Sing You Home Read online

  I wonder if Pastor Clive, who runs the largest gay-bashing fraternity in these parts, has ever considered what Jesus would think of his tactics. Something tells me that a progressive rabbi who ministered to lepers and prostitutes and everyone else society had marginalized--someone who recommended treating people the way you wanted to be treated--wouldn't exactly admire the Eternal Glory Church's position. But I have to give them this: they are smooth. They have circular rhetoric for everything. I find myself fascinated by Pauline, who won't even call herself a former lesbian, because she sees herself as so blatantly heterosexual now. Is it really that easy to believe what you tell yourself? If I had said, in the middle of all those failed pregnancies and miscarriages, that I was happy, would I have been?

  If only the world were as simple as Pauline seems to think.

  I am trying to trap her in her own circular logic when Vanessa gets home. I give her a kiss hello. I would have anyway, but I'm particularly happy that Pauline and Max have to watch. "This is Pauline, and of course you know Max," I say. "They're here to keep us from going to Hell."

  Vanessa looks at me like I've lost my mind. "Zoe, can we talk for a minute?" she says, and drags me into the kitchen. "I'm not going to tell you you can't invite someone into our house," she says, "but what the hell are you thinking?"

  "Did you know you're not a lesbian?" I say. "You just have a lesbian problem."

  "The only problem I have right now is getting these two people out of my living room," Vanessa replies, but she follows me back inside. I see her getting more and more tightly wound as Pauline tells us that everyone gay has been sexually abused and that femininity means wearing panty hose and makeup. Finally, Vanessa reaches her limit. She throws Max and Pauline out and closes the door behind them. "I love you," she tells me, "but if you ever have your ex-husband over again with that poor man's Anita Bryant, I'd like enough advance notice to get away first. Three thousand miles or so."

  "Max said he had to talk to me," I explain. "I figured it was about the divorce. I didn't know he was bringing backup."

  Vanessa snorts. She steps out of her high heels. "I don't even like the fact that they were on my couch, frankly. I feel like we ought to fumigate. Or hold an exorcism or something--"

  "Vanessa!"

  "I just didn't expect to see him in my house. Especially tonight, when I . . ." Her voice trails off into silence.

  "When you what?"

  "Nothing." She shakes her head.

  "I guess you can't blame them for wishing that, one day, we'll wake up and realize how wrong we've been."

  "Can't I?"

  "No," I say, "because that's exactly what we wish about them."

  Vanessa offers me a half smile. "Leave it to you to find the only thing I have in common with Pastor Clive and his band of merry heterosexuals."

  She walks into the kitchen, and I assume she's getting the wine out of the fridge. It is a tradition for us to unwind and tell each other about our days over a nice glass of Pinot Grigio. "I think we still have some of the Midlife Crisis," I call out. It's a wine from California that Vanessa and I bought just because of the name on the label. While I wait, I sit down on the couch, in the spot Max vacated. I flip through the channels on the television, pausing on Ellen.

  Max and I sometimes watched her, when he got home from landscaping. He liked her Converse sneakers and her blue eyes. He used to say that he wouldn't want to be stuck in a room with Oprah, because she was intimidating--but Ellen DeGeneres, she was someone you'd take out for a beer.

  What I like about Ellen is that (yep) she's gay, but that's the least interesting thing about her. You remember her because she's good at what she does on TV, not because she goes home to Portia de Rossi.

  Vanessa walks into the living room, but instead of bringing a glass of wine, she is carrying two champagne flutes. "It's Dom Perignon," she says. "Because you and I are celebrating."

  I look at the bubbles rising in the pale liquid. "I had a patient die today," I blurt out. "She was only three."

  Vanessa sets both glasses on the floor and hugs me. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to.

  You know someone's right for you when the things they don't have to say are even more important than the things they do.

  Crying won't bring Marisa back. It won't stop people like Max and Pauline from judging me. But it makes me feel better, all the same. I stay this way for a while, with Vanessa stroking my hair, until I am dry-eyed and feeling only empty inside. Then I look up at her. "I'm sorry. You wanted to celebrate something . . ."

  Color rises to Vanessa's face. "Some other time."

  "I'm not letting my crap day trump your good one--"

  "Really, Zo. It can wait--"

  "No." I turn on the couch so that I am cross-legged, facing her. "Tell me."

  She looks pained. "It's stupid. I can ask you later--"

  "Ask me what?"

  Vanessa takes a deep breath. "If you meant what you said yesterday. After we ran into Max at the grocery store."

  I had told her that I wanted to be with her forever. That forever wasn't long enough.

  And in spite of the fact that this is never how I imagined my life--

  In spite of the fact that there are people I have never even met who will hate me for it--

  In spite of the fact that it has been only months, not years--

  The first thing I do every morning is panic. And then I look at Vanessa and think, Don't worry; she's still here.

  "Yes," I tell her. "Every word."

  Vanessa uncurls her fist. Inside is a gold ring with a constellation of diamonds dotting its surface. "If forever's not long enough, how about the rest of my life?"

  For a moment I cannot move, cannot breathe. I am not thinking of logistics, of how people will react to this news. All I am thinking is: I get Vanessa. Me, and no one else.

  I start crying again, but for a different reason. "A lifetime," I say, "is a decent start."

  I am surrounded by clouds. They brush the toes of my sneakers. They litter the floor. I might go so far as to say I've landed in Heaven--except that I've been dragging my feet to avoid shopping for a bridal gown, which makes this whole experience a little more like Hell.

  My mother is holding out a gown with a sweetheart neckline that dissolves into a skirt of feathers. It looks like a chicken that ran into a combine. "No," I say. "Emphatically no."

  "There's one over there with Swarovski crystals on the bodice," my mother says.

  "You can wear it," I mutter.

  It was not my idea to come to the bridal salon in Boston. My mother had a dream that revealed us shopping here, in the Priscilla showroom, and after that there was no escaping a trip. She is a big believer in the predictive power of the subconscious.

  My mother--who took a week to adjust to the fact that Vanessa and I were a couple--is even more excited about the wedding than we are. I secretly think she loves Vanessa more than she loves me, since Vanessa is the grounded, good-head-on-her-shoulders daughter she never had--the one who can talk about IRAs and retirement planning and who keeps a birthday book so she never forgets to send a card. I think my mother truly believes Vanessa will take care of me forever; whereas with Max, she had her doubts.

  But I'm itchy, in this place that's full of other brides who have weddings without complications. I feel like I'm being smothered by tulle and lace and satin, and I haven't even tried on a single dress yet.

  When the salesclerk approaches us and asks if she can help, my mother steps forward with a bright smile. "My gay daughter's getting married," she announces.

  I can feel my cheeks burn. "Why am I suddenly your gay daughter?"

  "Well, I'd think, of all people, you'd know the answer to that."

  "You never introduced me before as your straight daughter."

  My mother's face falls. "I thought you wanted me to be proud of you."

  "Don't make this my fault," I say.

  The salesclerk looks from me to my mother. "Why