Design for Loving

by Doug Sanford

  “Good luck with that,” Jack answered.

  We finally got them unpacked and somewhat settled down in the living room and had coffee, tea, and the desserts we brought back from the Willow. By the time we finished, I was already so comfortable with his parents that I was totally unconscious of the fact that I was holding Bart’s hand as we sat on the couch—unconscious of it until I noticed a slight smile on his mother’s face. I started to pull away, but Bart’s hand tightened on mine, and he wouldn’t let go. I’m pretty sure I blushed.

  “What were you worried about?” he said later when we were alone in bed. “They already know we sleep together, so why would they care about us holding hands?”

  “Didn’t you mean our holding hands?” I laughed. “Bart, I’ve never been this open with the parents of a guy I was sleeping with—not that there were that many parents I ever met.”

  “Oh, so now I’m a just a guy you’re sleeping with?” he joked. “What about the one you were with in Chicago, Marty, the S&M guy? You were together for three years, right?”

  “Yeah, but his dad didn’t know he was gay, and his mother, who did, thought I’d taken her son away from her, so we didn’t do any hand-holding around them. Anyhow, he wasn’t a hand-holding kind of guy.”

  “Well, don’t worry about my parents. I’m not going to hide who we are, and I don’t want you to either.” It was another sign of the maturity that continually surprised and delighted me about Bart—especially when he sounded more like an adult than I did—which sometimes was more often than I wanted to admit.

  Rising to the challenge, and I still can’t believe I did it, I said, “Well, then, they need to meet Leslie. She’s part of who you are. And don’t tell me you hadn’t already thought of it.”

  “That’s why you’re so fucking special, old man. First, that you knew I’d thought of it and then, that you brought it up.”

  I still don’t know why I suggested it. Maybe it was a matter of Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But it had been a long while since I’d thought of Leslie as an enemy.

  “Actually,” he said a bit sheepishly, “I was just going to tell you. I’d already asked her for lunch tomorrow with them since we won’t be getting together tomorrow night. She said it was a poor substitute for sex and was I really ready to introduce her to my parents.”

  “So, she’s both horny and funny,” I said somewhat cattily.

  “Hey, I’m not just a pretty face. I can pick out more than your clothes.”

  Chapter 21

  At breakfast, we talked about the next couple of days.

  “I guess the rental car really was a good idea, Jack,” I said. “I’ve got stuff to do at the office and then a couple of meetings with clients later, so I won’t see you guys until late afternoon at the earliest.”

  “That’s fine. You do what you need to do, Marc,” said Ada. “Bart can show us around the university. Jack said he wanted to see the library. Is that right, Jack? The library? And maybe also the political science department? We’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about us.”

  “We’ll do some local sightseeing as well as the university, Mom. And then I’ve got a surprise for you at lunch.”

  “All right. I won’t ask,” she said, and she didn’t—which totally amazed me. Having seen how talkative she was, I assumed she’d try to wheedle it out of him, but she didn’t say another word about it. No Jewish mother, she. Ada and Jack, as I was to come to learn, trusted Bart completely and respected his privacy.

  “I guess we’re all set then, and I’m off,” I said, and I left.

  At the office, I had to turn over a lot of my work for the coming week to Robin and listen to her rib me about my in-laws. She was really happy for me and had invited the four of us over for spaghetti the next night since we’d missed our usual Friday night dinner.

  When I got home, I took Bart at his word, and kissed him when I came in the same as I would if they weren’t there. No reaction from Jack or Ada, except possibly for smiles, and so I kissed Ada as well and did the butch back-pat thing with Jack. I assumed they’d seen Bryan and Ryan be affectionate around them, so it was no big thing.

  For dinner, we went to a Mexican restaurant in South Tucson which Bart and I both liked a lot. We had to help them with ordering unfamiliar dishes, but we must have done all right. They liked what they got, nothing was too hot, and they finished everything. After we got home, we spent the evening planning the rest of the week.

  “My idea was to do some more of the Tucson area Sunday and go to Tombstone and Bisbee on Monday. The cemetery at Tombstone is a lot of fun but the OK Corral is a rip-off. Still, we can go if you want. And I think Ada will really like the shops in Bisbee. Then we’ll leave for the Canyon on Tuesday. We can stop in Scottsdale for lunch at your brother’s,” I said, looking at Jack.

  “Even lunch is more than I’d like to do with Allan. Esther’s not so bad. I just don’t know how she puts up with him. But I can’t ignore them completely,” Jack said.

  Bart grinned. “Yeah, I told Marc about your brotherly love for Uncle Allan. He’s not that bad. Call them tomorrow.”

  “We can use the four-hour drive from Phoenix to the Canyon as an excuse not to make the lunch too long.” I suggested.

  “We’ll spend time at the Canyon and then return through Sedona—you’ll love the red rocks and the shopping—and be home by Friday. That way you get a day to recover before you have to leave.”

  “My,” said Ada, “you’ve really got things planned out. So efficient. So helpful.”

  “So anal,” Bart chirped in, smiling.

  “Bart! That’s not nice,” said Jack.

  “But it’s true. He’s totally anal. His records are in categories and then alphabetized. His books are separated into fiction and nonfiction and each of them is alphabetized separately by author. In his closet, shirts are in one section, pants in another, and suits in another.”

  “Well, even I do things like that, son,” said Jack. “It just makes sense.”

  “Yeah, but do you also alphabetize your vitamins?”

  “I don’t do that,” I protested.

  “Anybody want a tour of the medicine cabinet?” asked Bart.

  I punched him on the arm, hard. He yelped; the rest of us laughed; and that ended the planning session.

  * * * *

  “They really like you, you know,” Bart said later in bed.

  “I’m glad. I like them. They’re very comfortable to be around.”

  “Yeah, I know. Mom said she was happy I had someone to look after me. I told her you weren’t my nanny, and she laughed and said, ‘I could see that from the way he held your hand Friday night.’”

  “How about Leslie? How did it go?”

  “Fine, but it was really kind of funny. When I told them we were going to meet her, my dad said he didn’t feel right meeting her behind your back. I had to explain that it was your idea. They were a little bewildered about that, but then they relaxed. I just had to tell them not to mention you because she doesn’t know about us. I don’t feel great about that, but I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Yeah, if we can’t explain our relationship to your parents, I don’t know how you’d explain us to Leslie. The more I think about it, the more I realize they must be totally confused. We don’t even understand all this, but from their point of view, our situation has got to seem bizarre.”

  “Yeah.” He laughed. “We all got along, and they seemed to like her, but my mom didn’t kiss her. She was friendly but a lot more distant than she is with you. And I got the idea that they didn’t want to approve of her too much in front of me because they were afraid I’d leave you for her. I know that’s silly, but that’s the way it felt to me.”

  “Kid, any mother, even yours, has got to find a gay lover for her son much less threatening than another woman.”

  “You think?”

  * * * *

  We did the Desert Museum and the Mission on Sunday and still m
anaged to make it to Robin and Doug’s for dinner. Jack, as he did at our house, zeroed in on their books. Since Doug has a master’s degree and teaches high school history, Jack found a number of titles to comment on, and it turned out that that the two of them had a lot to talk about. Jack was a political science professor with a history minor and was so impressed with Doug’s knowledge and insight, that he asked Doug why he’d never gone on to complete a doctorate.

  “Not enough time or money,” replied Doug. “And then I met Robin. We didn’t want to wait to get married, and I could never have handled marriage and PhD work without an income. So I left grad school for teaching. I’m not sorry. I love the kids, and I love teaching.”

  “But do you have a future?” Jack asked. “The problem with public school teaching is that if you’re any good and they want to reward you, the only thing they can do is promote you into administration. Then you’re no longer doing what you wanted to do in the first place. In the university system, you have options for research and writing and yet are still able to work with students.”

  “You’re right there, Jack. I’ve already turned down one offer to go into supervision.”

  “You ought to think about continuing work on your degree at least part time. It will take longer and it’s a bit harder, but it could pay off in the end.”

  “You really think I should?”

  “I certainly do. I’d consider the idea seriously if I were you. I think you’ll find it worth the struggle.”

  As it turned out, Doug did, and it was—but we didn’t know that for a long while.

  Robin, to my astonishment, told Ada that she and Doug had decided to try to have a child and said she only hoped if they did, he or she would turn out as well as Bart had. Ada’s face lit up.

  We left for the Canyon Tuesday on schedule. Lunch with Allan and Esther was a non-event, even a bit boring. Both Jack and Allan were on their best behavior, if a bit stiff, possibly because I was there. I could tell that his aunt and uncle were a little confused about who I was and what my relationship was to Bart, but fortunately they didn’t ask any questions. We laughed about it as we drove off.

  The rest of the week was fun but exhausting. The itinerary meant the four of us spent a lot of time closed up in the car, yet it turned out to be no problem at all. Jack and Ada were surprisingly easy to get along with, and I began to understand why Bart liked them as well as loved them.

  Because of Jack’s foresight in listing us all as drivers, we could switch off practically every hour so no one got too tired and everyone could enjoy the views—except for Bart who tended to be sleeping with his head on my shoulder or in my lap when he wasn’t driving.

  During the trip, I really bonded with his parents. They were funny about little things. In restaurants, they always made sure Bart and I sat next to each other or on the same side of the booth. If one of us was driving, they’d insist the other one take the front seat. If one of them was driving, they’d insist Bart and I sit in back together.

  They wanted to understand more about our relationship. That seemed to be the one topic which could keep Bart awake when he wasn’t driving. By this time, I’d given up trying to hold anything back and even confessed the phone sex aspect of my first call to him. We talked about our life together, Leslie’s part in it, and explained that we’d decided to stop analyzing and labeling it. They accepted that, and since they had the whole story, they were satisfied if a bit puzzled. Well, Bart and I were also puzzled about what we had together, so all of us were on the same page.

  The best part of the trip for me was to be there for their first view of the Canyon. They responded to it in what I thought was the most appropriate way possible: silence. Even chatty Ada could say nothing for at least a full minute. And then, all she could come up with was, “Well, will you look at that?” I had my hand on Bart’s shoulder, and he reached up, squeezed it, and smiled at me.

  By the time we headed back, we were all tired, and Ada had even had her fill of gift shops. We arrived in Tucson Friday evening and collapsed. Saturday we did nothing, and I was sorry to see them go on Sunday. We drove to the airport in both cars and went to the gate with them. A hug and kiss for both of us from his mom and a really long back-patting handshake from his dad. My first meeting with my in-laws was over and from all signs, it had been a big success.

  * * * *

  Bart’s nineteenth birthday was a few weeks later on May 5, and we celebrated with Robin and Doug.

  When we got home, I turned to Bart. “So, in your wildest imagination when you turned eighteen, did you ever imagine where you’d be a year later?”

  He laughed, and said, “If you’re asking me if I ever thought that this year I’d be living with, in love with, and having hot sex with a gay man eleven years older while also having equally hot sex with a girl my own age on a pretty regular basis, the answer is definitely No.

  “And,” he continued, “if you’d asked me last year whether this year I’d be as happy as I am now, the answer would also be No.”

  He looked at me with a big smile on his face, and I was definitely satisfied with the “in love with” part of what he said. “Hot sex” wasn’t bad either.

  “So which do you prefer—hot sex with a gay man eleven years older than you or the equally hot sex with a girl your own age?”

  “I honestly don’t know, old man,” he said. “Why don’t you try to help me make up my mind right now?”

  I did my best.

  Chapter 22

  It seemed as though the time between Bart’s nineteenth birthday and the beginning of his last semester at the U of A just flew by, but there were a lot of changes for both of us and for almost everyone we knew.

  One of the earliest occurred at the beginning of his sophomore year. Ever since Earnest, Bart had developed a real interest in and appreciation for acting and actors, whether on stage or in film. During that first summer after his freshman year, he took no classes. As a result, we had a lot more time for movies and plays, and we took advantage of it. By the beginning of his sophomore year, he decided he wanted to explore some classes in the School of Theatre—yes, they spelled it that way even though it was in Arizona, not London. So he signed up for beginning classes in voice, stage movement, and theater history, and by the second semester, he’d made up his mind.

  “Marc—” I knew it was going to be a serious discussion when he called me that, “—I think I’m hooked. I want to go all the way with this.”

  “I think we’ve been all the way, kid—oh, you mean with school. How far is this all the way you’re talking about?”

  “Bachelor of fine arts in acting.”

  “I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but the way you’ve been talking about your classes, I can’t say I’m surprised. So why not go for it?”

  And he did. From then on he spent a lot more time at school doing scene work with others for his classes or working on whatever production the drama school was mounting that semester. At first, of course, it was usually backstage work, but increasingly, as time went on, he had parts in the productions. They began with something as minor as the second witch in an all male production of Macbeth. When I saw that, I couldn’t help being amazed at how well the make-up people managed to transform Bart, as good looking as he was, into an ugly old crone. I was also amazed at how realistically he acted—even in such a small role. His talents in that and other roles were apparently noticed by the faculty, and by the time he graduated, he was taking on major roles, his final one as Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

  My life changed too. The real estate market was booming in Tucson and in the southwest generally. I was doing very well and gradually changed my focus to handling mostly higher end properties, and I had more work than ever.

  Things got so busy that we found we needed a calendar on the refrigerator to keep track of our lives. Silly as it sounds, we got into the habit of scheduling time together and were pretty good about not allowing anything to interrupt it. And th
anks to this determination, our relationship not only endured but prevailed—to quote Faulkner completely out of context. As Bart would often tease me, once an English teacher, always an English teacher.

  We talked to Jack and Ada pretty much every Sunday. After that first year, the Urbana and Arizona spring breaks never coincided again, but they would come out and spend the Christmas and New Year holiday with us instead. We no longer had to be tour guides, so our visits were relaxed and comfortable. They even bought clothes to leave here so they wouldn’t have to pack so much to bring with them each year.

  But the most important change for Bart involved Leslie. Their relationship had become a complicated one. He’d developed strong feelings for her, but he was never willing to let her know how he felt because of his determination not to get serious about anyone who couldn’t accept the relationship he had with me. In order for that to happen, she’d have to be told everything about us, and he wasn’t able to do that. He was too afraid he’d lose her.

  As it turned out, he lost her anyway. At the end of his first year, she left Tucson. Her dad got what she said was a great job in Los Angeles, and she transferred to USC. With her grades, she had no problem getting in, and with her dad’s new position, finances were no problem either. Since Bart had never let her know how deeply he felt about her—not even when faced with her imminent departure—I guess she thought there was nothing to hold her in Tucson, and he was devastated.

  Of course, as handsome as he was, Bart had no trouble finding girls for sex—which he still felt he needed. But none of them could replace Leslie. Most were a lot more demanding, requiring constant attention or wanting a more permanent or more involved relationship. He dropped those pretty quickly. So the girls changed often, and I lost interest in keeping track of them or their names.

  “Bart date” is the way his liaisons, as I called them in my head, would appear on our calendar with usually not much more information than that. But the bird always flew back, voluntarily and happily.