Trudy pushes her chair out to leave just as our salads arrive and Lulu begins to sing “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.”
Without warning, Trudy bursts into tears and races from the restaurant.
“I’ve never been a fan of fish either,” the waiter says.
I follow Trudy outside. I find her on the ground, collapsed into a heap, leaning on a wall, weeping into the facade of the restaurant.
“Trudy? What’s wrong?”
She refuses to look at me. She continues to heave, her body convulsing.
I stand over her awkwardly, cooing, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” massaging her shoulders until her tears and breathing finally slow.
I lean down, grab her chin and force her to look at me. “What’s going on?”
She finally meets my gaze, mascara running down her cheeks.
As the lyrics of the song dance in the air, Trudy tells me a story about her daddy that eventually brings me to tears and to my knees as well.
Barry
“What are you doing in here?”
Trudy jumps. She sets the framed picture she’s been holding down on the coffee table. It’s an old photo of me, Ron, Sid and Teddy—all wearing Santa hats—after a holiday Church of Mary.
“Hiding from Teddy.”
“We all do that on occasion,” I say with a smile.
“I bet more than occasionally.”
Trudy winks.
“Was my granddaughter being nice to you?” Trudy continues, nodding beyond the patio doors toward the pool where Ava is napping under an umbrella. “You two have been talking a lot at the pool.”
“She’s honest,” I say, looking at Ava. “I need some unflinching honesty right now.”
“She’s a teenage girl,” Trudy says. “You’ll get that whether you want it or not.”
“Teddy’s basically a teenage girl, too,” I add. “You’ll get his opinion, too, whether you want it or not.”
I enter the living room, my hair still damp from the pool, wearing a matching bright yellow terry cloth shorts and shirt, which I didn’t button. Trudy’s eyes float down my body.
“You’re in great shape,” she says.
“Thank you, although that almost sounded like an accusation.”
“No, no, I just don’t see many Midwestern men my age so fit.”
“It’s part of my profession,” I say. “It’s part of our community. You can’t be fat in Hollywood, and you can’t be out of shape as a single gay man, especially as you get older.”
“Whyever not?”
“We’re a very close but judgmental community,” I explain. “We end up combining a lot of the judgment that is placed on us by society with our internalized anger and taking that out on our own. It’s not right, but it’s just the way it is.”
“Ralph was so out of shape,” Trudy says.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I say. “I can’t imagine.”
