“How long have you been with Moi?” I asked him.
“We’re going on eight years,” Bryan said.
Ed might not have known they were lovers, but eight years together sounded pretty married to me.
Just then, a fight broke out in the street, white boys lunging at each other as if they’d been choreographed.
“Look,” I said, “West Side Story.”
Bryan sang a rousing verse of “Maria.”
“Ed’s going to flip out that I’m getting on so well with the family,” I said.
“Let him,” Bryan said. “We have to inject some edge into this.”
Bryan’s enthusiasm was infectious. No one else in my life had expressed the slightest interest in my feelings for Ed in a very, very long time.
I’ve always struggled to explain how it was possible to feel so strongly for a man who was completely out of my reach, how I could consider Ed my love, or even my friend, though he rarely visited or wrote or called.
Ed was one of the first people I’d met my first day at boarding school, just minutes after my parents had finished unpacking my suitcases, climbed back into their car, and driven away. That afternoon, Ed and I had walked down to the town side of the lake with a girl from my dorm and a boy from his. The four of us rented a rowboat, which the boys rocked back and forth on the water, trying to make us girls scream. Out there on that lake, I felt like these three strangers would be my friends for life. Then Ed announced his plans to run away.
“How are you going to pull that off?” I asked him.
“I’ve got a credit card,” he said.
I was impressed. I’d run away once, for about six minutes, but I’d only gotten halfway down the driveway before I changed my mind. Ed’s plan involved actual funding and a real destination—he was heading back to Florida as soon as possible, because he couldn’t live without water, and by water he meant the ocean, not some stupid lake. There was a mystery and darkness to his personality that enthralled me. I was the sort of girl who wanted to plumb that pain.
I was also flat chested, frizzy haired, and prisoner to a pair of exceptionally thick-lensed glasses, while Ed at fourteen was tanned and muscled, the only boy in our class already proportioned like a full-grown man. It’s no wonder, then, that despite periodically mortifying us both by declaring my undying adoration for him, I was never Ed’s girlfriend; he was drawn to manicured blondes, Southern belles in padded bras. But I was his confidante. Mostly he talked to me about other girls. He’d tell me which ones he liked, and he’d ask me to introduce him to them, and once he had those girls, he’d come to me for advice on how to keep them, or if I thought he should let them go. I thought I knew Ed well, which made me feel special, because those other girls did not.
As I got older, I discovered underwire, hair products, and contact lenses. But I never stopped loving Ed. I thought knowing him like I did had to mean something. I thought he’d figure that out, eventually, if I waited long enough, if I just put in the time.
Ten years later, I was still waiting. After that night in West Hollywood, months would pass without a word from Ed, but Bryan started to call. He behaved as if my friendship with Ed was as important as I imagined it, as if my place in Ed’s life was special and secure. Bryan was optimistic and encouraging, completely convinced that he could help me win Ed. His plan was simple: He integrated me into his and Moi’s life, which was, by extension, Ed’s life, and waited for Ed to wise up. He invited me to parties, and I went, even when Ed wouldn’t be there, because being with Bryan and Moi did spectacular things for my self-esteem. They showered me with attention; at their parties, I was never alone for a moment, never allowed to retreat to a corner chair. With Bryan and Moi, I was a woman I barely recognized, fun and flirty, even hot. A lot of that had to do with how Bryan spoke to me—he called me Sexy, as if that were my name. (Thanks to ten years of unrequited longing, I was a sucker for anyone who called me that, straight or gay.) When I was with Bryan and Moi, I was sexy, and the thought that I might one day end up in Ed’s arms seemed less and less improbable.
Maybe this was because Bryan and Moises had done the improbable themselves: They had found each other and fallen in love, a Southern man and a Latin Jewish man in a domestic arrangement that both cultures might view askance. It didn’t escape me that they’d been hiding their love from Ed almost as many years as I’d been shouting mine from the treetops at him. But despite those difficulties, they’d built a relationship so vibrant and loving that it spread to everything they touched. They’d created a beautiful home that they filled with friends, and they were building a business empire together, buying and selling and developing properties on both coasts.
We all know them, the Super Couples, those couples that all other couples measure themselves against, those couples whose health (or dysfunction) act as markers for the rest. Bryan and Moi were my Super Couple. The way they behaved around each other—their intimacy, their generosity toward each other, their good humor—made me want all those things for myself. I fell for Bryan and Moi almost as quickly as I’d fallen for Ed all those years earlier. Now, when I let myself fantasize about Ed, it wasn’t just the two of us in the picture. It was the four of us: me and Ed and Bryan and Moises, double-dating. I wanted us to be family: me and Ed and my perfect brothers-in-law.
Ironically the closer I got to Bryan and Moises, the more distant Ed and I became. We exchanged calls at our birthdays, but the only reason I knew how to reach him was because Bryan sent me Ed’s new contact information every time he changed his number, or moved. If I knew when Ed was coming to town, it was not because he told me; it was Bryan who did that, suggesting dinners for the four of us that would never come to pass. Bryan’s commitment to the dream rivaled my own, but he wasn’t just my cheerleader—ultimately, he was a true enough friend to be my reality check. One afternoon, he broke the news that everyone else had been keeping from me: Ed was back together with the most significant of his high school girlfriends, the Southern belle to beat all my nightmares of Southern belles. This time it looked like it was for keeps.
Lately I’d been thinking my entire strategy toward Ed was flawed, that no amount of time could make Ed love me the way I wanted. He wasn’t naturally constant, he wasn’t easily intimate, he could never give me what Bryan and Moises had. I’d assumed he simply wasn’t as driven to build a coupled life. But it seemed while I was waiting for him, he’d been waiting for this other woman. For the first time in a decade, I could see through my fantasies. It wasn’t love Ed had no interest in. It was me.
I’m not sure which of us was more disappointed, me or Bryan. “Just thought you ought to know, Sugar,” Bryan said. Sugar was what Bryan called me when the news was less sexy than sad.
Three years later, I’m not Sugar anymore. Now I’m Hon’ or Darlin’, which I suppose are more fitting terms of endearment from one married person to another. I’ll admit to missing Sexy, but gone is the single girl at parties. I’m all grown up, paired off, a shockingly contented wife.
It was while my fiancé, Dave, and I were planning our wedding that Bryan called to tell me Ed was sick. “Sugar,” Bryan said, “if you’re in your car, pull over to the side of the road.” He told me Ed had just been diagnosed with an advanced, aggressive cancer, and that afternoon he’d be leaving San Diego for treatment in New York.
I couldn’t follow him across the country this time, so I sent e-mails and letters, placed upbeat-sounding calls. But I didn’t feel upbeat. Sometimes I was so scared for Ed I couldn’t even manage to ask Bryan about him. Dave did it for me, often without my knowledge, only passing on the news if it seemed good.
We were married while Ed was still in chemo, so he missed our wedding. Bryan and Moises were busy traveling from L.A. to New York to see him, so they missed it, too. But Dave ensured they were all there that day. He toasted absent friends at our reception, and surprised me by singling out Ed by name.
Loving Dave is easy, and mostly painless. I don’t adore his
habit of spinning long, punny riffs from the names of our cats, nor do I appreciate being pressed to do the same. The way he moves through our house, shedding socks and soda cans and newspaper pages all over the floor in his wake drives me nuts. But there is no man on earth who can make me feel so much myself when I’m with him, no person I’ve ever met who is so fully invested in my happiness, who is so convinced that I am a woman who can achieve every imagined success. Dave may be completely incapable of doing a load of laundry without written instructions reminding him that drying our clothes is an essential part of the laundering process, but loath as I am to admit it, that’s a small price to pay to secure what I really wanted: a love like Bryan and Moi’s.
It took two full rounds of chemo, but eventually Ed got better. Dave and I are ecstatically married; we’re looking forward to having children and recently got a dog. And after years of waiting, I finally have a partner for my Bryan and Moises double-dates.
A few weeks ago, the four of us had dinner at our favorite Los Feliz Italian place. We talked about real estate, work, traveling. We didn’t talk about Ed, because we didn’t have to. For the first time in ages, I have Ed’s number because he gave it to me. If I want to know what’s he’s up to, all I have to do is call.
Over dessert, Dave asked Bryan and Moi if they ever thought about having children—now that we’re pregnant, Dave wants everyone we know to reproduce.
“I don’t know that we’re there yet,” Moises said. He looked at Bryan.
“Maybe when we’re forty,” Bryan said.
I don’t want them to wait that long. Every time I see them, I am reminded how much I owe them for my own happiness, how they ushered me away from my fantasy and back toward a much more full, real life. In some small way, I like to think that I’ve returned the favor. I hope I’m a little bit responsible for Moi’s finally confiding in his brother the whole truth about Bryan, as he did only a few weeks after that first night in West Hollywood five years ago, the night we met.
Now I want to pull them forward into a life with kids. I want to raise our families together, I want our kids to grow up together, I want them all to be best friends. I want them to grow up, fall in love, get married.
And maybe then, with the next generation, I’ll get my perfect in-laws, after all.
GET THIS
Cindy Chupack
I was finally getting married. That’s what I kept telling people. I didn’t say I was finally getting married “again,” because bringing up a first marriage during the planning of a second marriage seemed to be a major buzz kill for everyone involved, especially me. I suppose this is because it reminds the bride and groom, at a time when their biggest worry should be buttercream versus spun sugar, that these partnerships don’t always work out. That love does not always conquer all. And I didn’t want to hang that cloud over my fiancé, Ian, because this was his first wedding (a term I didn’t like for him either, because it implied he might have a second wedding). So in the same way that World War I was known as the Great War until World War II, we were simply planning our Great Wedding, and we tried not to talk about first anythings until our first meeting with the rabbi.
Ian called our rabbi “the hot rabbi,” because she was young and hip and, okay, let’s just say it: hot. I didn’t mind him calling her hot. In fact, I found it reassuring, because it was a clear sign, exactly when I needed one, on the brink of our Great Wedding, that Ian was not gay. The one wedding detail I was certain about was that I did not want to publicly declare my love for someone in front of my closest friends and family only to have that someone, two years later, realize he might be gay. Again.
Yes, okay, yes: That’s what happened to me the first time around, and that’s what I told the hot rabbi at our first meeting when she asked if either of us had been married before.
The hot rabbi blinked, then nodded. Like I said, she was hip. She lived in New York. What woman today doesn’t have a guy-who-turned-out-to-be-gay story? Admittedly, it’s a smaller, and somewhat stupider, subset that has a husband-who-turned-out-to-be-gay story, but my point is, the hot rabbi was appropriately not shocked. She said she didn’t need to know all of the details, although she was happy to listen if I needed to talk. But I didn’t need to talk about that. I have talked about it so much, the story is on Audible.com. (Seriously.) It was more than a decade ago. It was amicable. We labeled index cards with our meager belongings and divided them up. We shared a cat for a while. It stung me a bit when I realized he was going to have a husband and kids before I did. I think it stung him a bit when he realized I was getting paid more to write sitcoms than he was getting paid to save lives. So we gave each other space to have—or have not—without judgment.
The hot rabbi then asked if my ex-husband was Jewish. This seemed like a moot point to me, but I told her, yes, he was Jewish. She nodded again and made a note.
I remember how happy my parents were that I was marrying a Jewish doctor. It was like winning the Jewish lottery, until he turned out to be gay. After that, my parents cared less about my boyfriend’s religion than his ability to name at least three pro ball players. Therefore, it was nice, but not essential, that Ian turned out to be Jewish as well. Ian was a bad-boy motorcycle-riding tattooed lawyer-poet-chef who proposed to me on a beach at sunset, riding a white horse, dressed as a knight. The fact that he was Jewish was the least remarkable thing about him.
In the spirit of full disclosure, Ian told the hot rabbi that his mother had converted to Judaism before he was born, but she might now consider herself more of a Buddhist, and while we were on the subject of the gays, she was also a late-in-life lesbian who had recently married a woman. The hot rabbi made another note, then mused that it was perhaps fitting that our wedding was taking place during New York’s Gay Pride weekend.
This fact, I have to admit, had somehow eluded me. As I started contemplating the irony of this, and wondering which of our carefully laid plans might be derailed by the parade route, Ian went on to explain that his dad was Jewish, and although his dad died when Ian was young, Ian still considered himself a Jew, and wanted a Jewish wedding, so here we were. Ian and the hot rabbi smiled at me. I smiled back, pretending to have been paying attention. Then the hot rabbi had this question for me: “Did you ever get a get?”
I had heard of a get. I knew it was some kind of Jewish divorce certificate, but it felt like Number 1,764 on my list of priorities when my marriage ended—slightly less pressing than figuring out what to do with all of our wedding photos, and about as exciting as informing my credit card companies that I needed to change my name back. Our Jewish divorce was definitely less urgent than our non-Jewish divorce, which was complicated enough, especially since I was attempting to fill out the forms myself with the help of a do-your-own-divorce book and a gay production assistant from the show where I was working.
I mention the gay production assistant not only because he was very helpful, but also because at that time in my life—when my marriage was ending for the most irreconcilable of differences—it seemed like everyone in the world was gay. It wasn’t just my husband: Two of his groomsmen came out after our wedding, and, in a very unexpected twist, one of my bridesmaids. Looking back, I’m not sure if it was a wedding party or a White Party.
I was tinkering with stand-up comedy then, and onstage I only talked about things like why a clerk at the ninety-nine-cent store would shout, “Price check!” Offstage, however, I would talk to my friend Rob, a fellow aspiring stand-up, about everything else. Rob was a big guy with big glasses and a big personality. He was also the first person who tried to make me laugh about the fact that my husband had realized he was gay. Rob was endlessly fascinated and amused by my story, and asked me a lot of questions like: What were the signs? Has he told his family yet? How did he tell you? A year later, Rob came out. He also lost about half of his body weight, since he wasn’t hiding anymore, and it became clear to me that in Rob’s eyes (now in contacts), my husband was the hero of my story.
&nbs
p; My story: Every time I told it, someone came out to me. I was telling it at a Hollywood party to a cute guy who I thought was flirting with me only to realize he was married. To a man. He explained that he had never even dated men until he met his husband while traveling abroad. Then I told that story to my friend who hosted the party, and he confessed to me that he considered himself bi, which he said was difficult for any potential partner to comprehend. For example, he said, how would I feel about dating him? When I realized his question was not rhetorical, I blushed and respectfully declined. Then I told that story to a male friend whom I knew was straight, and he also confessed he was thinking of dating men, but after coming out to his stunned Beverly Hills parents and getting a couple of gay relationships under his belt, so to speak, he decided he was actually more interested in women, and he’s now married to a woman who had previously considered herself a lesbian. My feeling, at this point, when everyone’s sexuality seemed to be in flux, was simply: Pick a side! I’m fine with it all! Just declare a major!
I was thinking about what a relief it was that I could finally tell my story without outing anybody when the hot rabbi announced that I should “get a get.”
She explained that Ian and I did not technically need the get in order to get married, but without it, under Jewish law, our children would basically be considered bastards. This might be a problem when and if they wanted to marry a nonbastard Jew or go to a Jewish school for nonbastards. (She didn’t use those words exactly; she may have used the term “illegitimate,” but that was the idea.) She also thought the process might be good closure for me.
It sounded like the opposite of closure. It sounded like it would require reopening the lines of communication that my ex-husband and I had finally and, I would say, mercifully, shut down, after trying for years to prove that we were actually the friends we kept saying we were. We were friends. We wished each other well. It was just easier, I think, to wish each other well from afar.
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