Barry
I hear a splash in the pool.
I look up, and that girl is floating on our rainbow unicorn.
She is wearing a red bikini no thicker than a Twizzler. She stretches her lithe, translucent body out like a sheet of paper
and sighs as the warm water and sun envelop her.
“So, how old are you?” she asks.
I lower my vintage Versace sunglasses—which may or may not be women’s and which I may or may not have “borrowed” from one
of Teddy’s trunk shows when he wasn’t looking.
“Questions we don’t ask out loud,” I say.
“So, old, then?” she asks.
I sit up on my chaise, give her porcelain-colored skin a slow once-over.
“Have you ever seen the sun before?” I ask. “Do they have that in Ohio?”
She opens her mouth, but I wag my finger at her.
“No, ma’am,” I continue. “Don’t pull any BS with Barry. Girls like you are a dime a dozen in California. I’m an actor and
a writer, so I know a good story when I hear one. You packed that swimsuit, so you knew where you were going.”
“I thought we were going to a hotel for spring break.”
I laugh.
“Your grandma on spring break? Now that’s a rom-com waiting to be made! No, no. You knew you were coming here. You went to an airport. You knew we had a pool. How?”
She smiles sheepishly, caught out. “I may have helped her find your address out here. The nosy guy with the cotton candy hair . . .”
“Ron.”
“Yeah, him. He sent a letter to my mom about Teddy’s husband a long time ago. It didn’t have a return address, but all I had
to do was google his name and Palm Springs, and it brought up your address, your ages . . .”
“Our ages?”
“Well, Ron’s age,” she says. “All I knew was that my grandma was hell-bent on talking to him. I thought at first she just
wanted to get away from the house after my grandpa died, but I think it’s more than that. My grandma is the most boring person
in the world. She’s never out of control. I mean, do you see her?”
I laugh.
“Well, just enjoy it before Teddy drags your grandma out by her horns.”
She opens her mouth, but the sun is working its magic, and she can’t find the strength for another comeback.
Ah, the magic of the desert, an elixir for the young and old.
I look at this girl child who thinks she is so grown up, and then lean back in my chaise, hold up my cell and take a selfie,
a man boy who fools himself into believing he is still so young.
I actually see myself in her.
Time isn’t fleeting, it’s a torture chamber, a fun house mirror that constantly reflects our youth back on us.
Just a blink ago, Hollywood made Palm Springs famous.
Then, times changed, and stars could travel anywhere.
Palm Springs in the 1970s and 1980s was an isolated place, tumbleweed literally bouncing through downtown, until gay men returned seeking hope and health and—like this child—sun and solace.
The gays rehabbed the homes, returned the glamour, and then the straight people—as they always do—flocked here as if they were the first to discover a hidden jewel.
They bought up the property and, in turn, that gentrification isolated the group who actually made the town and neighborhood beautiful again.
And then these Coachella kids—all about Ava’s age—show up and act as if they brought retro style to our sun-drenched oasis.
White Party partiers descend on the desert, desecrating it like a cheap motel room. And those who found it in the first place—all
the stars and queens—are either dead, too old or too tired to give them a history lesson.
“So . . . how old are you?”
The girl has closed in on me, a hand with blue-black nails to match her hair gripping the silver railing just below from where
I’m seated in a Speedo.
“You can tell me,” Ava continues.
“How old do you think I am?” I ask. “I mean, you already know Ron’s age.”
That’s more gay math: Like Zsa Zsa, a gay man of a certain age never discloses his true age. And if pressed, always subtract
eight years and add two inches to your South Pole.
It’s not lying, and it’s not exaggerating.
It’s simply gay math.
“I don’t know,” she says, her eyes hidden behind a pair of plastic gas station sunglasses. She lowers them for a second to
study me. “Eighty, but you pass for younger. Am I close?”
“Ah, you are related to Teddy,” I say.
She laughs. “God, I hope not.”
“I’m not even close to eighty,” I say.
“Define close,” she says.
This time, I laugh.
She pushes her sunglasses up her nose again and shrugs. “Everyone looks old to me.”
“Just wait,” I say. “In a few years, everyone will look young to you: your doctor, your children’s teacher, your barista.”
Water droplets spill from her hands, gleaming in the sun. She floats off into the deep end.
“Why are you wearing a Speedo if you’re so old?”
“Why are you wearing dental floss if you’re underage?” I ask.
“I forgot your name,” she says.
“Barry.”
“Now that’s an old man name.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of Barry Manilow?”
“Who?”
I think of Teddy’s story about Cher.
“Famous singer from my day,” I say. “He actually lives in Palm Springs.”
She shrugs. I return to texting.
“Are you, like, famous or something?” she asks. “You said you’re a writer and an actor.”
I glance up, and Ava is back at the railing.
“Damn it. You didn’t drown.”
She grins. “I’m a survivor.”
“Finally, we have something in common.”
I take off my sunglasses and consider her question.
“I should be,” I finally say.
“So should I.”
I nod. “Touché.”
What is it with me and young people? I’ve also sought their approval more than anyone else in my life. And they’ve always
been more honest than my therapist.
For some reason, perhaps the two cocktails I had at Church of Mary to deaden the horror movie I was trapped in, I tell this
young stranger my abbreviated life story.
“God, that sucks,” she says when I’m done. “And you’re still trying. Why don’t you just get drunk every day and hang out at this ridiculous house with a bunch of hot guys?”
“Um, I already kind of do that,” I say.
“I think I love you.”
I get up and walk to the edge of the pool. I take a seat, still holding my cell, and dangle my feet into the water. A glorious pattern of blue shimmers beneath the surface.
“I still have this overwhelming need to prove myself,” I explain. “I have this desire to be . . .”
“Famous?” Ava asks. “Rich?”
“Immortal.”
The word drifts across the pool like the bee that is now dipping its body into the water to cool off, and then it sinks, like
the bee.
I jump into the pool, swim to the other end, cup my hands and save the bee. It flies off.
“You want a second chance,” Ava says.
“Yes.”
“Everyone wants to be rich and famous,” she says. “But no one thinks they have to try.”
“You are an old soul.”
Ava slips off the floaty and swims over to me, resting her arms on the side of the pool, facing the mountains.
“My brother, Sean, is the chosen one,” Ava says, using her fingers to emphasize “chosen.” “Straight A’s, great athlete, I
mean, like, he got every good gene in our family and, believe me, there aren’t that many. My parents sacrificed everything
for him. It’s like I don’t even exist. I mean, whose parents both go off and leave their daughter alone with their grandparents while she’s still in high school? They couldn’t wait a year
or two? It’s not normal.” Ava looks at me. “Is it?”
“No” I say, “that’s not normal.”
“Thank you,” she says, slapping the pool, hard, with her hand, water flying. “I may not be book smart, but I am street smart.”
“I always say I’d rather be street smart than book smart, otherwise you won’t know how to survive in this world.”
“I love to write music, I play the piano, but none of that is, like, normal to my family.”
“Preach, sister,” I say. “When I told my parents I wanted to be an actor, my father laughed in my face. And they both died without seeing me make it.” I hesitate as the words hit me harder than I imagined.
“I still want to make it. I still want to prove to people that I did it. I still want to prove to myself that I’m talented. ”
“So do I,” Ava says.
She holds up her hand, and I high-five it.
“I have a boyfriend, Gabe,” she offers. “My parents and grandma know I’m seeing someone, but they would hate him if they ever
met him.”
“Is he hot?” I ask.
Ava releases a girlish giggle. “Of course! Do I look like a girl who would date a boy who wasn’t hot?”
“No. Do I?” I ask. She laughs again. “How old is he?”
“Eighteen. Too young for you.”
“Eighteen, high school, or eighteen, college?” I ask. “There’s a big difference.”
“Eighteen dropout,” she clarifies. “He’s a musician, and my family thinks the arts are a ticket either to being poor or to
hell.”
“Well, I’m sure they’re just concerned about your future and his influence on you,” I say.
“You, too?” she asks, moving away from me. “I thought you’d see it differently.”
“As an actor and writer,” I say, “I see it from every point of view. But I will give you this: Older people always tend to
think poorly of artists. It’s easier to take the safe route in this world. It’s easier to fit in and just get by. Try being
gay and in musical theater. I had a target on my back from elementary school.”
“Can’t I just be a kid?” Ava asks. “Sean is, like, this robot, programmed for success. No time for fun. I just want to be
a teenager, but I feel like if I don’t have the next forty years planned out, I’m a failure. It’s not fair.”
“Ava?”
She stops and rotates in the water until she is facing me. I continue.