18 Gemma
W hen I show up to the studio for our second set of interviews, Celeste gives me a tight-lipped grin. Even with makeup on, she has visible dark circles underneath her eyes. If we were still dating, I’d ask her if she slept okay, but since we’re not, I only ask, “Hey, are you ready?”
She, in turn, only replies with “Yeah.”
“Okay, great.”
I hand her the small paper bag I’ve put her clothes in. She takes it with a small nod of thanks.
I want to ask Celeste if she’s been thinking of me as much as I’ve been thinking of her, if she still can’t get over what happened on Sunday like I can’t. But besides our unusually long message exchange on Monday, we barely talked to each other for the rest of the week. And now, she’s not even meeting my gaze.
We sit silently in the studio and wait for the couples to arrive.
Today, we’re interviewing two millennial married couples. The first one we’re supposed to interview—the Amatos—doesn’t show up for their time slot, so we decide to move on to the second couple.
Brent Thomas and Aaron Pullman are a white gay couple in their early forties who are “living the blessed childfree, and thus worry-free, life.”
“My sister, Bethany, has two kids, and being a guncle for them is fulfilling enough for me,” explains Brent. “We also have two cute little Maltipoos that keep us plenty busy.”
He shows us pictures of the dogs from his Instagram. They’re basically two extremely cute balls of fur, one tan and one white, that are so cute I exclaim, “They’re adorable!”
Celeste grins at my outburst and snaps a photo of the moment.
When I ask the couple how they met, Brent answers, “We met at a club here in the city. It was… Jesus , it’s already been fifteen years!”
“Ew,” Aaron says jokingly. “You mean I’ve somehow been with your sorry ass for that long? Was I sober for much of it?”
Brent laughs. “Were you? Because I wasn’t.”
From behind her cameras, Celeste stifles a laugh.
“We’re kidding, obviously,” Aaron says with a grin. “But we do go out a lot.”
When I tell them about the club I went to with my friends recently, Brent gasps.
“Okay, that one is good, but we usually go to gay clubs, like Oasis,” he says. “I don’t do drag anymore, but I still love watching the shows.”
We spend a good ten minutes—that we’ll have to cut the majority of—talking about the best clubs in San Francisco and about the difficulties of saving for retirement when you live in the city.
“There’s so much going on all the time here,” Brent says. “Luckily Aaron is good with money, so he takes care of all that for us.”
“I work in finance,” Aaron explains. “Brent, however…” He sighs.
Brent laughs. “Fine, I admit it,” he says. “I’m an influencer, although I do prefer the term ‘content creator.’ I used to be in tech but… what can I say? My work keeps me young, and I enjoy it. During lockdown, I started documenting our day-to-day lives on social media and people loved it enough for me to make this my full-time job!”
“That’s so cool!” I reply. “Congratulations.”
“He posts about our dog children a lot,” Aaron says. “I think that helps.”
“So true. The internet loves dogs,” Brent agrees. “Even the parts of it that don’t like old gay guys like us.”
“You’re not old,” I reply automatically.
Brent raises his eyebrows. “You try turning forty, and then we’ll talk. You’re what, twenty? Thirty?”
I give him a sheepish smile. “Twenty-nine.”
Brent and Aaron scoff.
“So, barely an adult,” Aaron says.
“Enjoy that natural collagen while it lasts,” quips Brent. “We’re almost forty-five, and I swear to god, my face sags more and more each year.”
Eventually, I circle us back to my usual set of questions, wrapping up with what I ask every couple: “What are your plans for the future?”
“Our plans for the future…” Brent trails off. He and Aaron look at each other.
“Well, when were in our thirties, we toyed with the idea of adopting kids,” Aaron says. “Or using an egg donor, a surrogate, you know, the whole deal. But we ultimately decided it’s not for us. We’re far too busy for kids. I’m always working late, and Brent takes trips in other countries for entire months, sometimes. So, we just want to keep being good guncles. And continue to live out our best healthy and happy lives.”
Brent nods. “Which sounds cheesy,” he adds. “But not really if you factor in the fact that an entire generation of our community elders was affected by the AIDS crisis. Being gay and living long, happy lives is not something we’ll ever take for granted.”
Aaron solemnly nods in agreement.
“Yeah, that’s definitely understandable,” I say. “Okay, one last question. How do you define love?”
“Being disgusting together,” answers Brent. “Disgustingly cute, disgustingly happy, and disgustingly sad.”
Aaron shoots Brent an amused look before turning back to me. “A raison d’être. If it weren’t for Brent, my life would just be a lot of numbers, booze, and meaningless sex.”
Brent shoots me a knowing glance. “That’s how he says ‘I love you.’” He gives Aaron a peck on the lips. “I love you, too, babe.”
We all laugh, and from behind the cameras, Celeste makes a heart with her fingers.
After Aaron and Brent leave, Celeste and I are packing up for the day when I get a call from the Amatos. I put my phone on speaker so Celeste can hear the conversation, too. “Hello?”
“Hi, this is Maria Amato. My husband and I were scheduled to interview with you guys today but couldn’t make it because something came up. Sorry, but can we reschedule our interview? Things have been so hectic with our girls out of school for winter break. Weekends work better.”
I exchange glances with Celeste, who nods. We reschedule the Amatos for two days later, the Saturday before the week of Christmas. After I hang up, I shoot Evelyn a quick email to inform her about the schedule change.
“Any fun plans for the holiday?” Celeste asks as I get ready to go home.
I turn around to face her. Her expression is neutral, like she’s making conversation for the sake of it. Maybe she is. Maybe she’s not. It’s hard for me to tell what Celeste is thinking these days.
“Not really. I’m going back down to Irvine to spend it with my parents,” I reply. “Whenever I’m in town for the holiday, we usually go to Christmas Eve Mass and have family dinner.”
Celeste’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, right, you’re Catholic. Do your parents know that you’re…”
She trails off. She must be remembering all my anxiety spirals from back when we were in college, when I was still coming to terms with the fact that I’m bi and was so scared that my parents would find out. Back then, my highly traditional parents finding out about my sexuality seemed like a worst nightmare situation, since I’d heard about other kids who were Korean, Christian, or both being disowned for coming out as gay.
“Yeah,” I reply. “I was terrified for the longest time, but after I met my friends, Val and Kiara, here in SF… I felt safer and more confident about everything. The first time we all went to Pride together, my parents saw the pictures on social media and had a lot of questions. I was shaking the entire time, but I came out to them. They were surprisingly more ambivalent about it than I thought they’d be. Not totally accepting like the picture-perfect parents on TV, but not opposed to it, either. Although I think they still secretly want me to end up with a man.”
Celeste winces. “And you can’t even tell them you’re not interested in guys. Because you are.”
“Right,” I sigh. “How about you? If I’m remembering correctly… your parents have known for a while now, right?”
She nods. “Yup. I was a bit of a wild kid, especially by Korean standards. And ever since I first got caught kissing a girl in middle school, they’ve known I’m not straight. They still wish I was, though,” she adds with a bitter laugh. “That’s part of the reason why I moved back to LA as soon as my mom was able to take care of herself. Honestly one great thing about my parents’ divorce is that now I only have one parent who actively pressures me to settle down with a man. I haven’t heard from my dad in eight years, and honestly? Good riddance.”
“That’s so tough,” I reply. “I’m sorry.”
By then, I’ve finished packing, and Celeste walks me to the door of the studio.
“It is what it is,” she says. “Luckily, I have a chosen family in LA and a close friend in Seoul who gets it. He’s coming to hang out with us for Christmas this year, staying with me for a week before traveling elsewhere in the country.”
“Oh, that sounds so fun!” I exclaim. “Is this the friend that helped you while you were having a hard time back home?”
Celeste nods. “Yup. His name is Min-joon. We’ve been friends since we were kids. That’s actually one of the reasons I know I’m definitely lesbian,” she adds in a dry, vaguely humorous tone. “Because if I liked men, we’d be married by now.”
A giggle escapes from my lips. “Wait, and he doesn’t like you in that way, either?”
She shrugs. “Well, unlike Aaron and Brent, he’s bi, not gay. So I guess there’s always that possibility. But no, apparently I’m too scary to be his type. He claims he can barely tolerate me as a friend.”
This time, I can’t stop myself from full-on hollering. “Too scary!”
Celeste shrugs again, but she’s smiling now, too.
It’s raining outside, so after Celeste and I wish each other a happy holiday, I stay inside the lobby to request a car to my friends’ place. I do have my umbrella, so theoretically, I could walk to the bus, ride it to the light rail stop, and take the train to Inner Sunset. But I don’t want to deal with the cold rain, and especially not at night.
As I wait for my ride, I realize this was the first time in a while that Celeste and I had an extensive, personal conversation together. It was nice, but also strangely foreign, like putting on a favorite cardigan that had been lost under the bed for several years.
My car arrives, and as I get in, I wonder if Celeste and I could possibly be friends again, chatting for hours like we did before we even officially dated. Celeste talking about her friend Min-joon made me slightly jealous, not because of anything romantic, but because I wished I also had that kind of friendship with someone. I love Kiara and Val, but it’d be nice to have a friend who’s queer and shares the same cultural background as me.
I stare down at my phone, wondering if I should ask Celeste to just be friends. But then, I get a flash of us on Sunday, of how I was seconds away from ripping off her clothes. With a sigh, I rest my head on the window and close my eyes, listening to the pitter-patter of the rain.