Although he had known for several weeks he was going to see her, he still was astonished when she walked through the gate and into the garden for the party. Would he have recognized her anywhere? Probably not. She was thinner than when she left, all those years ago; he remembered having told himself at the time it was that she wasn’t quite sleek enough to really turn him on. She was certainly sleek now, and his husband Brad, who was thin and buff when they were first together, now had a noticeable pot with or without a shirt. No, he and Brad were not going to turn out to be one of those cozy couples who started to look alike after many years. He was short and in, he had to admit, impeccable shape for a guy of 55, even a gay guy of 55. Meanwhile, very tall Brad had gone almost entirely too fat.
“Welcome!” Brad was saying, and he noticed they hugged, his first wife and his first husband warmly, unconditionally. Now he was hugging her, and he was remembering something clearly: they were exactly the same height.
Photo: Joel Goodman
She stood away from him and grinned. “This is hilarious!” And she tossed her hair back and hooted. Another thing he had loved and hated about her: something totally wild and uninhibited in her nature that he could never match. Brad who was grimacing like a jack o’lantern with capped teeth was far more out there than he’d ever be.
I’m steady as a church, or an old wooden desk. I’m upright and dependable and boring.
His ex wife’s voice cut through his reverie.
“This place is fabulous! I came a little early, because I have to get to the airport this afternoon. Uber says it could take more than an hour to get there? My gosh, LA is so sprawling. Do you like it here? Not here, here, but LA here? I don’t know if I do or don’t, it’s hotter than I remember.”
“Global warming, darling,” Brad replied. “I’m having a Bloody Mary. You?”
“Seltzer!” he heard her reply, and watched them walk off, arms linked. When he knew her, she could put it away. Once he had secretly called her an alchie in his thoughts. Maybe like everybody else she was AA or vegan or wheat free, or on the inflammation diet. What exactly was the fucking inflammation diet?
Had he known he was gay when she left all those years ago? She hadn’t mentioned it. And he hadn’t either. Coming out was a big deal and he had been heartbroken for a while. She had been the one who had insisted on getting married. Or maybe it was their mothers who had insisted on them getting married. People didn’t live together so freely in those days. Not people from small towns and certainly not small mid-western towns like they had been. It was so long ago; it was not just ancient history, but absurdly ancient history.
Both of them had been miserably unhappy, almost from the beginning.
And that’s what he remembered now, before leaving she had told him how unhappy she was.
She certainly wasn’t unhappy now. She was laughing, she was gleaming, she was shaking hands with the few early guests –was she telling them who she was, “ I knew him back when he pretended to be straight!” It would get a laugh, especially with the older crowd, would she be that unfeeling? Why hadn’t he thought of this?
When she emailed back after the handwritten note he had written when he learned her mother had died, and written back that she was going to be in LA on business the next month, Brad had insisted he wanted to meet her.
“I’m game!” she had written. “I looked you up on Facebook and Brad is adorable!”
“Thank you,” he had written back.
People were starting to trickle in. A couple of friends from Brad’s office, a neighbor and his giant dog, why did people insist on bringing dogs to other people’s parties?
They were all standing in a group. And she was the center of attention.
Someone asked, “How do you know these guys?”
She looked from one to the other.
“I can’t remember who I knew first, you or Brad?”
Brad was smiling again. And she was smiling too. He didn’t feel so amused, in fact he felt insulted. She could have at least said she knew him first. That they were childhood friends, or old friends, or from the same shithole in the Midwest. He tried to remember what it was like to have sex with her, or any woman, but it was all a blur.
Brad was laying it on thick. “I found her. I brought her home. She used to live next door to my brother, back when Santa Monica was affordable…”
Someone else started talking about real estate prices and she was laughing and being charming. He remembered now how charming she was.
A little later, as he watched her walk toward the gate, phone up to her ear, skillfully dyed hair brushed aside, he had a wild desire to run after her, throw her against a tree, thank her for not making a spectacle of them both, and even kiss her. Would Brad mind? Brad was on his third Bloody Mary, Brad wouldn’t mind anything at this point…. he walked back to the same group. “I knew her first,” he told no one in particular. And then when no one reacted or paid attention, he stopped trying to explain his complicated, confusing feelings.
“Excuse me!”
He turned around. His very tall neighbor with the huge furry dog was saying without a sign of regret. “Do you have a poop bag? I forgot to bring one.”
He looked up and glared at the neighbor. “Poop bag, what do you think this is? A fucking dog park?”
His neighbor blanched. He felt his own face turn red.
“Just kidding, I’ll run in and find you something…”
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