Tom helped her out of the chair and picked her up gently, carrying her upstairs, out of view of Bill. He put her in a chair in the sitting room and was just about to ask her if she wanted some water. There was a pounding at the front door, and Jim let in emergency medical technicians, who came to Sandra and asked her if she was all right.
“Be careful,” she whispered to them, telling them her HIV-positive status, and the woman patted Sandra’s arm,
with a “that’s okay” look on her face. They took her vital signs, got a fetal heart monitor out, pulled up her T-shirt as Bill had, and started looking for the baby’s heartbeat. Tom was kneeling next to her, and Jim was standing nearby, trying to hide the surprise on his face. Suddenly, the strong and rapid heartbeat of Sandra’s baby filled the room and the entire apartment. Tom reached over and kissed Sandra passionately on the mouth. She put her hand up to the back of his head and kissed him back. Their secret was out.
O
nce again, Marie’s apartment, the same one she hated and didn’t appreciate having much of the time, delivered. She opened the door, stepped in, and the first thing she saw was the panorama overlooking the nighttime skyline of New Jersey. She closed the door behind her, put her things down on the couch, and walked to the window without taking her eyes off of it. The very edge of the sun could be seen as it sunk below the earth, the turquoise sky fading into indigo.
Lucky
. She walked backward into her kitchen to grab a bottle of wine that she had opened the day before and a glass and went back to sit on her couch and watch the spectacle out her window.
This glass of wine will make four for the evening. Am I drinking too much?
She had conveniently forgotten that she was not supposed to drink with the antiretroviral drugs, among others that she would be taking for the rest of her life.
Too bad
, she thought as she took a slug of the wine, a delicious French wine she bought to spite Jeff Babcock. He had not called her since the family meeting at TGI Friday’s, and that was Monday. Four days. “Fuck him,” she said out loud, slurring her speech. For some reason, out of nowhere, she thought of her viral load. It was extremely high, the doctor had said, and she was extremely infectious.
“It’s imperative that you take your drugs as directed and that you abstain from any form of sexual activity, especially
intercourse. If you absolutely must do it, please, please, please, use a condom!”
She didn’t particularly like the doctor, who was trying so hard to stay neutral and not categorize Marie that he failed miserably. She felt like a twelve-year-old who had gotten caught having sex with the next-door neighbor. He asked her what she did for a living, and when she told him, he seemed shocked, like she was better suited to selling dope in an alley.
Oh well, I’m probably being hypersensitive. Do I have a giant A on my forehead for AIDS?
No one could tell; it was her secret. She poured herself another glass of wine. More lights had gone on outside, and now they were visible all the way to the horizon. New Jersey was a beautiful state; it was called the “Garden State,” after all. Its rolling topography was clearly seen at night by the layers of lights. Her door buzzer rang. For a split second, she thought of Jack. Then she said out loud, “Arthur.” She pressed the intercom and said hello and couldn’t believe her ears!
It was Steve Marks!
“Surprise! I got your address from
Switchboard.com
! Gotta love the Internet!”
“Go home, Steve, before I call the cops.” Marie was tired of him, but she was also angry.
He has a lot of nerve
.
“Don’t be mad at me,” he said. “Let me come up. If you talked to me, you would learn to like me.”
“Okay, I have about had it with you. If you don’t leave right now, not only am I going to call the cops, but I will report you to my boss in the morning. GO HOME!” she yelled into the intercom. There was silence. She wished there was a way she could alert the other tenants so no one let him in. Suddenly frightened, she got a dining
room chair and wedged it under the door handle and then dragged the couch over in front of the chair. He wouldn’t get into her place, even if he got through the front door.
Seconds later, her phone rang. She picked it up, but didn’t speak. She heard Jeff’s voice.
“Hello? Marie?”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Hi, Jeff. Sorry. I’m being stalked by a coworker who showed up at my door tonight, and I was afraid the call might be him.”
“Oh! How frightening! I would be petrified!”
Marie looked at the phone in disbelief.
Is this guy kidding?
“Make sure your doors are locked!” he advised.
“So what can I do for you?” Marie asked, anxious to hang up. She was having suspicions about Jeff.
“I have a formal affair to attend in town next weekend. Would you be my date?”
“Can I get back to you?” Marie answered. “Work is crazy right now because of the merger. I’m going to Pam’s tomorrow, though. Are you at the beach or Rhinebeck this weekend?” She hoped he was going to say Rhinebeck.
“Oh! I am cooking for you at Pam’s Saturday! Won’t that be fun? The weather is supposed to be gorgeous!”
The issue was becoming clearer and clearer; she could almost see him simpering.
Oh Lord, no. Am I his beard?
“You’ll be at Pam’s? What? As her date or mine?” Marie was pissed off.
Who is this guy, anyway?
She had all the male friends she needed. Whatever was going on, she wanted truthfulness out of him.
Jeff giggled, which fueled her anger. “Both. Neither. I like both of you! Do we need to define our friendship in ‘date’ terms?”
So that was it
, she thought.
He is such a weasel!
“Yes! I don’t want to waste my time with someone who I was hoping to be romantically involved with. If you are gay, for God’s sake, say you’re gay! Why the hell are you still in the closet?” She was yelling at him.
He has a lot of nerve!
She understood why he felt it was necessary to introduce his brother and sister-in-law to a woman. He was hiding who he was from them, and it made her sick. “Wait, I get it. Your family is a bunch of religious fanatics and you have to keep your real self a secret. Am I correct?”
There was silence.
“Answer me, Jeff!” She thought about the wasted weekend where she was force-fed and the trek to Friday’s to meet the family and be cross-examined about her religious beliefs.
“No, not exactly. I mean they aren’t religious fanatics. They’re just passionate about Jesus.” He didn’t say anything else.
So this is the way it is going to be
, she thought. She would have to yank everything out of him. “Are you gay?” she asked, more of a statement than a question. Waiting for him to answer, she thought of Arthur, how wonderful and honest he was about everything, himself, his friends, life. She found herself wondering if this type of blatant denial was more common than not. And then she calmed down quickly. The poor man was at that cusp of the generation that had to hide who they really were, whose family would disown them if they didn’t measure up in every way. It
wasn’t enough that the guy was a successful attorney who had raised two lovely children. She decided to take a different approach. If he had to hide behind her, so be it. He still hadn’t answered her, so she would change tactics.
“I’m sorry I’m beating you up here, Jeff. I just don’t like to be lied to. I thought there might be something happening between us, and now I see that is impossible. So I will do what I can to help you out when you need it, but if you don’t want at least an honest friendship with me, then forget it.” She listened to his breathing. “Hello?”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie,” he confessed. “I’m so used to living behind a veil that I forget that it’s possible to hurt people. I’ll be honest, okay? But I need your discretion. One hundred percent.”
“One hundred percent,” she echoed.
He took a deep breath. “Yes, I am a gay man. Yes, I am in the closet. I’ve been celibate, but think it might be time to change that. Just last month, I started seeing someone. My children are grown, so my ex-wife can’t use my sexuality against me. I really didn’t know I was gay when we got married. That sounds like a bunch of horseshit, but it’s true. The way I was raised, ‘men were men and women were women,’ and there was nothing else, no deviation from the traditional roles. The church we were raised in taught that homosexuality was from the devil. Satan. I don’t remember now, but if there were any impulses, I would have squashed them. Just once, just a tiny misstep when I was a boy sent my mother into a tailspin. I’ll never forget it.
“I was getting ready to go out to play and had taken my Sunday clothes off to put my play clothes on. I was
standing in my bedroom in front of my closet in my underwear with my hand on my hip, looking in, trying to decide what to wear. My older sister came in, and I asked her, ‘Should I wear the plaid shirt with the blue jeans or the green shirt with the khaki pants?’ She reached in to pull out the green shirt, and my mother, who must have been standing there listening to us, screamed. She ran into my room, grabbed my sister by the arm, and pushed her away and then reached out and slapped my hand off my hip. ‘Don’t
ever
stand that way again!’ she yelled. ‘Get dressed! Put anything on!’ And then she grabbed my sister again and shook her by the arm. ‘Don’t encourage him!’ she yelled. It was awful. My sister started crying, and my mother shot me the death look and went back to her place in the kitchen. After that, if I slipped up doing the slightest effeminate thing or even what they call ‘metrosexual’ today, she would slap me and yell, ‘Stop it!’ Of course, this was never in front of my dad. The poor man would have had a heart attack. He was a deacon at the church, for God’s sake!” Jeff laughed. “My mother is still waiting for me to come out of the closet. She was mortified when I went to culinary school.” He stopped, contemplating what he had revealed to Marie.
Marie was wondering if she needed to come clean with Jeff as well.
How much honestly is required?
He just spilled his guts at her insistence.
Now is it my turn? Is it tit for tat?
She waited for a few minutes to give him a chance to regroup.
“People are stupid, that’s all there is to it. I hate it when they use religion as an excuse to be hateful,” he said. “The funny thing is,” he continued, “I am a Christian. I
love God. I believe that Jesus is His Son and reigns with Him in heaven. I do hear the prompting of the Holy Spirit. All of the things I am supposed to do, I do. But, boy oh boy, don’t let my sister-in-law get started on the gay men who work in her gift shop. She spews so much hatred. I can’t believe she doesn’t see the hypocrisy in it.”
“I have a few confessions to make myself. Do you want me to start now? It’s getting a little late.” She was hoping he would agree and hang up. No such luck.
“I have time to listen if you need to talk” was his gracious way of giving her the floor.
“I don’t need to talk, but I need to be truthful about some things up front if we are going to be friends.” She was still hoping for a way out.
“Go ahead, I’m listening,” he said.
“Well, for one thing, I’m an anorexic. Always have been, always will be. Your weekend of food was slightly overwhelming, but I did it because I wanted to be with you. If I had known it was a ruse, I would have refused to eat!” She left out the part where she made herself throw up at the side of the road.
“It wasn’t a ruse, I swear! I wanted to entertain you because I liked your company. Go on, I have the feeling there is something more.” He was interested in knowing more about her.
“This next part is upsetting because I stayed in your house and used your dishes. I just found out yesterday that I have AIDS.” He didn’t respond, so she went on. “I was in a very long-term relationship, almost thirty years, and the man betrayed me” was all she was going to admit. “I found out that I might be infected when another acquaintance
discovered she was ill. The man is dead now, so he isn’t a problem.”
“Oh, how awful,” he said with compassion. “I’m so sorry. Are you well otherwise?”
“So far, so good. I am drinking, which you aren’t supposed to do. French wine, by the way. In honor of you. But what about the dishes and bedding? Aren’t you upset about that?” She was hoping he would express his disgust, but he wasn’t biting.
“You can’t get AIDs from dishes or sheets, so knock it off,” he responded. “Besides, if you could, I would dead by now. Many of my friends are HIV positive. I’ll tell you the truth; it’s the anorexia that bothers me the most. All kinds of research have been done regarding the importance of nutrition in AIDS.” Marie yawned.
Oh no, not this. Time to change the subject
.
“And drinking while taking antiretroviral drugs is not good.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll join AA. Look, I better hang up; glad we had this little chat and all that. I have a brutal day tomorrow, and if I am going to see you at Pam’s Saturday, we can chat then, okay? In the meantime, mums the word!”
They said good-bye and hung up.
Another gay friend, just what she needed. Maybe she would try Internet dating. Single. White. Infected with AIDS.
How would that go over?
she wondered.
“S
o how’d you happen to come to my apartment with reinforcements?” Sandra was sitting in the back of the unmarked car with Tom while Jim drove. They were going to Benny’s Shakes for burgers and chocolate milk shakes. Sandra could smell them—fried onions on a greasy hamburger patty, mustard and pickles, all on a soft bun. They would get large french fries and giant chocolate milk shakes made with full-fat ice cream and whole milk. She would look pregnant before the week was up, if Tom had anything to say about it. He had been so worried about her today. His protective radar was going full blast, which included feeding his conquest.