He doesn’t turn back and still I stand there, smiling and waving, as if my grandchildren were pulling out of the driveway. It’s better than weeping into my hideously colored cover-up.
As the car leaves, I hear the popular Palm Springs radio station K-Gay blast from the windows.
I stand motionless, watching Leo fade into the mountain. My cell hums.
How did it go with Hot Jew? Did you blow it?
Esther has wasted no time.
What I want to text is:
I’m an old man, and nothing has changed.
My wife has remarried. My kids have children. Yes, I have dear friends, but I also still have my old BFFs, Guilt and Shame. I can dish out advice and pearls of wisdom like your favorite bubbe, but what gay Jewish man wants to date his grandmother? I am exactly the same as that day long ago when I went to Seder at your house. Utterly, completely alone.
Instead, I reply to Esther:
Yes, I blew it. I told him he had a suspicious mole.
I watch the bubbles dance on my cell. I brace myself. I know this is going to be good.
You just made me spit out my decaf. I can’t leave you alone with a man. Every time I do, you turn into Albert Brooks from Broadcast News. Come to Sherman’s. I’m ordering you a slice of cheesecake the size of Talia’s new ring to bury the pain.
More bubbles. Esther sums up my thoughts exactly:
I miss Hot Jew already.
Ron
When you’re alone and life is making you lonely...
I wake up every morning at 6:00 a.m. sharp to my favorite song, “Downtown” by Petula Clark.
I lie in bed, listening to the lyrics, coming awake along with the desert.
Everything at dawn is but a soft silhouette right now: my body under the covers, the slumbering mountain, resting boulders, dreaming palms.
The silhouette of the San Jacintos is sporting a purple shrug.
Zsa Zsa, as we call our dream home, is tucked directly into a canyon.
The former estate of infamous Hungarian actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor sits upon a hill in the Little Tuscany neighborhood, with a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the mountains and the city of Palm Springs.
It is a rare jewel, as breathtaking as any of the real Zsa Zsa’s diamonds.
I sit up in bed.
“Good morning,dahlink!” I whisper.
This is the home I not only manifested as a child but also made possible as an adult through blood, sweat and a whole bunch of Tammy Faye tears.
“And good morning to all of you, too!”
Silhouettes of what look like human heads—a chorus of singers to back up Ms. Clark—begin to take shape in the burgeoning light.
My bedroom also serves as the wig room for our show, and I am, as a designer, the main hair stylist. It takes one man—me—a dozen hours to style four women’s wigs each month. We put them on so carefully, but we rip them off as girls might do a Barbie head.
You must know one thing about a mid-century home: There is no room to spare. There is no basement to store your junk, no attic to hide holiday décor, no root cellar to keep food cool in the summer heat, no massive closets to store a dozen wigs.
