We, of course, saw runners from other clubs and, as with college, we competed against them but enjoyed the camaraderie we shared in the aftermath of races, often doing warm-downs in a big, relaxed group of girls we had just gone to war against, BSing and gabbing as we floated along the Park’s Bridle Path. It was an incredible community, shared at the once-a-month big races held in the City, and I found myself moving higher up in the races I ran as more of the rust was scraped away.
School was good. Running was good. I could have been happier.
Patsy was gay and I figured some of my other teammates were and so, of course, were the members of the gay-centric club. But no one gave a crap about that. We were all just runners, and that bound us together. There were members of other clubs that I hoped were gay. No one knew, although some may have thought they knew, my orientation. I had never had the nerve to approach anyone. As in college, we hung out in a pack, although members of it were regularly disappearing to spend more time with significant others, straight and gay.
When I returned from a post-class run, after I had showered and eaten, I could no longer ignore it.
I thought back to the Fall when Annie and I had invited ourselves to Kerry’s place. I met Eileen. She had flirted with me that first time, although it was something she never repeated. But that simple, probably unintentional flirtation affected me in a way that I had never before been affected. It wasn’t, I knew but hadn’t admitted, because of her. It was her daughter, and after Christmas, I needed to figure out what, if anything, I was going to do about it. So, I cloistered myself, panicking. And then she’d shown up at my building. I knew when she sat down and asked me what was wrong—I know that’s not the right word—I had to tell her. But before I could tell her about her I told her about me and when I did she was gone. They talk about the Big Bang and how everything changed in a tiny tiny fraction of a second. For me, it took much longer for everything to change. About two seconds. Two fucking seconds.
I thought that she was a bitch for what she had done, but I realized that it was me, not her. And I lacked the courage to do anything about it. I saw her all of the time when we were back at school but I had used up all my courage to come out to her and I did not know where I could get any more. Every time I saw her, I couldn’t defeat my stubbornness.
I found my mind drifting more and more to California. Whatever the turbulence I now felt in New York, California did not feel like it was “home” to me anymore. I came east to see a part of the world with which I was unfamiliar and to re-connect with my Aunt Mary. California, though, was where I was born and where I was raised and I expected that I would head back there after my three years at Columbia. Thus I’d gotten myself a Summer associate position at a large San Francisco firm—not my father’s—as a step in preparing for my legal career.
In the normal course of events, law students line up Summer associate positions at big firms, which try to get top students to sign up for starting their careers there, students who when they become associates can be billed out at high hourly-rates and who can be worked very hard with the carrot of partnership dangling in front of them. I would travel this well-trod path.
Having cut myself from Kerry and to some extent (and as a result of what was going on in my head about Kerry) Mary and Annie, I had a good amount of time to consider what I was doing and where I was going. I had been on autopilot and meeting everyone else’s expectations for a long time and was tired of it all.
In mid-April, I took the train to see Aunt Mary. It was a nice Saturday and I had gotten in a 10-mile run with some teammates in the morning. Aunt Mary and I met in Bronxville for lunch, at a small place near the hospital, a table by the window. And it all came out. The literal coming-out moment but what happened with Kerry and my building resentment toward my father and my concerns about my future.
We were in a public place and I was able to prevent my moistened eyes from tearing. She reached for my left hand.
“We’re very alike, you and I,” she said kindly. She always spoke to me kindly. “Now that you’ve filled in a few pieces, I see that more than ever. Smart. Gay. Coming to New York for a new life.”
She was underappreciating what she went through to get to New York, thrown out right before Christmas with no contacts, and I started to remind of how easy I’ve had it when she stopped me.
“Baby, it’s not a contest. We’re alike but we are not the same. I made my choices. You have to make yours. I cannot tell you what to do about your parents. I can’t tell you what to do about Kerry. All I can do is assure you that whatever you want will have my full support. I’ll do anything I can do to help you with your choice. Betty too. You know that.”
I admitted that I did and felt that I was unfair to them both for keeping things from them. And after a “I promise to let you know what I’m doing and where my head’s at” the conversation turned to her describing in great detail—she is a writer after all—her early days in the Village and some of her more interesting assignments over the years.