The Family Man (13 page)
T
ODD IGNORES DENISE'S CALL,
as Henry answers Thalia's with a terse, "What's wrong?"
"Not a thing. I'm calling with an update for my team."
"From?"
"A toilet stall."
"You sound funny."
"I'm relining my lips. Almost finished. Is that better?"
"Everything okay so far?"
"Not horrible. We're talking. He seems to have memorized a short list of conversation starters."
Henry pauses to brief Todd. "She says so far, so good. She's calling from the ladies' room."
Thalia says, "I'd better get back out there, but here's the headline: Leif suggests that after a month or two we should announce I'm pregnant."
"Over my dead body," says Henry.
"What?" Todd asks. "What did she say?"
"I hope you told him in no uncertain terms—"
"I said, 'Oh, really? And then what—I wear a prosthesis? Or do I disappear for a few months and resurface holding a lifelike baby doll named Leif Junior?' Puh-leez. I told him I never signed on for that, and better luck with the next girlfriend—smiling the whole time, of course."
"What's he's trying to pull?" Todd demands. "Is everything okay?"
"I didn't call to upset you," says Thalia. "I thought this was funny, or at least good gossip. I'd better get back before he thinks I crawled out the window."
"You know what I'd tell him? The truth. That you found his request alarming and a breach of contract, and you felt it was necessary to call your lawyer, who is appalled at the mere suggestion of a pregnancy."
"No way," cries Todd. "I'm appalled, too. A pregnancy. What's next? A sex tape?"
"Pregnancy
rumor
" corrects Thalia. "Big difference."
"I don't care how many starlets are having out-of-wedlock babies. It takes some nerve to propose that on a first date."
"Guys! It was just floated out there. I dealt with it. It might even have been a joke—hard to tell with him. Are you two having fun?"
Henry switches ears, collects himself. "We are. We watched the Derby, and now we're off in search of dinner."
"Leif's allergic to mushroom spores," says Thalia. "He told the maitre d' before we were even shown to our table. And then, of course, he confided same to our waiter, who was very gracious and reassuring."
Henry hears new female voices. Thalia is no longer alone. "Let's review," she instructs Henry. "They can watch the whole movie, but then right to bed, lights out, no reading, no dillydallying. And tomorrow? Mommy will make Belgian waffles for breakfast with her new waffle iron."
"She's bored to death," Henry tells Todd.
They walk seven blocks to Chirping Chicken, where they order two deluxe burgers and one order of onion rings.
When they're seated, plastic cutlery and skimpy napkins in place, matching peach iced teas in hand, Todd says, "Why do I sense you're not an habitué of joints recommended under 'Cheap Eats'?"
"It's fine. I like it here. And if it's good, I'll get a half chicken delivered some night. Sweet potato fries sound delicious. I was tempted."
Todd asks, minus his usual gusto, "Would a whole roast chicken at my house some Friday night hold any interest?"
"Friday night? As in Shabbat dinner? You do that?"
"Not wholeheartedly."
Henry leans in, squints diagnostically. "I'd say yes, I'd love to—except for the look I'm getting."
Todd points to his own face. "
This
look? Dread and terror?"
"Based on...?"
Todd mouths, "My mother."
"I'm good with mothers," says Henry.
Todd shakes his head.
"Not a good idea? Because she's difficult? Unfriendly? Inhospitable?"
"Very hospitable. Not difficult."
"So we're talking about dread over your cooking? Or something ridiculous like whether I'll like your apartment?"
"If only," says Todd.
"Stupid me. I just got it," says Henry. "Is it because I'm not Jewish?"
Todd says, "No, dear boy. It's because the introduction would go something like, 'Mom, this is Henry. He's my special friend. I may have failed to specify in the past that I am what your friends refer to as a
faygeleh'.
"
Henry whispers, "You're telling me you haven't come out to your mother?"
Todd winces, bites one knuckle for dramatic effect. "Not in so many words."
"She knows. Trust me. Moms know. When you finally sit her down and tell her you've been gay your whole life she'll say, 'I always assumed so, but you never seemed to want to talk about it.'"
"Here's a confession: I think to myself,
Tell her, you coward. You traitor.
And then a little voice inside me says, 'She's eighty years old and she has high blood pressure. She's not going to live forever. Why make trouble now?'"
"C'mon. She lives in New York. She must have dozens of friends who have gay children. She might surprise you. She might say, 'Did you think I was so square or such a bigot that you couldn't tell me?' Or—the big one—'that I wouldn't love you anymore?'"
"Then why hasn't she asked me? She's had several decades to say, 'Todd? Is there anything you want to tell me about your sexual orientation? I'll be fine with whatever it is.'"
"Because she's waiting for you to bring it up. She figures if you wanted to talk about it, you'd have done it a long time ago. Trust me. I bet if you told her you were bringing someone home for dinner and I walked in, she'd be very accepting. Possibly even relieved."
"Because that's how it worked out with Williebelle? You just rang the doorbell and said, 'Mom? That marriage, and that wife? It didn't work so great for me, and now I need you to stop giving my telephone number to women you meet in the laundry room and at the bus stop, because I am not attracted to that gender'?"
"Not quite."
"Because, as you claim, all mothers figure it out on their own?"
"No. My brothers figured it out, and one of them, at a Thanksgiving dinner I didn't attend, interrupted her musings about my nice friend Celeste with, 'Cut the crap, Mom. Henry's gay.'"
"And you know what
my
mother would have said to that? 'No, he isn't. Not my Todd. He had girlfriends in high school. And all through college he went steady with Binnie Chamish's daughter.'"
Henry smiles. "We all dated Binnie Chamish's daughter. You still need to say, 'There's an elephant in the room that we've never acknowledged.' And you'll take it from there." Problem on its way to being solved, he asks, "Where does she live?"
"Oh, that," says Todd. "Mortifying revelation number two."
Henry's first thought is,
Here it comes,
the inevitable deal breaker, the periscope lowered into Todd's as-yet-unrevealed moral abyss—his mother's in a welfare hotel, in a shelter, in a putrid nursing home—
"I live with her," Todd says pitifully. "There. Now you know everything."
On balance, the news is a relief: A lawyer knows that good sons don't grow on trees. "Williebelle lived with me for the last two years of her life," Henry reminds him. "And I certainly have no regrets about that."
"Huge difference: You brought her up from Delaware when she was elderly and alone and you gave her a room and made her last years happy and comfortable. Mine cooks and cleans and does my laundry. Then irons it."
"May I ask how large is this apartment that you share?"
"It's big! I was living in a studio in Murray Hill while she was rattling around in a classic six on West End Ave., maid's room off the kitchen, closets galore—rent-controlled! A nickel a month, it seemed like. I swallowed my pride and moved back home when my dad died ten, no, eleven years ago."
A goateed man and a woman with ropy red hair to her waist take the table next to them. She is hugely pregnant. Todd interrupts his narrative to smile and say, "Any day now?" Dinner banter ensues—First time here? First baby?—nothing that draws Henry in, but still he watches, recognizing that his life has taken a turn for the gregarious. He waits a polite interval before prompting Todd, "You were telling me about the apartment."
"Excuse us," Todd tells his new friends. "I was just confessing that I lived with my mother. At my age, I have a lot of explaining to do."
"She might as well live with
her
mother," says the man. "They talk on the phone ten times a day."
"Fuck you," the woman says pleasantly.
"I think that might be our order," Henry says, directing Todd's attention to the counter.
"I see cheese. Those are cheeseburgers. Sit tight. They'll call us."
"The Chirp can be a little slow," says the woman.
"I think Henry here needs to continue our conversation, but best of luck to you," Todd tells her.
"You, too."
Henry murmurs, "Maybe they could move their chairs over, and we could be godparents to the baby."
"My fault," says Todd. "Sorry. Where were we?"
"Your mother. What's the worst that would happen? She wouldn't love you anymore? She'd kick you out and disown you?"
"She'd still love me."
"But?"
"But I've already disappointed her. I don't have a career she can brag about, or a family, or Little League trophies, or season tickets to anything that would impress her friends. 'What does my only child do? He helps people match table linens to their flatware. Oh, and I just found out—he has a boyfriend. He'll never give me grandchildren, which was the only thing I wanted out of this life.'"
"Are we perhaps exaggerating?" Henry asks. "Are we understudying at the Thalia Krouch School of Dramatic Arts?" He checks his watch. "What time does Mom go to bed?"
"Why?"
"We can get the burgers to go, pick up some flowers on the way, and get it over with."
"As in: 'Mom? This is my special friend, Henry. We're going to listen to music in my room.' That should do it. That was enough to make her deduce that I had girlfriends at Stuyvesant."
"No. You'll say, 'Mom, This is my boyfriend, Henry. I'm dating him. He makes me happy. I hope you can be happy for us, and I hope you won't employ the word
faggy
at this juncture, or ever again.'"
"
Faygeleh
" corrects Todd. He is inhaling and exhaling noisily, drawing the attention of their new acquaintances. "He wants to meet my mother now," Todd explains. "I mean, like drop in unannounced."
"I'm not saying we wouldn't call first," says Henry. "And we can role-play on the way over."
"And you're afraid she won't like this lovely gentleman?" asks the woman.
"It's not him. It's me. She thinks I'm straight."
"No, she doesn't," says the woman.
"We're not married," says her companion. "Try telling
that
to a mother."
"See?" says Henry.
F
ROM THE ELEVATOR
they step into a rose-hued hallway. Every few yards, wet paint warnings are taped to moldings.
"Benjamin Moore's Rhubarb," Todd says, then stops, sniffs, evaluates. "I don't think they used the oil-based."
"You're stalling," says Henry.
"You try it! You take a baseball bat and whack a hornet's nest that has been coexisting peaceably under the eaves of your house. See how you like it."
Henry gives Todd's neck a friendly shake. "C'mon. You know you've wanted to have this conversation for decades."
Their destination is 3GG, three doors away. Upon arrival, Todd takes no action except to close his eyes.
"Do we ring the doorbell?" Henry asks.
Todd takes a ring of keys from his pocket and opens the door. Three careful steps into the apartment he calls, "Ma? You up? I'm back."
A little woman, five feet tall and shaped like a Jersey tomato, comes into view. She is wiping her hands on a striped dishtowel and smiling uncertainly. "You must be Henry," she says. She is wearing a quilted bathrobe, mauve and opalescent, which still has its gift-box creases.
"It is, and he made me call," Todd says dolefully. "Lillian Weinreb, Henry Archer."
"I'm the mother," she answers, and takes the hand Henry offers.
"I guess we should sit down," says Todd.
"What can I get you?" asks Lillian.
"Vodka on the rocks," says Todd. "But I'll get it. Henry?"
"Is a cup of tea too much trouble?"
"What a goody-goody," says Todd.
"Put some Congo bars on a plate, hon." Lillian leads Henry into a parlor that appears to be half Todd and half Mom. Its walls are a deep earth brown with stark white trim; the furniture is ice blue sateen. Henry sees Gracious Home in the periwinkle mohair throw and the phalanx of candles on the mantel. An oil painting of a mother, father, and sailor-suited boy hangs above an immaculate white-brick fireplace.
"Your family?" Henry asks, pointing.
"The summer before Todd started school." She motions toward the sofa. Henry sits down, back straight, hands folded in his lap. He notices her slippers, elf wear, toes crescenting upward, embroidered with forget-me-nots. "Toddy! Bring a tray table," she yells.
"You're not his doctor, are you?" she asks Henry.
"Did you say
doctor?
"
She leans forward. "When your son calls and says he has something important he wants to discuss with you and he's bringing a friend, your imagination can go a little crazy. You think the worst."
Henry offers reassurance at the same time that he is thinking,
Maybe Todd does know his mother; maybe her "worst" is a son bringing home a boyfriend.
"Because if Todd felt a lump somewhere, he wouldn't tell me. He'd go to the doctor during his lunch hour, and he'd keep everything to himself until he was in intensive care. That's the kind of thing a mother thinks about when the phone rings after nine o'clock."
"It isn't my place to reassure you, but—"
Todd enters the room with two mugs, his drink, and a plate of cookies on a tray. "I got you a ginger tea, Ma."
She accepts the mug and asks, "Is it your health?"
"Is what my health?"
"The thing you need to talk to me about."
Todd sits down next to Henry on the sofa and says, "No, it's not my health."
"Are you sure? Because I think you'd hide it from me. You might figure I'd go first so why burden me with bad news."
"Ma, I'm fine. I'm healthy as a horse. My blood pressure is ninety over sixty. My good cholesterol is in the eighties."
Lillian's lower jaw is quivering. "Are you sure?"
"Positive. Call Dr. Gordon."
Henry nods his encouragement.
"Thank God!" She fans her face and manages a smile. "So now, tell me anything. I won't care. See how health puts everything in perspective?"
Todd says, "Okay. Jumping right in ... First let me say that I can't really explain why it's taken this long—"
"I can tell you why," Lillian says calmly. "You thought I'd be worried day and night because of the AIDS epidemic."
"Jesus," says Todd. "Ma, didn't we skip a major chunk of this conversation?"
Henry says, "She connected the dots in her own head. Now you have to reassure her."
"I don't have AIDS, Ma."
"You
think
you don't, or you got yourself tested?"
"Ma—no AIDS, no HIV
Lillian puts her mug down on the ottoman at her feet, covers her face with her hands, and releases a wail.
"See?" says Todd. "Did I need this?"
"I think you have it wrong," says Henry. "I think those are tears of relief."
Todd says, "I forgot the tray table." He leaves the room and comes back with a box of tissues. "Ma? Is Henry right? Are you crying because you're relieved?"
"I've been sick with worry!" Lillian moans. "Sick. It was eating me up inside."
"Did I seem HIV-positive to you?"
"All I knew was that you've had fevers and colds. And bronchitis when you missed a week of work."
"Like five years ago."
"He had to have a chest x-ray," Lillian explains. "And he seemed tired to me."
Henry turns to Todd. "I'm sure it's not purely rational or scientific on your mother's part." Then to Lillian, "Do you believe Todd when he tells you he's fine?"
She nods bravely, then asks, "And you're fine as well? You're not one of those people swallowing fifty pills a day?"
"I'm fine. Thank you for asking."
She picks up the plate of Congo bars and offers it across the ottoman. "Homemade," she says. "No nuts."
All three take a cookie. "Delicious," Henry says.
"I use Splenda, but I don't think you can tell."
"Undetectable," says Henry.
Lillian takes a nibble, then puts the cookie back on the edge of the plate, a sanitary distance from the others. "I feel the need to say that I am a modern woman. And as much as I hate to pick a fight in front of your friend, I have to say it's humiliating to be viewed as the kind of parent who wouldn't love a homosexual son."
"That was never an issue, Ma."
Lillian repeats, "I'm a modern woman. And I was a modern woman before my time."
"I know that."
"Did you think I wasn't intelligent enough? Or did you think I was a secret religious zealot?"
"Ma, c'mon. It wasn't you. It was me. I was a shmuck, okay? And now everything's on the table."
"I'm not a prude and I'm a Democrat."
"I know that—"
"I was a woman ahead of my times. I went to Boston University"
"I know—"
"At a time when my parents wanted me to live at home and commute to Queens College on the subway."
"I know."
"No, you don't. You're just agreeing with me. You didn't know me in my youth." She hesitates and then says, "I could have been more forthcoming with you."
"What does that mean?"
She takes her cookie back. "I dabbled."
"What do you mean 'dabbled'?" Todd asks.
Lillian brushes invisible crumbs off her lap. "Sexually."
"You did not!" Todd says. And to Henry, "She's just trying to be one of the boys."
"Ask Fredalynn Cohn," says Lillian. "Call her if you don't believe me."
"When was this?"
"When do you think? In college."
"I thought you met Dad in college."
Lillian shoots Henry a worldly and indulgent smile. "I did. My senior year."
"I'm supposed to believe you were a lesbian before that?"
"I didn't say that. I said I dabbled. Nowadays you'd say I was experimenting."
"Did Dad know?"
Lillian shakes her head primly.
"Because it was just a one-time fluky thing?"
"Because your father and I didn't sit around discussing what we did with other people before we met."
"Ma! You just met Henry two minutes ago."
"Don't be a prude," Lillian scolds.
"May I ask what path Fredalynn took?" Henry asks.
"Same as me! She met a man over the summer, a waiter in the Catskills, a college student, Syracuse on the GI Bill, and came back her senior year pinned. No kids. They got divorced and she married his brother."
"Interesting," says Henry.
"How come you never told me this before?" Todd asks.
Lillian arches her eyebrows with as much irony as one round face can project. "By 'this' do you mean my private life? You're asking why my private life wasn't an open book in this house? Is that not the pot calling the kettle black?"
"You could've asked me about my private life. I would've told you the truth."
"That's not what the literature says. The literature says the child will tell you when he or she is ready, and the best thing the parents can do is just keep demonstrating their love and support."
Henry says, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if all parents read the literature?"
"There was a father in the mix, don't forget," says Todd. "A father who had only one child and Little League dreams."
"My husband wasn't cut from the same cloth as I am," Lillian explains. "If he were still alive, I might understand keeping this all a big secret. For
decades.
"
"I came to you tonight," protests Todd. "Don't I get credit for that?"
Henry raps his knuckles ineffectually on the side of his mug. "You know what I'd say now if this were a mediation session? I'd say, 'We're on the same page. You accept him and love him, and he knows he was wrong to keep such a major fact of life secret. The clock is running, so let's move on.'"
"Are you a judge?" Lillian asks.
"A lawyer."
"And how long have you known Todd?"
"Three weeks."
"Three great weeks," says Todd. "So don't worry."
"And how did you meet?"
"A mutual friend gave him my phone number," says Henry.
"His ex-wife."
Lillian says, "Todd went through a phase like that, too. I could have made that mistake—pushed him into marriage. He dated plenty of girls, and I was guilty of saying things like, 'You know, Todd, after a year of steady dating, the polite thing would be to give her a ring. And don't forget Bubbie's diamond ring is in the vault waiting for you to pop the question.'"
Henry says, "Is there a gay man in Manhattan who doesn't have his grandmother's diamond ring appreciating in a bank vault?"
"We should sell it," says Todd.
"I already did," says Lillian.
"Was that hard for you?" Henry asks.
"Hard?" she replies. "You know what it was? Not the ring. It's the other stuff. What mother doesn't picture walking her son down the aisle and gaining a daughter? And then of course the missing grandchildren. I always thought I'd be a champion grandmother."
"I know, Ma."
"I'm not saying that to make you feel bad. I'm just being honest. That's what the literature says you have to get over, the death of the conventional dream."
"That's okay," says Todd. "That's good. You can say anything you want."
Henry has a thought, a topic yet unbroached that might appeal to a grandparent manqué. He hands his mug to Todd and stands. "This has been lovely, a wonderful night for all concerned, myself included. And I'd love to stay. But I promised my daughter I'd be there when she gets home tonight." He checks his watch. "Which could be any minute now."
"A daughter?" Lillian asks. "How old?"
"Twenty-nine."
"Married?"
Todd says, "No, but she's very popular. We think there's no question she'll marry someone of the opposite sex someday."
"Only one child?" Lillian asks.
"Just one: Thalia."
"She's fabulous," says Todd.
"And she lives with you, or is just visiting for the weekend?"
"She lives downstairs. I have a townhouse on West Seventy-fifth, and she lives in my maisonette."
A lawyer, a daughter, a townhouse.
"You'll come back soon?" Lillian asks.