The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story (2 page)

DOUG,
ANDREW, SHELDON,
AND
ROSLYN

January
1995

DOUG   
I was dead set on finding an
engagement ring by Andrew’s birthday. It was just a week before we had dinner
reservations at Sign of the Dove. You know, the one in the commercials where
they served unsuspecting customers Folger’s coffee. When you read about it in
restaurant reviews, like the Zagat guide, it’s invariably called a “favorite
place to pop the question.” I certainly hope that the genesis of our journey
wasn’t my reading that line in Zagat, and saying to myself, “Gee, why don’t we
become the first gay couple to get engaged there!” Actually, I’m sure we
weren’t the first or the last.

Dinner was set for Saturday night, and here it
was Wednesday, and not only didn’t I have a ring, I didn’t have the slightest
idea what kind of ring I was looking for, or where to get it. Just weeks before
we’d been to dinner with our friend Rachel, her current boyfriend, and a friend
of theirs, Carl, who’s a jeweler. Now I asked Rachel to hook us up again so I
could ask his advice. She gave me his number, and he offered a few suggestions,
sending me to a gold wholesaler in the diamond district. Forty-Seventh Street
between Fifth Ave. and Sixth Ave. in Manhattan is the largest concentration of
gold and diamond merchants in the world, and many, if not most, of those
merchants are either Orthodox or ultra-observant Hasidic Jews.

By the time I went to the store he recommended,
it was Friday. The saleswoman wasn’t the intimidating type, yet I still broke
into a sweat over my surroundings. I asked to see a simple gold ring with a
comfort fit band, per Carl’s instructions. As I tried it on for a test (though
I had no idea if Andrew and I wore the same size ring,) it occurred to me that
it might be odd for a man to be trying on a gold band.
“Is this what
straight people do, or is it obvious that I’m buying this for another man?”
I wondered.
“Do women buy them for their husbands, or what?”
Even though
it was perfectly possible that straight men buy their own rings, it suddenly
seemed that the store’s Orthodox personnel had peeked inside my bedroom, and
frowned.

Once I had the ring, I went to see Carl, who has
a business nearby. He said he’d buff and polish the ring as a favor, and I took
him up on the offer. We talked about my plans to propose to Andrew. Even though
this was a much more personal conversation than the one I had in the store, I
wasn’t uneasy. The difference was, I think, that he was an acquaintance rather
than a total stranger. Also, I knew he wasn’t an Orthodox Jew.

At the time, I couldn’t possibly know this would
be the first in a long series of interactions that shared a key element. For
the next two years, many of our decisions would be directly influenced by the
degree of religious conservatism which we faced at any given moment. For a
largely secular Jew like me, this was a new and not entirely welcome feeling.

Carl wished me a sincere good luck, and I called
Rachel when I got back to work, to thank her for helping me accomplish my
mission so quickly. She sounded excited for us, and sent me off into the
weekend with a wide-eyed, tingly anticipation.

Saturday, Andrew’s 29th birthday, I went out to
buy him flowers. I wondered if he had a hint of what I had up my sleeve. Since
I have the polar opposite of a poker face, it seemed possible he might read my
hand. But as we got dressed for dinner that night, I was confident he had no
idea.

We took a cab across town to Sign of the Dove,
and when we entered from the snow and chilly wind, the room was warm and
inviting. I hoped we’d get a corner table for a little more privacy, but we
wound up front and center in the corner dining room. We weren’t the only gay
couple in the room, but we were more of a minority than usual in this city.

Dinner sped along like any other, albeit with
great food, but by the time the waiter asked if we wanted dessert, my
butterflies were working overtime. I planned to take my chances with the ever
popular hiding-the-ring-in-the- dessert number, despite my fears that if anyone
could wolf down a ring with his dessert, it would be Andrew. It’s not that he
has a sweet tooth... It’s more like a chemical dependence to confectioner’s
sugar and chocolate.

But I hadn’t addressed how I’d approach the
waiter about the arrangements for the ring. Would I slip him the ring and ask
him to slide it under the dessert, or would I chicken out and attempt to
distract Andrew while I did the dirty work myself?

The choices for dessert weren’t what I would
have hoped for. In fact, the only one that appealed to Andrew was a pear tart,
which happens to be one of the few desserts I’m not fond of. But, after all, I
thought, if we’re about to enter into a lifetime filled with give and take,
isn’t it appropriate that it start with a compromise?

After the dessert was ordered, I excused myself
from the table, caught the waiter and gave him the ring. I’d decided he was
probably gay, and if not, judging by the rest of the staff, he undoubtedly had
some gay comrades. He smiled sweetly, and said it would be taken care of.

My palms were moist with sweat by the time the
tart arrived. At first I didn’t see any of the gold poking out from under the
front “V” of the tart, as I’d requested of the waiter. Visions of sit-corn
farce loomed before me, as Andrew cut a piece from the tip, and stuck his fork
in. Would the ring wind up under another patron’s dessert, the scene ending
with my forced announcement to the room that the ring was really intended for
my, ummm... boyfriend? Then, just as he carried the pear with its crumbling
crust to his mouth, I could see the ring clearly on his plate. The buffing job
showed off nicely in the light, and I was sure Andrew would stop his chewing
and spy the glittering object jutting out beneath his pear tart. But without
interruption, he dove right back in. Just as he was cutting off the next piece,
I was forced to ask, “What’s that under your dessert?” Andrew stopped, lifted
his fork, and his expression went utterly blank. After a brief moment, his lips
curled up at the edges into a slight smile, and his big hazel eyes grew very wide.
He looked up from the ring and stared at me, his smile growing a little, but
still showing me a face filled with surprise.

Finally, I asked, “Well, what do you think?”

He said the obvious. “I’m surprised.”

To which I replied the even more obvious. “Will
you marry me?”

ANDREW   
We used to talk about
it. “Maybe we’ll get married one day...” And then we’d half-joke, “Who would
ask who?” In fact, I always thought I’d be the one to ask. In that particular
area, I figured I’d be more gutsy. It was a brave thing to do, and I didn’t
expect Doug to go out on a limb with that first step.

Until then, I hadn’t even fantasized about the
specifics of what our wedding might be like. When Doug and I daydreamed about
it, it was more of a vague concept, never an attainable goal.

But when Doug proposed, it changed everything.
When I first held the gold band and examined it, I wasn’t playing dumb. I
really hadn’t gotten it yet.

Then Doug said the words. “Will you marry me?”

My immediate reaction was shock.

Of course I said yes, but I was nervous, even
scared. Just how scared, I didn’t realize until later. Those feelings were
hidden deep.

DOUG   
There we were, sitting in the
middle of this restaurant. I took Andrew’s hand, and we looked a little longer
into each other’s eyes. But in an instant, I realized that we weren’t going to
have a kiss in this place, at this time. It wasn’t a bitter disappointment,
just a fleeting, unfortunate reminder of how far we were from the world I
wished for.

Over coffee (definitely not Folger’s, by the
way) I asked if he’d suspected what I was up to.

Andrew answered emphatically, “No. No way.”

We started brainstorming when we’d want to
marry, and where. Since our respective friends are spread over the continent,
from West coast to East, U.S. to Canada, we agreed we should have it on a
holiday weekend. Andrew preferred getting married after his psychology
internship ended, and that would put the date at Labor Day of ‘96. A year and
nine months was a little further off than I imagined, but I wasn’t in a hurry.
I had one warning for

Andrew: September is always the beginning of the
new television season, making it one of my busiest months for work. That date
would limit us to a very short honeymoon, a week at most.

ANDREW   
One minute we’re having
a regular dinner out together, then all of a sudden a casual daydream is
turning into a reality. Rather than succumb to the urge to panic, I began to
obsess on every detail of the wedding and reception. I thought about my
sisters, and what it was like when they announced their engagements: from that
instant, they were surrounded by a hoopla that didn’t end until well after
their weddings. And what weddings. Lavish, hundreds of guests, great food,
photographers, the works. Every detail was attended to with great care. The
material minutiae weren’t important though, it was what they signified that
counted. All the trappings meant that what they were doing mattered that it was
important enough to warrant all this
stuff
.

I assumed that my nuptials would be attended to
with the same excitement and enthusiasm. Only later did I realize how wrong I
was.

DOUG   
By now I’d had enough of the
nuts and bolts. I wanted to know what was going on behind Andrew’s glazed gaze.

I asked again, “So, you were really surprised?”

“Totally,”
he said.

Our relationship had always been both loving and
intense, and it had taken a number of zigs and zags over the previous three and
a half years. It all started, as they say, when...

ANDREW   
...Martin, a gay classmate,
told me about a dating club called Brunch Buddies. It was the summer of 1991. I
had just finished my first grueling year of graduate school in New York, and I
had nothing to look forward to but heat, humidity and a summer job in the neurology
department at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine doing memory research. I
was just coming out of a brief one month, long-distance relationship with a
nice Jewish doctor from Montreal (my mother would have been proud) that ended
painfully. Martin and I were riding the bus to school when I told him how
depressed and dejected I felt about having been dumped. When he mentioned
Brunch Buddies, he had only a vague idea of what kind of dating service it was.
We both came to the conclusion that it was probably a group of guys getting
together for Sunday Brunch, and if you met somebody you liked, you’d exchange
numbers.

DOUG   
I’d lived in New York for over
a year and had dated a few men. My latest boyfriend had been introduced to me
by a colleague at work. After being on the wrong end of a particularly
unpleasant dumping, my workplace became an inescapable connection to this man
and our best-forgotten relationship. I swore that the next man I dated would
have no relation to my current circle of co-workers or friends.

I read about Brunch Buddies in the Village
Voice, and I called to set up an appointment.

ANDREW   
They sent me some
ridiculous questionnaire to complete before my initial visit, asking me to
indicate my favorite movies, books, hobbies, magazines, etc. Obviously their
methods were far from scientific, but I figured I had nothing to lose. So off I
went with my completed survey, determined to make this a fruitful (pardon the
expression) venture.

After a few uneventful dates with different
“club members”, I set up a date with a thirty year old television writer and
producer. He was Promotion Manager for the Joan Rivers Show, and I’d watched it
more than a few times. I figured if things went well, hey, maybe I’d get to
meet Joan.

I hadn’t seen his picture, so the only person
who’d seen us both was the Brunch Buddies rent-a-yenta. We had only a vague
idea of what each other looked like. I was “very tall, curly dark hair, hazel
eyes”...

DOUG   
...I was “not-quite-that-tall,
curly dark hair, green eyes.” These sketchy descriptions meant that I spent a
good three or four minutes stationed in front of Patzo’s, surveying the crowd.
It wasn’t my favorite restaurant, far from it. But I had already met three
other blind dates over the last four months at “The Boulevard” on 88th and
Broadway, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the waiters there were starting
to wonder if I was a hooker - or looking for one - what with all the furtive,
exploratory looks I gave while taking tables alone, saying I was waiting for
someone else yet never looking quite sure who that person was supposed to be.
It had come time to change venues. So here I was, at Patzo’s.