The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story (24 page)

            Though
I didn’t want ours to look so sappy, I did like the idea, from a producer’s
point of view, of getting to see the betrothed (in this case, us) together
before the wedding, in street clothes. Theoretically I would have liked to
horse around with Andrew for the video, with the occasional casual display of
affection. But I figured there was no way I’d get Andrew to loosen up enough to
do it, because he’d never even been willing to hold hands in Manhattan (except
on gay pride day in the Village, where you’re surrounded by a million other
like-minded partiers). So I suggested to Andrew we have our closest friends go
out with us for the shoot, with the hope we could get fun group footage of our
gang traipsing around Montreal. He said it would be too stressful trying to
assemble a group on the afternoon of the wedding. And he wanted to do the shoot
with just the two of us.

            “Will
you be able to kiss me?” I asked suspiciously. “Or even hold my hand?”

            “Don’t
worry about it,” was all he had to say. We left it at that. But I worried:
Will
the shoot be a waste of time?

            Don’t
get me wrong, I’m not saying Andrew’s the only one of us dogged by residual
“coming-out” issues. I’ve got my own internalized homophobia. And plenty of it.
I’m shadowed, during all my waking hours, with the fear that nothing I ever do
is good enough, because I worry, if I’m going to be “out,” I’d better be a good
representative – a proper delegate to the world at large. But where Andrew and
I, as a couple, are concerned, I haven’t got much concern about public
perception. The pride I take in our relationship trumps my anxieties.

            One
afternoon in July, I attended a meeting of gay and lesbian journalists. There
was much progress to celebrate, from increased representation on newspaper
staffs across the country to domestic partner benefits being offered at several
companies. On the subject of where the envelope still needed pushing, a staff
member from the
New York Times
mentioned rumblings about the paper’s
wedding announcements. Some staffers, he said, were pushing for the inclusion
of same-sex couples. And though it would be an uphill battle, he wondered if
the change might come sooner than later. When I got home I asked Andrew, half
kidding, if he’d like to send our announcement to the
Times.

            “They
don’t list gay weddings,” he answered.

            “They
might. You want to be the first?”

            “I’m
not interested,” he said.

            I
dropped the subject. Andrew’s answer was evidence that we’ve all got our
boundaries, and they don’t always follow a logical path. He’d agreed to appear
on national television, but a wedding announcement in the nation’s paper of
record (which still hasn’t come to pass at the time of this writing, three
years later) might mean a sort of historical notoriety. And that seemed too
much for Andrew. Though politics was never on my mind when I proposed, the
challenges we faced along the way continually underscored that when you’re gay,
and not expending energy on hiding the fact, every moment is potentially
political.

ANDREW   
Doug’s closet door
swings both ways, believe me. I’m not the one who broke into flop sweat when we
went
ketubah
shopping. A
ketubah
is the traditional Jewish
document that provides official record of a marriage. (the original language,
by the way, betrays the time-honored degradation of women. One phrase states
that the man is “buying” the woman for ten
zuzim
. I don’t know what ten
zuzim
will get you today, but I’ll bet it was a great deal even then.) After five
minutes in our first Judaica store (a shop that carries Jewish religious
wares), I noticed Doug’s forehead and upper lip densely dotted with beads of
perspiration. I figured it was the July heat and the cramped aisles we were
rummaging through. Then I suggested Doug ask somebody for help. He cautiously
stalked a bearded,
kipa
-topped salesman, then just before getting his
attention, doubled back toward me in a beeline and demanded, obviously
intimidated, “Let’s just go, this place gives me the creeps.”

            It
was better that we didn’t buy one that day. Instead, we decided to create our
own, with wording that would be more appropriate for us. That decision added
one complication. We would have to scare up a calligrapher who could render a
ketubah
in Hebrew and English in less than two months.

DOUG   
I got the job of finding a
calligrapher, and again I felt hemmed in by my own internalized homophobia. I
called Jewish organizations, and each time I needed to announce to a stranger,
in a religious context, that I was marrying a man. Obviously, religious figures,
be they rabbis, salesmen, or artists, represented a kind of authority that
stirred up fear for me. Eventually Andrew found a calligrapher in Montreal, and
we faxed her our new, self-written, inclusive
ketubah
, in English. We
still needed someone to translate the unorthodox language into Hebrew.

ROSLYN
   
It was
only a few weeks before the wedding when we agreed to do the
Turning Point
interview. The following Saturday, Sheldon and I drove to a downtown Montreal
hotel to meet Denise. As we got out of the car, we were almost giddy. Laughing,
we each said to each other, “Can you believe we’re doing this?” From a year and
a half ago, when we could barely cope with the news of their engagement, to
sitting down in front of a camera to talk about a wedding two weeks away… How
did we get from there to here? It was tough to fathom.

            Denise
was waiting with a small crew. We sat down to talk, only to find Sheldon was
too tall and I was too short. So I sat on a pillow for two hours. They juggled
us, and the camera, until the positions were OK. I was uptight, and the only
thing I could think to ask at that point was, “Are you using the Barbara
Walters lens that softens the image?” Everyone sort of snickered. As vain as I
am, I hoped that reaction meant yes.

            My
nerves dissipated once I got interested in the process of shooting an
interview. I started to watch the action, almost detaching myself from the
scene.

SHELDON   
Denise hadn’t given us
any instructions beforehand, except “Don’t wear a white shirt.” No more
details. On the way to the interview, Roslyn asked me, “Are you thinking about
the kind of questions they’ll ask, and your answers?”

            “On
the contrary,” I told her, “I don’t want to think about anything at all. I want
it to be off the cuff. She’ll ask honest questions, I’ll give honest answers.
If I anticipate it, I’ll sound rehearsed.” As it was, I felt stiff when we
started. But after a while, I started answering the way it was.

ROSLYN
   
It felt
good to hear Sheldon say, with a camera rolling, and – theoretically, anyway –
millions of people listening: “
Andrew is entitled to experience all of
life’s joys in the same ways as anybody else.”
Though he would never think
of it in these terms, he’d taken a controversial stand. Remember, this is the
same husband who had told me privately – and on several occasions – that he
wasn’t interested in “helping society.” We’d had that argument many times. It
usually started when I would mention that supporting Andrew would help other
parents of gays and lesbians in our community. And when we’d talked about
whether to do this interview, I pointed out that we could help parents far
outside our own sphere. At the same time Sheldon shot back, “I like Denise. If
doing this will help her, I’ll do it.” I answered, “But if one of the
by-products of this could be that it would help other people, is there anything
wrong with that?”

            Anyway,
now that the lights were on, and the tape was in the camera, Sheldon came
through. And so, too, did his real feelings.

            “Here
is our child,” he said to Denise, “who needs our support, and needs our love.
And we have to help him.”

            Well.
Good thing I had on my heavy-duty, cry-proof mascara. (Actually, as silly as it
sounds, if there was just one thing I could go back and change about the interview
– I’d wear less makeup! Live and learn.)

            When
Denise asked why we decided to speak on-camera after all our trepidation,
Sheldon stuck to his guns about Denise herself being his motivation. I think we
all knew
that
wasn’t going to end up in the show. Then I gave my reason:

            “I’m
here because I hope that I can help make the world a better place for my gay
kids. By being visible. Legislators and others who make decisions affecting our
lives have to see that there are families behind these people.”

            After
hours of talking, the catharsis was followed by a letdown, a sad realization.
You know the old Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is?”

SHELDON   
When the camera and the
lights were turned off, the sound man came over to me and said, “
Mazel tov.
I want you to know, I bonded with you.” Now, maybe he says that to every
interview subject, but the sentiment seemed genuine. So I guessed the interview
went OK. We all went out to lunch afterward and said good-bye. Then Roslyn and
I put it out of our minds. When we’d decided to do the interview, we agreed not
to tell anyone about it.

ROSLYN
   
We
couldn’t go through more comments from friends, judgments about our actions,
defending ourselves. And now it was only two weeks until the wedding.

ANDREW   
While my parents were
being interviewed, Doug and I were shopping for wedding clothes. As we stood in
front of a mirror at Barney’s, struggling together to tie our first bow ties,
there was a spark between us. We both knew what the other was thinking,
icantbelieveitsreallyhappening!

DOUG   
We bounced between stored on
Madison Avenue, splurging unconscionably, opening our wallets to the wind. A
special cologne, just for the occasion. Decadent suspenders. Then we both fell
in love with the same tuxedo. And neither of us wanted to give up wearing it
just because we’d look alike. Of course, we’d never really look like twins,
since Andrew’s half a foot taller.

            We
straggled home like looting conquerors, laden with bags. We ripped open the
spoils and had a frenzied fashion show, trying on all the goodies for the first
time. The simple shirts, no studs or buttons cluttering up their clean lines,
the socks, then the pants. We dressed in the same order, as if it were an
ancient ritual. We clipped the simple black cummerbunds in place, hooking on
our classic suspenders, Andrew’s with a fin de siècle French beach scene,
adorned with bathing beauties in the blue swimsuits sheltered by red umbrellas
in a sea of white sand, and mine laden with frolicking nymphs, in blue and
gray, cascading down from shoulder to waist. It was such a little thing, but
you couldn’t possibly strap on those suspenders without having their halo cover
you too, making you a little lighter, a little more unearthly, for just as long
as you wore them. And maybe a little longer.

ANDREW   
Then we worked on our
bow ties, and after fifteen minutes of practice, I was pretty sure I’d stick
with the prefab version I’d bought as a backup. Doug was adamant about learning
to do it for real. Finally, we put on the jackets and stood in front of a
nearly full-length mirror. It was a spine-tingling preview of coming
attractions, now only two weeks away.

            When
we’d stripped out of our Cinderella ball gowns and slipped back into our
scullery-girl rags, the phone rang. When I picked it up, the caller identified
himself as a distant relative from out of town. I had to take him on faith
since we had different surnames and we had never met, or even spoken, before.
He’d found me through a series of coincidences that prove truth is absolutely
stranger than fiction. I have to resist the temptation to tell some of the
juiciest details of the conversation, and soon you’ll see why.

            He
said he was a Hasidic Jew and had called to get some information on our family
tree. He asked what I did for a living, if I was married or had children… that
sort of ordinarily innocuous background information. I’m not in the habit of
hiding my life, but this was somebody I would never meet. I didn’t see the
point in shocking him. Besides, since Hasids are among the most orthodox of all
Jewish groups, I knew he wasn’t going to be thrilled to hear I was in the
abomination business. So I said I wasn’t married, and left it at that. Because
this was only two weeks before the wedding, I considered that statement
accurate in fact, if not in spirit. I didn’t have all the family history he
wanted, so I gave him the phone number of the family patriarch, my great-uncle
Rudolph, wished him luck, and said good-bye, severing the momentary tie to a
distant genetic connection.