Strawberries for Dessert

by Marie Sexton

  Intermission passed much the same way, and although Trey was busy pouring drinks, I saw the looks they gave each other when we picked up the wine Cole had ordered ahead of time.

  “So,” Cole said in an obvious effort to cut the tension between us,

  “have you seen this play before?”

  “No. But it’s very popular.”

  “The costumes are absolutely amazing, aren’t they?”

  “I suppose.” I hadn’t really noticed the costumes, and the fact that he would notice annoyed me for no good reason. It seemed to underline my conviction that we had nothing in common. “What do you think so far?” I asked, and I couldn’t make my voice sound friendly.

  He eyed me warily before saying drolly, “I think you and Elphaba have a great deal in common.”

  “I’m not green.”

  “Of course not, love. It’s more the attitude. Uptight and with absolutely no sense of humor.”

  “I suppose we should all be more flighty, like Galinda?” I asked, and I saw by the way his eyes narrowed that he did not miss my meaning. He turned away from me and drained his glass of wine, then walked back into the theater without me.

  I didn’t care if he was angry. I didn’t care if I had hurt him. I stood there cursing myself for everything I could think of, from first agreeing to meet him for dinner so many months ago to asking him out tonight. I finished my wine and went back in, taking my seat next to him without saying a word.

  After the play, I wanted only to get out of there as quickly as possible. What was normally a pleasant experience for me had been ruined, and I wanted nothing more than to be away from him. The lobby was packed with people shopping at the merchandise booths and buying more drinks, and some like us, who were simply trying to get to the door.

  We were almost there when a familiar voice said, “Jonathan!” I turned in the crush of people to find Marcus next to me. “It’s good to see you don’t work all the time!” he said cheerfully. “Let me buy you a drink.”

  Shit. There was no way I wanted to tell Marcus no. On the other hand….

  “Come on,” he said, sensing my hesitation. “My wife is over there,” he waved vaguely in the direction of the bathroom, “talking to her sister. I’ll be here at least another hour.”

  “Well, sir—”

  “We would love to join you,” Cole suddenly said from just behind my right elbow, and Marcus looked at him in surprise. I felt dread forming in the pit of my stomach. Cole held his hand out to Marcus. “I’m Cole. And you are?”

  “Marcus Barry,” Marcus said uneasily, shaking Cole’s hand.

  “He’s my boss,” I said to Cole, hoping he would realize that I was pleading with him not to embarrass me.

  “Marcus! Of course. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard all about you, of course.”

  Marcus was looking back and forth between us, his cheeks slowly turning red. “I’m sorry,” he said, obviously flustered. “You’re a friend of Jonathan’s?”

  Oh God. I wished there was a nearby hole I could climb into to hide. It wasn’t that I hid my homosexuality at work. It was simply that it had never come up. I didn’t go to the company Christmas parties, and I didn’t go out for beers with the guys. I did my work and I kept to myself. It was my own self-imposed version of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

  And although I knew some of my co-workers had their suspicions, nobody had ever had the nerve to question me.

  Cole was looking at me for help, and I was standing there like an idiot, trying to figure out what to say. Saying he was just a friend seemed like an insult. Saying he was my partner was vastly untrue.

  Saying he was my lover would certainly embarrass Marcus.

  Cole finally gave up on me and turned back to Marcus. “What Jonny seems unable to say is that I am his date.”

  “Oh,” Marcus stammered, as his face turned even more red. “So the two of you are, ummm… a couple?”

  Cole smiled at him, actually batted his eyes a little, and I worried that Marcus’s imminent heart attack might be even closer than I had anticipated. “I guess you could call us friends with benefits,” Cole said.

  “Oh,” Marcus said again. He was starting to sweat a little, and I could see him frantically scanning the crowd. I assumed he was looking for his wife to come and rescue him.

  “Cole!” I said in alarm.

  “Do you object to that definition, love? How exactly would you classify our relationship?”

  “Marcus, thanks for the drink offer, but we really need to go—”

  “Of course,” Marcus said with obvious relief.

  I grabbed Cole’s arm and steered him toward the door. Once we were outside, he pulled away from me angrily. “Let go of me! I’m not a child!”

  “Why in the world did you say that him?” I snapped.

  “I waited for you to answer him, and you were just standing there with your mouth hanging open! I thought the man at least deserved a response.”

  “You couldn’t have been a little less obvious?”

  “Was I supposed to lie to him? You’re the one that invited me out! You’re the one that obviously has a problem with this. Maybe you’d like to make me a list of all the things I’m allowed to say when we run into people you know. Maybe you’d like to inform me of exactly how I should classify our relationship, in case we’re ever asked again. Lord knows I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.”

  He turned and walked toward the car, and I trailed along behind him, fuming the entire time. We drove back to my place in stony silence. I couldn’t believe how angry I was. I fought back the urge to lash out at him. I knew it would only make matters worse. The best thing would be to get back to my house, where his car was parked, and go our separate ways, at least for a few days. At least until I could look at him without feeling rage welling up inside of me.

  We got to my house, and I expected him to head straight for his car. Instead, he followed me to the door, and I realized that he had probably left his keys inside, on the table by the door. I opened the door and we went in. He didn’t pick up his keys and leave, but I knew he wasn’t planning on staying by the fact that he didn’t take off his shoes the minute we were in the door.

  “Well,” he said, crossing the room and turning to stare at me challengingly with one hand on his hip, “let’s hear it, then.”

  “Hear what?” I asked through clenched teeth.

  “Whatever it is that’s got you in such a lather. You’re obviously furious at me. You’ve been completely unbearable all night, and now you’re practically foaming at the mouth. So quit stewing in your own juices, and let’s just get this over with, shall we? What the hell is your problem?”

  I wanted to tell him that it was nothing. I wanted to tell him to go home before I said something cruel. But his attitude only made me angrier. Every aspect of his flamboyance was worse now. Every layer of his affectation was accentuated: the cadence of his speech, the way he stood with his hand on his hip as he flipped his hair out of his eyes, and the way he managed to look down his nose at me, even though I was taller than him by at least two inches. “You really don’t know?” I asked.

  He turned away from me, flipping his hair in theatrical dismissal.

  “I have my suspicions, but we may as well work with the cold, hard facts, don’t you think, love?”

  “Fine!” I said, fighting to keep from yelling. “You want to know what’s bothering me? You’re bothering me! I can’t believe the way you acted tonight. With my boss! And last night, with my father! It’s embarrassing—”

  “Last night was your fault, not mine—”

  “What?”

  “—and it’s not my problem if you’re embarrassed by your sexuality.”

  “I’m not embarrassed about being gay! I’m embarrassed by you!

  Why do you have to act so goddamn flamboyant?”

  He froze. For just a moment, he was deathly still. And then he turned, very slowly, to look at me. “What did you just say to m
e?”

  There was an angry warning in his eyes, but I ignored it.

  “You heard me.”

  “Of course I heard you,” he said icily. “I thought I would allow you the luxury of taking it back. Rather diplomatic of me, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t need to take it back!”

  “Are you quite sure about that, darling?” He turned away from me with a perfectly orchestrated toss of his head.

  He was giving me a chance to get out of this before I pushed it too far, but I wasn’t about to take it. All I could think about was the way he had acted with my father and the embarrassment on Marcus’s face, and it made me furious. “I don’t want to take it back, Cole! I want you to answer me! Why do you have to act like such a, a, a—” I stumbled, stopped short, not really wanting to say any of the words that had popped into my head. But it was too late.

  He turned and pinned me with a piercing stare. “A what?” he asked, advancing on me. “Which term will you throw at me, lovey? Do you think I haven’t heard them all? Queen, fag, fairy, flamer—”

  Those were the terms that had come to mind, but they sounded even worse out loud than they had in my head. It should have made me ashamed, but instead it only made me angrier at him for throwing them back in my face. “Jesus Christ, Cole, I wasn’t going to say any of those things!”

  “Don’t kid yourself, darling. It was all over your face.” He put one hand on his hip, cocked his other hip out, and tossed his head back.

  He was amping it up, turning it into a performance just for my benefit.

  He batted his eyelashes at me. “Does it offend you so much, darling?

  You never seem to mind when we’re in the bedroom.”

  “Goddamn it, Cole, I’m not talking about in t he be droom! I’m talking about when we’re out in public! Why do you have to act like every bad stereotype Hollywood has ever dreamed up for us?”

  “Why do you have to act like such an arrogant, uptight prick?”

  “So we’re going to resort to name calling, rather than discussing this rationally?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Are we actually discussing something? You’ll have to forgive my confusion. I thought you were simply attacking me for not being a perfect carbon copy of every straight man you’ve ever wished you could fuck!”

  That word, coming from him, sounded more obscene than normal.

  I realized I had never actually heard him swear before. “Cole, stop! I’m not attacking you.”

  “It certainly feels like you are. My mistake, darling.”

  “My name is not ‘darling’. It’s Jonathan. And if that’s too hard for you to remember, you can just call me Jon.”

  “I can think of plenty of other things I would rather call you right at this particular moment.”

  “That was my boss, for God’s sake. I have to work with him! I need him to respect me! Would it kill you tone it down a bit?”

  His eyes flashed, and to my surprise, in the blink of an eye, he cut the act. It was like a curtain came down, and suddenly he there in front of me—no affectation at all. And he was livid. “Do you think you’re the first man to be embarrassed by me, Jonny-boy? Do you think you’re the first man who’s ever asked me to ‘tone it down’? Because you’re not! Better men than you have asked me to change, and I’ll tell you what I told them: go to hell!”

  He turned and headed for the door, grabbing his keys off of the table as he went.

  “Damn it, Cole! Wait!”

  But he didn’t stop. He slammed my front door so hard that my windows rattled. I didn’t go after him.

  Date: October 12

  From: Cole

  To: Jared

  Good lord Sweets, if you never set me up again, it will be too soon! I honestly have no idea what you were thinking.

  I THOUGHT at first that he would call. He didn’t. I thought that when I got home from work the next night, he would be there waiting for me like always. He wasn’t.

  I realized then that it was up to me.

  I was torn. Part of me was still angry. I didn’t believe that I had done anything wrong. I had seen him turn the levels of his flamboyance up and down like the volume on the TV. I knew he could do it. I just didn’t understand why he was unwilling to do it when it mattered the most to me. But I also knew that I didn’t want things to end between us. I especially didn’t want them to end on such unfriendly terms. I felt certain that if I could just talk to him about it reasonably, without it turning into a shouting match, we could reach some sort of understanding.

  I finally broke down and called him three days later. He picked up on the fourth ring, right before it would have gone to his voice mail.

  “What?” he snapped, in lieu of saying hello. Any doubts I might have had that he was still angry went right out the window.

  “It’s me.”

  “I know.”

  Not a good start to the conversation. I made myself count to five, then said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what exactly, darling?”

  “I’m sorry for—” I stumbled, trying to figure out what I was supposed to say. “For making you angry.”

  There was a stony silence on the other end of the line, and then he asked, “Are you really sorry, or is it only that your bed felt awfully empty these last few nights?”

  “Jesus, Cole,” I said, fighting back my anger. “Do you have to make this so hard? I’m trying to apologize—”

  “Listen, honey,” he interrupted me, “here’s the thing: I leave for Hawaii at the crack of dawn, so—”

  “What?”

  “—I really don’t have the time to wait for you to pull your head out of your ass.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Did I not just say that?”

  “We have one fight, and you’re just going to fly off to Hawaii?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am. I dare say you’d leave yourself too, darling, if only you could.” There was an almost inaudible click, and he was gone.

  The entire thing made me furious. I couldn’t decide which one of us I was annoyed at more—him for being so arrogant or myself for even trying to apologize. I spent the evening getting gloriously drunk, and the entire next day at work regretting it. By five o’clock the nausea and headache had passed, but I still felt like I had been run over by a freight train. I managed to leave the office a few minutes early and drove home. My plan was a frozen pizza with an Alka-Seltzer chaser followed by a shower and then straight to bed.

  It wasn’t until after my shower that I noticed the light on my answering machine blinking at me. Every person I knew had my cell phone number. I rarely even paid attention to my land line. I hit play, and Cole’s voice filled the room, light and feminine and mocking. But there was a bitter edge to it this time too. There was not a doubt in my mind that he had intentionally called my home number while I was at work in order to avoid having to actually talk to me.

  “Here’s what it boils down to: I don’t want things to end between us. Not really. And especially not like this. Even if you are an uptight prick, you’re still my favorite person in all of Phoenix. But there are three things you need to know, and you better believe me when I tell you that these three things are one hundred percent non-negotiable. I won’t change who I am. I won’t spend all of our time together holed up in your bedroom just to keep from embarrassing you. And I won’t ever talk to you about this again.” There was a pause, and I wondered if he had stopped to count to five. “I’ll be home in exactly two weeks, Jonny-Boy. Ball’s in your court now.”

  I SPENT the next few days telling myself that I didn’t need him. It wasn’t as if I loved him. It wasn’t as if we had any kind of real relationship at all. We were fuck buddies, plain and simple. It was better to just forget him and move on.

  The problem was I couldn’t quite convince myself that it was true. Although I wouldn’t have called it love, the fact was I had grown used to having him around. I could not deny that I was fond of him, and more
than that, I missed him. When I was being honest with myself, which was only about half of the time, I knew that I didn’t want things to end between us any more than he did. But despite all that, I still felt that he should have been willing to take my feelings into account too.

  I had lunch with my dad the following week. I tried to act like everything was normal, but I failed miserably. I knew I was being surly and short-tempered, but I couldn’t seem to do anything to stop. Finally, as we were finishing our meal, he asked in exasperation, “What’s wrong, Jon?”

  “Nothing!” I snapped.

  “Uh- huh,” he said, smiling. It annoyed me, because it meant he thought my bad mood was funny, more than anything. “Is this about the fruitcake?”

  I bristled at that, and then was even more annoyed at myself for the fact my dad was right. It was Cole’s “fruitiness,” as my dad called it, that had caused this entire predicament.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “It’s Cole.”

  He eyed me with wary curiosity for a moment. “The two of you have a fight?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Did you break up?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know, Dad. I’m not really sure we were ever together to begin with.”

  “Was it because of what happened at dinner?”

  I hesitated, not wanting to talk about it. But I knew my dad. If I didn’t start talking, he would. He’d sit there speculating and giving me his opinion, whether I cooperated or not. “That was part of it. But the next night, we went to theater, and it didn’t exactly go the way I planned.”

  “Uh- huh,” he said again, looking amused.

  “What?” I asked defensively.

  “What exactly did you say to him?”

  “I told him he was too flamboyant. And I asked him to tone it down.”

  “And did he tell you to kiss his lily-white ass?”