She opens her mouth, but the sun is working its magic, and she can’t find the strength for another comeback.
Ah, the magic of the desert, an elixir for the young and old.
I look at this girl child who thinks she is so grown up, and then lean back in my chaise, hold up my cell and take a selfie, a man boy who fools himself into believing he is still so young.
I actually see myself in her.
Time isn’t fleeting, it’s a torture chamber, a fun house mirror that constantly reflects our youth back on us.
Just a blink ago, Hollywood made Palm Springs famous. Then, times changed, and stars could travel anywhere. Palm Springs in the 1970s and 1980s was an isolated place, tumbleweed literally bouncing through downtown, until gay men returned seeking hope and health and—like this child—sun and solace. The gays rehabbed the homes, returned the glamour, andthen the straight people—as they always do—flocked here as if they were the first to discover a hidden jewel. They bought up the property and, in turn, that gentrification isolated the group who actually made the town and neighborhood beautiful again.
And then these Coachella kids—all about Ava’s age—show up and act as if they brought retro style to our sun-drenched oasis. White Party partiers descend on the desert, desecrating it like a cheap motel room. And those who found it in the first place—all the stars and queens—are either dead, too old or too tired to give them a history lesson.
“So... how old are you?”
The girl has closed in on me, a hand with blue-black nails to match her hair gripping the silver railing just below from where I’m seated in a Speedo.
“You can tell me,” Ava continues.
“How old do you think I am?” I ask. “I mean, you already know Ron’s age.”
That’s more gay math: Like Zsa Zsa, a gay man of a certain age never discloses his true age. And if pressed, always subtract eight years and add two inches to your South Pole.
It’s not lying, and it’s not exaggerating.
It’s simply gay math.
“I don’t know,” she says, her eyes hidden behind a pair of plastic gas station sunglasses. She lowers them for a second to study me. “Eighty, but you pass for younger. Am I close?”
“Ah, you are related to Teddy,” I say.
She laughs. “God, I hope not.”
“I’m not even close to eighty,” I say.
“Define close,” she says.
This time, I laugh.
She pushes her sunglasses up her nose again and shrugs. “Everyone looks old to me.”
“Just wait,” I say. “In a few years, everyone will look young to you: your doctor, your children’s teacher, your barista.”
Water droplets spill from her hands, gleaming in the sun. She floats off into the deep end.
“Why are you wearing a Speedo if you’re so old?”
“Why are you wearing dental floss if you’re underage?” I ask.
“I forgot your name,” she says.
“Barry.”
“Nowthat’san old man name.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of Barry Manilow?”
“Who?”
