirts, blouses, cocktail dresses, and two Bob Mackie beaded gowns off the rack. “I know it’s over-the-top,” my mother says, “but hell, why should those gals in Hollywood get all the good stuff? And guess what? We have something to wear them to: your engagement party in Wichita, which is next month at the Oilmen’s Club downtown! We’ve booked a Saturday evening the first time they’ve allowed a private party to reserve the entire place on a weekend in the entire history of the club!”

Amity winks at me, like isn’t she adorable? She takes her wine off the mantel and starts to take a sip. I walk over and take the

glass from her hand. She smiles, but looks uncertain, wondering what comes next. I smile a huge mouthful of teeth, take a lusty swallow of her wine, and say, “Bravo, Mother! Amity and I are so lucky to have you!” I put my arm around Amity and kiss her on the cheek. And I look her in the eyes and wink back let her know we’re in this game together. She searches my gaze to see if the wedding is on and everything is going forward. I nod, and she nods in return. I realize how comfortable she is when playing a role. I decide the timing is good to continue. “I know you don’t want to dwell on this, so I’ll make it brief.” I hand Amity her wine and walk steadily to the middle of the room, where I formally address the two women. “It’s over between Nicolo and me. He wanted nothing to do with me. never to see me again. And though I admit I was wounded, I realized that he was actually saving my life. Saving it for Amity and the future for which we’re intended. This is the only time I’ll bring it up. I just want you to know I’m headed on the right course now, and none of us has to worry that I’ll deviate again.” I have to choke the word out for my mother’s benefit, but I do it.

My mother, tears in her drunken eyes, raises her wineglass. I approach Amity, hold my hand upon hers, and raise our glass together. “Salud!”

ver the next few weeks, Amity goes back and forth to her i wedding gown fittings on her Vespa scooter, the one my mother had imported for her. Every time Amity steps into her stirrup pants, ties a scarf on her head, slips on her Ray Bans, and whirrs off on that scooter, I want to get into my car and run her down. She sabotaged my relationship with Nicolo, and now she’s playing me perfectly by encouraging me to patch it up with him and offering her complicity if I want to secretly see him, she won’t tell my mother. She assures me she never told my mother anything other than that I have a friend named Nicolo. She reminds me that Susan had been calling us repeatedly and that I had been avoiding her calls, true. And when she resorted to calling Amity’s number in order to find me, Amity told her I was out with my friend Nicolo. That’s all.

I can just imagine how she’d put it. “He probably hasn’t had time to call you, Susan, because he spends all his time with Nicolo.” Followed by a heavy sigh. And that’s all it would take to start an investigation by my mother.

The night after I waited for him on his porch, I went to see him at the restaurant and followed him from table to table. “Nicolo,

listen to me please!” I begged on his heels, publicly humiliating myself.

“Congratulations,” he told me, serving a man his steak.

“Thanks,” the gentleman said, not knowing what he was being congratulated for. “But you forgot my baked potato.”

“He’s talking to me,” I explained to the steak eater, “but he doesn’t really mean it.”

“How is everything here?” Nicolo asked, rushing over to another table.

Before anyone could comment on their food I answered, “Everything is terrible! I need to explain myself.” “More ice water?” Nicolo inquired. “In your veins,” I told him.

“But not in my cup!” the woman patron gasped as he poured water into her wine.

He went to the kitchen and picked up an order for two that was waiting: salmon in some kind of caper sauce and a huge piece of prime rib. I grabbed a baked potato and threw it on a small plate. “I have to get married,” I told him as we exited the kitchen for the dining room, “or I’ll lose everything.” I dropped the potato off for the guy with the steak, then followed Nicolo out to a table for two, where a yuppieish couple was trying to enjoy a romantic evening.

Nicolo served the salmon to the man, the prime rib to the woman.

I reached down and switched the plates.

“How did you know?” the woman asked, looking sideways at me.

The cut of prime rib was a Texas-sized portion. “How can you eat that much meat?” I asked the guy, ignoring his wife’s comment.

Nicolo finally looked at me and imparted with great passion, “You are out of line, coming to my place of work! This gentleman can eat as much meat as he wants!”

The restaurant manager agreed and forcibly led me to the door

and told me that if I returned he would call the cops and Nicolo, who he said should have been fired long ago, finally would be.

For days I called, but either there was no answer or his mother picked up to say Nicolo didn’t wish to speak to me and requested that I not come to the house. Against his wishes, I did twice. Each time his mother appeared before I could even ring the bell and quickly ushered me away, telling me Nicolo wasn’t home, even though his truck was there and I knew he was. I wrote to him, explaining it all, and the letter was returned to sender, unopened. His pride is making it impossible for us to reconcile, but I’m not giving up. I must explain to him why I’m getting married; it doesn’t guarantee he’ll come back to me, but it’s my only chance.