I stop on the track and grab my friend’s arm. She is the size of a footstool. She jerks to a halt.
“No!” I say. “Do you hear me? I cannot be humiliated again in this life.”
“And yet you chose to wear that eggplant-colored blouse today,” Esther says, staring at me.
“You told me to buy this!” I say. “And it’s a workout shirt.”
“You’ve been lost style-wise ever since Stein Mart closed,” she says. “And give me a break: I’m eighty-seven. I can have an off day. Or year.”
Esther fancies herself a shadchanit. She said she came from a long line of Jewish matchmakers in New York City. She didn’t. Her father owned dry cleaning stores all over Manhattan, and her success rate in fixing me up has always been more Mets than Yankees.
I met Esther at Temple Isaiah when I retired to Palm Springs. I was depressed and lonely at Passover after moving from Chicago, mourning a faith and family that would no longer have me, and Esther parked herself next to me at synagogue services and asked, “Single? Gay? You must come to Seder at my house!”
Passover commemorates the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt and the “passing over” of the forces of destruction and the sparing of the firstborn of the Israelites.
That Passover, I felt as if had been passed over by everyone I loved.
I had not been spared.
Esther stuffed me with gefilte fish, matzo ball soup, brisket, potato kugel and tzimmes. More importantly, she filled me with what I needed most: acceptance.
I came out at the age of sixty after thirty-five years of marriage and three children. It was just as the gay marriage ban was gaining momentum across the United States. My sexuality was categorically forbidden by the Torah.
I divorced my wife, Rebecca, who promptly played the victim in our community and temple, though she was not without sin herself.
My kids hated me for hurting her and ruining our happy family.
But we weren’t ever happy. We only played happy on TV.
We were “don’t ask, don’t tell” before Bill Clinton ever uttered the words.
Rebecca knew the truth and kept her mouth shut just as much as I did.
She found the phone numbers from Tim R. and Steve J. in my suit pockets before cell phones existed.
I found all the hotel receipts on her credit card for her girls’ weekendswithoutthe girls.
We lay in silence beside each other in bed without ever uttering our truths.
Yes, I was a coward. Yes, I was to blame for fooling her when I knew I was gay even as I was courting her. Yes, I robbed her of having a man who wanted her. But I also gave her everything she wanted: a beautiful home. A beautiful family. A beautiful life.
And I was not solely to blame.
Rebecca cheated before I did. Sadly, my discovery of that emboldened me.
From the outside, we seemed the perfect family, but there is no perfect family. There is only a photo of smiling faces perched on a mantel or office desk that people see, never the imperfect outtakes that came before that solitary image.
The law firm I had been with since the start of my career, theone in which I had become a partner, offered to buy me out. I was suddenly bad for business.
So I ran to the only place I knew where old gay men retired: Palm Springs, California.
Heaven’s Waiting Room.
At Esther’s Seder, I met Teddy, Ron and Barry, none of whom was Jewish but all of whom were as kooky as Esther. But welcome to Palm Springs where, I quickly learned, any event—religious or otherwise—is viewed as one of three things: a party, a business meeting or a pickup joint.
Teddy was there with his sweet husband, John, who looked like a human version of a basset hound, big ears, brown hair and eyes that could melt you with their puppy dog cuteness. They owned a vintage clothing shop together. Teddy saw Seder as a party and was holding court in the living room of Esther’s stunning home in The Movie Colony, spilling tea (and occasionally his cocktail), a huge throng of people gathered around him laughing at his stories and cutting wit.
Ron was a designer who had done work on Esther’s 1930s home. He had studied under the disciples of Palm Springs legends like Arthur Elrod, Hal Broderick and William Raiser—a trio he would teach me was responsible for designing the interiors of most of the iconic mid-century homes in the desert built by famed architects like Albert Frey, Donald Wexler and Hugh Kaptur.
