Chapter 15 #2
Marcus is married to a cellist with the Philharmonic who skateboards to Lincoln Center with his instrument case on his back, and Timothy’s career, while lucrative, isn’t exactly, shall we say, kosher, so this left me with a solid although preposterous answer: Reggie.
Hear me out. Reggie’s clear-eyed and well spoken; he’s someone who never broadcasts his superiority.
He commands an immediate respect, from his unshakable sense of himself.
Reggie doesn’t brag or showboat, but he’s still a natural leader.
Not to mention ruggedly good-looking, like an ex-boxer turned war hero turned police officer (a role Mark Wahlberg would imagine he was right for).
Reggie’s blue collar and earthy, in stirring contrast to the overly groomed and hyper-educated guests at my family get-together.
Our age difference could work in my favor, since he’s not some questionable Gen Z mess (like me).
I could rely on Reggie, no matter where the evening might swerve. He can handle himself.
“You want me to do what?” Reggie asked, when I brought up the idea at the Tuxes’ headquarters.
“You don’t have to really be my boyfriend, I mean, of course not. But I want to come out to my family, about the Tuxes, in whatever way you think is okay.”
“You want to tell them about everything?”
“Maybe not everything, but just enough so they’ll stop shaking their heads when they look at me, as if my acting career is a whim and I’ll enroll in culinary school or clown college next.
They’re all amazing and I’m always the person they’re worried about.
So if you could be a human letter of reference, or five-star review on my personal Yelp, that would be great. ”
I couldn’t read Reggie’s reaction. Was it disgust, impatience, or a dog whisperer at obedience school inspecting a Pomeranian who chases his tail? He smiled gruffly, if that’s possible; he was smiling against his own better judgment.
“Fine. Because I’m still wary about you coming back, but you’ve been working hard, and while I can’t really say you dived, you did fall into the water from high up.
I’ll be your boyfriend, except I’m way too old for the word ‘boyfriend,’ so call me ‘the guy I’ve been seeing’ or just ‘this is Reggie.’ Got it? ”
I was about to hug Reggie with gratitude but stopped myself, because a hug might make him question our agreement.
Reggie is the least huggy person I’ve ever met, and I forced myself not to speculate even slightly about what his body would feel like.
He’d be my scene partner, my veteran costar.
But we wouldn’t be in a rom-com where a thirty-something single woman hires a male escort to pose as her date to a friend’s wedding, or a high school romp where a brainy girl bribes a jock into bringing her to prom, to protest against her classmates’ caste system.
Reggie and I would be taciturn cowhands in a western drama where the two gay guys express their affection through grunts, sex without removing their Levi’s jackets, and sipping steaming coffee from a tin pot near a split-rail fence.
“So this is where you grew up?” Reggie asked, as we parked our borrowed car (from Mikaela and Pei-Sze) in the driveway of my parents’ Commack split-level.
Like the other homes on the block, it resembles a house drawn by a not especially imaginative child: a rectangle with oblong windows and an off-center entry.
It’s not pretty or ugly but practical, and affordable on my parents’ combined incomes.
I love the house because I was raised within its walls; it’s the box I was happily stored in.
“It’s very Long Island,” I said. “I used to wish my mom and dad were mobsters, so we could have columns out front and a cement fountain.”
“It’s fine. Be grateful.”
I suppressed replying, “Yes, darling,” and taking his arm.
My mom was already opening the front door because she couldn’t wait to meet Reggie. To her credit, she didn’t bother disguising this fact. “Hello there! You must be Reggie and this other person must be some random stranger we have to beg to come visit.”
“Reggie, this is my mom.”
“Joyce. Come right in.”
Everyone else was already seated in the living room, which, given my parents’ professions, was lined with teak bookcases from Crate & Barrel, packed with books that had clearly been read.
I’m convinced that beloved, well-thumbed books exude the emotions from their pages, while unread books are asleep.
My parents live for books, and if there was a fire, it’s not that they wouldn’t save me and my brother first, it’s that they’d heap our arms with books before rushing us away from the flames.
“Stuart Birnbaum,” said my dad, shaking Reggie’s hand.
Joyce and Stuart, as Brock refers to them, are both attractive and always nicely dressed, as an example for their students and because, as my mom has often admonished me, “There’s no shame in a decent presentation.
Even if I’m visiting you on death row, I expect you to comb your hair. ”
“So good to meet you both,” said Reggie. “I’m Andrew’s parole officer.”
“I like you already,” my mom told him.
“Ben Birnbaum,” said my brother, “and this is my wife, Dr. Samira Basu.”
“Which is my full legal name on my birth certificate,” said Samira, smiling.
Ben is tall, bearded, and somber, although not a pain, and I love Samira because she’s livelier and keeps Ben from taking things ultra-solemnly every second.
They met in medical school and are supremely well organized.
When they host Thanksgiving dinner at their nearby home, the meal always reminds me of a superbly run autopsy, with the turkey and side dishes served as if they’ll be entered into evidence.
“Oh my GOD,” said Jenn, who’d been arrayed on a couch with her gleamingly waxed and tanned legs adroitly crossed, one foot dangling a Chanel slingback as if it were for sale.
Jenn, God bless her, has a tendency to wear a single designer head to toe, and tonight her svelte, nubbly cream Chanel skirt, hemmed to mid-thigh, matched her shrunken Chanel jacket, her flirty Chanel camisole, her Chanel silk camellia pinned as a brooch, her cluster of Chanel necklaces, her Chanel quilted bag, currently resting on the coffee table as if awaiting further instructions, and the Chanel sunglasses perched atop her head with its agonizingly taut French twist, to set off the Chanel earrings.
“Every time I see Jenn,” Brock had once commented, “I want to applaud.”
“I’m Jenn Gelman-Waxner,” she said, presenting her hand to Reggie as if she expected him to read her palm. “Although you probably recognize me as Dr. Jenn-in-a-Jar from YouTube.”
Jenn was already scrutinizing Reggie’s face, concluding, “I’d tell you to avoid direct midday sun exposure, Reggie, but you won’t listen.
You’ve got that fair Irish complexion, which is basically an invitation to melanomas.
But you’re a handsome man, so Andrew did well, which believe me, if you’d met his last two boyfriends, is not always the case. ”
“Brayden Kembling,” said Brayden, sizing Reggie up as a possible rival in a Mr. American Manly Man pageant.
“Brayden’s also a doctor,” said Jenn. “Okay, Reggie, just as a shorthand, assume everyone here’s a doctor or at least a professional, except Andrew. And I’m not criticizing him, getting a master’s isn’t for everyone. Someone’s got to wear Old Navy.”
Only my pants and my socks, Jenn—my shirt is Ralph with Brock’s employee discount.
“Everyone?” said my mom. “Now that we’ve made Reggie uncomfortable, shall we have dinner?”
Once the crowd had been ushered to the dining room table and begun their salads, my mom cautioned, “We’re not here to interrogate Andrew and Reggie.
Their relationship is none of our business.
Unless they trust us to be interested and accepting, and because a loving outside perspective can be illuminating. ”
“So how did you two meet?” asked Jenn. “My trainer meets all of his dates on one of those gay sex apps. Isn’t he hot?”
Jenn was holding out her phone with a photo of her admittedly godlike Australian trainer, but far more prominently featured was Jenn wearing flesh-toned workout gear so tight and seamless she looked naked and weirdly airbrushed.
“Actually,” said Reggie, “we met when I asked Andrew to join a secret government organization that I founded. We conduct covert operations all over the world and I thought Andrew might do well.”
There was a profound pause and then general hilarity.
“You had me going there,” said Brayden.
“It took Andy five tries to get his driver’s license,” volunteered Ben.
“But he did once bring me a gorgeous candle that smells like night-blooming jasmine and cotton candy,” said Jenn. “I put it in my linen closet.”
“Reggie,” said my dad. “I’m sure Andrew can accomplish anything he puts his mind to. But an acting career is hard enough.”
My mom was studying me. She was the only dinner guest who’d taken Reggie at his word and wasn’t persuaded he’d been joking, especially not at my expense.
“It’s true,” said Reggie calmly, causing an awkward yet fascinated silence.
“We can’t offer too many details,” Reggie continued, “but Andrew’s been invaluable. He’s pushed himself, although he’s still in a holding pattern right now.”
“Fine,” said Ben. “Don’t tell us how you really met. We don’t need to know.”
“Was it at a club?” asked Jenn. “Were you both high?”
I was torn. I was beyond grateful to Reggie for putting himself out there and for partially praising me.
But while he was talking, I’d had a thought: the Tuxes are secretive for a reason.
Maybe my wanting to promote my participation was ego-based rather than honest. And maybe I should keep my goings-on, however scrapbook-worthy, more private, for the sake of my family and Reggie.
My parents are already concerned about me, but their fretfulness doesn’t cover my death at the hands and machetes of hooded guerrillas.
And the more they were told, the more tempted they’d be to repeat confidential tidbits.
Maybe Reggie was sending me a necessary heads-up about why it was imperative for the Tuxedo Society to maneuver far from gossip and intrusion.
“Andrew and I were introduced by our mutual friend Brock,” Reggie added, not technically lying. “And we’ve been enjoying ourselves.”
“I love Brock,” said Jenn. “He always notifies me right before Ralph’s fall things get shipped to the store.”
As the evening went on, my mom remained in private conversation with Reggie.
I eavesdropped, but my attention kept getting pulled elsewhere, especially by Jenn reciting the particulars of her upcoming nuptials: “My pre-bachelorette party will be at Cipriani on East 42nd, where the theme will be a timeline of my pores. I’ve already posted a video history on my Insta, revealing how I’ve minimized blackheads and cysts through alternating toners.
The bachelorette party itself is planned for a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, where we’ll have a build-a-Barbie station, so guests can bring Barbie from stylish workwear through evening sparkle, based on my personal wardrobe.
Brayden and I are meeting with Rabbi Aaron Harklin, who counsels couples on remaining faithful by reading the Torah, making time for each other, and designing bathrooms with not just his-and-her sinks but his-and-her commodes so there’s no waiting time or playing the blame game when it comes to toilet tissue hoarding. ”
After the group had finished our meal and were back in the living room for coffee and rugelach from my dad’s favorite bakery, Jenn took Brayden’s hand and continued their itinerary.
The rehearsal dinner would have a Bridgerton “bustles and breeches” motif, with gavotte lessons available that afternoon.
The ceremony itself would take place at a Midtown hotel ballroom with two hundred guests, “just friends, family, and patients whose lives we’ve touched.
” Jenn’s twelve bridesmaids were classmates from her various schools, her BFF Bailey-Brianna, Natalie Portman’s breathing coach, and “at least one Golden Globe winner, I’m not saying who, in order to build suspense, but she loves me because I once drained an infected pimple on her cheek the night before she was being photographed for the cover of Welsh Vogue. ”
As Jenn plotted the reception, the after-party, the wedding breakfast, and the two-week-long honeymoon at a resort in Turks and Caicos, Brayden nodded but didn’t participate, either because interrupting Jenn might pose a physical threat, or because they’d planned everything together and Brayden endorsed Jenn’s accuracy.
The night ended with the assembled physicians checking their phones regarding, in the case of Samira, treating an infected gallbladder in an hour, and for Brayden, an emergency browlift tomorrow on a fifteen-year-old who’d just been accepted at an exclusive summer camp and wanted to look fourteen.