“I’m the youngest and the only son. My dad had all kinds of macho ideas,” he explained, putting himself between me and a ginormous goose standing sentry near the pond.
“Do your parents know you’re bi?”
“Yeah, I’m out. I always had girlfriends, but my mom probably clued in after she assured my teenage self that hormones were responsible for the woozy feeling I got around certain boys.”
I nodded, shifting my gaze to the joggers on the path adjacent to the palace. “Do they care?”
“Not at all.” Trent shook his to-go coffee cup and shrugged. “That theory hasn’t really been tested, though. I’ve never had a boyfriend or a significant male lover.”
“Oh.”
“But my parents are cool, and I know they love me. And I’ve always been honest. I came out officially to them when I was twenty-five. I’d had this…thing happen to me. I won’t bore you with details, but the gist is…someone I trusted lied to me and it shook me. And it occurred to me that lies of omission counted too.” I glanced up at the blue sky and shrugged. “I gotta watch out for lightning since I’m currently in the middle of a lie of omission with them.”
I pointed at my chest. “You mean…me?”
“Yeah, you. Anyway, I told them at Sunday dinner. My whole family was there. My sisters, their husbands, nephews, nieces, my Aunt Lettie, and Uncle Joe. If you don’t know this, let me tell ya…Italian and Irish family gatherings are fuckin’ loud. We’re talking Richter scale, raise the roof loud. Everyone was yelling about somethin’. ‘Pass me the potatoes.…Not till you pass me the gravy’…that kinda thing. And somewhere in there, I made my announcement. I was super casual about it. I think I said, ‘I don’t think anyone here cares, but I’m bi. Pass the salad dressing.’ Boom. Complete silence. You coulda heard a pin drop.”
“And then what?” I prodded.
“Everyone started talking at once…as usual. They asked questions and they might not have believed me. Doesn’t matter. I was honest.”
I adjusted my sunglasses and inhaled the fragrant spring breeze with its hint of summer.
“We’re complete opposites. I lie about everything,” I admitted, hoping my lighthearted delivery helped preserve the mood. “Sometimes it’s necessary. Everyone in the industry overcommits and underperforms. It comes with the territory.”
“Yeah, I’ve experienced that. I’ve been promised roles that evaporated. I’ve been told I nailed auditions, then got ghosted. It’s disheartening. You gotta love what you do or it’s just…soul-sucking,” Trent agreed, sipping his coffee.
“True.” For some reason, I had a sudden desire to share a personal truth with him. I bit the inside of my cheek and blurted, “I’m not bi, you know. I’m gay.”
“Mmm. I figured.”
I squinted. “How? I mean, I was married to a woman.”
“So? From what you’ve told me, I assume you did that for your parents.”
I looked away again. “Yeah. That was a strange time. There were rumors swirling about Gray and me and…I went out of my way to protect us by doing all the things that invariably lead to bad places.”
“You cheated on him?”
“No, I didn’t have to cheat. We weren’t monogamous.”
“What? Really?”
“Yeah. It was too hard to keep up the pretense of just being roommates if we never went out with women and—I don’t like to think about it. Those were dark days. Eventually it led to the end, but my parents bought it. They wouldn’t have accepted bi any more than they would have accepted gay.”
“What about Charlie? He’s gay, out, and super proud as far as I can tell. Were your folks cool with him?”
“No, they weren’t. Let’s walk. That goose wants to eat one of us,” I said, steering us toward the path.
We continued in silence, sipping coffee under the sun-dappled trees.
“Tell me to fuck off if you don’t want to talk about it, but I’m curious.”
“About Charlie?” I smiled. “Everyone is curious about him. He’s a piece of work, isn’t he? I’m proud to announce that he was born that way. He was the most beautiful baby. Blond curly hair, bright-blue eyes, chubby cheeks…my mom loved him. Adored him. She showed him off like he was a prized doll. That was well and good until he was about four and started voicing an interest in what my parents called ‘girly’ things like glitter and high heels. My mom was shaking when she told me that he’d stolen her shoes to teeter around their backyard.”
“Oh.”
“I know. I tried to laugh it off, but her reaction bothered me. And her word choice. ‘Stolen.’ Like this four-year-old kid had committed a crime. It was…alarming. Gray and I decided it would be better if she watched him at our house. But, one day my mom and dad showed up to play the part of doting grandparents together and at some point, Charlie was Charlie.”