I reach up to feel for what she’s talking about. “Oh,” I breathe out. “I put in my contacts today. I’m not wearing my glasses.” Ever since New York, I’ve felt compelled to keep up this streak. I don’t see better without my frames per se, but I have more peripheral vision, which is helpful when working the lot.
“Jesus, warn an old woman next time you burst into her home without knocking.” She fixes her fussy hair.
“I did knock. Four times. You just had the TV too loud to hear me.” I venture farther into the room. Barbra Streisand stands before a lecture hall of college students in round glasses and a dowdy outfit. She’s speaking about the fictional idealization of romance. “You’re watchingThe Mirror Has Two Faces?” I gape. “Wait, you’re watching amovie?”
After all this time, she’s breaching her film ban for my favorite Streisand-directed feature. “Don’t get your panties twisted into a bunch! I decided I would give them a try since I’ll soon have to watch my own. Break my forty-year streak.”
“Forty years? Alice, that’s an excessively long time.”
“There were plenty of times I was tempted to walk into a Cineplex and sit down in the back row. There were times I flipped channels and caught the end of a feature and thought,Hmm, maybe just one. But I couldn’t do that to myself because if I fell back on old habits.… I’m a tough broad, but even tough broads have their limits.”
There’s a murky layer of understanding coated like soy candle wax over her words. “I get it. Have you watched anything else?”
“I’ve already binged throughYentlandThe Prince of Tideswhile you were away. Figured it was time to see her final directorial work.”
“Final? She’s not gone yet! She’s got time.” I’m speaking about Barbra, yet I’m really planting a thought seed in Alice’s head. After Oscar’s and my recorded conversation, I want to water that seed, nourish her emaciated career until it’s in full bloom again.
“Your boyish optimism is deeply irritating.”
Ignoring her remark, I say, “Baffling to think Barbra’s still one of only two women to ever win a Best Director Golden Globe.” Alice invites me to sit in the chair on the opposite side of her circular end table. There are a lamp, a cup of tea, and two biscotti between us. “How did the meeting with the real estate agent go?”
“She’s coming in a week and a half. The initial call went well. I had Candice email photos over. She said it looked enticing.” She shrugs, downplaying the importance. “How did it go with the podperson?”
“You make him sound like some Black Lagoon creature.” I roll my eyes at her. “Everything with Oscar went well. He let me know over the weekend that his editor and producers were thrilled. He’d done an episode on one of Peter’s films a few years ago, so they’re pulling some audio clips from the archives to cross-reference.”
“Good thing that man died young. Hearing his name up against mine all these years later, well, that would’ve given him a third heart attack.” She lets out a sadistic laugh. “I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead.”
“Of course.” I can tell she loved him in a unique way I’ll never quite understand based on how he treated her and discarded her like useless set dressing.
“More importantly, how did your trip go?” she asks.
My blush broadcasts ourofficialstatus loud and clear.
She demands details by pounding her fist on the table in triumph. I’m far too giddy to get it all out. I weave in the meeting, the movie, the bar, and the singular bed. “You didn’t give it all up, did you?” she asks.
“No.” I decide not to go into detail about my demisexuality. Bisexuality was a tough enough talking point for her. This explanation would be extra draining. I’ve decided when people ask how I identify, if I feel comfortable, I’ll say “queer.” An encompassing word that encapsulates my demisexuality and my homoromantic nature without needing to feel like a dissection frog in an anatomy class. “But we did finally kiss.”
Her mouth opens so wide I’m afraid her dentures might fall out. “Who kissed who?”
“Who kissedwhom,” I correct. Avery is really rubbing off on me. “I kissed him. And he kissed me back.”
“Where’d you do it? At the top of the Empire State Building like what almost was inAn Affair to Remember?” All this time I’ve been itching to know more about her, and this is the first moment it seems the feeling might be mutual.
“No, but we should watch that one together since you’re back on movies. I’ve never seen it. Though, I feel like I have after Rita Wilson’s iconic monologue inSleepless in Seattle.” Alice’s expression is blank. “Right. That one released in 1993. You have four decades of female-directed films to work through. You have no idea what you’re in for. Anyway, we kissed at his house.” I leave out the hot-tub part. I don’t want to scandalize her. Though she was a woman-of-a-certain age in the seventies. Probably nothing could scandalize her.
“I love saying I told you so… I told you so!” Alice is bright-eyed, happy, and enjoying movies again. She’s done a complete one-eighty since those initial days in early June. “All right. Enough about real romance. I want to find out what happens between the calculus professor and the literature professor who take sex out of thexplusyequation.” She picks up the remote, then asks, “You staying?”
For most, this wouldn’t be a welcoming invitation, but right now, I’d be stupid to say no. She offers me the second biscotto as the flick starts back up. We sit in silence and laugh, cry, and squeal together through the amusing rom-com dramedy.
***
Mateo’s belt could shatter glass.
It’s game night in 3B—a monthly tradition we forgot all about during June due to life being life—and now we’re midway through a rousing game of Be a Broadway Star!
Obviously, it was Mateo’s turn in the rotation to pick the game. He keeps this one stashed safely in his closet and breaks it out every three months. While Avery and I will hem and haw over Monopoly or Parcheesi, Mateo will run to his room and grab this one every time. My Fosse walks have gotten much better since freshman year. At one point, Avery and I even started listening to original Broadway cast recordings in the car just so we could stand a chance.
Right now, I’m being crushed, so I’m not sure it helped any.
