it’s not. He said, ‘I just got these sheets from ABC, let’s do it on the couch.’ To which I respond, ‘The moment’s passed, hon, like Elton John’s Broadway career.’”
“Really? What about Billy Elliot, I hear that’s supposed to be great.”
“That’s a West End transfer, it doesn’t count!”
“You theater queens are so harsh at times.”
“Listen, Elton’s said good-bye to the Yellow Brick Road, it’s time he said good-bye to the Great White Way too. Especially after that Lestat debacle. That show sucked so bad it made Dance of the Vampires look Tony-worthy.”
“I was talking about Andy.”
“Oh yeah, him,” Flynn continued. “I just got dressed and left. Last thing I heard him say before the elevator doors slammed shut was ‘Those sheets are seven hundred count.’ Fuck him! I am worth nine hundred count at least!”
“It’s like I always say, if you’re gonna fuck a man, be a man and buy your sheets at Target like all the other cheap Marys,” I declared. “Never mind, I didn’t really like him anyway.”
“Thank you,” Flynn said.
“He had that birthmark on his earlobe. I always thought he was wearing an onyx clip-on. And each tooth was a different shade. Didja ever notice that? One was off-white, one was ecru, a few were mother-of-pearl.”
“I said thank you,” Flynn interrupted tersely.
“Sorry, I wasn’t sure how bad I had to mock him to ease your pain.”
“I’m eased,” Flynn said, then smiled that warm smile I have grown to cherish. “Now tell me about you: my baby’s in love?”
“Well…”
So as we entered Washington Square Park I told Flynn about my fateful meeting with Frank and how I totally understood love is not born from a few glances in Starbucks, but that I had a good feeling about him. And even if that feeling turned out to be completely wrong and Frank joined Andy as the newest resident of Freakville, it couldn’t hurt to be a little happier for a few hours.
“My optimism seems to have rubbed off on you,” Flynn said with a smile.
“I’m trying.”
“I’m happy for you,” Flynn said with complete honesty. “I’d give you a hug, but Frank may be stalking you right now and I don’t want your love life to turn into a Three’s Company episode where Mr. Roper mistakes our friendly bonhomie for full-out man-to-man love.”
“You really think he could be stalking me?” I asked, trying desperately not to look around the park.
“Steven honey, I’ve lived in this city for twelve years, nothing shocks me.”
That night when I got home I had four messages. The first two were from Lindsay. Message number one was placed from the bathroom of some guy whose appendage, Lindsay claimed, might rival Ely’s thumb/penis. Message number two was placed by a hysterical Lindsay from the street three minutes later after he discovered the man whose thumb/penis rivaled Ely’s was none other than Ely. The last two were from my mother and compared to her messages, Lindsay’s seemed tame.
“Steven, it’s your mother. I need you to do me a favor. Call me!” my mother’s voice, a nasal mix of northern New Jersey and southern Italian, bellowed.
“Steven! It’s your mother! Are you ignoring me?” my mother’s voice bellowed even louder than before. Her tirade continued, each word hitting the air like the heels of an angry, post-menopausal flamenco dancer. “I called you almost an hour ago, why haven’t you called me back? Where can you possibly be on a Sunday? You said you liked to rest on Sundays. That’s why you can’t come over to have dinner with me. Are you lying to me, Steven? Have you become a son who lies to his mother? Are your restful Sundays an elaborate lie? I would really like to know so I can adjust my positioning on the chart of what’s important in your life. I thought I was in the first box, Steven, but obviously I am mistaken!”
Contrary to popular opinion, my mother is not Jewish, she’s Sicilian, which means she’s like a Jew, but has access to a gun. At sixty-seven, Anjanette Ferrante is a forceful woman who has only taken no for an answer once, when she asked my father’s doctor if the operation he suggested would save his life. I knew that if I didn’t call her back immediately she would be at my office tomorrow morning wearing a black mourning veil.
“Ma, it’s me,” I said after she picked up the phone before the first ring ended.
“Me who?” she countered.
“Your favorite son!”
“Paulie, how nice to hear from you,” my mother said over-dramatically. “I wish your brother Steven would return my phone calls as quickly as you do.”
“Oh shut up, Ma! I was out shopping. It’s how I relax.”
“Where’s your cell phone? What if I died, how would anyone contact you?”
“If you die, it doesn’t matter when I get the call. You’ll already be dead!”
“Don’t yell at your mother!” my mother yelled.
“Don’t leave crazy messages on my machine!” I yelled back. “I save them, you know. When I accumulate enough I’m going to use them against you in a court of law and have you committed.”
“Like your father didn’t try that a hundred times,” she replied.
“Anjanette, I’m ignoring you,” I said, then braced myself and continued, “Now what do you mean by ‘favor’?”
My mother’s tone of voice immediately changed from marked to telemarketer.
“As president of the Salvatore DeNuccio Tenants Group it is my responsibility to entertain the tired, the hungry and the poor of our small, impoverished village.”
“You live in a retirement community in Secaucus, Ma, not Ellis Island!” I said. “You have tennis courts, a pool, a bingo hall, and a piano bar. I can’t wait until I’m sixty-five so I can move in. I’ve already put my name on the waiting list.”
“We want more, Steven! We’re in the twilight of our years and we want more than a few laps in a heated pool and Sing-a-Long with Jerry Herman night,” she shouted back. “I ask you as a gay man who knows a thing or two about the musical theater, how many times can you sing about corn husks and bougainvillea?”
Finally my mother was speaking my mother tongue.
“All right, what do you want from me now?”
“I want one of your soap people to come here and sing for our Christmas party,” she said nonchalantly.
“Christmas isn’t for another two months,” I shot back without a trace of nonchalance.
“A good president plans early,” she responded with a trace of disdain. “So which star can I say is going to sing? The pregnant nun or the blind obstetrician?”
“You know I can’t help you,” I said, trying to reclaim my calm.
“Remember the songs need to be happy ones, nothing about Jesus freezing in a manger or wise men bribing innkeepers,” she said calmly, ignoring me. “Ideally we’d only like songs that Bing Crosby might have sung. Everybody loves Bing.”
“Ma, we’ve been down this road before. I need to separate my personal life from my professional.”
“Oh really?”
My heart missed a beat. I knew that this tone of my mother’s voice meant that she had found something out about me that she was about to use against me. It was the same tone of voice she used when she found the Playgirl magazine under my bed when I was seventeen and then asked if I wanted to hone my organizational skills by cleaning up the garage.