Debbie hung her head in shame. “I’m divorced.”
Divorced? Shit! Matt’s hope for a happy resolution to this nightmare evaporated. He knew their denomination’s hierarchy of sins by heart. The top five, in descending order, were: Homosexuality, Abortion, Divorce, Adultery, then Murder. Some of the Bible verses Colton had listed in his letter to the editor had involved divorce. If Debbie was divorced, she was screwed. She’d have a better chance of getting her job back if she were an axe murderer.
“You were married?” Matt asked.
Debbie nodded. “Briefly. Very briefly. He and I were best friends in college. He was so gentle and sweet—not like other guys. We could tell each other anything. So, when he told me about his ‘problem,’ I wasn’t tooworried. That’s what he called it: his ‘problem,’ like he had eczema or something. Like it was no big deal.”
Debbie stared down at her hands. Hugged her cats closer. “His ‘problem’ was that he was attracted to men…”
Matt froze.
“He was a homosexual; except he didn’t like that term…”
“Gay,” Matt thought. We’re called gays now.
“I was so naïve,” Debbie continued. “We were both so young, only twenty-two…I thought our love could conquer anything…”
Debbie sobbed. “He broke my heart. Just walked out of my life and into someone else’s and never looked back. Left me to pick up the pieces.”
Matt felt so conflicted. He hated this anonymous gay man who had hurt his friend. Loathed him. And simultaneously ached for the guy. Understood his misguided choices. They had both been fed the lie that sexual orientation was an act of free will, that just as people chose whether to be alcoholics, they also chose to be fags. As if everyone went through a buffet line and picked either the apple or cherry pie. As if Matt had ever desired cherry pie. As if any straight guy would choose apple.
On the TV, little Zuzu, muted, uttered her famous line, which Matt knew by heart: “Look Daddy, Teacher says, ‘Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.’”
And Jimmy Stewart, with his perfect teeth and sexy stubble, agreed.
Debbie pointed to a one-page letter on the coffee table. “Fourteen years I worked at MCU. And that’s all I get for my effort. Two paragraphs informing me I’m fired.”
Matt hadn’t noticed the letter until now. “May I read it?” he asked.
“Be my guest.”
Matt picked it up and scanned it. Read it again, more slowly.
“I thought your name was ‘Debbie Ford,’” he said. This letter was addressed to the wrong person.
“‘Ford’ is my maiden name,” Debbie said. “When I started working at MCU, I went by my married name: ‘Covington.’”
“As in Mrs. Nicholas Covington,” Matt thought. Same “N. Covington ‘81” whose name was scrawled in theStar WarsStorm Trooper mask Matt had worn at Paul’s interview for membership in the GM. As in Nicholas and Bradley, who had hosted theRocky HorrorHalloween party, the couple whose love story had so inspired him.
Chapter 32: The Gay Team
Sunday, December 31, 1995
Matt was twisted in knots about this first date with Adam. If you could name an emotion, he was feeling it: anxious, cocky, scared, excited. Everything all at once. Feelings colliding like dice in aYahtzeecup.
He arrived early at the Habana Inn. Checked in at the front desk. Felt such pride telling the clerk that he had a reservation—as if this were the Ritz Carlton.
He pocketed the key—as if he’d done so a hundred other times at a hundred other hotels. Rode the elevator up to the second floor and strode to his room with the air of a high roller checking into a penthouse suite. In reality, it was a $49 single Queen with a view of the parking lot, a constellation of carpet stains, and an unused condom in the nightstand.
It was perfect.
He laid Adam’s Christmas present on the bed, the present he had intended to mail, but which had been forgotten in the wake of Debbie’s termination.
It had been eighteen days since he’d sat in Debbie’s living room and tried to console her. Eighteen days during which his thoughts had been 99% consumed by how to squash the cockroach that was Colton Langley, 1% on this date.
Those numbers were about to shift.
He hung a change of clothes in the tiny closet, stored his bag of toiletries, and headed out. It was 6:30 p.m. Adam would arrive at 8:00. Matt needed to attend to the cockroach-squashing part of the evening, then return to the room, shower, and change clothes. After that, his attention would be 100% on Adam.
