by Lisa Daily
“Cheers to that,” says Darcy, raising her glass to me. “It’s about freaking time.”
“Damned right you’re reasonably attractive. Cheers!” says Samantha, and the three of us stretch to clink glasses awkwardly over Darcy’s pedicure chair. A little sloshes out of Darcy’s glass and onto the vibrating faux leather chair.
“Hopefully this stuff’s not flammable,” she cracks.
“I wouldn’t count on it.” I laugh.
A week later Michael and I meet at an attorney friend’s office to sign the papers, and the lawyer tells us we’ll be divorced as soon as the judge sets a date for a hearing. Apparently, when you agree on everything, your marriage can be dissolved in a matter of minutes.
15
Michael shows up for our divorce wearing black leather pants. Our marriage does not end as so many do on the courthouse steps, but with one final bash at the home we owned together.
It was my brilliant idea, the divorce party. Everyone keeps saying how Zen I am, how grown-up it is that I’ve moved on and forgiven Michael, and holds me up like I’m the poster girl for mental health and awesomeness. That’s sort of what I was going for.
The only problem is, once the invitations went out, I found myself anxious, filled with dread, and wishing I’d never thought of it in the first place. And now I’m stuck.
Truly, I’m determined to let it all go, but sometimes it sneaks up on me and I’m so pissed at Michael for lying to me that I want to take an ice pick and jam it through his eye socket.
But anyway, here I am, all dolled up for our divorce/coming out party. My hope is that the party will bring me some sort of peace, some closure, and help me move on. But the reality of it feels like pouring salt on my wounded heart.
Our guests aren’t due to arrive for another twenty minutes or so. Michael exits the bathroom, half unzipped and his belt unbuckled, tucking his shirt into his pants.
I gasp. “Oh my gawd,” I say, pointing at his crotch. “What the hell is that?”
“What?” he asks. I hook my finger around a minuscule elastic strap, snapping it against his skin.
“That,” I say. “Are you actually wearing a zebra-print man-kini?”
His eyes dance. “Thong!”
“Wow,” I say. Because there are no other words.
“Wait,” he laughs, “there’s more!” He pulls what looks like a miniaturized garage door opener out of his front jeans pocket, and squeezes the little button. Suddenly, the zebra thong is alive with flashing lights in red, blue, and yellow.
“Wow. Just wow. It’s like Las Vegas on your crotch,” I say.
“It’s a celebration! Tonight is your debutante ball!” He giggles, pouring me a glass of champagne. “You’re a single girl for the first time in your life!”
“And so are you,” I crack.
He smiles, hugs me close, and raises his glass. “Cheers!”
We sip our champagne and I try to stifle tears burning my eyes. I will not cry. I love Michael, he broke my heart, and it’s over. And also I sometimes want to wring his f-ing neck. Deep breath. Just let it all go.
I dry my eyes on Michael’s shirt, a black, skintight number I don’t recognize. His blond hair is stiff with product, his eyebrows (and arms, ew) look freshly waxed, he’s sporting too-cool motorcycle boots and a thumb ring.
“Oh my gawd, “I say, looking him over. “You look so gay right now.”
He beams. “Thanks!”
Michael picked out my outfit for the evening, a slinky aqua dress that shows off my legs. So there’s that upside to having a gay husband.
“And for the finishing touch,” he says, pulling a pink box down from the closet with great flourish. Opening the box, he reveals a sparkling rhinestone tiara nestled on hot-pink velvet.
“Oh no,” I say, backing out of the room. “I think only one person in the not-so-happy couple should be bejeweled,” I motion toward his light-up thong, “and you’ve already got us covered.”
“Oh yes,” he says, chasing me down the hallway with the tiara. “Tonight is about fun, about new beginnings, about reintroducing the most gorgeous, charming, and brilliant woman I’ve ever known to society.”
I shake my head. “I’m not a debutante.”
“You are tonight, cookie.”
“I’m not wearing that,” I say.
“It’s either this or the thong,” he says. And I reluctantly reach for the tiara.
I hate thongs.
16
Apparently, straight people have no idea what to wear to a gay-divorce-slash-coming-out party. Friends show up wearing neon-colored feather boas and bejeweled Elton John sunglasses. At least three of our male neighbors arrive decked out in drag, which is inexplicable to say the least. It might be four. After a few glasses of champagne, seeing your neighborhood stockbrokers and bankers in blond Marilyn Monroe wigs and size-eleven stilettos, it all starts to run together.
Most of our guests are people Michael and I have known forever, and a few of my former clients who are friends. Everyone generously pretends to be oblivious to the televised sex scandal, and I’m unbelievably grateful for that. And booze. I’m grateful for booze.
Darcy and Samantha arrive, and the two of them drag me into the kitchen to refill my glass and get started on their own. Darcy’s fire-red hair and outrageous wardrobe match her personality to a tee. Tonight she’s wearing a strapless green sundress with coral jewelry and funky stilettos. Samantha’s outfit is as perkily intense as she is. She’s poured into a body-conscious, electric-blue dress, which shows off the hours and hours she spends at her yoga studio. Pert.
“I need to slow down,” I say. “I’ve already had two glasses of champagne.”
“Nice tiara, pork chop. You need to let loose, and you’re not driving anywhere,” announces Darcy. “We’re getting you wasted.” She refills my glass, and then fills Sam’s and her own.
“How are you holding up?” asks Sam earnestly. “You want to pop back in the bedroom, do a few downward dogs for stress relief, loosen up a bit?” In Sam’s mind, yoga cures all.
“She’s fine,” Darcy shoots back. “She doesn’t need the downward dog or the flying monkey. Right? She just needs her friends, a full drink, and maybe a howl at the moon. Aren’t you fine?” Darcy is the headmaster of the “fake it till you make it” school of thought.
I nod. “Yes. I’m fine.” It’s only a half lie. I am fine. I’m trying to be fine. I will be fine. Eventually.
“How in the world would you do yoga in that dress?” I ask Sam. “How in the world are you even breathing in that—” I crack up before I even finish the sentence and Darcy joins in.
“If I show you, you have to do the Pert30. Starting tomorrow.” She grins, knowing Darcy and I will back down immediately. The longest either of us has ever lasted in one of Sam’s boot camps is six days. Sam makes Navy SEALs cry. We’d never make it the whole thirty days.
Darcy, Sam, and I head back to the living room. Michael’s dad, Fred, is sporting a new rainbow T-shirt emblazoned with GAY PRIDE for the occasion, and my grandma Leona wears her silver hair in funky spikes, her favorite gold lamé pants, kitten heels, and a fitted fuchsia jacket. Same as always. My pot-peddling eighty-year-old neighbor Zelda is flirting with one of my former clients. He’s about fifty to her eighty, but in typical Zelda fashion, she seems to be charming the pants off him. She has flowered rhinestone clips in her hair, and blows me a kiss when she sees me.
I’ve been trying, really trying, to get myself psyched up for the party all day, but when I look around at our friends and neighbors, I’m positive everyone here thinks I’m an idiot. A sap. That I’m the single worst person in bed since the dawn of time. I know everyone must be talking about me, asking the same questions I’d ask. Asking the same questions anyone with brain matter would ask. How could she not have noticed? She had to have known! How could she not? Did he have to watch an hour of gay porn just to get it up? Is she just completely asexual?
I know they’re w
ondering those things because I’ve been wondering too.
A dance beat flows throughout the house, and I do my best to mingle even though I’d definitely rather be in my pajamas, curled up in bed with a classic Audrey Hepburn movie and a bag of Cheez Doodles.
“How are you holding up? You look great,” says Carter, embracing me warmly. “So does Michael. I’ve never seen him happier.” I know Carter’s trying to be nice and supportive, but ugh. Why not just punch me in the face instead?
“You look gorgeous,” Michael whispers every time he passes me by.
“I’m so proud of him,” says our neighbor Susan. “It’s so important for everybody to support Michael. It’s so brave of him to come out of the closet!”
If stage one of my Michael nightmare was all of my friends and family informing me that Michael was so obviously Liberace-level gay they assumed there was no way I didn’t already know, then stage two is those same friends and family telling me over and over again, ad nauseam, how brave Michael is for coming out of the closet. As though he wasn’t pushed. On national television.
“Way to go,” says Grandma Leona, looking me up and down. “Back on the horse. I’m proud of you for supporting Michael in his time of need.”
Truly, I’m grateful for the compliments, but I feel like second runner-up in the Ms. Used Tires pageant. I can’t stop myself from seething every time someone tells me how much Michael needs my support, and how he’s being so brave to come out. He isn’t Jimmy Swaggart’s grandson, raised to believe he was going to hell for being homosexual. He was raised by Unitarians, for fuck’s sake.
Deep breath. I’m letting it go.
Michael rushes to my side, his face brimming with enthusiasm.
“He’s here!” Michael squeals, in a way that reminds me of how the monkeys howl and jump up and down when they get excited at the zoo.
“Who’s here?” I ask. Sam is off chatting with a friend, Darcy looks on with amusement.
“Remember how you said I owe you a soul mate? I’m here to deliver!” he gushes. “Come meet your dream man!” Michael drags me toward the front door, until we find a blond man with a gray fedora pushed so far back on his head I wonder how it stays on. Duct tape?
“Alex, meet J.D.,” Michael gushes. Under his rat-pack hat, J.D. has precision-highlighted, Tiger Beat–perfect hair, shuffled artfully off to the side. His dark-rinsed jeans fit like he’s been sewed into them, accessorized with one of those biker wallet chains hanging down, with a big skull on it. He’s wearing a black patterned vest over a T-shirt.
Also, he seems to be wearing makeup, which is not something I normally see in a straight guy. Although, what the hell do I know?
“Nice to meet you, Alex,” says J.D. slyly. His eyes meet mine with purposeful intensity. It feels like he’s trying to hypnotize me or something. If I start clucking like a chicken or playing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 on a kazoo, I’ll know he’s succeeded.
“J.D. is a singer,” says Michael.
“Singer-songwriter,” J.D. corrects.
“Oh, that’s interesting,” I say. But it’s not. There’s something really off and manufactured about J.D. And Michael is fawning over him like he invented the pore minimizer or something.
“I understand you’ve been through a rough time,” says J.D.
“Well, uh,” I say, shooting Michael a dirty look. What did he tell this guy, anyway?
J.D. nods to Michael, who ignores my death stare and awkwardly taps away at the screen of his phone.
Suddenly, the music changes, and the room is filled with a vaguely familiar, bouncy pop song, heavy on the synth, low in originality. Which is when J.D. inexplicably jumps into the center of my living room, and starts breaking out the dance moves. And not just an I’m suddenly so inspired by the music and can’t stop my body from moving type of dance. No, it’s a full-on, choreographed elbow-shuffling, lasso-thrusting, running-man, boy-band bonanza.
And then, absurdly, J.D. is singing. Darcy, always the quickest person in the room, snorts with laughter, and everyone is suddenly fixed on whatever J.D. is doing in the middle of my seagrass rug.
What is he…? Oh gawd, I recognize the song …
“Can you believe it? J.D. was in BOYS4U. Remember how much you loved them?” gushes Michael. He holds up his palm for a high-five. “Soul mate!”
“Oh my God,” I say.
J.D. is pointing at me from across the room, as though he’s singing specifically to me. I’m completely mortified.
“You loved BOYS4U,” I hiss at Michael. “Not me. You! And we were, like, eleven.”
And suddenly J.D. is right next to me, singing soulfully while looking intensely into my eyes. Just like they used to do it in the music videos, in front of thousands of screaming, weeping, preteen fans. I want to blink so bad it practically hurts, if only to escape his unyielding gaze for a millisecond. He is unbearably close, his broccoli-scented breath steaming my face.
Girl, he didn’t treat u right
But I’ll be right here
Lovin’ on u all night
I won’t let him hurt u no more
I’m your nirvana
Out on the dance floor
Breakitdown …
I feel my skin turning twenty-six shades of crimson, and gulping down my champagne does nothing to extinguish the burn. J.D. mercifully scoots back, moonwalking-style, to the center of the room, for another exhibition of cheesy dance moves to the perky, up-tempo chorus. Now he’s thrusting, which was, you know, playfully risqué when synchronized with a group of four other twentysomething guys. But all alone in the middle of my living room, it’s just unbelievably creepy.
“Isn’t he great?” whispers Michael. “You owe me big-time, baby.”
“You are out of your freaking mind,” I say. J.D. begins a sort of frenzied finale, shaking his hips wildly and throwing his arms up in the air. Darcy and Sam are snickering in the corner, but the rest of the party has begun to clap in time to the music. They have no idea that an over-the-hill boy-bander isn’t just part of the standard gay divorce party entertainment package, but an ill-conceived fix-up by my now ex-husband.
After what seems like forever, the music ends, and J.D. takes a bow, and then another, and another, even though the clapping has stopped. He heads toward where I’m standing with my mouth gaping open.
“Get rid of him,” I say under my breath. Michael seems genuinely surprised.
“I was singing just to you,” says J.D.
“That was so, um … special,” I say. “Thank you for that.” Darcy swoops in to save the day.
“Hey, Alex, you’d better come quick. I think one of the drag queens got a pashmina stuck in the garbage disposal,” she interjects. Best. Friend. Ever.
“Oh, gosh…,” I say. “I’d better go take care of that. Please excuse me.” Sam trails behind Darcy and me, and we can barely contain our giggles as we make our escape to the kitchen.
“I’m your nirvana. Out on the dance floor,” Sam sings cornily. “Very catchy.”
“Ha ha. So funny,” I say.
And that’s how it goes. A couple of hours into the party, Michael raises his glass for a toast—he grabs my hand, and I try to force a more genuine smile.
“Although most of you already know this, Alex and I wanted to formally announce that we’ve ended our marriage today. We still love each other, we’re still best friends, but it turns out, I’m gay.”
The crowd laughs supportively, and I think about how we’d announced our engagement to most of this same group of friends. I never thought we’d end this way. I never thought we’d end at all. Feeling tears form in my eyes, I force myself to smile a little wider and think about Voldemort, in the way that guys think about baseball or puppies when they’re trying to distract themselves. Something about that ghastly, snake-like face, hard eyes, bald head, and the fashion show of scary robes keeps me from breaking down when I’m about to lose it. It’s weird, but it works.
Michael turns to l
ook at me, and grasps both my hands in his. “We’ll always love each other, and we’ll always be best friends.”
I feel myself tearing up again. Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort. Michael pulls me into his embrace. We stand there hugging way past the time I start feeling awkward, while our guests cheer. Okay. That’s enough, time to get off me. He overstays his welcome and I start to feel pissed. Well, isn’t this freaking awesome? My tacit support just makes everything hunky-dory, washes away all of Michael’s deception and lies. Let go, I remind myself for the millionth time tonight, just let it go.
Michael raises his glass again. “To my amazing Alex.”
Our friends raise their glasses and cheer, “To Alex.”
Nodding my head, I mouth the words thank you, gulping my champagne.
17
The doorbell rings solidly for the next hour, producing groups of guests, mostly men, I’d never met before. Beneva Fruitville, Sarasota’s most notorious and popular drag queen, makes an appearance. Apparently my grandma Leona, a regular at Drag Queen Bingo, invited her. Michael is holding court in the center of the bash, seemingly having the time of his life—laughing and giddy, clearly buzzing from alcohol or outright glee, probably both. He throws his arms up, dancing with everyone from my grandma Leona to Darcy to a few of the unknown guys who have arrived at our door. Meanwhile, I play doorman, taking the coats, feeling stupid in my tiara but not wanting to seem like a bad sport by taking it off.
Grandma Leona presents us with a hilarious divorce cake she’s made from scratch—a buttercream masterpiece that looks like a three-layer traditional wedding cake flipped upside down, with rainbow layers inside, and two grooms and a bride. I am so tempted to smash it in Michael’s face, but I’d never waste perfectly good cake. Especially not one that practically defies gravity. I take a bite and it’s delicious.