Sweet Like Sugar (14 page)

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Authors: Wayne Hoffman

Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #General, #Jewish Men, #Male Friendship, #Rabbis, #Jewish, #Religion, #Jewish Gay Men, #Judaism

BOOK: Sweet Like Sugar
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“God
forbid!
”
“Yes, if you died,
God forbid,
and Dad was all alone, wouldn't you want someone to look in on him and make sure he was okay?”
“Now you're talking nonsense.”
“Why is that nonsense?”
“Because you live just a few miles away. He wouldn't have to turn to a stranger. He'd have you.”
“Well, in the meantime, I suppose the rabbi has me, too.”
She was silent. We were at an impasse.
“Fine, so he can have you,” she said, changing the subject. “Can we borrow you just for one day? Your sister is flying in for Rosh Hashanah, with that husband of hers.”
“His name is Richard, Mom.”
She ignored me.
“Will you be coming to services with us?” she asked. “Or will you be going to the Orthodox shul with your rabbi this year?”
Apparently, we had progressed into sarcasm.
“Actually, I was thinking that this year I'd have a voodoo ceremony for Rosh Hashanah. Something with witchcraft and chanting and animal sacrifice.”
“Nothing you say surprises me at this point, Benji,” she said.
“Of course I'm coming to services,” I said. We went through this every year.
“Good. Get a haircut before then.”
“You haven't seen me in weeks. How do you know I need a haircut?”
“I'm your mother,” she said, and hung up.
 
Michelle was trying to figure out her plans for Rosh Hashanah, too.
She called me at my office midafternoon, distraught. About Dan. She said she needed to talk to me after work, and before I hung up, I'd been roped into dinner and a movie at Union Station, not far from her office.
I'd played this role before, so even when I was still on the subway heading downtown to meet her, I already knew what the evening would involve: We'd meet in the food court and order cheesesteaks, but eat them open-faced to save a few calories, and she'd ask me how my day was. I'd have about six minutes before she got tired of listening to me and then she'd change the subject and spend the rest of the meal going on and on about her latest boyfriend troubles. I'd nod along, eat most of the french fries, and cut her off when it was time for the movie. We'd see some kind of stupid Hollywood comedy; we'd both laugh out loud while it was showing, and then talk about how lame it was when it was over. By then she'd be feeling better and she'd apologize for unloading on me. She'd give me a kiss and we'd go home and go to sleep.
I'd been helping Michelle in similar ways, with a dozen other boyfriends, for years.
I thought I might get more than my usual time at Union Station because I had something juicy to share: I'd scored a date that afternoon with a model from one of my Paradise ads.
“Let me guess,” she said, after a quick gasp, as we carried our dinner trays to a booth. “Blond.”
“That's the best part,” I said. “He shaves his head. No hair at all!”
I hadn't honestly entertained the possibility that one of my models would hit on me, but Frankie had been pretty obvious about it. When I told him he needed to take off his shirt for a test shot, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “I will if you will.”
“Did you do it?” Michelle asked.
“I'm a professional,” I protested. “And by that I mean: Yes, I did. But I kept my pants on.”
“For now.”
“We'll see what happens without all those cameras around.”
Michelle reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Well, I'm glad one of us is having fun,” she said, shifting the spotlight back to her as she launched into a story about Dan and one of his previous girlfriends.
“So he says that he just
happened
to bump into her last week and he just
happened
to be on his way to lunch and so he invited her to come along and she did and what's the big deal,” she said as I mooched her fries. “And I'm like, ‘The big deal is that she's your freakin'
ex
-girlfriend and you're not supposed to be going on dates with her.' And he's all, ‘It wasn't a date,' and I'm all, ‘If it wasn't a date, then why didn't you tell me about it for a whole week?' And he says, ‘Because I knew you'd overreact.' Like the whole thing was my fault. Can you even believe him?”
Sitting here watching Michelle have a meltdown about what seemed to me like an innocent lunch, I
could
believe him. But I didn't mention that to her. Not that she paused long enough for me to interject anything anyway.
“So I told him that if he wanted to see her so much, maybe he should take
her
to the Redskins game this Sunday, and have
her
help him pick out new work clothes this weekend, and go home with
her
for Rosh Hashanah.”
“Is she Jewish?” I asked.
“Of course she's Jewish. God, are you even
listening?
I was supposed to bring Dan home to Philly for Rosh Hashanah next week. I was going to introduce him to my parents. But now I don't know what to do.”
“I'll go home with you,” I joked. “And Dan can spend Rosh Hashanah with my parents. That could be his punishment.”
She smiled, and her tirade derailed. “Your parents are great, Benji.”
“Okay, then
you
spend Rosh Hashanah with them, and I'll take Dan to Philly to meet your parents, and he can be my boyfriend from now on.”
Her eyes narrowed a bit. “He's cute, right?”
“He's cute,” I said. “Cute and straight. And he's obviously into you, going to meet your family. Guys don't take that kind of thing lightly. I should know—I'm a guy, remember?”
She picked at her sandwich, which was getting cold.
“I'm sure he'll apologize,” I said. “Once you start taking his calls.” She had turned off her cell phone to avoid talking to him.
“And then what? That's it?”
“And then you forgive him,” I said.
“Why should I?”
“Because forgiveness is what the High Holidays are all about.”
She pursed her lips.
“You've been spending too much time with that rabbi,” she said.
 
On Rosh Hashanah, my whole family planned to go to services together. Rachel and Richard had flown in the day before; they were staying with my parents in Rockville, despite the fact that my folks didn't much care for their son-in-law.
I drove over in the morning, singing along with the radio as I cruised up Rockville Pike, the eight-lane main drag where I spent most of my free time in high school. Some of the stores in the back-to-back strip malls had changed—a cell phone dealer where Blockbuster used to be, a Payless instead of a Fayva, an enormous new Barnes & Noble—but the basics were the same as they'd been for years: multiplex movie theaters, fast-food joints, Old Navy and Einstein's Bagels and three branches of Starbucks. “Everything you could ever want is right here. I don't know why anyone would ever need to go into the city,” my mother used to say—and I used to agree with her.
While it was only a few blocks off the Pike, my parents' development was much quieter. Two-story colonial houses lined curved streets and shaded cul-de-sacs. Wide front yards were neatly mowed, the shutters neatly painted. The long white driveways revealed what type of people lived in these homes: While the occasional minivan or SUV, and even the odd sporty coupe, could be spotted, the bulk of the cars were the kind that middle-class families everywhere drive—neither bottom of the line nor top of the line, valued for their roominess and gas mileage and safety record, but with a hint of imported style. Camrys, Accords, Jettas, as well as a handful of Volvo hatchbacks, in muted blues and reds.
I pulled in behind my parents' new Altima and walked across the front yard, past the flowerbeds my mother now had professionally tended.
My sister met me at the door with a one-armed hug. Even though we'd grown closer as adults, after we'd both left home, we were never the type for fawning kisses and extravagant affection. “You look nice,” she said. I shrugged; I was wearing my only suit, the same one I'd had since college, the same one I wore every Rosh Hashanah.
Richard, the warmer of the two, hugged me harder and said, “Man, it's good to see
you
.” I surmised that their visit wasn't going well.
“We're going with Benji, we'll meet you there!” Rachel called upstairs, where my parents were still getting dressed. And off we went.
On the drive to synagogue, they griped about my parents, who never quite understood what Richard's job as a consultant for tech companies entailed; they kept asking when he was planning on getting a “real” job and how they'd ever start a family if he was “out of work.” He explained that compared to most people with full-time jobs, he was bringing in more money and working fewer hours, which actually left him with more time for a family, but they didn't get it. They badgered my sister about having children—in quips that were only half-kidding. She was almost thirty. If she waited much longer, they told her at every opportunity, she'd miss her chance. (“You can always go back to your little gardening job later,” my mother would tell her, referring to my sister's job managing a plant nursery. “But you won't be able to have children forever.”)
I was lucky, I realized. My parents and I mostly got along. They'd never complained about my work—they were even largely supportive when I opened my own office—and they never pressured me about relationships or kids. Aside from my mom's occasional peevish lecture, they stayed off my back. “That's because you're the favorite,” said Rachel, who'd never quite gotten past her childhood resentments, despite our adult detente. “Their only son. And their baby.” I usually tried to avoid dredging up our prepubescent tensions, so I told her it wasn't true. But it was, partly.
Waiting for my parents in Congregation Beth Shalom's parking lot, we saw a lot of familiar faces, people Rachel or I had gone to Hebrew school with, or friends of our parents. We both got a lot of attention—Rachel because she lived thousands of miles away, so seeing her was a rarity, and me because I might as well have lived thousands of miles away considering how infrequently I showed up at synagogue.
We saw the Siegels, who lived around the corner from my parents and used to invite us over for barbecues when we were little. And Mrs. Horowitz, whose son Dean dated Rachel in tenth grade; he was living on Long Island, we already knew, doing something that made him very wealthy, and living in a very big house with a wife and kids. And Miriam Goldstein, who went to Hebrew school with me, walking in with Howie Goldstein, who was also in our class and was now, since that spring, her husband. (“I wonder if she thinks she's using her maiden name or her married name,” I whispered to Rachel. “Or maybe she hyphenates: Miriam Goldstein-Goldstein.”) Plus a random collection of people who knew us well enough to gossip about us, but not well enough to remember any of the actual, relevant details of our lives.
Each of the conversations went something like this:
“Rachel Steiner, is that you?”
“It's Rachel Silber now, but yes, it's me.”
“Oh, it's so nice to see you! You look just wonderful. And I remember your husband . . .”
“Richard.”
“Of course, Richard. We met last year. How's life out in . . .”
“Seattle.”
“Right, Seattle.”
“It's great. I'm still working at the nursery, and Richard's still working with tech companies.”
“Microsoft?”
“Well, he's a consultant, so he works for himself.”
“Oh.”
Richard would pipe in: “Microsoft is one of my clients.”
“How nice. And little Benjamin, my goodness, I hardly even recognize you. It seems like your bar mitzvah was just yesterday. How have you been?”
“Fine,” I'd say.
“Still no ring on that finger?”
“Nope.”
“Well, you're still young, probably dating a different girl every night of the week. Am I right? They're probably knocking down your door, you're so handsome.”
This was one of the many reasons I didn't like to go to my old synagogue. I'd come out years before, when I was in college. All of my friends knew, my family knew, and even most of my parents' friends knew. My parents were fine about having a gay son, for the most part. But they were still a bit uncomfortable telling “everyone”—meaning, they were fine telling people privately that their son was gay, but they weren't ready to come out publicly. In my world, I did what I wanted and everyone knew I was gay; but Congregation Beth Shalom was their world, not mine, and I deferred to their sense of what was appropriate. I didn't exactly lie, but I kept my mouth shut. So when I was faced with questions about why I hadn't gotten married yet, I'd answer with something like this:

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