by Doug Sanford
“So did you,” she replied.
“What’s going on here?”
“We’ll explain in a minute,” said Bart. He turned to the jeweler. “Do you have everything you need?”
“No problem, Mr. Rastin. I can take it from here. They’ll be ready in a couple of weeks. We’ll call you.”
“Thanks. Come on, old man, let’s get out of here.” Bart refused to talk until we got back into the car.
“Okay, you two. What’s up?”
“I’ll let Les explain because this was all her idea.”
“Marc, it started with the engagement ring. We didn’t choose it for any kind of symbolism,” said Leslie. “We got it because the center diamond wasn’t too ostentatious, and I love sapphires. But once I started wearing it, it seemed totally appropriate to our situation: three stones in one setting.”
“You’re the diamond, and Bart and I are the sapphires surrounding you? Yeah, that works.”
“Well, others might think that, but it wasn’t exactly the way I saw it. I saw the diamond as Bart with you and me surrounding him,” Leslie said.
“Makes even more sense for us,” I replied with a smile.
“I thought so. When I started thinking about the wedding bands, I liked the idea of three stones—not a diamond, of course. Bart would never wear that—but three sapphires would work. They’re masculine enough. And I also began to think about an engraving for inside—maybe our wedding date or some short quote, and then it just came to me out of the blue. Our names—not just Bart’s and mine but yours too. That’s what the three stones were for—the three of us.”
Leslie continued, “But if there were three stones and three names, then there had to be three rings. We can’t all get married, but we can all have rings. Bart went for it right away. In fact, it fit right into his being honest about our relationship thing.”
“We wanted to surprise you,” Bart said, “but we had to get your ring size, and if we just told you, I knew you’d put up a fight and that would spoil everything. So we had to figure out how to get you to the jeweler’s.”
“That was your part in this little plot, right?” I said to Bart.
“Yep. And it worked.” He smiled.
“Tell him about the ceremony,” Leslie said.
“The minister will be from the Pasadena UU church,” Bart said. “You remember Les and I met with him to talk about what we wanted in the ceremony. When Les came up with her ring idea, we went back to see him and explained our situation as it really was. UUs are pretty liberal and open-minded, but I think even he was a bit surprised.
“Still, he could tell we were serious, and we told him about wanting a three-ring ceremony. He said that he’d never done anything like that before, but after we talked about it for a while, explaining a little bit about our history and relationship, he thought that he could write something that would express our affection and friendship for the best man, our past together, and our desire to make him a part of our future life. I haven’t seen it yet, but it sounds like it’s going to be just what we want.”
“For once, I’m speechless. Thank you. There’s nothing else I can say.”
“Bingo,” said Bart with a laugh. “Actually there is something else you can say. You can say you’ll go to Ashland with us for the Shakespeare festival.”
“On your honeymoon? Are you nuts?”
“We’ve never been more serious, Marc,” said Leslie. “How could we enjoy it without you? How could we come back and talk about the plays we’d seen if you hadn’t been there with us?”
“A honeymoon is supposed to be your time together, alone.”
“Maybe that’s true for other people,” said Bart, “but it doesn’t apply to us. Together is all three of us, old man. You know that. That’s the way we’ve planned everything. That’s why we’re paying a fortune to those damned lawyers. Luckily, they’re not doing Merchant of Venice at Ashland this year to remind us.” He laughed. “Talk about a pound of flesh.”
“Marc,” said Leslie, “if we’re going to be a family, you know he’s right.”
“I’ll have to talk to the office about having someone take over my stuff. I wish Robin and Doug lived here. That would be the best answer. But, yes, I’ll go if you’re sure. I’ve never been to Ashland, and I was jealous of your going anyhow.” I laughed. “I didn’t want to intrude.”
“That’s logically impossible, Marc,” said Leslie. “Intrude implies that you’re an outsider. If we’re a family, a unit, how could you be an outsider? Does not compute.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said sheepishly. “I love you both, of course, more than I could possibly say.”
Later that night, in bed, before we fell asleep, I said to Bart, “I assume the honeymoon business was your idea.”
“Les agreed almost before it was out of my mouth and said she should have thought of it herself. What made you think it was my idea?”
“Because Leslie couldn’t possibly have known that if you two went off on your honeymoon alone, it would have been the first time in eight years, since that first Christmas, that you and I would have been apart.”
Bart smiled as he turned out the light.
“Night, old man.”
“Night, kid.”
Chapter 33
The legal work got done on schedule, and we were able to close on the house as planned. That gave us time to have the door put in between their bedroom and mine, to get the plumbing installed in the new gym, to have things moved from Leslie’s place and our house, and to get the new furniture delivered.
It was a busy period, but everything went smoothly, and the three of us were surprised to find how well we worked as a team.
Bart asked for and got time off from the show the week before the wedding—I think he was written off to Sierra Leone as a member of a special Doctors without Borders mission. Pretty much the entire cast and crew had been invited to the wedding, so they understood.
His parents were due to arrive the Sunday before the wedding. Bryan and Ryan were also coming, but later in the week, as were Robin, Doug, and Johnny. They were all staying with us, so the three other bedrooms would be filled.
We moved in a week and a half after the closing. Considering the fact that Bart and I were working—Leslie was off for the summer—that would never have been possible without Jeanine.
Jeanine was the person I had in mind when I first showed them the house. She was the housekeeper for Steve and Don, two clients of mine in their late fifties, one a writer and the other a producer. They were moving back to the east coast to be closer to their families, and I was handling the sale of their home.
Jeanine had run their household, and their lives as well, as far as I could tell, for the last ten years, and while they didn’t want to part with her and would have paid her anything she asked if she would move east with them, she had family in LA and wouldn’t go. They were delighted we were interested because they didn’t want to leave her without a position.
Since she’d worked for a gay couple, I felt she’d be pretty much open to our situation. Whoever we hired had to understand what our relationship was from the outset. But she also had to be able to deal with the children to come. Turns out Jeanine had grandchildren of her own—the major reason she wouldn’t leave LA—and really loved kids. We couldn’t have asked for much more.
Leslie’s organizational abilities served us well here. She interviewed Jeanine first to explain the situation.
“I was surprised at her reaction,” Leslie told us. “When I described our sleeping arrangements, all she did was nod as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.”
“That’s a great sign,” said Bart. “I’d have hired her on the spot.”
“Not quite yet. We still need to know if she can tolerate the two of you,” she said with a smile. “I’ve set up a meeting with her on Saturday at one o’clock. I checked the calendar, and you’re both free. Attendance is mandatory.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Works for me,” I said.
On Saturday, all went well. Jeanine was shocked to learn that she’d be working for Bart Rastin, one of the main characters in her favorite soap. I think she was a bit overwhelmed at meeting him in the flesh—well, not quite in the flesh the way he was on the show since he wasn’t shirtless and was wearing his usual T-shirt and jeans.
In terms of being independent, however, Leslie almost met her match in Jeanine who may have been impressed by Bart, but who was still not shy about asking for what she wanted, not only in terms of salary—it was considerable, but I’d expected that from talking to Steve and Don—but also authority. She wanted a say on any additional people we hired, such as house cleaners or yard people, and insisted that they report to and get their instructions from her, not us. Moreover, Jeanine herself would report to only one of us. She didn’t care which of us it was, but she was adamant about that.
“There are problems when too many people are giving directions. One person doesn’t know what the other person has asked me to do. It started out that way with Mr. Steve and Mr. Don, and things were very confused. I was ready to quit. But finally, we worked it out so that Mr. Don would tell me what needed to be done, and Mr. Steve would go through Mr. Don. From then on, things were fine. Three of you would only make things worse, so one person has to be in charge. You decide who that is.”
For us, it was an easy choice, Bart and I both wanted Leslie to handle that, and she agreed to it gladly. Jeanine was officially on board.
Sound stupid? It was brilliant. We called it Jeanine’s Rule, and God knows how many arguments and disagreements it avoided. It was every bit as useful as rule number two.
What we ended up with was a clear line of authority in the household. If Bart or I wanted something special done to the yard or in the house, we told Leslie and she worked with Jeanine who passed it along, if necessary, to the house cleaner and yard worker. Jeanine did the shopping, and anything Bart or I wanted had to be put in writing—yes, in writing—on Leslie’s list on the refrigerator door.
As she had with Steve and Don, Jeanine would live with us. The suite off the kitchen had its own patio, carport, and access to the yard. She agreed to do breakfast five days a week and dinner Monday through Thursday. The day-to-day running of the house was left to her. She’d supervise any entertaining we did as long as she was given adequate notice.
She proved her worth from the beginning. Before we moved in, she insisted, with her usual authority, on being taken to Leslie’s apartment and our house to see how we lived, and then the four of us went through the new house talking about where items, new and old, would go. Jeanine took detailed notes which surprised me, but it paid off in the ease with which the move was accomplished.
I said the four of us went through the house, but though Bart and I were both present, Jeanine, true to her rule, would take directions only from Leslie.
If either of us said anything to her about what we wanted, she would follow that up with, “Is that right, Ms Leslie?” After hearing her do this a couple of times, we very quickly altered the way we made suggestions.
For example, instead of one of us saying, “I think the new bed should go into the guest room,” we’d say, “Leslie, could the new bed go into the guest room?”
Leslie, if she agreed—and she didn’t always—would then say, “Jeanine, we’ll put the new bed in the guest room.”
Jeanine would dutifully note it on her list and reply, “Yes, Ms. Leslie.”
It was funny and repetitious, but it probably saved a lot of grief later on.
And then Jeanine worked her magic. I’m still not sure how she did it, but by the time Bart got home from the studio on moving day, while there were boxes everywhere, the big pieces of furniture were pretty much where they were supposed to be, our beds were made up for the night, and Jeanine told us we could expect breakfast in the morning.
That night we ordered food in for dinner and asked Jeanine to join us.
“Thank you,” she said, “but I have something for my own dinner, and if there’s nothing else you need, Ms. Leslie, I’ll say good night now.”
Even if we didn’t understand it at first, Jeanine soon taught us that there was a need for boundaries between employers and employees. While she was a warm and caring person whom we came to love dearly and who loved us back, she made it clear from the outset that she was our housekeeper, not our friend. It was one of the many things she would teach us over the years.
Chapter 34
Jeanine did attend the wedding, however—maybe not as our friend, but as our welcomed guest.
It was a huge wedding in—where else?—Beverly Hills, and Phil and Marian’s personal friends and corporate acquaintances made up a large part of the guest list with the cast and crew from Mt. Sinai Heights making up the second biggest contingent. Leslie invited quite a few friends and her colleagues from UCLA, but I invited only Robin and Doug and a couple of close friends from my office who knew Bart.
We all laughed a lot about a year later when we saw the final scene and credits of The Birdcage. It looked very much like Leslie and Bart’s wedding with the staid corporate types and university faculty sitting on the bride’s side and the actors and less conventional types sitting on the groom’s. No drag queens on either side, however.
We also had press coverage, of a sort. Aside from the photographers—one still and one video—whom Marian had hired, Soap Opera Digest wanted shots and a story. Jay was too cagey to let anything out of his control, so a network photographer and publicist were sent instead—with Marian’s and Bart’s approval. The magazine’s personnel would not be allowed in although we later discovered that one reporter had slipped into the ceremony. We never did find out how.
I had to admit that Marian took care of everything in amazing detail. The only things we had to do were provide names and addresses for the invitations and be on time for fittings. We had little other input, and that was perfect with us.
When I first met Marian, I’d been a bit patronizing in my own mind, thinking of her as an empty-headed socialite, but my respect soared when I saw how skillfully she’d organized and planned everything and how well it all came off. She could easily have afforded a professional wedding planner, but she chose to take charge herself. I’d always ascribed Leslie’s organizational skills to her father, the businessman, but the wedding proved that those came equally from both her parents.
Leslie was even more beautiful than usual. There’s no way I could describe her gown which was white on white—simple yet elegant, so I won’t even try, but I knew that this was one area in which Marian gave way to Leslie’s innate sense of taste. Only Leslie could have chosen that gown.
I’ve always loved Bart in a tux. Much of the time he still wore jeans and T-shirts, even to work since he’d have to change once he got to the studio. But when he did dress up, the change was amazing. His black wedding tux had a white vest and tie, and he was every bit as handsome as Leslie was beautiful. The two of them were a stunning couple.
The three-ring ceremony came off very well, pretty much as Bart had described it. While each of them put a ring on the other’s hand, they both put the ring on mine, Bart squeezing my fingers as he did. That was a serious emotional moment for the three of us even though maybe only our families and a few of our closest friends understood what was happening. It had no legal validity, but it was the nearest thing we would ever have to a point at which the three of us symbolically became one.
The vows, their kiss, the march back down the aisle, and the ceremony was done. As best man, I stood in the receiving line just after Leslie and Bart.
Uncle Buddy greeted us emotionally. Even I began to tear when he attempted to hug and congratulate and kiss the three of us all at once. And like many others in line, he wanted to see my ring.
Then drinks, the meal, the toasts, the first dance, the cutting of the cake, a few other traditions involving garters and the tossing of flowers, and the celebratio
n was done. We were finally free. We would have skipped most of that, but it was really Marian’s day, and we participated willingly and with good grace for her sake. After all, she’d get only this one wedding.
That night we had reservations at an upscale hotel near the airport in a connecting two-room suite. Wedding night or not, nothing changed. Bart went to bed with Leslie and came to sleep with me, albeit maybe a bit later than usual. The flight to Medford was mid-morning the next day, and from there we rented a car for the drive to Ashland.
It was a short honeymoon, just under a week, but the legal work was completed, we were settled into our new house, the wedding was over, and we could relax and enjoy ourselves with no responsibilities to anyone else.
We saw four plays: Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Richard II, and another of my favorite plays, Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth. Macbeth was especially fun because, of course, the second witch was Bart’s debut performance at the U of A. He’d certainly come a long way since then.
We returned home on Saturday so we’d get to see Ada and Jack before they left on Sunday. Bryan and Ryan had left the day after the wedding as had Doug and Robin, but Ada and Jack stayed the week. Jeanine looked after them as much as she needed to. They had one of our cars and by then knew their way around LA well enough to be able to function pretty much on their own.
By Sunday night, when we returned from taking them to the airport, we were finally home and alone. We collapsed on the new sofa which we’d barely had a chance to use and took a collective deep breath. But though we may have looked like Gilda, Leo, and Otto at the end of the play, we still had a few more scenes to play.
Chapter 35
It had been an incredibly hectic time from the end of April with that first-time meeting of the three of us through to the end of August with the wedding and honeymoon. There had been so much to do that our lives never settled into any kind of routine.