Chapter Twenty-Four
LENA - LOS ANGELES, CA
Istared down at the cake my colleagues had ordered with Way to Go! blazoned across the top. I was basking in the win’s glow. It felt so good to have the Hawke Health Care case behind me—like I was coming down from balancing on a high wire.
I grabbed one more piece of cake and accepted congratulatory high fives from a few more colleagues as I headed out of the conference room.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Marcus asked.
“To my office. I feel so behind from that damn trial. Thought I’d go catch up on some things before the weekend.”
The grueling trial had gone on for weeks.
In the end, we’d not only won but had also entered a consent decree to ensure system-wide changes that would positively affect all female physicians who worked for Hawke.
This was everything we’d hoped for and more, helping topple the long-standing inequity that Hawke had allowed to fester over many years.
He shook his head. “Nope. You’re taking the afternoon off.” He pointed his finger at me and lifted his eyebrows. I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off. “I’m serious. Get out of here. That’s an order.”
I smiled, nodding. “Okay, I will. Thank you.”
“You deserve it. Well done, counselor. Seriously.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “That was some amazing work. You should be proud of yourself. I know I am.”
A warm feeling spread through my insides. I couldn’t help reacting to Marcus’s praise. His opinion meant so much to me. I worried that I actually might be blushing, which was not my typical response. I ducked out before saying something corny and making a fool of myself.
I hoped it would be smooth sailing from now until my dad’s wedding. Other than a quick business trip to San Francisco, nothing on my agenda would take up that much mental space. I was looking forward to a less stressful month ahead.
To kick it off, Kevin and I were going to dinner that night to celebrate the win.
And the next day, I was meeting up with Kate in person for the first time since the bar association dinner the previous month.
We’d emailed back and forth, texted, and spoken on the phone a few times, but this was the first time our schedules matched up.
I went to my office to grab my laptop. I quickly scanned my email and saw a new message from my dad with the subject line, Mock-up of wedding invitation.
I opened it and saw an image of an envelope with the names Magdalena Antinori and Kevin Ryan in a beautiful calligraphy font.
I smiled and clicked the digital envelope to open the wedding invitation.
Frank and Oliver are pleased to invite you to their wedding ceremony and reception on the 17th of October, 2015, at Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Beneath the fancy black font was a silhouette of two grooms in tuxedos with matching red pocket squares.
The image was simple and elegant, and I felt myself getting excited about the wedding for the first time.
But the moment quickly passed as I heard footsteps in the hallway and reflexively closed the digital wedding invitation.
I glanced over my shoulder toward the door, hoping no one had walked by and seen the screen.
Toby came into view, slowing down near my open door.
Of all people, he would probably be totally accepting of me having a gay father.
I pictured telling him and the two of us bonding over it and then caught myself.
For God’s sake, this wasn’t show-and-tell in elementary school.
And work certainly wasn’t the time or place to have an intimate conversation with Toby.
Besides, I hardly knew him. I’d just divulged my secret to Kate after not sharing my family history with almost anyone.
That was enough. Gay people had always been there, and it was wonderful that they didn’t have to hide as much anymore.
But I’d lived a private life and planned to keep it that way.
I didn’t enjoy being the center of attention with personal stuff.
Accolades for my career? Fine. My personal business? Off-limits.
“Hi, Lena. Great work on that case. I hope to get to work with you on the next one. Can I make a formal request?” he asked, grinning.
“Thank you. Yes, let’s do it. Next case, you’re on the team. I’ll call first dibs on you, okay?”
“Sounds good,” he said, saluting casually then continuing down the hallway.
Suddenly, I felt guilty for slamming my laptop shut and worrying about someone at work seeing my father and Oliver’s beautiful wedding invitation.
I didn’t need to hide this from them. They were lawyers specializing in employment law, and I couldn’t think of any who’d ever given me the impression they were homophobic.
I realized with a jolt that I’d been lying about my behavior, just like my dad had lied about his for years. Even my mom had lied by staying in the marriage and not disclosing the truth after she knew about my dad. We were a family of liars and hypocrites. When would it end?
People talked about straddling two worlds, but I’d never achieved that perfect balance. It was like living my life inside a masquerade ball—carefully holding up a mask to shield my identity. It took so much work.
What would it be like to drop the mask?
I was always eavesdropping on a quarrel between internal opposing voices.
One voice was the attorney. It remained skeptical, only revealing facts when absolutely necessary.
It didn’t play its hand until the odds of winning were high.
The other was a voice I hardly ever heard, of someone who wanted to throw strategy out the window.
Who yearned to be free. To no longer hide.
“Wait!” it cried. “Don’t run away. Don’t be afraid. ”
As I walked to my car, I thought about heading home to unwind for a few hours before meeting Kevin for dinner.
But then I glimpsed my hands holding the steering wheel and knew exactly what to do.
In the last two months between prepping for the trial and Dad’s big day, I'd lost my battle with my former nasty habit and had bitten my fingernails to the quick.
The state of my hands was embarrassing. I needed a set of acrylic tips stat.
This would be the perfect opportunity to get them done.
The salon I typically went to near my house was tiny and booked up far in advance.
It would be a mob scene on a Friday afternoon, with everyone gearing up for weekend plans.
I checked Yelp and found a salon a few miles away that got excellent reviews, so I headed there.
When I walked in, I was happy it was clean and didn’t smell of nail polish toxins like some salons did.
I looked around and saw some women getting pedicures down the line of chairs, most on their smart phones or reading a magazine and one who looked like she’d fallen asleep.
No one was getting a manicure at the moment, and I hoped that meant I didn’t have to wait.
A technician with big red hair, glasses, and a pink smock approached me. “Can I help you, sweetie?”
“Yes, I’d like a set of acrylics, please.”
“Sure, seventy-five dollars for a full set, ’kay?”
“That’s fine, thanks,” I said, making a mental note to add this to the other costs of planning this wedding.
My nails had been gorgeous a few months back.
Nothing like massive amounts of stress to bring back a nasty childhood habit I thought I’d left in the rearview mirror, along with other parts of my past.
“Pick out a color in that basket and then take a seat at the first station, hon. I’ll be right over,” the technician said.
I smiled, went over to the basket, and picked out a gorgeous burgundy called You Had Me at Merlot. I loved the movie Jerry Maguire, and I also loved wine. Score.
I sat down and started chitchatting with the technician, whose name tag read Diane. She looked like a Diane. She seemed funny and warm, and I liked her instantly.
The doorbell jingled. Diane looked up and didn’t look pleased. She pursed her lips and tightened her jaw. “Can I help you?”
Someone behind me said, “Yes, I’d like to get a manicure, please.” The voice sounded like a woman’s, but I was pretty sure it was a man with a feminine voice.
Diane hesitated and looked back down as if she needed to give my nails immediate attention.
Why is she stalling and not giving this person her full attention?
I was uncomfortable knowing she was ignoring him.
I looked at her intently and nodded to convey that she should turn back to the person at the door.
After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, she finally spoke. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m fully booked this afternoon. I don’t have time for a walk-in.” She said all of this without looking up.
I shifted in my seat. Something told me she was lying—call it the lawyer in me or intuition, but I was getting the definite impression that Diane didn’t want to do this person’s nails.
I finally turned around to look at the person by the door, doing so slowly and nonchalantly, with a smile on my face.
I saw a man in a beautiful, bright poncho, high-heeled boots, and a perfectly made-up face.
Only his nails weren’t picture perfect, with chipped purple polish past its prime.
He desperately needed a manicure. That I could see.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” he said, sounding disappointed but also annoyed. He didn’t budge from where he stood. He lifted one finger to his mouth and bit the edge of his cuticle. “I really could use a manicure. I can wait—that’s no problem.”
“No, that won’t work. I don’t have any openings today, I’m afraid.” This time, Diane looked up and stared right at him, unwavering, and it startled me to see that she looked downright mean. Her entire face had transformed into something malevolent. Not at all friendly.
“I see,” the man by the door said. I could hear frustration and resignation in his voice.
He sighed heavily and clicked his tongue like a teacher would at a student who’d stepped out of line.
Then he looked at me inquisitively, cocking his head, resembling a dog being asked a question.
I sat there, dumbfounded, glued to my seat, unable to move a muscle or utter a word.
I wanted to scream at Diane, “Are you kidding me?” But I didn’t.
I wanted to say, “I’m sorry” to him. Despite that, I said nothing.
I gave him a small sympathetic smile, like you would to the last kid left on the playground who didn’t get selected to play on anyone’s team.
Then I slowly turned back around and faced Diane. I heard the bell jingle again, and the door closed with a thud. The salon seemed so quiet even though the background music still played.
Diane tsk-tsked. “I’m not doing his nails—no, sir.” She wasn’t really addressing me in particular, but there was no one else in earshot.
I couldn’t help myself. “Why?” I asked, already regretting where this was heading but letting myself get sucked in.
“You know. Because he’s one of them.”
One of them. I knew that was what was going on but had thought she would use some other sorry excuse. Instead, she’d said it as plainly as could be.
“What do you mean, ‘one of them’?” I wanted her to spell it out. To say it out loud. I had to hear it.
“You know... a fairy.”
Wow. She’d said it so matter-of-factly, like she was giving me the score of a baseball game.
Heat crept up my neck and into my face. Beads of sweat broke out on my upper lip, and I felt my heart rate speed up.
I was afraid one of my panic attacks was coming on.
Thank God I was already sitting down. Breathe, Lena, breathe.
I counted to myself: One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.
I was relieved to feel my breathing steady.
I knew I should just leave it alone. I wasn’t at work—no longer on the clock. But I couldn’t help myself. “Listen, what you just did—refusing to serve someone because of who they are—that’s illegal.”
Diane kept buffing my nails and took her sweet time responding. “What’re you, a lawyer or something?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”
“Well, this is a small establishment. Privately owned. We can serve who we want, okay?”
“No, actually, you can’t. There’s a state law in place that forbids not serving a customer who’s part of a protected class. And sexual orientation is one of those.”
She shifted in her seat, looking uncomfortable. Good. That makes two of us. She chewed on her lip. We were both silent for a beat.
“Hmm, well, okay, then. I guess now I know,” she said perfunctorily.
Her response wasn’t an apology for what she’d done. Or the epithet she’d spewed. I wanted to demand more. To make her take back what she’d done, what she’d said. To force her to stuff her homophobia down her throat.
I thought of the look on the man’s face—defeated.
It reminded me of the look on my dad’s crumpled face when he’d told me years before that he was gay—the way his shoulders had sagged like he was the child and I the parent—humiliated and belittled by merely being who he was.
I thought of all the times he’d been made to feel like a freak just because he loved someone like I loved Kevin.
I sat there, dumbstruck, unable to take this woman to task, wondering where the lawyer who spun words for a living had gone.
Diane changed the subject with a wave of her hand as if she were dismissing what just happened as not important enough to even continue talking about.
She started blabbering about a television talk show she loved and one guest who’d been on it that morning.
I didn’t pay any attention. I was totally inside my head, having a debate over what I should have said while the man was in the doorway, how I could have handled the entire situation better, and what a coward I was.
After a few minutes, the fog in my head lifted, and I stared at Diane’s red hair, so sad that I was afraid I would cry right there.
I knew exactly what I wanted to say now.
It came to me way too late. What I wanted to say was “That could be my father. I am the daughter of a gay man, and I definitely won’t be getting my nails done here.
You just lost a customer. Be careful of what you say.
.. you never know who’s sitting across from you.
” But I didn’t say any of that. Not a word.
I was ashamed of myself. I’d missed an opportunity to stand up not just for the gay man in the doorway, or gay men in general, but for my dad in particular. But I didn’t stand up. I just sat there.