Kiss Me, Straight

Chapter 5-2

Katie, of course, knew I had been in Paris, which meant she would be expecting fine European baked goods with coffee the next morning, so I rolled down the stairs with bed head and morning breath in a rumpled brown polo shirt that had been on my bedroom floor. It had passed the sniff test, and before my first cup of coffee, that’s really my only wardrobe criterion. Now, my oral hygiene is above reproach, and I even floss sometimes, but coffee absolutely tastes better with no toothpaste overtones, and it’s gonna give me coffee breath, anyway, so my choppers get the first brush of the day after breakfast. If Katie found this offensive, she had thus far refrained from saying so, and she was unlikely to complain about a man with a bag of almond croissants, whatever else he might smell like.

The bell, of course, announced my arrival, but Katie was sitting at the demo sewing machine in the front window and had seen me stumble out my door. The big window facing the street, which I pass between the door to my apartment and the door to the Button Hole, is set up like a little sewing room, so Katie is able to showcase some of the sewing baskets, stools, pattern books, and notions along with the machines she sells. When she has down time, she will sit at the machine in the window and sew as kind of a living window display. She makes many of her own clothes and has created elaborate wardrobes for both of her children, and she hangs most of her handiwork in the smaller window on the other side of the door for a few days after they are finished, before she takes them home, as sort of a testimonial. “Shop here,” these overalls and pinafores seem to say, “and you can make cute things, too!”

I held up the bag of pastries as I walked by, and she smiled and waved, but stayed at the machine as I entered. I stepped up into the window display sewing room and she proffered her cheek, pausing long enough in her work to peek inside the bag.

“Aux amandes,” I told her, knowing they were her favorite.

“Hooray!” she enthused. “Just give me five minutes to finish with this curtain.”

She held up a lightweight, opaque white panel decorated with what appeared to be purple and lime-green olives. She pointed out where she was sewing hidden tabs across the top, where the rod would be inserted, and the results were as professional and flawless as I had come to expect from her work. “Do you love this material?”

“I do, actually. It’s kind of fun and cocktail-hour. Where’d it come from?”

“I’ve had it for a while,” she explained, taking the panel and sitting at the sewing machine, resuming her tabs. “I got it a while ago at that design show I went to in Miami, and knew someday I’d find the exactly right project.”

“Namely…” I prodded, starting on an almond croissant.

“Dude!” Katie scolded, “Don’t go getting crumbs all over the place!! This is my window display, jackass.”

Unchastened, I gave her an incredulous look. “Yeah, sorry. I wish there was a place around here to get a vacuum cleaner.”

“Honey, I sell them and I repair them. I don’t stock these puppies for cleaning up after my non-paying customers.”

“Sheesh! Relax, Grandma. Gather a little crowd in front of the window and I’ll demo one.” I adopted a cheesy announcer voice. “‘If it picks up pesky almond croissant crumbs like this, imagine what it can do for the mess you’ve got at home.’”

“You’re hired,” she laughed. “Jackass. At least give me a piece now.”

“Not until you tell me where you’re going to hang these curtains,” I bargained.

“You’re going to help me hang them in Chris’s apartment this afternoon, I just decided.”

“Chris? Wow, fancy. How does he rate? When am I getting fancy curtains?”

“When you go buy ‘fancy’ material and come to one of my sewing classes.”

“So, never.”

She touched her nose with her index finger to indicate ‘you got it right on the…’ and depressed the foot pedal, bringing the sewing machine clattering to life. By the time I reached the back of the store, unlatched the Dust Buster from its charger (I’m not lugging one of those uprights all over the store for two crumbs), and returned to the front window, she had finished. She rose from her sewing stool and artfully re-arranged the curtains to drape over the work table to create a work-interrupted tableau while I Dust Busted the crumbs.

“Thank you,” Katie said when I had returned the little hand vac to its charger. She had accompanied me to the back of the store and taken my mug down off the shelf. Then she inserted herself between me and the coffee pot. “None for you until I get my croissant.”

“That’s gratitude for ya,” I scolded, tossing the bag on the table. She dove for it, and I grabbed my mug. “I’ll help myself,” I told her.

“Such a brave, brave boy,” she mocked.

The bell over the door announced a customer, although Marzipan called out, “It’s only me!” even before we were able to turn and see who might be entering the shop.

“Marzipan!” we cried, in unison as usual, and, as she passed through the counter, we rose to greet her. She enfolded us each in our turn in an aqua waterfall of silk sleeves.

“Well, Todd,” she said, pulling out a chair and plopping down in a pool of cerulean blue. “Hope your trip was delightful.” I nodded to acknowledge her without interrupting. “It seems you made quite an impression on our new friend Chris the other day. He simply pined for you while you were gone. What’s in the bag?”

“I’m sure he didn’t pine, Marzipan.” I said, resuming my seat and taking a slug from my mug. I slid the white paper bag towards her. “I just brought a few things from Katie’s favorite bakery in Paris.”

“Well, isn’t someone spoiled?”

“I deserve it,” Katie fired back. “Can you stay and have something with us? It really is quite a good bakery.”

“My dear, I am a desperately busy woman, you will by now have noticed,” Marzipan was teasing Katie, although “desperately busy” was not far off the mark, “but there is always time to sample the goods from a friend’s favorite Paris bakery.”

I leapt up to plug in the electric kettle for our friend, and set her teacup and ramekin of leaves on the table in front of her, while Katie freshened her own coffee and mine.

“Oh, he pined,” Marzipan continued when I sat back down. “Apparently you’re just his type.”

“Well, that’s very sweet,” I admitted after a sip or two. “Wish I could say the same. I’m sure I’m much too old for him.”

“What do you mean you wish you could say the same?” In typical Marzipan fashion, she took this as a personal affront. “No offense, Treasure, but I haven’t seen you with a man of his distinction in quite some time.”

I wished to refute this, but there was no way to deny the truth of her assertion.

“What I’m sure Todd means,” Katie offered, “is that since our new friend isn’t emotionally and sexually unavailable, thus drastically reducing possibilities for head games and self-flagellation, he doesn’t pose enough of a challenge.”

“Hey,” I lamely defended myself, “anything worth having is worth fighting for.”

“I’m not sure that can be applied in your case, darling. I don’t think that expression refers to fighting against a biological mandate. Wouldn’t you at least want to try a relationship with another homosexual?”

“Some guys are only straight because they don’t have enough imagination to see other possibilities,” I asserted.

“And you’re going to change that?” asked Marzipan, swirling her tea leaves in her cup and getting up to serve herself from the kettle.

“I will if it’s love.”

Marzipan looked at Katie for support, but Katie simply rolled her eyes ceilingward and shook her head. “Don’t bother with him, Marzipan. He’s too set in his ways to give himself to a real relationship. That’s the attraction to straight guys, I think. The whole relationship happens in his head, so he can come and go as he pleases.”

Ouch.

“That’s not true!” I challenged. “I am dying for a relationship, I would love to have a boyfriend, I complain about it all the time,” I offered, as if that were evidence of emotional maturity. “I can’t help who I’m attracted to! I’m not going to go out with some fat kid just because he’s gay and in the neighborhood.”

“Let’s not dignify that assertion with a response, shall we not?” Marzipan suggested as she resumed her seat. “I’m not saying we sent out your wedding invitations while you were gone, for heaven’s sake, darling, I simply wanted you to know that Chris enjoyed meeting you and spending time with you last week.”

“Well, I enjoyed meeting him, too, and am glad to have a fun new gay guy to hang out with. I’d love to hit the occasional beer bust or street fair with the boy,” I said, softening. “I’m just not interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with him.”

“Yes, dear, you’ve made that quite clear. But you should let go of the age difference,” she continued, adding “such as it is,” half under her breath. To a woman who dangled scores of s*x partners roughly half her age, apparently the six or seven years between me and Chris presented a very small obstacle to happiness indeed. “He just came out of a relationship with a gentleman in his forties, which was apparently quite serious.”

About this, I was curious in spite of myself. I knew Marzipan could be counted on for details. “Really?”

“Yes, they were living together in Arizona, quite the happy couple, by his own account, until something happened. Apparently it didn’t end well, big blow-up, Chris storming from the house, a sneaking-away-to-California-in-the-middle-of-the-night type of thing. I don’t know details, but there was definitely a Last Straw type of event.”

“You don’t know details?” Katie was apparently as incredulous at this revelation as I was.

“He made it very clear he didn’t wish to discuss it,” Marzipan told us, aware of her reputation as She Who Knows All, and if she doesn’t know it, She Can Find It Out. “There’s a line he’s not ready to cross.”

“How mysterious,” I opined.

“I’m just glad you’re not interested in him,” Katie said, archly.

“As it happens, Miss Smarty Pants, I am not interested in him in that way. It may interest you to know that the man of my dreams really does exist.”

Marzipan and Katie exchanged a look. “It may,” Katie allowed.

“Not only does he exist,” I proudly announced, “but he is a Globe Runner flight attendant, and he has just transferred to San Francisco! How do you like that?”

“I like it fine,” she said, “as long as he’s not straight or somebody else’s boyfriend.”

Ignoring this, I pressed on. “I saw him yesterday, going through Customs. The London crew was ahead of us. I’m telling you guys, he was perfect for me. Tall, lean, huge nose, big mouth, so hot, and he looked like such a nice guy. I’ve been thinking about him ever since. He made the Customs guy laugh, for heaven’s sake.”

“That is impressive.” admitted Katie, herself a seasoned border crosser at SFO.

“Why shouldn’t I give something like that a chance, if it’s what I’m looking for??

Katie’s narrowed eyes were answer enough, but apparently she felt compelled to elaborate. “Um, I guess because you don’t know a thing about that guy. Seeing a guy in line from twenty feet away and getting a hard on is not a basis for a relationship, Todd. It’s barely the basis for a one-night stand! Did you talk to him? What was his name?”

“His name? What does that have to do with anything? Katie, he was gorgeous. I’d never be able to be a good boyfriend to a guy like Chris knowing this guy and others like him roam the earth. I wouldn’t be able to focus. You understand, don’t you Marzipan?”

“Todd,” she announced, getting up from the table, “you’d better leave me out of this. You know I think you should always sample from the puupuu platter before you order your main course. And we all know you would be lucky to have someone like Chris.”

“You tell him, Marzipan.” Katie crowed. “Todd, the only thing standing between you and a real boyfriend is your fear of finding a real boyfriend! You drive me nuts!”

“I know,” I commiserated. “It’s torture for me, too.”