When I reach my car, I place the headshots into the passenger seat, lock the doors, turn on the engine, turn up the radio and finally allow myself to scream.
Teddy
“Ma, how would you react if one of your kids was gay?”
“I’ll tell you the truth, Dorothy. If one of my kids was gay, I wouldn’t love him one bit less. I would wish him all the happiness in the world!”
“That’s because you’re the greatest mother in the world, and I love you.”
“Fine. Now keep your fat mouth shut so I can get some sleep.”
The curtain closes. The crowd erupts.
“Let’s hear it for The Golden Gays!” Patty O’Furniture says.
We take our final bows. I rush backstage into the dressing room while everyone remains to sign playbills and headshots, lock the door and will myself not to weep.
“Get a grip, Teddy,” I say to myself in the mirror. “You do not cry!”
I dab the corners of my eyes with Kleenex.
I reposition my wig and stare at both Teddy and Dorothy, mother and son, character and real person.
“No one can see us be weak,” I whisper to my reflection. “We are the strong, sarcastic, painfully honest glue that keeps everyone together.”
I slap my cheek hard to sober myself though I have yet to have a cocktail.
“And yet you cannot be honest with your best friends,” I sigh.
The thing most fans never realized aboutThe Golden Girlsis that they were friends, yes, of course, but first they were outcasts.
Four elderly women without husbands who no longer offered anything “of value” to society.
Who would protect an aging floozy, a dimwit, a stroke victim with no censor and her caustic daughter who wore her humor as a protective layer like her tunics?
Only each other.
They were fiercely funny, yes, but their humor masked their pain.
Especially Dorothy’s.
I look in the mirror again.
Make others laugh so you won’t get hurt.
Laugh, so you can’t feel the stinging pain as sharply.
I think of my mother and all the years that have passed since her death. Would I—would all of my tribe—have turned out to be entirely different people had our mothers reacted the way Sophia did?
The doorknob rattles.
Or would we never have met?
I must make a decision—and quickly—about what to do and what to say.
“This is not a sitcom, Teddy,” I whisper to my reflection. “This is life.”
“Hello?” Barry calls in his Southern Blanche voice, now knocking on the door. “Teddy? I can hear you in there! Yoo-hoo!”
