Teddy
“Cher was playing, and, of course, I had to sing along because when the queen croons in her signature vibrato, you must join
in as a sign of respect . . .”
“What song was she singing?”
I cock my head like the raven eyeing our brunch from atop a palm tree.
If looks could kill, Ron would be face down in the corn soufflé he just whipped up for The Golden Gays.
“It doesn’t matter, Ron,” I say in my deadpan Dorothy Zbornak tone.
“It does matter, Teddy,” Ron says to me.
Ugh.
Ron has that look in his eyes, the one that—despite all he’s been through—still reflects an innocence as beautiful as the
cloudless blue sky overhead on this stunning February morning in Palm Springs.
“Was it ‘Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves’? ‘Dark Lady’? ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’? ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’?” he continues, face
serious. “Each version of Cher is a time capsule of our souls. Each song represents a chapter of our lives.”
“He’s right, Teddy,” Barry says.
Barry leans back and flexes his biceps. I plop another spoonful of soufflé on my plate.
“For once,” Sid quips. He is the oldest in our group at eighty-one. Sid is still a cute thing, always dapper like the attorney
he once was in crisp slacks and tailored jackets.
I look around the table, one brow raised, giving each of them a withering glance. I pull the brim of my bonnet down over my
eyes. It is not to shield my face from the harsh desert sun but a reprimand for their interruption of my story.
“I can’t with any of you today,” I say.
Ron, Sid and Barry roll their eyes.
“So?” Ron presses. “What Cher song was it, Teddy?”
“It was ‘Believe,’ okay?”
“Her comeback!” Ron crows, pleased and clapping. He takes a sip of his mimosa. “Continue!”
I take a breath and do so.
“Well, as I was singing, our very young, very pretty server walked over carrying my drink and asked who the artist was. He
didn’t know Cher!”
I lift my bonnet and look at each of my friends, making sure they are as shocked as I was. Their faces express horror.
“I know! Can you believe it?” I continue. “He didn’t recognize that iconic voice! Cher, for God’s sake! Well, I was absolutely
apoplectic with rage, and it took every ounce of strength I had not to toss my Rose Kennedy in his face!”
“What did you do?” Ron asks, chin in the palm of his hand, riveted.
“I asked him if he were Kimmy Schmidt and had been living in a bunker his whole life,” I say. “I told him that I needed to
revoke his gay card immediately and send him back to twink school.”
The table roars.
The response I was waiting for and deserve.
Finally!
“So?” Barry asks, sipping his protein shake. “What did she do?”
“Well, Mary put her hands on her bony hips, cocked her body at a ninety-degree angle and asked me if I knew Chappell Roan?” I manage to take my first small sip of champagne of the day with a shaky hand.
It was a very long night, and I need it to steel myself for the conclusion of this story.
“I looked at her and said, ‘Of course I do! It’s a church in Barcelona.’”
Everyone stares at me, not understanding.
We are old.
Too old to get the joke anymore.
But old enough to be the punch line.
“Chappell Roan is a pop superstar,” I explain. “The Cher of 2026. I didn’t know just like all of you don’t know. The server
made sure to school me in front of the entire restaurant. And then he laughed at me—Me! Teddy!—and said my drink was on the house as if I were some sort of fossil, some poor pariah.”
“Well, she got one thing right,” Barry says. “You are a fossil, you are poor and you are a pariah.”
He says “thing” as “thang.” Barry’s Southern accent comes and goes as quickly as a rainstorm in the desert. He tries so hard
to forget his past, but every now and then, the guitar twangs and molasses show up even after decades on the West Coast.
“Shut up and flex, Barry,” I say.
He does.
I take a breath and continue. “The only thing I wanted to do was turn back time when I was the young one turning heads, but
the only thing I could do was order three more cocktails and leave the restaurant with as much dignity as I could muster.”
I stare at each of them. “We are old.”
“We are mature,” Ron amends. “Blessedly late middle-age.”
“You expect to live to a hundred and forty?” I ask.
“Speak for yourself,” Barry says. “I’m not old.”
“You’re wearing a Nehru jacket in your Grindr profile picture,” I reply.
“I’m at an age when my back goes out more than I do,” Barry says, trying to be funny.
“And you’re quoting Phyllis Diller, so point proven.”
I take another sip of champagne with a trembling hand.
“So that’s why you’re so shaky this morning,” Ron says, ever the mother. “I’ll make you my special hangover tonic later.”
“And to think I thought you were detoxing for once by the look of your hands,” Barry says. He stretches toward the sun. His
skin does not crepe. I always look like I’m wearing chiffon.
“I’m still shaking from simmering rage,” I say, my head high. “Which is directed at all of you right now for being so disrespectful.”
“You know you love us,” Barry says with a wink. “You really do care somewhere underneath that cold, dead exterior.”
I tip my bonnet adorned with bouncing hearts in agreement with his assessment.
Welcome, dear parishioners, to “The Church of Mary.”
For the last decade, God and gays have gathered around the pool at our mid-century marvel—the former, and still very pink,
home of Zsa Zsa Gabor—to take communion and build community by breaking bread, drinking wine and spilling tea after a weekend
of debauchery in the desert.
It’s our way of seeking forgiveness.
Which we rarely receive from one another.
The name of our church is a sincere but sarcastic nod to Mary, the only virgin we know—besides maybe Sid—as well as all the
“Marys” in our lives. It’s also an homage to the conflict of growing up gay and Christian. If you do not know, gay men often
call one another “Mary” when we see each other. Historically, it was a slur that we reclaimed as a term of affection. Believe
me, Marys have always had their doubters.
(It should be stated for the record that the vote to name our gathering “The Church of Mary” was 2–1–1.
Ron and I voted yes, and Sid—who is Jewish—voted no, arguing, “She’s just another nice Jewish mother of a nice Jewish son!
”, while Barry—our agnostic—abstained. To me, this serves as a microcosm of American politics, where the slimmest of majorities hold on to power, usually as a result of voter apathy.)
We are four gay men of a certain age who years ago became the unlikeliest of friends. We started out as acquaintances before
joining forces to stage a monthly performance at the local community theater entitled The Golden Gays, a spoof of the still-popular 1980s TV comedy, The Golden Girls, in which we play the different characters: I am Dorothy, Ron plays Rose, Barry is Blanche and Sid is Sophia. Each of us
is essentially the real-life version of the TV character.
Ironically, over time, the show became more catharsis than spoof for us.
And then an idea hit us one night after a show like an earthquake.
Okay, it really was an earthquake: a 5.2 reality rattler that not only damaged my business but also revealed that I was living
in a historic building in the Uptown Design District that had never been deemed mixed-use, would cost a fortune to repair
and was filled with as many painful memories of my husband, John, as it was with vintage clothing. I had sketchy insurance,
no savings and nowhere to go. I finally realized in my late fifties that rooms filled with coiffed wigs, costume jewelry and
fabulous caftans did not a retirement portfolio make.
I needed a home, Sid needed companionship, Barry needed to grow up and Ron needed a family to dote on.
That is why every Sunday—despite my histrionics—I truly thank God for my friends.
I glance at our home, Zsa Zsa.
If not for these boys, I would likely be renting an apartment with a drunken drag queen and working the night shift at Ralphs.
So we pooled our resources—some more than others, thank you very much—and Ron found us this pink palace we now call home.
Historically, the gay community has flocked together in order to protect ourselves from a world that has tried to harm us.
We have done it in certain cities, neighborhoods, bars, beaches.
We watch out for one another. We have each other’s backs.
It is communal. It is safe. It is a tribe unlike any other.
The Golden Gays have made that a reality in our home.
We four lost souls made a pact after a lifetime of loss, pain, humiliation and heartbreak—after losing our parents and most
of our relatives to death or disownment—to live together and care for one another, just like the women we watched in our youth
and now play in our golden years, in a fabulous mid-century modern home in Palm Springs that we could never afford on our
own.
The faces of my friends glow as pink as our painted house in the morning sun.
We’re approaching Valentine’s Day and Modernism Week in Palm Springs, the two times of year in the desert that aging, single
gays dread more than (1) Coachella, with its Kardashian wannabes swarming our town in daisy headbands, and (2) an eternal
summer that’s like living in an air fryer.
“I love your bonnet,” Barry says to me. I nod my head to bounce the hearts dangling from it.
“Oh, I could write a sonnet about my Valentine’s Day bonnet,” I sing, changing the lyrics of the famed Easter song.
“Do you like my hat?” Barry asks when I finish.
“To be accurate,” Sid—ever the attorney—interrupts, “that’s not a hat. It’s a fascinator.”
“And Lord knows you need it to be fascinating,” I add.
“Touché,” Barry says, standing, striking a pose to show off his cropped sweater that features a bear on the front and shows
off his too-tan six-pack. “Less is more, ladies.”
“I do love that sweater,” I say. “Does it come in men’s?”
Barry bows at my quick wit.