Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys Read online

  I didn’t even have to check my Magic 8-Ball to know the forecast for this evening: “Outcome does not look good.”

  The Reg was always held on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and that year the weather was particularly wintry. This cold snap, though, didn’t chill the excitement around my house that had been building up about the big date. My brothers were all joking and jibing me about the whole affair, while my parents were genuinely sweet in their anticipation, wrapped up in the fairy tale aspects of this potentially major night.

  Once I was dressed and ready to go, I got collared by one of my older brothers for some predate coaching. Kevin had always been the most concerned member of the family about my nascent masculinity. He’d provided endless lessons in baseball, careful instruction on the art of weightlifting, and explicit advice on the best pickup lines to use on girls. His helpful hint for the Reg? I needed to get Sarah liquored up. He’d even taken the liberty of procuring a couple bottles of André (the three-dollar champagne that says class) just for this purpose. As much as I appreciated the effort he’d put into buying alcohol for minors, the evening already had enough potential for disaster without adding booze to the mix. Kevin, however, was undeterred when I tried to decline the offer. Completing this illicit exchange, he grabbed my hand for a firm, masculine handshake filled with meaning.

  “Good luck, bro,” he said.

  I just smiled and thought to myself, Good luck, indeed.

  I arrived at Sarah’s exactly on time, seven P.M. Her mom answered the door with a smile that was wide and welcoming. It was the first time I’d been in the Forman house in quite a while and everything looked basically the same, just smaller. The bookshelves seemed shorter now, with fewer records and books in them than I remembered. The staircase that led up to Sarah’s room seemed tiny, too, like I might hit my head on the ceiling if I tried to go up. Of course, the house had not shrunk at all; I had just grown a bit. But the feeling of not fitting in the house anymore was disconcerting.

  Sarah entered the living room wearing a floor-length, sky blue prairie-style dress with long, lacey sleeves. The outfit was tasteful, yet slightly groovy, too, a far cry from the plastic poofy quality of most formal wear circa 1982. It’s what Stevie Nicks would have worn if she’d been invited to the Reg, which I thought was cool. Not sexy, mind you. Just cool. I mean, who wouldn’t have wanted to take Stevie Nicks to homecoming?

  As we all chatted, there was none of the usual stiffness that I experienced at other dates’ houses. I kept thinking I would’ve loved to stay there in the Forman living room and ditch the dance entirely. I would have much preferred sitting on the floor and singing along to “Mrs. Robinson” than going to a high school formal.

  Given the chance, I guess anyone would return to their childhood rather than face the uncertainty of adolescence. It’s just not often that the opportunity to do so seems tangible and yet impossible at the same time.

  As she snapped photos, Mrs. Forman said we both looked adorable. We did on the surface: two goofy and gangly sixteen-year-olds in formal wear, smiling with a sweet awkwardness for her Kodak Instamatic camera. I’d like to imagine that Mrs. Forman was a little wiser about my impending sexual proclivities. Whether she did or did not intuit that there was a future homosexual taking her daughter to the Reg, there was a real, genuine happiness radiating from her. In retrospect, I believe her joy was likely the effect of seeing Sarah and me together again in her living room after a few years’ absence.

  We got in my midnight blue Chevette and headed down the hill to my folks’ house for more photos. The scene there was slightly less casual. My mom had dressed up for our arrival, as if she might be hosting the Reg in our living room. There was a Henry Mancini 8-track playing on the stereo as we stood in front of the fireplace for an extended photo op. Unlike at the Formans’, the photos this time were not just of me and Sarah. There were multiple combinations of Sarah with my parents, and then with my younger brother, and then with all three of my brothers. It felt like a wedding with my parents recording all the permutations of family for the blessed event. In all these photos, I look uniformly terrified, as if I’d been married off at age sixteen and was on my way to a premature honeymoon.

  On our arrival at the Woodley Park Sheraton, we made a ridiculously grand entrance. Each couple arriving at the Reg was announced at the top of a grand curving staircase before gracefully descending to the floor of the main ballroom, step by agonizing step. In a weird way, the whole scene was like a real version of our backyard Donny and Marie productions, except that now we had on actual costumes, there was a truly classy set, and a huge audience, too. But when they called our names and the spotlight hit us, there was none of our usual jokey banter or the campy musical numbers that lit up the Forman backyard. I just smiled blankly in the glare of the white light as we gingerly made our way down the stairs to scattered applause, quickly walking Sarah to our table.

  The rest of the night was filled with endless awkward silences and stares. I didn’t know what to do, how to act and, worst of all, what to say. As kids, Sarah and I used to be able to talk a purple streak about anything and everything under the sun. But stuck in formal wear and placed in the uncomfortable context of a date, I froze up, which was not too surprising given the fact that we hadn’t really had a serious conversation in a couple years. It’s so puzzling to me now, because I could have easily filled hours’ worth of conversation with a lively dissection of our productions of Donny and Marie. But those seemed like childish things to talk about. The Reg was a big, supposedly adult evening. And I felt like a kid who didn’t belong there.

  Fortunately silence in a massive ballroom with two hundred other couples was easy to manage. There was a lot of distraction, noise, and general hubbub to provide the illusion that we were having a decent time. There were friends who stopped by to say hi, though most of those greetings were fraught with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge goofiness regarding the nympho rumors. When Charlie stopped by our table, he was a little toasted and proceeded to say, loud enough for everyone to hear, that Sarah was “hot.” As Sarah blushed, I was like, Really? The fact that I had to be told that Sarah was sexy should have been a major clue as to how clueless I was to my real orientation.

  On the long drive back to Rockland Hills, Sarah was very sweet. She kept saying that she’d had a good time, trying to make me feel better for the total lack of good time I’d provided her that night. I’m sure now that she must have sensed my unease and probably mistook it for the awkwardness between two friends on a date. But it was more than that. It was the awkwardness of one friend who no longer knows how to talk to the other about the fact that he wasn’t attracted to her, or to any women at all. The fact that Sarah was hot continued to echo in my head as I wondered why that fact was more a curiosity to me than an actual sexual spark. In some ways, this was the beginning of my understanding that I was pretty different from other guys.

  It’s a shame that I couldn’t have talked to her openly and honestly about all that stuff. I’m guessing that, given her liberal upbringing, Sarah would have been a pretty sympathetic listener. But I was too scared at that age, and that stage in my sexual development, to take that risk.

  As we got closer to her house, I realized that I still had not utilized the André. If I returned home with those bottles uncorked, I knew I would hear about it from my brother. I tried to figure out the best way to manage this dicey situation. As we made the turn onto Sarah’s street, I pulled over to the side of the road three houses down from hers, directly in front of Mrs. Gorman’s house, the woman whose lawn I cut. Mrs. Gorman was roughly 102 years old, so I knew she would not be easily roused.

  Sarah looked at me, puzzled, and wondered what we were doing stopping short of her place. I explained that my thoughtful brother had procured some bubbly for us. After some struggle, I popped open the two bottles and, as we sipped from our respective bottles, Sarah and I finally had our first meaningful conversation of the night. I kicked things off by saying h
ow sometimes I wished that I was in public school. That was a shock to Sarah.

  “Your school has much better teachers,” she said, being very practical, “and you’ll definitely get into a better college.”

  “Sure,” I said, nodding. “But the guys at St. John’s can be pretty obnoxious. Like Charlie tonight.”

  She laughed at this, but added that everyone was an idiot when it came to high school dances. This was my cue to confess to my own idiocy, but I didn’t take the bait. I tried to change the subject to something more genuine.

  “If I went to public school, at least we’d be able to hang out more.”

  I didn’t mean this statement flirtatiously—it was just a sweet way of changing the subject as well as an honest admission that I did miss her in my life.

  It was then that I started shaking, not from nerves but from the cold. It was freezing outside, and I had turned off the car. Sarah was also shivering and suggested that we go to her house. Uh-oh.

  I started the car up and puttered into her driveway. I walked her to the door, hoping that this would be it. But Sarah invited me into the living room.

  I started having a nymphomaniac panic attack, as I began trying desperately to leave, saying that Thanksgiving was tomorrow and I had a busy schedule or something ridiculous like that. She laughed at my excuse and, likely feeling emboldened by the champagne, took my hand to lead me into the house that I knew as well as my own.

  We sat on the big leathery couch next to the fireplace, Sarah sitting unnaturally close to me. The only time we’d been this close before was on the Apple Turnover at the Kings Dominion theme park, screaming our heads off while we were thrown into each other repeatedly as the ride turned upside down. Now, in this quieter, more adult situation, there was not a sound between us. There was no avoiding some action. With Sarah leading, we tried making out in a way that was very limited and not terribly exciting. It was basically kissing on the lips with some embarrassing attempts at tongue action on my part. I was fully to blame for our lack of success, as I was not the best partner in this romantic enterprise. I was stiff as a board, just not where it counted.

  After a few minutes, the whole thing died for lack of momentum as, frankly, I didn’t know what else to do besides kissing. In theory, I knew what to do with a girl, but Sarah wasn’t a girl. She was my former best friend, my playmate, Marie to my Donny. Sarah was very much like my sister. Not only are you not supposed to marry your sister, but you’re not supposed to make out with her, either. It’s just bad form.

  Looking back, I wish I had been wise and evolved enough to express that sentiment at the time. No matter what our parents or neighbors or friends thought, the idea of Sarah and me being a couple was fundamentally so wrong that it’s hard to imagine now that there was a time when people thought it was actually right. Everyone knows that Donny and Marie don’t get married.

  After our failed date, Sarah and I never hung out again. It was clear to me that Sarah knew something was up. I felt as if my secret interest in guys had been revealed by our utterly unsuccessful homecoming. If I couldn’t get it on with a hot sixteen-year-old rumored nymphomaniac, then all hope was lost that I might turn out to be anything other than what I truly was: a brownie-baking, Donny Osmond–obsessed, gay boy in training.

  As a teenager, there is a common fear that when you come out, you will lose your friends. I certainly ended up losing Sarah’s friendship not because I came out, but because I wouldn’t. Sarah probably would have enjoyed this gay boy in training. It was, after all, who I was as a child when we were the closest of friends. It was only when I tried covering up my innate otherness, when I tried pretending at normalcy, that I became a dull and boring dance companion.

  In the twenty-plus years since, I’ve had a number of other female best friends who have shared my big gay life in a way that I never would have imagined as an anxious and closeted teen. It seems preposterous now that I was scared of girls like Sarah. But girls know the score. Given that I barely knew the teams, this was not only intimidating, it was downright terrifying. If I had been a little less scared and a little more open to cultivating our friendship, Sarah and I would not have ended up married, but we would have been left with something even better: We could have been best friends for life.

  LIFE BEFORE GAYS

  Elizabeth Spiers

  Even if you didn’t grow up in the Deep South as I did, you’re probably still aware of some of the great Southern traditions—among them: frying things, speaking English in a dialect that eliminates a few cumbersome verb tenses, and affixing to your automobile (excuse me, truck: pickup truck) stickers depicting your favorite cartoon character urinating onto the logo of your least favorite college football team. In my family, however, the most hallowed Southern observance is periodically listing for the benefit of your descendants and younger family members the various things you were deprived of growing up. The more gruesome the deprivation, the better.

  My list: the Internet, parental disdain for corporal punishment, and gays.

  I’m quite sure that, statistically speaking, there were some openly gay people in suburban Alabama in the early 1980s, but I never saw or met them and continued to live gayless until the age of eighteen when I shipped myself off to college and away from Wetumpka, population 6,102. Inasmuch as they existed, suspected gay men were spoken about in hushed tones. Christian conservatism run amok was the obvious culprit, and by extension, the local conventional wisdom that homosexuality went hand in hand with child molestation. In the paranoid minds of my neighbors—and let’s face it, family members—there were legions of predatory homosexuals just waiting for the right opportunity to touch their children inappropriately, I suppose for lack of better things to do. And as any politician will tell you, there is no more powerful rhetorical device than the threat of child endangerment. Protecting The Children is the only universally accepted bipartisan platform in existence.

  But despite being one of the potentially endangered children, I failed in my earliest years to internalize the widespread fear of supposedly hostile gay men. That gay men would be interested in molesting little girls didn’t seem plausible for obvious reasons. (Violent predatory lesbians, if you’re wondering, were not a concern. The conventional wisdom was that like unicorns or the tooth fairy, lesbians didn’t actually exist in real life; they were merely fantasy creatures produced expressly for heterosexual pornography.) But more to point, no one who ever warned me away from gay men seemed to actually know any.

  My earliest understanding of what “gay” meant, as best I remember, occurred at an age when I wasn’t entirely sure what “sex” meant, and was still driven by the impulses of the average elementary school child—you know, the ones that cause them to throw hard objects at other kids on the playground, burst into tears over the repossession of a plastic figurine, or say the meanest things they can think of to the most helpless kid in the sandbox. We romanticize them because they’re cute and they love us, but children are nasty, brutish, and short. I was no exception.

  But as kids do, I grew up a bit. And with growing up came limited sex education and moral instruction at the hands of my Southern Baptist church. The former was as nonspecific as possible, mechanically speaking (the what goes where?), while pointedly specific about the participants (heterosexual couples, exclusively) and their motivations (marital love and reproduction, exclusively). The latter was as specific as possible about the interpretation of the primary text (literal) while as nonspecific as possible about the rationale for that interpretation (the text, if interpreted literally, states that it should be interpreted literally). So while I wasn’t quite sure how homosexuality worked mechanically, I was told repeatedly that it was wrong because the Bible said so, literally. The English version that had already been interpreted, misinterpreted, translated, and reinterpreted countless times, that is.

  Swallowing the Bible literally was only slightly more difficult than swallowing the literal Bible and I had problems with it from the b
eginning. But I made an effort, if only because I feared hell, the existence of which, ever the pessimist, I found slightly more plausible than heaven. Hell was hard to swallow, too, but on the off chance it existed, I wanted to be on the right side of the bet.

  Around the same time, I remember hearing the first rumor of an adult I knew being gay; that this rumor came from other adults gave it more credibility. There were the usual ominous insinuations. The subject of the rumor was a local hairdresser, no less. Originality is rarely a prerequisite for gratuitous mockery.

  By that time, my classmates—all Christian and culturally conservative—knew enough about homosexuality and how it was perceived locally to turn it into an epithet. Gays, faggots, and queers, while noticeably absent in a literal sense, were all over the middle-school playground, manifesting themselves in anyone who happened to be the object of the day’s regularly scheduled bullying. Queer was just another word for assorted varieties of “unpopular.”

  A few of the bullied middle-schoolers at the tiny kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade school I attended were, as it turns out, actually gay. Not one of them came out of the closet before moving out of their respective houses post–high school graduation, and some of them, not before moving out of the state entirely. If they had outed themselves earlier, the environment would not have been welcoming, and sadly, there’s a not insignificant possibility that the response could have been violent.