I smiled. “I feel it.”
A few months ago, a white-haired stranger walked up to me and my daughter at the playground. The woman was dressed in blue silk. Even her glasses were blue. She bent down and asked my daughter: “Do you want to be a princess when you grow up?”
My child stared back at the woman. “I want to be a paleontologist astronaut. And a wildlife photographer.”
The woman raised her eyebrows with a smile. Her eyes fell on me. “You are the person you’ve been looking for,” she waved her hands in my face. “You are your own savior.”
“I love you,” the woman cried out doing a shuffle-dance, “I love everyone!”
My daughter and I giggled.
My daughter wants to know if she can marry a woman or a man when she grows up. I tell her she can marry whomever she wants. In fact, I specify, she can choose not to get married at all.
I’m grateful that my daughter isn’t interested in princes and princesses.
This year, she’s learning to ride a horse.
Whatever Happened?
BY ELIZABETH J. GERARD
I HAVE TO CONFESS, I HAVE AN AGENDA, I HAVE A QUESTION . . .
She is famous. A famous movie star. Famous for her red-ringleted hair. Famous for her twenty-five-million-dollars-a-film salary. Famous for her glittering smile and tabloid-cover fodder. I am not famous.
I am of the hard-hit, lost job/money/house/husband, living in the latest of a long list of cheap apartments sort. She is a famous movie star and I think she knows what I need to know, so I wrangle my way into being her driver for the week. I will drive to O’Hare and pick her up. Drive her to the Drake Hotel. Drive her to the film sets. Drive her back to O’Hare. She is a famous movie star and I know that she knows, at least think she knows, what I need to know.
Back Then
Peace Out. That’s the last thing she ever said to me. Peace Out. After strolling in Santa Monica along the Third Street Promenade. Promenading. She, next to me so tall and graceful, gliding in her swan-like way. Me, practically floating off the ground. So happy to be with her in Santa Monica after so many years gone by since the last time we’d seen each other. So much to catch up on. I smile up at her. Self-consciously she rubs her cropped hair. I cut my locks. They were really long. Really long. So I cut them. I cut my locks. Oh, her locks! Her locks! Her beautiful long-locked hair! Always loose, always untethered, flowing from her head like a thousand black snakes. So beautiful but, They were really long. Really long. So I cut them. I cut my locks. She rubs her cropped hair.
Then we are in a bar but there’s too much noise and neon. Too many video screens and pinball games. Too many lights flashing flashing flashing everywhere. These lights hurt my eyes, can we go somewhere dark? Her eyes, her eyes, what’s wrong with her eyes?
We leave the noisy neon-lit bar and the clamor of the Third Street Promenade. We go to my tiny, dark Santa Monica hotel room with the window that looks out on a brick wall. She draws the shades (no light, no light, it hurts her eyes). We flop back on the bed. We lie fully clothed next to each other on the bed. We lie against the cheap orange bedspread, our arms at our sides, like the dead. We lie like the dead, and we don’t speak for a long time. For a long time we just listen to the sounds of our breaths drifting out into the dark, dark room.
Then, I’m going blind. Nothing can be done. There’s a tumor. There’s a tumor pressing against my eyes. My heart stops. Her eyes. Her eyes? A tumor? Will this kill her? Will she die?
I don’t know. Maybe. Yeah. But what can be done, when there is nothing to be done?
The years in between, since the last time we saw each other, have not been good to us. We both have stories that will make the other weep. The years in between have not been good to us. But what can be done, when there is nothing to be done?
Now
I’ve got to, I need to, I have to . . .
What the fuck am I going to wear when I meet the famous movie star so she won’t think I’m some kind of nut job? So she’ll see that I’m a just a normal woman. As normal as the sun. I have to ask, and I want to look nice when I ask. I don’t want to wear the jeans and T-shirt uniform I have been wearing since I lost my job/ money/house/husband. I want to look nice. I want to look professional. I want to look nice and professional so she’ll feel comfortable enough to tell me what I need to know. Maybe she doesn’t know any more than I do but I have to ask. I have to ask, and I want to look nice when I ask.
Back Then
Peace Out. That’s the last thing she ever said to me. Peace Out then no phone call. Peace Out then no address/emails/texts. Peace Out then no Google/Facebook/LinkedIn. Peace Out then nothing. I search and search, for years I search. After lying fully clothed next to each other on the cheap orange bedspread in the tiny, dark Santa Monica hotel room with the window that looked out on a brick wall, her eyes so full of sadness. She said she was going blind. She said she might die. She said, I’m thinking about moving to Santa Cruz, get out of this crazy town. L.A. is too much for me, too much. The last time I saw her, in the tiny, dark Santa Monica hotel room with the window that looked out on a brick wall, she said everything was too much for her, too much. The last time I saw her, she said, Peace Out, then she disappeared.
Did she move? Maybe she moved.
Is she dead? Maybe she’s dead.
(Please, God, don’t let her be dead.)
Now
This might seem rude, I’m sorry if this seems rude, I don’t mean to be rude . . .
God! How long has it been since I got really dressed up? So many moves. Always moving, moving, moving. A divorce then too many moves. A suicide attempt and a divorce and then I am constantly moving. I never settle, never unpack, never know where anything is. Where the fuck is my makeup/jewelry/skirts? A divorce will do that to you. A divorce after a suicide attempt will do that to you. You will lose everything.
A Lifetime Ago
My heart burst the first time I ever saw her. She, auditioning for a commercial in L.A. Me, producing that commercial in L.A. She stepped in front of the camera, so shy, so shy. Then she lifted her head, her eyes like golden topaz, her skin like Ethiopian soil, and she smiled. She just stepped in front of the camera, lifted her head, and smiled, and I knew, I knew, I knew she’d be in that commercial if I had to kill for her to be in it. If I had to kill. I knew she’d be in the commercial if I had to kill.
And now she is in the commercial. And now she’s here at the wardrobe fitting. And now there’s a box of wigs on the table. A box of wigs to cover her beautiful long black locks.
The white director doesn’t like her long black locks. The white director wants to cover her long black locks. The white director says her long black locks make her look “too black.”
She’s so shy, but that smile. That smile! What can I do to make her smile? I pick a huge afro out of the box of wigs. I put the huge afro on my head. The afro covers my straight blonde hair. The afro covers my straight blonde hair that no one says makes me look “too white.” I put the afro on and when she turns around I’m behind the table with the ridiculous afro on my head and she laughs so hard she doubles over and we both know, we both know. We’re both laughing and catching the light in each other’s eyes and the spark is there. The spark is there and we both know. But I am married. Back in Chicago my husband awaits my return from L.A. I am married and I love my husband awaiting my return. I love him. But she and I both know. She and I both know the spark is there but it won’t go anywhere. It can’t. Because what can be done, when there is nothing to be done?
Back Then
I tried to kill myself. I tell her everything while the sun slides behind the Santa Monica hotel room window and the room goes black. Lying fully clothed on our backs on the cheap orange bedspread like the dead in the dark, I tell her everything about my husband leaving me after I’d confessed my love for her to him. I tell her about wanting to die after my husband left me. I tell her how much I wanted to die that I downed a sixty-fourounce b
ottle of vodka and all the meds I could find in my house. I tell her I actually did die. About being D.O.A. About the EMTs reviving me. About waking up in the hospital and wanting to die all over again.
I tell her that the years since we last saw each other, on the set in L.A., a wig covering her beautiful long black locks, have not been good to me. The years have not been good to me.
I’m going blind. She tells me everything about the tumor that is blinding her. About the tumor that might kill her. She tells me about living out of her car after the red-ringleted, twenty-five-million-dollar-salary-glittering-smile,-tabloid-fodder-famous movie star told her she had to leave the guest house she’d been renting from her. That the famous movie star’s white boyfriend didn’t like a black lesbian renting the guest house. And so the famous white movie star told the black lesbian she had to go. She didn’t care where.
(The famous movie star’s white boyfriend didn’t like a black lesbian renting the guest house. The famous movie star’s white boyfriend told her she had to choose between him and the black lesbian. The famous movie star’s white boyfriend told her the black lesbian had to go. So the famous movie star told the black lesbian she had to go. She didn’t care where.)
She tells me that the years since we last saw each other, on the set in L.A., a wig covering her beautiful long black locks, have not been good to her. The years have not been good to her.
Lying on our backs fully clothed on the cheap orange bedspread in the tiny, dark Santa Monica hotel room with the window that looked out on a brick wall, we tell each other about everything that has happened to us since we last saw each other. We tell each other everything. Then for a long time we don’t say anything. For a long time, we just listen to the sounds of our breaths drifting out into the dark, dark room.
But then—then she reached for my hand and just held it, her long black fingers wrapped around my small white ones. And then—then we turned to each other and kissed. And then—then we just held each other. And then—then we both cried. We held each other and cried for each other until we both fell asleep, fully clothed, on top of the cheap orange bedspread in the tiny dark Santa Monica hotel room with the window that looked out on a brick wall.
Now
I don’t know if you know, but if you do know then I have to know because . . .
Because I loved her as soon as she stepped in front of that camera so, so many years ago. Because I’ve searched and searched and searched and after all these years I still can’t find her. Because Peace Out was the last thing she said to me. The last thing she said after she took my hand, after we held each other all night long, after we wept for each other. Because she said Peace Out, then she disappeared.
(If she’s dead, then she’s dead. At least I know. It’s the not knowing that’s killing me.)
Back Then
After we woke in the morning in the tiny, dark Santa Monica hotel room with the window that looked out on a brick wall. After I said I had a plane to catch. After she said she had to go to work. After she hugged me so tightly. So, so tightly. Like she didn’t want to let go. But then she did. She did let go. She let go, and after she let go, she said the last thing she ever said to me.
Peace Out.
Then she disappeared.
So. . . .
Now
I hate to ask but I have to ask because I think you might know, and it’s been so many years since I first fell in love with her when I cast her in the commercial I was producing, and so many more years since I last saw her in that tiny, dark Santa Monica hotel room with the window that looked out on a brick wall, and she said she was going blind, and she said she might die, and she said the last thing she ever said to me.
Peace Out.
And I’ve been searching and searching for years, I’ve been searching, and I love her, and I have to know, I have to know, I have to know. Do you, do you, do you know . . .
Whatever happened . . . to T?
Well, You Look Like a Lesbian
BY SHERRY GLASER
THERE WERE SO MANY BOYS. FROM THE TIME I TURNED thirteen, no twelve. Maybe it was eleven. I was brimming over with sexuality very early in life. I just wanted to play doctor. I liked the touching, the looking, the feelings I got from my body.
I was also deeply insecure. I wasn’t pretty or adorable like a lot of my Long Island classmates in the 1970s. I was gangly and had problems with my pale, oily complexion and frizzy hair, and I simply hated my nose. A lot of girls my age were given nose jobs for Bat Mitzvah presents.
My mother said, “Your nose is your nose. It is like no one else’s. It makes you you. If you have a nose job it will look like everyone else’s, and it will look like you had a nose job. But if you are determined to change your nose when you’re eighteen and you have your own money and your own life, you can do that.” Since I had to wait patiently to be attractive, I decided to give up the nose job and pursue blowjobs.
This decision was not a healthy one.
Boys I was attracted to, who didn’t want me as a girlfriend, would succumb to my offering, especially if their girlfriends weren’t willing or able to give them what some called the “ultimate gift.”
In this world of secret sex, I was soaked in shame and self-loathing, but there was also a sense of power, one that I liked. It was strong enough to keep me going after rendezvous under the boardwalk or the basement until I got my first real boyfriend at sixteen. Not only did he like the sex, he liked being seen with me in public, too.
We had raucous sex every time we got together. His mother even came home early one afternoon to find us full throttle in her bed.
Hell, I was sixteen, and I could go for miles. I was fairly orgasmic because I’d been playing with myself for years. By the time I left New York for California when I was eighteen, I had had at least thirty different boyfriends. I thank Goddess to this day I never got a sexually transmitted disease, or pregnant, or worse.
I liked these guys. Some were truly nice, fun to be with, cute, sexy, but the truth was I never felt comfortable with them. Sure, I could entertain and sexually satisfy, but I would subconsciously obsess. Am I too fat, too quiet, too ugly, too much, not enough, too smart, not smart enough? I just wasn’t okay being me. I always had to prove myself with these man-boys, and that was just peachy with them.
During my first semester at my university in San Diego, I settled down with a beautiful Blackfoot Canadian surfer man. We had a great time traveling all over Southern California for music, surfing, and live theater. He ultimately dumped me for a really pretty girl, but sent me off with his saxophone solo of “There Will Never Be Another You.” I can’t hear that song today without feeling a bit rejected.
One day, after a class called Feminism in the Social Sciences, I found myself in the library perusing Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party and books by Audre Lorde. One of my classmates, a tall Midwestern farm girl in denim overalls, puckered her cherry lips and asked me from the other side of a large mahogany table, “Are you a lesbian?”
I responded, “What?”
“A lesbian. Are you a lesbian?”
Still in shock I said, “No, why?”
“Because you look like one.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Too bad, because I wanted to ask you out.”
I quickly abandoned my quest for feminist literature and anatomical dinner plates and went back to my dorm room and looked in the mirror for a long time.
What was it about me that made her think I was a lesbian? My big nose? My short hair? My strong opinions, my New York accent? What the hell?
I lay down on my bed and looked across the room at pictures of my roommate. Blonde and bouncy, I loved her like crazy. We spent a lot of time together doing our homework, not doing our homework, singing, laughing, drinking, pissing off fraternity boys. We spent weekends in the desert eating turkey and cream cheese on pita bread, guzzling Heinekens, and watching the magnificent sunsets and star shows.
Nothing was more fun th
an being with Diana.
“Oh shit, does that mean I’m a . . . lesbian? Wait. No. I like boys, I’ve always liked boys.”
Well, there was that girl next door when I was ten years old. We would do stripteases for each other and go into the closet in our undies and rub up and down on each other. Then there was my best friend, Heidi, who played feather tickle with me for hours during our slumber parties, and my friend Felicia who would come over after school, and we would play office where I was the boss and she was the secretary, and she would lean over my desk, and I would look down her shirt.
I shuddered at my newfound epiphany, stuffed it in the back pocket of my faded Levi’s, and went out and fucked my boyfriend like a loyal heterosexual.
I ignored any flirtatious temptations with my roommate or any other cute girls lounging in our dorm room and commissary.
I liked boys.
Although, I will confess to you now—maybe I didn’t like boys, maybe I was just good at having sex with them.
I was an expert, a pro, I knew exactly what to do and when to do it, to drive them completely mad with pleasure, and on more than one occasion I was told in the golden afterglow, “Wow, you’re the best.”
Being the best meant a lot to me, but what I was best at obviously meant less. The power sex gave me was still a potent draw. I used it liberally to prop up all my other insecurities around beauty, intelligence, and talent.
Luckily, the fates had definite plans for me that took me into the world of improvisation. By the time I was twenty, I decided to drop out of school and pursue street theater with the likes of Whoopi Goldberg and Mo Gaffney, from the streets of San Diego to the stage at the Old Globe Theater. I also found an improvisation class in Pacific Beach. One evening a new student arrived. Maggie Gillette. She lit up the room with her crooked smile, sharp nose, lithe silhouette, and boundless energy. When she introduced herself, she showed off her profile and squawked like a parrot, which branded her as Bird Brain.
Greetings From Janeland Page 13