Toby groaned and rolled his eyes. “I know I will have to put an end to this eventually. And I’m not looking forward to it either. He’s my boss. I could lose my job. And I can’t help but feel bad for him a little, too. He’s in a worse place than I am.”
“And that’s the hardest part,” Rosemary said. “But I’ve learned on thing in life: you’ve got to keep it real.” * * * *
By the end of November, Rosemary and Toby had become close enough for Rosemary to ask if Toby wanted to go away with her and a few friends for Thanksgiving weekend. At first, Toby hesitated; he’d never been away from his family in New Jersey on the Holidays. But when Rosemary said they were going to Provincetown and that he’d meet a lot of other men just like himself, he accepted the invitation and phoned his mother that same night to tell her he wouldn’t be coming home that year.
The next day Brad asked Toby what his Thanksgiving plans were. He told Brad he’d be gone from Wednesday until Sunday night, without thinking about the consequences. Brad smiled so wide when he found out he’d have the apartment all to himself that weekend Toby saw his back teeth. This caused a tight pull in Toby’s stomach. He knew he had to put an end to his arrangement. Brad didn’t know it, but Toby had been standing in the alley next to his building for two weeks watching what was going on. He’d seen Brad come and go, almost every night, with a different guy. They were mostly all young attractive guys, in their twenties, and Brad gave them all cab fare to get home when it was over. But there were two nights when Toby almost fell sideways into the trash cans in the alley.
The first time it happened was on a Wednesday. Toby had been lurking in the alley when Brad and someone else walked down the front stoop. They stopped on the sidewalk and Brad pulled cash out of his pocket for cab fare. When Toby saw Brad hand the cash to a tall, attractive blond woman, he grabbed the brick wall and held his breath. This was one of the most attractive women Toby had ever seen. She had long blond hair, wore a short skirt, and very high heels. Toby had no idea Brad was using his apartment to entertain women, too. He moved closer to the corner of the building so he could hear them. That’s when he almost fell into the trash cans. When the gorgeous blond opened her mouth and a deep husky voice began to speak, Toby realized the blond woman was really a man. He blinked and looked again just to make sure. The blond had a stronger chin and larger hands than most women. There was no mistake about it. Toby’s boss was fucking a man dressed as a woman.
The second surprise came on Friday night of that same week when Toby saw the nice looking young Italian guy from the maintenance department of his building walk out with Brad. He knew the young guy’s name was Richie, but he couldn’t remember his last name. Toby didn’t think this guy would ever be Brad’s type. He was so strong and masculine and rough looking. Toby had noticed him at work more than once, mostly because he was so attractive. Brad didn’t givehimcab fare. He just patted the maintenance guy’s back and said, “I’ll walk you to the subway.”
The day before Thanksgiving, the entire office left early for a long weekend. Toby had packed his bag the night before and he was standing on the front stoop of his building with Rosemary when a big old Pontiac Chieftain, with wooden sides and a massive white steering wheel, pulled up to the curb at four that same afternoon. The Chieftain was filled with women wearing plaid flannel shirts, dungarees, and work boots. And they sang country western music and told dirty jokes all the way up to Cape Cod.
Though it wasn’t the perfect weekend, and Toby didn’t meet the man of his dreams and fall in love, he did have a halfway decent time. Rosemary treated him like a younger brother, and he loved her friends. Some were school teachers; others were in business for themselves. One gruff woman, who always wore heavy tweed sport jackets and looked as if she had her hair cut at a barbershop, was a professor at Smith College with an impressive list of academic publishing credits. They even joked around and said they were going to make Toby an honorary lesbian.
And Toby loved Provincetown, from the ocean to the narrow little streets lined with hedgerows and picket fences. The artists were peculiar in a refreshing way, the seaside cottages quaint, and everywhere he went the conversation was artistic and fascinating. The galleries blew him away; the artists painting on the sidewalks made him wish he was doing something else with his life. It seemed as if this was the one place in the world where there were no formal boundaries. It felt like everyone left their real lives on the outskirts of town and settled into a comfortable, casual existence. Waiters socialized with doctors and lawyers; there wasn’t a suit and tie in the entire town. Toby met a few nice guys his own age from New York and exchanged phone numbers. He knew they’d only be friends; he didn’t have sex with anyone that weekend. A few guys had tried to seduce him and lure him down to the docks. But no one interested him enough to make it worth his while. The one guy who did interest him gave out his name the first night they met. And then Toby found out from a friend of Rosemary’s that the guy was going by another name and decided the guy would turn out to be trouble. He never trusted people with too many different identities.
By Sunday afternoon, when the Chieftain dropped them off at the curb in New York, Toby felt like a new man. In those few short days, he’d met new, interesting people; for the first time in his life he’d been surrounded by decent, hardworking human beings who were just like him: both men and women. He had no idea there were that many people like him out there. Up until that weekend, Toby had thought half of the homosexual world consisted of people like Brad Lindsay who spent their time living double lives, sneaking around corners and settling for what they could get instead of taking what they deserved. He thought the other half existed in basement bars wearing bad wigs, cheap high heels, and flat feather boas.
Toby carried Rosemary’s bags upstairs and they laughed about his chivalry. “Honey, I should be carrying yourbags. I’m bigger and stronger than you.”
“But I’m the man,” Toby said, his voice going deeper. “I’m the one who is supposed to carry the bags. You’re just a frail helpless little woman.” He knew this would get a rise out of her.
She laughed so hard she had to stop in the middle of the third floor staircase for a second. “I’ll bet I could carry you and the bags up all four flights.”
Toby took a step down. He had a feeling she was serious and he didn’t want her to hurt herself. “You just be good and enjoy the attention. Next time you can carry the bags.”