I would have loved that age question to disappear, but not one of my friends who knew about Paula let it pass. I am one of the older ones in my group and the fact that she was so much younger than all of them gave them pause. And made me feel defensive. I just found someone who has turned my head around; why would I care about her age? I was seeing life in a new way.
I actually saw everything in a new way, even the book I was reading: When I went to go visit Peter at Dickinson that fall for the first Parents' Weekend, I was reading Jeffrey Eugenides' extraordinary novel Middlesex. When I got to the part where the intersexed heroine Callie has a lesbian relationship with her best friend, I was just exclaiming, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God." I had started reading the book as an adult but was thrilling to it like an adolescent. Reading that and knowing that Paula was just outside my door at home made all the passages feel very real to me.
In absolutely every way, being in an intimate relationship with a woman felt totally different than when I was with a man. I felt seen and accepted as a whole person, not just for surface, shallow reasons. I felt a connection and a safety; I had more of a sense of who I was. I felt equal. Now, in truth, it could have been the men I chose, because, face it, I wasn't a very good picker. I had felt a quiet panic that dictated I had to be with any man to have value. I remember a woman telling me once about a lawyer she'd been referred to about a personal matter and I immediately thought, "I wonder if he's married?" I was both arbitrary and desperate. It seemed to have nothing to do with who they were or what they were like. I remember Sarah asking me, when I'd just begun therapy with her, what I looked for in a man. Well. That stumped me. I sat there for a minute and started to answer, then stopped. Tried again to offer an answer, and stopped again. After a few moments of silent, tense deliberation, I had it. "Hair," I blurted. "He has to have hair." Character, honesty, integrity, fidelity, or kindness never occurred to me. I'd never asked for them and never got them.
A good friend of mine who is gay invited me and Paula over for a dinner party. After all of the tightly controlled secrecy I maintained, this felt like a tiny bit of freedom and validation. We were in the company of other gay women and it felt safe and exciting to be so relaxed and uninhibited. It was not lost on me that the other women there were, for the most part, with peers, partners around their own age. I was glad no one made any comments; it's a very accepting lot, but I felt an imbalance. The age thing was starting to get to me. The sexual tension with Paula had been a powerful glue but as that initial heat subsided somewhat, I was beginning to notice a callowness, appropriate to her age, perhaps, but not particularly palatable to me. On a few occasions, I'd gone out with Paula and her friends and the age disparity was an inescapably looming issue. I felt even her friends looking at me oddly.
What was I looking for in my life? What was important? I wanted love and connection and I felt like I was experiencing that in a totally new way that was open and liberating. That all felt right and good until I took the next step and considered what I wanted down the road. How likely was it that I could build a life with Paula? Why in the world was she even with me considering the age difference? I didn't want to be a mother figure; it didn't seem like a promising basis for a sexual relationship. I was interested in something healthy and mutual but Paula was just moving into her powerful years. I wanted to be with someone solid, with maturity and self-knowledge that only come with age. This was not tilting in my favor. I was in anguish. For a few blessed months I got to live with what felt like the answer, and now I had to acknowledge the absurdity of that idea. I had to consider letting it go. I had discovered the wheel and was seeing it didn't fit on my little bike. But I knew. I knew no other wheel would ever come my way. Part of me fervently wanted to put it on anyway. Let the bike be lopsided, just don't let her go. This will never happen for me again.
But in April, after months of indecision and despair, I asked Paula to move out and then lived with the horror of what I'd done.
Chapter 15
With Nancy on vacation.
As it turns out, looking for a woman works the same as looking for a man: you ask friends, you go to places where you might meet people with mutual interests; you go on dates and see if you click.
My world has always been very small and lately most of it centered around recovery, so I was reduced to telling women I knew from the program that I was looking and open to meeting someone. When I first started seeing Paula, my sponsor, who is lesbian, had suggested I check out gay meetings, saying it was good to be around like people. I'd been going to one particular women's meeting for a while and a friend there knew I was looking to get out into the women's scene a bit. After this meeting, as she was giving me a squeeze good-bye on the front lawn, she got a good hold on me, lifted and rotated me around, saying, "The blonde in the white shirt and shorts said she was interested in meeting you. Are you interested in meeting her?" and she plopped me down in position to view said woman in shorts. I replied in the affirmative; my buddy passed on my number to the blonde. She and I subsequently spent two or three afternoons together just walking and talking, getting to know each other enough to realize we had already peaked. So we went our separate ways. I found that's generally the way it goes.
I met a couple of very nice women and even dated one really terrific woman, Debbie, for several months. She had a huge, eclectic circle of friends. They were lively and intelligent and had all sorts of different jobs--musicians, fine artists, a chef, a radio personality. They had dinner parties; a lot of drinking was going on but that was okay, I could navigate through that.
Debbie introduced me to gay-centric events like the Halloween parade in West Hollywood, which was wild and fun and we had a ball. I really wasn't going to great lengths to hide I was there.
I didn't know people who had gangs of friends like Debbie had. I saw people having a social life, a community of friends, and it was totally different from my frame of reference. Being in a group of smart gay women made me almost light-headed. I knew that no one was taking an oath of silence at these parties--anyone who saw me could tell a friend or leak it to the press if they could find someone interested. But in truth, I was willing to live with that risk in exchange for drinking the experience in.
Here were these fun, smart, talented people and I didn't have to tell them I was gay. I was at the party. They knew. Which reminds me of a silly joke I'd heard years ago: Which would you rather be, black or gay? The answer was, Black, because then you didn't have to tell your parents.
There was no turning back. I felt fully committed to being gay. And it was time to tell my parents. I told the ones I had left.
One afternoon at tea at the Peninsula Hotel, I broached it with my stepfather Allan. "I want you to know that I'm dating women." He studied his Earl Grey for a moment, looked at me, and admitted, "So am I!"
I often call my stepmother Ginger in Virginia Beach on Sunday mornings and this time I had some clarifying to do. "I really need you to know something I haven't talked to you about. I told you I've been in a relationship for a bit."
"I think I know where this is going," she said. "I think you're going to say you're with a woman."
"Whoa! How did you divine that?" I sputtered, absolutely floored.
"I asked you if there was someone special in your life and you said, 'Yeah, there is ...' but you were always gender neutral and vague about who it was. You never referred to him." This was not the response I expected from my dear stepmom in Virginia, with Baptist roots and a conservative look at the world. But she was totally supportive of me, gay or not. Wow.
So, Eva already knew; Kate and Mollie didn't seem invested either way, but being honest and up front about it was primary for them; Peter was so sweet, said, "Mom, I just want you to be happy!" And Ted, whom I refer to as the family smart-ass, said, "Oh, I already knew." What?
Meanwhile, I was expanding my gay universe by microscopic increments. I went from being gay only in my house to being gay in my house, yard, and sometimes in
the cul-de-sac and at meetings and parties.
I wasn't sure that being gay out in the world was a safe thing for me. Debbie was out and comfortable with her sexuality. But she was very respectful about the fact that I wasn't. I remember one night we were at the theater and I had my hand on the small of her back and she took it away and said, sotto voce, "Careful."
Debbie and I had a nice, easy connection but it didn't seem like we were developing into anything. The good thing was that I felt we were totally honest with each other when we decided to go our separate ways. There was no anger. It just wasn't happening. This was novel for me ... breaking up without tears of accusations and resentments. Unheard of! Then about six months later, she called me for some reason, I can't remember what, and we started seeing each other again.
One night we were on a theater date at the Music Center. We'd arrived early and were people-watching when my cell phone rang. It was a woman named Nancy Locke. Several months earlier a mutual friend had given her my name and phone number: Nancy was toying with the idea of getting sober and our friend suggested that she contact me if she wanted to talk to someone about sobriety. Subsequently, Nancy and I had talked on the phone numerous times. After a certain period, she decided she had other priorities and her calls had stopped. But there she was on the other end of the line saying in that distinctively happy voice of hers, "Hi! It's Nancy, remember me?" She said she wanted to give sobriety a second try. I'd always enjoyed our conversations--she had a ready laugh and an engaging way of listening; I always felt she was very present, that she was genuinely curious about other people. We were comparing schedules, trying to figure out a good time to get together, and she said, "I can't tomorrow. I'm getting ready to drive up to Santa Barbara tonight to make dinner for a friend."
And I had the strangest feeling. A wave of longing and maybe even jealousy swept over me. I'd never even met this woman. But I thought to myself, I wish you were making dinner for me.
We agreed to talk later in the week. I hung up. I went back to Debbie and had a perfectly lovely evening.
When I talk to someone about getting sober, I share a lot of my own personal stories. I'd say, "This is what happened with me ..." and hope that something resonates with them. It's never the actual specifics as in "I drank a bottle of this ..." or "I passed out there ..." I talk about the feelings that are involved, about the thinking and the choices I made, and how the program affected me.
Those are the kinds of conversations I'd already had with Nancy on the phone. So when I received her Music Center call I already knew her a little and liked her. We agreed to meet at 4 p.m. the following Thursday. Talking to her about sobriety was almost secondary; I was eager to make friends with other women; I wanted to build my community.
All I knew about Nancy was that she was gay and a general contractor. But aside from my first name and that I was many years sober, she knew absolutely nothing about me. Ten minutes before we met for the first time--at a Starbucks near my house--Nancy realized that she didn't even know what I looked like. She called me on my cell and said, "How will I recognize you?" I wasn't going to say something boneheaded like, "Have you ever seen Family Ties?" and I liked the mystery of neither of us knowing so I said, "Let's just see if we can find each other."
I was there before four, and Nancy was running about five minutes late. Finally, I got up to grab a book from my car. The part of the story that Nancy likes to tell is how she was hurrying in the front door of Starbucks and passed me heading out, and she thought to herself, "Oh, there's that actress from TV. What's her name again? Meredith Baxt ..." and--ding!--"Meredith?" she blurted out. And I said, "Nancy?"
What I remember the most about our conversation that day is that it felt instantly easy. She playfully gave me grief about being so mysterious. She said, "Don't you think you could have told me who you were?" And I said, "What was I supposed to say? 'Oh, by the way, I'm Meredith Baxter, you've probably seen me on TV.' " Blech!
She had great, twinkly aqua blue eyes and I loved her ability to ask questions because sometimes there's a big silence in me that I have a hard time getting around. I remember that Nancy told me a really beautiful story about growing up blue-collar and her close relationship with her mom. So I thought I should describe my mirror-opposite childhood: lacking for nothing in the Hollywood Hills except that I was virtually alone with little connection to my parents. And I guess that's when I started crying. Nancy didn't seem put off. She didn't see anything wrong about the fact that I barely knew her and I was sitting in a coffee shop weeping that I didn't have her mother. She was moved that I felt comfortable enough to let my guard down. She didn't know I would always cry about not having her mother.
We hung out for about an hour and a half, talking and laughing. When we got up to leave, I said, "This was really fun. I had a great time with you. Let's do this again." But I wasn't ready to leave yet; I hadn't told her that I was gay. I don't know why I felt this was so important to tell her right this minute but I really liked her and wanted to see her again. So I tried to discreetly wedge it into the conversation by saying, as if as an afterthought ... "And the woman I'm seeing ..." To which Nancy replied, "Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Back the fuck up!"
She looked so startled, I just started laughing. We both sat back down and she said, "Are you gay? Don't you think that's maybe something you should have told me?" I said, innocently, "Why?" And she said, "Because that's a big part of who you are."
Later Nancy would tell me that when I told her about Debbie her spirits sagged. Ten minutes earlier, it hadn't crossed her mind, because she didn't know I was gay. Now she was saddened because I wasn't available.
So my friendship with Nancy began as a series of meetings involving cups of coffee at Starbucks, long intense conversations about life and the program, and submerged feelings of attraction, with me feeling skittish. When we'd part, Nancy would always have to say, "When do we get to do this again?"
In late December, Debbie and I broke it off for the second time. The truth is that we had run our course; it just didn't feel right to continue. So I was single and looking at New Year's Eve. Michael Gross and I were scheduled to appear in a special production of a live 1940s-era radio play version of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. It was running at the Pasadena Playhouse over several nights including New Year's. I sent Nancy an e-mail and offered her a couple of free tickets. She wrote back accepting my offer. She was bringing her elder sister, Kate. I helped arrange for them to get seats close to the stage and after the show, I walked them out to their car. Nancy looked good outside Starbucks.
Soon after that night we went to a lecture at the Hammer Museum. Then to another play. In between there were lots of awkward moments, sparks of something not yet easy to define and hesitations at the end of the night where it felt one of us was supposed to lean in and kiss the other, but neither of us did. I vacillated between feeling desperate to see her and being aloof and a little unavailable. This went on for weeks. In retrospect, I think I could sense the buildup of feelings for Nancy and they sent off warning signals to my reptilian unsure-how-to-have-a-relationship brain. My knee-jerk reaction was to wear my imaginary six-shooters (which I was very fond of) and not let her get too close.
I didn't want to let anyone new in. I had never even invited Nancy over to my house. I wasn't sure I was ready for romance in my life. Casual fooling around was one thing. But I could sense some real feelings growing here and I thought that would make me vulnerable to someone taking over my life. I wasn't sure I'd recognize if that were happening or how to handle myself, so you just watch yerself, little lady!
Some part of me must have thought I was ready because I called Nancy and told her I'd bought a tapestry that needed hanging, I didn't know how to do it ... could she help me? Of course, now, I realize I sounded like a damsel in distress, but I really just wanted to see her in her carpentry bags.
That night Nancy put about a million holes in my wall trying to locate the studs. I was distressed with how sh
e was aerating my dining room, but then I was easily distracted by how fetching she looked in cords and a Black and Decker. This was a no-sweat task for her, studs aside, and once she finally got the damn tapestry up, we went out to dinner, had fun, and ended the night with our time-honored dance of who-is-going-to-make-the-first-move.
A week later, when we got together at our usual watering hole, Nancy, being bolder and more adventurous than I, decided to come clean to me about her feelings. She said, "I think I'm not being honest with you. Over these last weeks I realize that I've become extremely attracted to you. I don't want to ruin our friendship. So if this makes you uncomfortable, I think we should talk about it because then I can put my feelings in the proper place." And I said, "I feel the same way." It was so exciting to proclaim our interest in each other that we were both instantly seized by shyness. "I have a suggestion," I said as I boldly ventured when none had trod before. "Maybe instead of saying 'Let's meet for coffee,' we can say, 'Let's have a date, because I'm sick of coffee.' " Yep, I was pretty audacious.
One of Nancy's true gifts is storytelling. Even though I have heard all of her best yarns countless times, I don't tire of listening to her. I love watching people watch Nancy relive outrageous tales from her past. When she gets to the punch line and everyone throws their heads back and laughs, it just thrills me.
By the time I got together with Nancy, she was fifty-one years old and had a lot of stories to draw upon. She was born in Portland, Oregon, and raised by an engineer father and homemaker mother in suburban Glendale, California. When she was growing up, she always excelled at sports. There was never a time that she didn't assume she'd become a physical education teacher.
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