Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir (5 page)

Everyone called Romina “Rome” because she told them to. “Just call me Rome.” She’d say it the same way each time, with her head tilted. Then came the haughty laugh, open-mouthed, without the slightest hint of hand raised in a modest reaction. She gave it up too easily, laughing at everything without investment. “Yes, that’s right.
ROME,
” she’d say loudly as if speaking to a foreigner. “
Rome,
like the city. You know, in Italy.” Okay, Rome, ’cause no one but you knows where Rome is. And as far as insults went, she coated hers in sugar and hoped I’d swallow them by the spoonful.

Suggesting I “play house for a while longer instead of getting married” was her way of curing the hiccups between us. “I mean, what’s the rush, Stephanie?” Rush? Gabe and I had been engaged and living together for a year and a half at that point. “I’m just saying, it’s very lonesome being a doctor’s wife. He can’t even support you.” I try to see it as independent, not lonesome. Oh, and by the way, “playing house” is something I did when I was four, you crotch rot.

Did I ever wonder how I’d put up with her for the rest of my life? God, yes. But I loved Gabe, so I became an actress, sucked it up, bit my tongue, and smiled. For his sake. “I’m not marrying Rome,” I told myself. When she became particularly infuriating, I’d invoke a loving memory with Gabe, hold it in my mind, and remind myself that we were in love, and that love would transcend all, even Rome.

In regard to our upcoming wedding, once Rome heard Gabe utter “not ready yet,” she threw the dreaded motherin-law cliché into high gear, revving things beyond “cold feet” and landing full-throttle on the “she wasn’t right for you anyway” gear. “Don’t worry about Stephanie’s lost deposit money, we’ll take care of everything. If you’re not ready, Gabe, you shouldn’t get married.” That’s what parents do—they want to save their children pain, from repeating their mistakes. Gabe’s father Marvin concurred. He had, after all, divorced after a very brief marriage, while he was in law school, before committing his life to Rome. They only wanted the best for their son. It’s what any parent wants. “We’ll give Stephanie back the money she lost, so don’t even factor that into your decision.” I would’ve said the same thing to my own child, except I would have followed through and done some reimbursing.

Electra’s ceremony was a flood of fragrant yellow roses, punctuated with a hint of stephanotis, flowers I’d considered for my own wedding. I felt anxious seeing them there along the aisle between the tapered candles and flowing gauze. It all should have been mine, but mine was canceled.

Gabe somehow thought he could cancel a wedding without canceling us. So he slid into “postponed” mode, claiming he just needed more time to figure himself out.

“I promise we’ll do it soon, just not now. I’m not ready now. I want us—”

“You never should have proposed to me if you weren’t ready. And now you want to postpone the wedding and somehow keep us intact?”

“No really, I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Stephanie. Really, soon, I promise.”

“Soon isn’t good enough.”

Here’s what I’ve learned about “soon”; it’s short for “someday.” We make space in our lives for what matters, now. Not in promises and soons, but on mantels with sterling frames, in shelves we clear to make room for our now. Everything else is talk. I didn’t want to share space with someone who didn’t want his someday now.

I MOVED IN WITH SMELLY WHILE I SEARCHED FOR A NEW
apartment.

I also took up residence in the self-help aisles of bookstores. I needed something to make me feel better, some book, a phrase, words to get me through. I purchased a breakup book for lesbians and read it in a taxicab on my way to work. It was the first morning I’d spent not waking up in
our
bed. Gabe and I didn’t have
our
anymore except for our broken engagement. It was raining. I pulled my knees to my chest as we drove down Fifth Avenue.
We
was me, alone in the backseat, a cab driver taking me to work. We were stopped at a red light in front of the Met. It was too early for lines, just staff sweeping in yellow ponchos, a man pushing a pretzel cart, opening his red umbrella. Pigeons hiding beneath benches. I wanted to ditch work and sit at The Stanhope to drink tea and half-sleep it, upright. Maybe I’d meet a foreigner who’d offer me a tissue or a tea sandwich. Maybe I’d meet a mother who’d offer me her son. I wanted to heal; if a new prospect were in the picture, I was certain I’d heal faster. I know better now. Now, I’d just stick to the tea.

I bought the book because surviving a breakup as a lesbian is the same as enduring the ending of any serious relationship. Despite the years we’d been together, as man and woman, because we weren’t married, it somehow counted less to everyone else. It shouldn’t have. When it’s divorce, people pay attention and know it’s a big deal. But when you’re gay, too many people diminish the severity of what you’re dealing with. They don’t understand your partnership was as profound as any marriage. The book understood how hard this was for me, how acute my pain was.

“It’s a breakup. They happen all the time,” Smelly said, hoping to soothe me. With a trivial flip of the hand, my reality was fanned aside as I was told, “You’ll be back at it in no time,” as if that were the good, healthy thing to do. It made me feel like a lesbian and anything but gay.

“He’s an idiot,” Smelly added, “and has a lot of growing up to do.” Oh God, please don’t whip out the “his loss, you’re so much better off” speech. It’s what’s done. Lines are drawn, sides are taken. I didn’t know where I belonged. I wanted to hate him.

In the years we’d been together, he’d spent nights making promises in whispers and sighs: “I’ll never leave you.” Signed his letters with “always” and “forever.”

It still amazes me how fast everything important can be undone. In a phone call, a text message, an e-mail, an instant message conversation. Weddings that took months of planning can be called off. Engagements broken. A phone call to a moving company and real estate agent and you’re as good as gone. Complicated relationships, where promises and truths were shared in dark theaters, through a bar with his hand on her back, in the backseat of cabs, in the rain when he shared his umbrella, can unbutton in a beat. It saddens me how a lifetime of promises that mean everything to us can be unraveled faster than something as trivial and maddening as fine tangled thread.

I wanted to feel angry with him. I was too focused on being victimized. Had I taken the time to let myself get to anger, perhaps I would have realized I ought to have been angry with myself. I knew he wasn’t ready to marry me, but he asked on bended knee, so I answered. Yes. His asking was good enough. It shouldn’t have been.

Give him time, space, move out and see what happens. Check, check. I cried to realtors. I cried on the subway. I cried in the shower. Strangers offered me tissues. I’d ride the subway wondering how people went on with their lives, how they functioned. What it was like not having to remind myself to breathe or eat. How appreciative I became of the smallest gestures. Someone helped me with a bag, and I thanked her as if she’d rescued me from sudden death. The smallest consideration was amplified in the wake of grave disappointment. I wanted to find normal again.

“WILLIAM IS MISSING,” I HEARD SOMEONE WHISPER OUTSIDE
the bridal suite. Was the groom detained, running late, what? All I heard was “missing.” I began to pace and clutch my stomach. I knew this feeling all too well. Yanked my cuticles. I wanted to save Electra from it. I’d just bitten the nail polish off my index finger when I heard Electra’s voice.

“Whatever,” she said when someone else mentioned it to her, “he’ll be here.” She was examining her eyelashes in the mirror without a wrinkle of concern. I didn’t know how she did it.

“How can you be so calm?” I asked, surveying her face for concealed signs of anxiety.

“Because.”

“Because? That’s your answer? Because?”

“Because I know he loves me and that we’re meant to be. I just know. Completely.” I was in awe of her.

WHEN WE’RE MISSING, PEOPLE LOOK FOR US. IT’S THE ENTIRE
philosophy behind playing it cool. When someone is gone, we imagine the best for them and the worst for us. “I bet he doesn’t even miss me,” I’d said, once I moved out of my apartment with Gabe. “I bet he’s fucking playing golf while I’m sitting here with eye compresses.” Oftentimes, our imaginations are crueler than reality. We’ll whine to our friends, using words like
depressed
and
miss
interchanged with
sooooo much
! Then they’ll sling an “if it’s meant to be” your way because that’s what friends do…remind us that life exists beyond our own tortured selves.

“If it’s meant to be, Stephanie,” Smelly had cheered while I searched for a new apartment. I wanted to pull out her blond hair and see how she’d manage bald. “Meant to be” allows for lazy. The idea of destiny alleviates anxiety; it comforts us. We stop believing that we had ownership, that we could have done something to change the outcome. It’s lazier than The Clapper.

You have to live life with unanswered questions—there isn’t always an answer for “Why?” In my case, people panted sentences, and rounded them off with “there’s a reason for everything.” Doors slam, windows open suddenly, and “meant to be” flies in and sticks like marmalade on the sill of your life. People want to wrap lessons around things and tie them with ribbons of hope. “It will make you stronger.” We tell ourselves things and convince ourselves to make sense of the senseless. We feel better when we have concrete answers to grip, even if they’re wrong. They’re ours, something to hold onto, like a ledge. The problem with ledges, of course, is eventually you fall from them. After I’d been living with Smelly for three weeks, Gabe did just that: he hit rock bottom and wanted me back at all costs.

Everything changed when I’d remained strong and refused to return his phone calls. He showed up with the words I wanted to hear. “Call the rabbi. I’ll marry you right now. My life is miserable without you, Stephanie. Please come home.” He was terrified of losing me, and that fear of loss would keep him faithful till death us do part.

Or not.

He should have wanted to marry me because he wanted me, not because he was afraid of loss. But he let fear govern his decision, which usually leads to regret. Our best decisions are made from a place of joy—they should be things we’re eager to do. Hearing the peace and liquid strength in Electra’s voice, I realized that. She didn’t use “meant to be” as an excuse. She didn’t use it at all. It was just fact, her deepest sense of right. Despite William’s tardiness to their wedding, she never doubted what her senses told her. She knew it was meant to be, and fear had no place in her marriage to William.

I know this now, but when I was with Gabe, I was too busy convincing myself he was just a boy afraid of an idea. I believed his “not ready yet” came from his fear of his parents’ reaction. Deep down he wanted me to be his partner, but he was just frightened of what others would think of his decision. I didn’t think it was the other way around—that really he didn’t want to be married yet, but he was afraid of disappointing me, of losing me. Because when he did lose me, when I stayed with Smell, he felt lost. He came to me with “I choose you. You are what I want!” And I took his hand, thinking we could face his fears together. I would be his partner in that. I thought he’d get over his fear of marriage once we were actually married, and he learned people were actually supportive. It was just the
idea
that scared him. That had to be it, because really, what would change? We’d still be living in our apartment, have the same friends, do the same things. Only once we married, it would no longer be just between the two of us. Now there would be family to support us, to help us honor the vows we’d made to each other.

Or not.

THE CHURCH WAS OVERFLOWING WITH FAMILY, AND
William was where he belonged, at the front of the church, beside Electra’s brothers and the other groomsmen, waiting for the love of his life to arrive. She was an aisle’s distance away, and as I walked down it in front of her, tears began to slip down my face. I didn’t care who saw. William’s face was eager and flooded with joy. I didn’t know how many wedding dates they’d tried to set, only that this one was meant to be. They would be okay.

After our August wedding was canceled, Gabe and I tried just being us for a while, in our apartment, ordering in burgers, watching movies in bed. We were going to be okay, but things with his parents were not.

I had put down the wedding deposit money my family had given me. When Gabe wanted to call off the wedding, his parents told him it was okay, that he should follow those feelings and not worry about the money I’d lose.

“We’ll reimburse her,” they had promised. “So don’t even factor that into your decision.” But when the decision he finally made was to marry me, they changed their story. “We’ll get her back the money she lost only once she moves out.” I couldn’t believe they actually said it aloud.

“But we’re setting a new wedding date,” Gabe countered.

“Yeah, well, IF you actually get married, then we’ll reimburse her the money we’d promised. You called off the wedding, so now do something about it.”

Gabe assured me we would get married, “as soon as my father checks his work schedule. He promised to give me a list of dates. Don’t worry about the money and repaying your family. Sweetheart, I promise everything will be okay.”

We aimed to marry in December. Burgundy calla lilies, red bruneas, Black Beauty roses, accented with hints of pale pink pepperberries. Mugs of hot cocoa with s’mores wrapped in parchment for the guests’ journeys home. Bridesmaids in dark chocolate satin. Gabe told his parents the new date and, surprisingly, they were fine with it. Everything was back on schedule. Venues were free, the florist was available. Done and done. Until it was undone, yet again.