Pee-Shy

by Frank Spinelli

  I told myself I would be strong without him. Now it was time to focus on one thing—my career. I promised myself I wouldn’t date anyone seriously for at least a year. I dedicated myself to building my practice by day; and at night, instead of searching hopelessly for yet another relationship to consume my time, I decided to write.

  Eventually, Instinct magazine hired me to write a health-care column. That led to a monthly appearance on a gay radio show, Twist, where I offered health tips. Several months later, I had amassed enough information for a book proposal on gay men’s health.

  Then something amazing happened. One spring morning in 2005, I woke up as usual to go to the gym. It was a typical New York day. The air was thick with humidity, and I could see the sun coming up over the East Side. As I strolled down the three long tree-lined avenue blocks toward the gym with my backpack over my shoulders, I decided to stop off at a Korean deli on the corner of Twenty-third Street and Ninth Avenue to buy a protein bar. I never ate before working out, but for some reason I was starving that day. While I paid the woman behind the counter, something caught my eye. There was a sign in the window of the building across the street. It read: DOCTOR’S OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT.

  The perfect place for my new office, I thought to myself. It had everything I was looking for: it was on the ground floor, it was in Chelsea, and it was on the same block as my apartment. The Korean woman behind the counter coughed politely to get my attention. In her hand she held my change. That’s when I realized there was a line of impatient people behind me. Immediately, I grabbed the money and ran out the door. I never made it to the gym that day. After I copied down the phone number off the sign, I ran back home and called Eric to tell him the news.

  When I inquired about renting the office, I discovered that that building was actually part of a twenty-acre complex and all the ground-floor units were designated for medical purposes only. I scheduled an appointment to see the office that afternoon. Eric joined me. He thought it would be a good idea to tell the Realtor he was my lawyer, so he showed up in character, dressed in a suit and a long raincoat even though it was very sunny. Since he had a master’s in dramatic arts, he played it up, walking from room to room, asking the Realtor questions about price per square footage and negotiating a five-year lease once he heard the office was rent stabilized.

  I watched Eric, trying my best not to chuckle as he paced around the room, hunched over with his raincoat trailing behind him like a cape. As the Realtor explained the building’s rules for occupancy, Eric furrowed his brow intently. I had to walk away to avoid laughing. Leaving them to talk in the front room, I wandered off by myself, imagining what it would be like for me to finally realize my dream of practicing medicine in my own Chelsea office. Two weeks later, I signed the lease.

  Since the office was small, even by New York standards, I consulted with a carpenter to discuss renovations. To maximize the space, he built a small alcove desktop to house my computer in the corner of the second exam room. Above that, I stacked the shelves with textbooks, journals, and research binders. It was my own private little nook, and every day thereafter, I researched ideas for my book once the last patient was gone. It was easy for me to become consumed with work and writing. Avoiding the dating scene, I stayed true to my vow not to get into a relationship with anyone for a year. Three years later, I was still single and about to turn forty. Although love had eluded me, I no longer believed that luck or il malocchio had anything to do with my future success. I proved to myself that hard work mattered more. As it turned out, the Advocate, the oldest gay publication, agreed to brand my book once I completed writing it.

  On the verge of my fortieth birthday, I decided to embrace the new decade: I said good-bye to my thirties by throwing myself a small party with my closest friends in April. Eric helped me organize the dinner at STK, a trendy new steakhouse in the Meatpacking District. The party was held in a private room upstairs from the main dining area. There was a fireplace in the center surrounded by white leather couches configured into a small seating area.

  We dined on petite filets and drank bottles of pinot noir. Toward the end of the evening, my guests sang “Happy Birthday” just as Eric carried out a red velvet cake. Before I blew out the candles, he whispered, “Careful what you wish for.” It was then that I realized I had accomplished nearly everything I’d set out to do. I was a doctor in a solo private practice. I owned my own apartment and was about to become a published author. The only thing missing was someone to love.

  CHAPTER 2

  An Old Fixer-Upper

  THE WEEK AFTER MY PARTY, I was in my office working when I received a phone call from Eric pretending to be a man from India who needed to see a doctor immediately about a hernia. Eric often made prank calls to the office. He had a large repertoire of characters and voices, but over time I’d grown keen to his various accents and it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to fool me. Most times I’d just let him go on until one of us broke out laughing. That afternoon, we were laughing so hysterically that my assistant, Gloria, had to intervene. “Doctor,” she said, poking her head into the exam room. “Could you try to be a little more professional?”

  I first met Gloria years earlier. She was the receptionist at the first practice that hired me out of residency. Having saved a good deal of money working in the clinic and the rat cage, I was able to offer her a full-time position. Gloria was a petite woman in her forties and a single mother born in Puerto Rico. To me, she looked more Mexican with her long, dark, pin-straight hair, round face, and down-curved nose. We had a wonderful relationship. She was very dedicated and enjoyed my sense of humor. Patients loved her because she was kind and remembered them when they called. However, she also had a fiery temper and had no problem showing it when patients became aggressive or when drug representatives insisted on seeing me without an appointment. I often referred to her as “my little Puerto Rican pit bull” because she ran my practice entirely by herself.

  “Tell Eric you have to go,” she instructed. “Ginny is waiting for you.”

  “Got to go, Mr. Gupta,” I said to Eric. “Mama Gloria is making me work.”

  “But what about my hernia?” insisted Eric, still using that awful Indian accent.

  “Good-bye.”

  Ginny entered my office holding a large cup of coffee. “Hi,” she said. “I come bearing gifts.”

  “Well, then, come right in, pretty lady,” I said, standing up to take the cup from her. “You brought me coffee? You can have anything you want.”

  “I just wanted to check in and wish you a belated happy birthday.”

  Ginny was a pharmaceutical representative who worked in the HIV division. I’d known her for years and met her while I was chief resident. She was a pretty, fair-skinned girl with long, straight blonde hair who always smelled like lilacs. I always made time for her because she was a genuinely sweet person. Unlike some of the other drug representatives who were all about business and the hard sell, Ginny was more like a friend.

  Over the course of the past year, her life had changed dramatically. She had gotten married to a man from Ireland, moved to the suburbs, and was thinking about having a baby. Today, there was something different about her. Her cheeks were flushed, and she appeared eager to tell me something. I suspected she was pregnant. I was right.

  “Wow,” I said. “You really didn’t waste time. You straight girls have that checklist down. Get married. Check. Get pregnant. Check. It’s like once a girl finds a guy who’s willing to settle down, they immediately become this other person. My sister Maria was the same way.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said, playfully swatting her hand at me. “You know I’ve always wanted kids.”

  “Okay, Ginny, you can drop the act,” I said sarcastically. “Remember when I was chief resident, and we used to go out on Fridays? I don’t recall you talking about kids then. All we talked about was sex. But it’s okay. I get it. Yous a married lady now, Miss Scarlett.”

  Gin
ny dramatically flipped her hair behind her back. “So, what about you?” she said, trying to change the subject. “Are you dating anyone?”

  “Me?” I said, sitting back in my chair. “No way. Men suck.”

  “You know,” she continued, leaning in. “I know this really nice guy who used to work for my company. I’d love to set you two up.”

  “Why is it that when a straight girl knows two gay guys, she automatically assumes they’d be perfect together?” I asked. “There’s more to it than just being gay, Ginny. Sorry, but no thanks.”

  “But why?” she insisted. “You’d really like Chad. He’s such a nice guy.”

  “Nice,” I repeated. “That’s code for unattractive or out of shape. I don’t want nice.”

  “No, you want a bad boy.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said, standing up to open the door. “That was true years ago. I’ve changed. I no longer desire the bad-boy type.”

  “So why not give a nice guy a chance?”

  Grabbing her arm gently, I escorted Ginny out of my office. “Thank you for the coffee, but you’re going to have to stop thinking of me as some old fixer-upper,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. As lilacs filled my nostrils, I saw Ginny’s face turn dour.

  “I’m not giving up on you.”

  “I appreciate that. Congratulations on the baby. Come back soon now, ya hear?”

  Ginny’s visit left me wondering why I hadn’t dated anyone since Ivan. Later that afternoon, I sat down by Gloria’s desk and asked her the same question. She was one of the few people other than Eric whom I confided in routinely. She knew all about my dating past and was one of a handful of people I told about my history of sexual abuse as a child. I was drawn to her because, like me, she felt disassociated from her family, having also grown up with strict, religious parents. She described herself as a rebellious young girl who chose to have her baby without marrying the father. I thought she was incredibly strong and admired her choices.

  Her answer was simple. “Love will come,” she’d say. “You just have to be patient. In the meantime, keep writing.”

  For some inexplicable reason, I valued her opinion more than any high-priced therapist’s. I took her advice. Over the course of the next several months, I devised a new routine for my weeknights: return home from work, eat Chinese takeout, and write. Since the deadline to submit my manuscript was quickly approaching, I worked feverishly every night after work to get it done. I created a profile on BigMuscle.com in order to amuse and distract myself and flirt with other gay men. One evening in August, while I was eating egg foo yung from a carton, I noticed a message from a man named Chad.

  In his e-mail, he referred to Ginny and mentioned that she had been trying to fix us up for months. He wrote that he was looking through profiles and coincidentally found mine. I remembered thinking back to when Ginny visited me after my birthday. She’d described Chad as nice. She neglected to mention he was also hot. Attached to his e-mail were two photographs. In the first, he was wearing a baseball cap, a University of Arizona T-shirt, and jeans. The second was a close-up of his face. Unlike all the other men I ever dated, Chad had wholesome good looks, a perfect white smile, and the most brilliant blue eyes I had ever seen. He looked as if he belonged in a commercial for mouthwash or an ad for sugarless gum.

  Unfortunately, Chad no longer lived in Manhattan. He worked for a pharmaceutical company in Boston and was in New York just for the weekend attending a business meeting. He wrote to ask whether I would meet him for a drink. I accepted willingly, but reminded myself that it was just a date and nothing more. As a rule, I never dated anyone who lived out of state.

  I showed Chad’s pictures to Eric on his laptop that night while we were watching television in his apartment. “Another blind date?” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “I thought you said you would never go on another one as long as you lived?”

  “I know, but I don’t meet guys like Chad. No thanks to you.”

  “Remember the time you went on that blind date with that guy who played the guitar?”

  “He wrote me a song.”

  “Yeah, and remember how embarrassed you got when he tried to pay for dinner using a coupon?”

  “Chad is not some starving singer/songwriter.”

  Eric then adjusted himself in his seat. “Remember the time you went on that blind date with Jason, who came back to your apartment and took a giant number two in your toilet and flooded the bathroom?”

  “He was a pig. I chalked that up to bad Mexican food.”

  “Oh really,” he said, sitting up and drawing his legs under his buttocks. “Remember Larry?”

  I turned my head away. “Enough,” I said, holding my hand up.

  “The dentist,” he continued, “the one who brought you back to his apartment, and there was a man standing in the corner of his living room alone in the dark.”

  “Eric,” I pleaded. “How was I supposed to know he had a slave?”

  “Frank, he had a slave,” repeated Eric, pulling on his hair. “Who has a slave?”

  “I don’t know,” I yelled. “He seemed like a normal guy.”

  “That’s my point. They all seem normal in pictures.”

  “Eric, I haven’t been on a real date for over three years. I deserve it. Besides, what are my options?”

  “I’m not saying you shouldn’t go,” he said, reaching out and placing his hand on mine. “You should. It’s just I don’t want you to set yourself up again. Remember, he lives in Boston.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’ve completely prepared myself for that, and I’m not going to fall for him. It’s just a date.”

  Eric flashed me a sideways look. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I sensed Eric’s disapproval was partly selfish. Since the day we met, we had become inseparable. Once my relationship with Ivan ended, Eric and I grew even closer. Although he was in a long-term relationship, Eric’s nights were mainly unoccupied because Scott was a retail manager at Bloomingdale’s and worked until the store closed. When I wasn’t busy writing, Eric and I spent nearly every evening together. And even when Scott was home, we acted as if he wasn’t there, carrying on like schoolgirls, gossiping about the people we knew from the gym or what was going on in the world of celebrity tabloids.

  Scott often grew bored with us and retired early. On weekends, after Scott went to sleep, Eric and I stayed up with their dogs talking and laughing well past midnight. Inevitably, Scott would come out of the bedroom to scold us. “Girls,” he’d say. “You’re going to wake the neighbors with all that laughing.” That earned him the nickname “the Governess.”

  On the rare occasion when I did go on a date, Eric was often cautiously optimistic, but with Chad, I suspected he felt threatened. I think even Eric realized that a guy like Chad didn’t come by very often.

  I ARRANGED TO MEET CHAD at a bar on Ninth Avenue called Kanvas. That Saturday night I arrived early and selected a seat up front so I could watch him walk in. I purposely picked a straight bar so that there would be no distractions. The last guy I’d gone on a date with had a serious case of gay attention deficit disorder. His name was Brett. We met on Fire Island after I resuscitated him from a GHB overdose. As we carried him to the ambulance, he woke up and stared right into my eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he said, before passing out again. Two weeks later, Brett called after he tracked me down through a mutual friend and asked me on a date. I knew rule number one of medicine was to never date your patients, but I reasoned that Brett was simply showing me his appreciation for saving his life.

  We met at an Italian restaurant on Eighth Avenue. Before we were even seated, Brett called the server and ordered a gin and tonic. I asked for the same even though I hated gin. Brett then proceeded to talk and talk until our drinks arrived. Within ten minutes, I realized that this was the worst idea I had ever had because Brett kept staring over my shoulder. I watched as his pinpoint pupils followed each passerby until they were out of sight, and the
n his head shot back like an old-fashioned typewriter only to latch on to someone new who was probably more beautiful than me.

  Glancing at my phone at Kanvas now, I noticed Chad still had ten minutes. Outside, the sun was setting, and the air was heavy with moisture. The windows to the bar were wide open, and tables were set up along the sidewalk with people enjoying drinks in the light of the early evening. I sat there at the bar wondering whether I’d worn enough deodorant and anxiously sipping watered-down vodka and cranberry from a straw.

  Just after 8 P.M., a cab pulled up at the corner, and a tall, athletic man stepped out. When he turned around, I saw that it was Chad. He looked exactly like his pictures, yet in the dim light of the August sun his eyes appeared even bluer than in his photographs. My heart quickened. Before Chad entered the lounge, he checked the address against a folded piece of paper he was carrying, and I took the opportunity to swig the rest of my cocktail. Then he walked into the bar, and we looked straight at each other and smiled.

  “Chad?” I said, standing up and reaching out my hand.

  He nodded. “Hi, nice to meet you.”

  I sat down immediately because I was intimidated by his height. At nearly six foot, he was five inches taller than me. Chad apologized for being late and went into the details. While he spoke, I felt drops of sweat sliding down my back. The bar suddenly seemed very crowded, and I could feel the heat radiating from my body like steam. Then I remembered why I hated blind dates. Of course, it had nothing to do with Chad. He seemed perfect. The reason why I stopped going on dates was because of my own crippling insecurities, which always found a way to manifest themselves at the most inopportune times.

  Then, without warning, I felt a tingling sensation in my bladder. I had to pee. Unfortunately, I knew the men’s room at Kanvas had two urinals and only one stall. The bar was unusually crowded, and Chad had just arrived. There was no way I was going to attempt to urinate under these conditions. To distract myself, I remembered Eric’s first rule of acting: always maintain eye contact. The trick was to stare at one eye in order to give the appearance of being focused. This helped me, because I was also flustered by how handsome Chad was. His smile was perfect: straight, white, and tartar free. With his buzzed hair, I imagined him sitting in a lifeguard chair, wearing aviator sunglasses with a whistle around his neck and rubbing suntan lotion on his body. “Do you come here often?” Chad asked, looking around.