“Nope, none of those. I’m just your average, boring, old-school, straight, heterosexual white guy. Except I can dance. I’m actually areally good dancer by anyone’s standards. That’s what I’ve wanted to tell you all night.”
“You’ve wanted to tell me you’re a good dancer?”
“No. I want you to know that I’m crazy attracted to you and I’m done lying about it. C’mon, Josie, is this really so hard to believe? I swear I’ve caught you checking me out.” He’s got me there, but I’m not admitting it. My brain can’t digest the information enough to construct a coherent response to Ty’s confession. This is hands down the most bizarre professional encounter I’ve ever had with a potential parent, actually any parent. This is beyond more than I can handle for one night, and more than I’ve ever had to deal with in one admissions season. At a loss for words I start to wander off, bombarded by my own thoughts, but Ty pulls me back in.
“Josie, hear me out.” Ty waves his hand inches from my face to wake me into reality, well, this altered reality. He does it with the efficiency of a doctor who has performed this exact move a hundred times on patients in shock. Still, my mind is having trouble focusing, flipping from Nan and Meredith, to the scholarship, then the threat, to Aunt Viv and Etta, to Ty. And why can’t I find Lola?
“Josie, focus, please. I can explain.” Golden Boy picks up my hands hanging limp at my sides. His palms feel familiar. Ty has touched me before and my body remembers: at lunch overlooking the Bay; in Aunt Viv’s hospital room; and, of course, my mini breakdown during his house call. All those times I convinced myself it was an act of professional courtesy—his and mine. The truth is settling in and it’s starting to feel good. “Caroline is my sister, and Daniel is her husband, my brother-in-law. Well, first he was my best friend in college, then my brother-in-law. Gracie is their kid, my niece, and I would do absolutely anything for her. Are you following me?”
“Uh-huh.” I’m listening—after thirteen years in admissions I really thought I had heard it all, but I guess there’s always room for something new.
“Caroline desperately wants Gracie to go to Fairchild, more than anything in the world, and she is a force like none other. I mean, she was a force not to be messed with before she had kids, but now that she’s a mom there’s no obstacle she can’t figure out how to go over, around, or under to get what she wants for Gracie. It’s impressive and terrifying at the same time. And she helped me pay for medical school, so I kinda owe her.” Ty pauses for a breath and makes eye contact with me to make sure I’m tracking. Dang. He’s a good doctor and a good brother. I’ve wanted to find someone like Ty, thoughtful and kind, whose humor is as sharp as mine. Who knew all this time it could be Golden Boy bringing my sexy back.
“Caroline knows that their hurdle to getting Gracie into Fairchild is that they are an average, middle-class, hetero white family—well, they are if you subtract Caroline’s world-class cunning and Daniel’s exceptional lying. I was surprised by our acting chops, but more surprised to find you.”
Thinking back, Ty’s texts were flirty for a doctor checking in on his patient. If he wasn’t so deliciously good-looking and, at the time, gay, I would probably have considered the texts hugely inappropriate, particularly when he could have called Aunt Viv directly. Or maybe I wouldn’t have because that’s how desperate I am for a bit of male attention, fake gay or not. I guess it’s possible Golden Boy was slyly checking me out while stuffing his face with Aunt Viv’s coffee cake. How’d I miss all that?
“Anyway, my sister’s a recruiter for Salesforce, Daniel’s an accountant, and they live in a town house they rent in Jordan Park. You can write their life script from there. Their chances of getting Gracie into a snooty private school are slim. Sorry, but it’s true. I mean, look at this party; a lot of these people, they’re not normal. Follow me on rounds at the hospital, I’ll show you everyday people.” I consider telling Ty he’s not wrong, that many of these people, if not all, strive to be anything but normal. “There’s nothing exotic, special, diverse, or,frankly, terribly interesting about Caroline and Daniel. They’re loving parents who want the best for their kid, just like everyone else. So that’s where I came in—as the gay husband.” A pained expression flashes across Ty’s face, hopeful for some recognition that I’m following the story he’s laying down.
“Daniel does look like an accountant. That’s the first thing that rings completely true since you started talking.”
“I know, right? Such a numbers nerd!”
“Not the point. Keep going.”
“Well, since they can’t build Fairchild a new gym, Caroline thought if Daniel and I posed as a gay couple the chances of Gracie getting into the school would be higher.”
Maybe. But this story better have a good ending. “Go on.” My mind still needs convincing, but below the neck I’m hopping on board.
“Daniel is my family. Has been since we met over beer pong sophomore year in college, and Gracie won my heart the minute I held her for the first time in the hospital. But, man, I didn’t realize how much time this whole private school application thing takes—it’s like a second job. I thought I’d have to sign a few documents, show up a time or two, and be done.” The look I throw him says,You don’t know nothin’ about raising a kid in the city.
“I’m sure my colleagues at the hospital think I’m having some kind of illicit affair because I keep leaving for two hours here and there for tours, visit dates, parent interviews—and no one knows what I’m doing or where I’m going. The plan was working pretty well. You believed us. I was a little worried about Roan. We hadn’t planned on a gay guy to sniff us out, but, hell, we even fooled him!” Ty’s momentary look of triumph is followed swiftly by one of remorse.
“But it turned out Roan wasn’t our Achilles’ heel; it was that I was attracted to you.” Ty runs his index finger from my bare shoulder across my collarbone, stopping at the neckline of my dress. “That Iamattracted to you. Like in theI can’t stop thinking about you morning, noon, and night sort of way.” His eyes implore me to forgive him, to give some indication that I feel the same. “I kept wanting to ask you out to coffee or dinner or something, but Caroline begged me to wait until after the acceptance letters come out. I’ve been counting down the weeks. I thought I could keep my feelings under control for Gracie’s sake, I really did, but then you show up in that dress and those heels and what’s a straight guy supposed to do?” His touch is winning me over, but I’m not ready to surrender. I want him to work for it a little bit longer.
“Am I going to ignore my chance to be with a stunning woman who consumes my every thought just for a coveted seat in a fancy kindergarten? I mean, I was going to have to keep up this ruse for the long haul. That’s why I’m throwing my niece under the bus now, hoping there may be a shot that perhaps you can get over this whole lying thing and let me ask you out on a date. Not an interview. Not a doctor’s visit. Not a house call. A real date.” Finally, a pause and a moment of quiet. I didn’t realize Ty was such a talker.
Now I have questions. “So, when you were ‘gay’ you didn’t notice my fabulous outfit at your parent interview, but now that you’re straight you love my dress and shoes?”
“I love how the dress accentuates what’s underneath. I couldn’t give a shit about the shoes.” His eyes leisurely roam my body, taking it all in for the first time as a straight man. Or at least a straight man to me.
“That’s such a guy’s answer,” I deadpan; humor my go-to whenever I feel vulnerable.
“I know. I’ve had a lifetime of practice.” Ty’s hands move up my arms to cradle my face in his palms. He uses his strength to pull me in for a kiss. Butterflies trapped since Obama’s second inauguration are set free as I roll onto the tips of my toes, reach for his shoulders to steady myself, and fall into the smooth hold of Golden Boy’s lips.If his kiss could talk, it would say,Now that I’ve got you, I know I want more. If my body could talk, it would say,FIN-A-LLY.
“Ouch!” Golden Boy pulls back from what had quickly become a deep, delicious kiss and touches his lower lip. “What’d you bite me for?”
“That’s for lying to me the last six months,” I say. “This is for coming clean.” I take hold of Golden Boy by the belt buckle and whisper, “Let’s do that again.” I allow my heart to admit that kissing Ty had crossed my mind. Damn, I think I like, like him, too.
We come up for air, but Ty doesn’t release me. It’s as if he’s keeping me from averting my eyes from his sincerity and his moment of truth. “So, now what do you think?”
“I think I wanna know what your mama’s gonna say about you dating a black girl.”
“There’s only one way for us to find out.”
“Hey, guys, what’s up?” The look on Lola’s face tells me she knows something I don’t. Oh, how wrong she is. Standing shoulder to shoulder, Ty holds my hand, our intertwined fingers hidden in the folds of my dress. I’m caught between wanting to dish with Lola and never wanting this moment to end.
“Where’ve you been?!” I can’t help barking at Lola for abandoning me in the midst of this catastrophic, but revelatory, evening. “I have some big news that’s going to blow your mind,” I tell Lola, tightening my grip on Ty’s hand so he can’t skulk away. He gets to explain this one to my best friend because she will definitely think I made this story up.
