The first thing Mom said was “Look! Stella! We have the same dress on.”
Thank God for that dress. It was a perfect icebreaker for me and my mother, and it set the right tone. We were family. We were all in the Christmas spirit. We would always have something in common whether we planned it or not.
From then on, the whole night, people would see the two dresses and ask me, “Did you guys plan that?” Everyone thought my mother and I had had a huge reunion. They were probably picturing the two of us going to lunch and shopping for dresses together when the reality was that we’d only emailed a handful of times in the past year. But I wasn’t about to announce that Stella’s dress was $39.99 at Nordstrom online. Stella’s purse, which she continued to carry with pride, also drew a lot of attention. Every lady there said, “It’s a Chanel purse!” I quickly said, “It’s mine. I loaned it to her.” I didn’t want them to think I’d bought an eighteen-month-old a Chanel purse.
After my mother marveled over her granddaughter twin and the boys, she came in to hug me. She smiled at me. There was no moment of discomfort. No awkward pause where I had to think about what to do or say. It was very warm and natural. Well, except that as soon as we hugged, it seemed like the whole party stopped talking and looked over. Even the bartenders froze, bottles mid-pour (or so it seemed to me). All eyes were on us. But at least I was used to that. I thought, Wow. This private moment is finally happening in public. But it didn’t feel weird. It felt like it was exactly as it should be. I couldn’t imagine anything being different.
That’s not to say that everything was magically fine and dandy, as if there had never been a rift between me and my mother. I have many fears, but I’ve never been afraid of giving my heart to other people. My whole life I’ve prided myself on believing in love. No matter how many times I got hurt, I never gave up on love. Boyfriend after boyfriend, I always came back to love with open arms and eyes wide open. I loved again like I’d never been hurt. Now, when my mother hugged me, it was as if I was watching myself in a movie, and I could tell that I had a wall up. I can’t speak for her, but I felt that she was more engaged, more willing to give than I was. My smile and eyes were there, nobody else would have seen or felt the difference, but I knew there was a wall of protection. I was responding to everything she said, but I could hear that my voice wasn’t as warm as it usually is. It felt different, like for the first time—maybe in my life—I was cautious about love.
My mother was in the middle of hosting a fancy, fabulous party. She had caterers, entertainers, and tons of guests to attend to. But she was extremely attentive to and doting on us. There were people there from networks, gossip columns, and the entertainment industry—in front of them and all her friends she was going to be gracious no matter what—but her behavior toward us felt completely real to me.
I assumed that encountering my mother would be the hardest part of the party for me, but it wasn’t. It was her friends. I feel fond toward my mother’s friends, and we hadn’t seen each other in years, but tonight each and every friend wanted the chance to talk to me, to say, “I’m so happy you’re here. This is the right thing.” I know they spoke out of affection for my mother, but she and I hadn’t really talked or worked anything out. Maybe we wouldn’t. Maybe we would just move past our troubles without hashing them out. But even if that was the case, our reconciliation was in progress. It was happening at that very moment! I was still in the middle of seeing my mother for the first time, and everyone was already patting me on the back about it.
I got stuck in the foyer. It happens to me at every party, and just because this was my mother’s house, a house where I’d lived, the house where I’d gotten married for the first time, a place I’d been umpteen times, that night was no exception. It was kind of like being in a formal receiving line. As soon as I finished talking to one person, another approached me. I had no time to take a step toward, say, that Christmassy cocktail I imagined would take the edge off the tension of this night. It felt like I was working, as if I’d been hired to come to a party and greet every single person there. While carrying my baby girl for the first time since I’d had a spinal block. And wearing four-inch Louboutin heels. I don’t usually wear heels and carry Stella. She’s heavy. It never occurred to me that it would be so crowded and we would be so stuck. It took me the first forty-five minutes of the party to inch from the foyer into the formal living room. Back when I lived here, I would have kicked off those increasingly painful heels, but tonight I was a guest in this house.
Meanwhile, where was Dean? I had no idea. He had disappeared into the party with Liam and Jack. He ditched me and Stella! I kept glancing over shoulders trying to catch sight of him, hoping to hand over Stella, score a drink, or just make contact with a familiar face, but no such luck. Then I did see a friendly face, but it wasn’t Dean. It was Mindy, the party planner. She asked if there was anything she could get me. I said, “Where’s Dean? Where’s my husband?” Mindy volunteered to hunt him down and disappeared into the throngs.
I kept eyeing the formal living room, which was my short-term goal: it wasn’t so crowded, and there was a good chance a waiter would come around passing food or drinks. In between each well-wishing friend of Mom’s, I managed to take a step or two toward it. There would be relief, solace, a chair. I got closer, closer; just one or two more “I am so happy to see you here,” and I’d be in. But suddenly someone materialized right in front of me. He announced, “I’m the fastest Etch A Sketcher in the world,” and asked to do a portrait of me and Stella on a travel-sized Etch A Sketch. So I posed for his portrait as people continued to chat with me. Now I was wearing heels, holding Stella, chatting, and all the while trying to keep my face turned to the perfect angle so the Etch A Sketcher captured my good side. Fifteen minutes later—speedy for the artist but a lifetime for that contorted pose!—I had a pretty impressive portrait. I’m just grateful my mom didn’t hire the slowest Etch A Sketcher in the world.
I finally made it into the formal living room, although just before going down the steps to the sunken living room, Stella found a little scene made of wood with Santa riding a Christmas sleigh, fake snow, and a chest with tiny toys peeking out. Stella pulled the rocking horse off. Oops. I said, “We need to put that back, Mamita. That’s Grandma’s.”
The formal living room was as large as a hotel lobby, decorated in creams and satins with couches and low tables. Just as we entered, Mindy came back. She said, “Dean and the boys are downstairs bowling.” Of course. Only in the Manor.
I said, “Do you know how scary this night is for me and he’s abandoned me?” The truth was that I was doing fine emotionally, but Dean didn’t know that. Shouldn’t he be checking in on me?
Stella was not interested in the formal living room. Instead, she pulled me toward the kitchen. There some of the uniformed staff were plating food and cleaning dishes. Stella laid on the charm with the staff, showing off her purse and demo-ing the little plastic Mickey Mouse cell phone she had tucked inside. I looked down at her and saw that this was where she was most content. Not at the fancy party but among the warm, friendly staff. I understood completely. That was me as a kid.
On our way back to the party Stella detoured into the powder room, which was a mother’s nightmare. It was full of tiny, breakable tchotchkes, Limoges boxes, silk chairs, all at Stella’s level. I said, “Don’t touch anything!” and whisked her out of there as fast as I could. Every mother has had this party experience, led by your small child into random nooks of someone else’s house, hoping nothing gets broken, scoping out the two-foot-high world alongside your child as a lovely party—food, drinks, music, conversation—beckons just out of reach.
I thought of a compromise and steered Stella toward the other living room, the informal family room where we used to have our Christmas parties when I was a kid and where the Christmas tree always stood. There was a fireplace, a piano, and there, in a wood-paneled alcove that looked like it was designed exclusively for this purpose
(and maybe it was), sat the eighteen-foot Christmas tree. I saw an empty chair in the corner, near the fireplace. My poor feet silently chanted, “Go! Go! Go!” and I made a beeline for the chair, but someone sat in it just before I got there. Mindy, the wedding planner, appeared like an angel with a plate of food for Stella. All the other chairs seemed to be occupied, so the three of us sat on the floor in the corner near the fireplace while I fed Stella. I wouldn’t want to feed her near my mom’s silk upholstery anyway.
Then I turned and saw my brother, Randy, approaching. We hugged, I introduced him to Stella, and I met his girlfriend Leah. I hadn’t seen Randy since Liam was an infant. He looked different, older. Two years is a long time. Just as I’d been busy raising my kids, his life had gone on without me in it. Seeing my brother was in some ways more intense than seeing my mom. I knew he was more likely to want to talk things through. But at the same time it made the place feel like home. He was my brother. I was so happy he was there. At events like this my brother had always been my connection to normalcy. Now he was holding Stella with a big smile on his face. I could tell he was into seeing her. She was looking back at him, giggling as if she recognized him as family. I looked at Randy’s hands: they were hands I’d known for most of my life, I knew them so well, but I didn’t recognize them anymore. Did his hands change in two years, or had I forgotten them? We’d been so close. We were best friends. Then life went a certain way. It made me sad.
The Christmas tree was enormous and beautifully, amazingly, immaculately decorated. When Stella finally noticed it (it takes the kids a while to process everything in the room), she stood frozen, just staring at it. I watched her. Then, as I watched, she started grabbing ball ornaments and pulling them. I dove in, but before I reached her she managed to pull one off the loop from which it hung.
I said, “Shoot, you busted Grandma’s ball.” No joke intended. I was treading carefully tonight. I didn’t want anything to go wrong. So far everything had been perfect (except for Stella trying to pilfer that little rocking horse). Now Stella had broken a ball, upsetting the perfect design of the tree. I looked up to see if anyone had noticed. There, at a two-top table right in front of me was none other than Sean Hayes. Oh my God, Sean Hayes! I loved Will & Grace. I’m a huge fan of his. Sean Hayes had seen Stella break the ball. What would he think? What did I know about Sean Hayes? Was he discreet or would Sean Hayes rat me out to my mother? Should I say anything? At a loss, I took the ball and shoved it into the depths of the Christmas tree. There, that didn’t look so bad. I started to turn back to Sean Hayes to make an excuse, but as I started to speak, Stella grabbed another ball and broke it too. She obviously had a grand plan here. Maybe she was taking preemptive revenge on me for grounding her from some future party as punishment for missing her curfew. I’m sorry, future Stella, but actions have consequences. Period.
Suddenly my mother swooped in, saying, “We should take a family photo.” I was holding the second broken ball, the evidence of my offspring’s crime and our future friction.
I said, “I’m so sorry. Stella broke your ball.”
My mother held out her hand. “Here, give it to me.” Really? She was going to take the broken ball?
I said, “I’ll throw it away.”
She said, “Don’t be silly. Give it to me.” My mom’s ex, Mark, had once quoted her as saying, “I hope if I have grandchildren, they don’t break anything in my house.” But now I wondered if she’d ever really said it because that wasn’t her attitude at all. She was acting like the broken ball was no big deal. Here she was, elegantly dressed, hosting a party, and holding out her hand for the ornament. It was so momlike. And for me, that was it. That was the moment when I was drawn in. The wall came down and I smiled. This was what I wanted most of all, for myself and for my kids. A mother. A grandmother.
Dean finally came back. Smart man, he showed up when enough people were around that I couldn’t give him what for. I just whispered, “You left me for so long.”
He said, “Jack and Liam were loving the bowling alley.”
I repeated, “You left me for so long.” And then I added, “But I’m fine.” It was as if Dean knew to leave me alone with Mom long enough for this to happen. He gave me a look that said, “Of course you’re fine.”
We took some family photos in front of the tree. My mother held Stella. I worried about her back—she’d just had surgery—and Stella didn’t tolerate the photographer for long. Stella lunged backward and I cringed. My mom’s poor back. But she didn’t seem to mind.
After we took photos of the family in various combinations, Mom said, “I want the kids to meet Santa.” She went to fetch the Santa actor while I prepped Liam so he wasn’t scared when he appeared. No need to worry. Liam went right up to Santa and said, “Hi. I want a monster.” Then he roared a terrible roar. I went to get Stella from Dean, and as we came back I saw Liam, still engaging Santa in some in-depth conversation, most likely about the subtleties of monster toys.
I only realized how hungry I was when my brother nudged me and said that there was a seafood bar in the projection room. I knew what that meant. When we were growing up, the seafood bar was a staple at my parents’ parties. There would be a silver container with ice, and platters of crab claws, shrimp, and caviar. But just as I made my way there, a man came up to me and introduced himself as the voice coach for a Broadway play called Promises, Promises that my mother was producing with Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes. As we were talking, Sean Hayes came up to say hello.
I was completely starstruck by Sean Hayes. In my head I was saying, “Be funny. Be funny,” but all I came out with was “Hi. This is Stella.” Wow. Scintillating. We talked for a moment, then Sean Hayes turned away from me. I’d lost him. Mehran was going to plotz when he heard I’d met Sean Hayes. He was a gay hero. I basically consider myself a gay man inside. I wanted to be loud and proud with him—that’s what I do best with my gays—except I couldn’t be gay with Sean Hayes because he wasn’t out. Whichever. So I didn’t want to mention anything gay, but that’s all I knew to talk to him about, so I couldn’t talk to him at all. At the same time I couldn’t walk away letting Sean Hayes think I had nothing to say. So I poked his shoulder and said, “Excuse me, I just want to tell you that I’m a huge fan and I had nothing to say to you because I couldn’t speak.” At least I would have some kind of interaction to report back to Mehran. I actually desperately wanted to whip out my BlackBerry and take a picture of him with me and Stella to send to Scout and Bill, but I was scared security (probably some of the same guys who’d protected my safety once upon a time) would throw me out.
Sean Hayes was perfectly gracious. He said, “Thanks for having me.”
Still trying in vain to be minorly humorous, I said, “Well, it’s not like it’s my house, although it’s so big I could move back in and they’d never notice.” I wanted him to be Jack, whom I’d watched on Will & Grace for so many years that I felt he was one of mine. We’d link arms and trot around the Christmas tree and it would be fabulous. But he didn’t say, “I loved you in the movie Trick,” which meant he probably wasn’t even closeted gay. I have yet to meet a gay man who didn’t love that movie, and me in it. That role is my virtual gaydar. Some time after the party Sean Hayes came out. I guess that makes him—and Variety—the only ones who didn’t appreciate that performance.
I made some crack about Stella crapping her pants (which did get a laugh out of the voice coach) and went to find Dean so he could take both kids while I found myself something to eat. But Sean Hayes was the highlight of my night. Dramatic family reunions and reconciliations aside.
The seafood buffet was set up in the projection room, which looks like a massive living room unless the full-sized movie screen that rises up from the floor at one end has been elevated. At the opposite end of the room the art rises like in some spy movie to reveal holes in the wall through which the projectionist screens the movie from his own little projection room. In between are comfortable chairs and
tables, all of which can rotate to face the screen. Tonight the art and all the furnishings were in living room formation, with the seafood buffet at one end. Oh, I was so close to the buffet. I could see it. I could almost taste it. I hadn’t had a bite to eat all night. This was my chance. I was steps away. But just then a seated woman stuck out her hand and grabbed my arm. I stopped in my tracks. She said, “Hi. I play mah-jongg with your mother.” She was perched comfortably on a chair, a heaping plate of food on her lap. She had shrimp cocktail and huge crab legs. I think I started salivating. The woman went on to say, “You and I used to go to Rosanna together at Fantastic Sam’s.” I remembered Rosanna. She worked at the Fantastic Sam’s in Beverly Hills and did the best blow-out in town for twenty-five dollars until Allure featured her in “Best Beauty Tips.” Then people caught on and she left to open her own salon. The mah-jongg woman said, “Where do you get blow-outs now?”
I said, “I don’t get blow-outs anymore.”
She looked at me, perplexed, and took another bite of her delicious-looking food. Was that a little pile of caviar? “Well, someone does your hair. I mean, you had your hair done tonight.”
I said, “I did my own hair.”
She said, “Oh, okay.” She clearly didn’t believe me. Then, as if she’d figured it all out, she said, “Do you need someone?” If I didn’t have someone to do my hair, it must mean that I needed someone to do my hair.
I said, “Actually, I don’t even get my nails done anymore. It’s really good to see you, but I haven’t had food all night.”
Between bites she said, “Oh, you should. It’s really good.”
I was kind of proud that she didn’t believe I’d done my own hair. I must have done a good job. Scout would be proud. I went straight to the seafood buffet and picked up a plate. In it I saw my shiny reflection. It was my night. The hair and makeup gods were on my side. I had wanted everything to be perfect for my mom. I know she didn’t need me to be perfect. And sure, it was kind of sad that I wanted that kind of attention from her. But at least I felt really good about myself.
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