“Are you gay?”
The question comes from a girl in an “I Heart Marriage Equality” T-shirt, such a bright neon shade of pink that I think my retinas are going to burn out just looking at her. And luckily her question is not directed toward me, but at Ryan Markey, who looks like he’s just been hit with an arrow. Poor schmuck. These fan Q&As can be brutal.
“Um…” He leans into his microphone and it’s the kind of effeminate movement that will be on YouTube for months to come. I know what they do on those Internets. I see him loosen his collar. Rookie move.
Then he’s all smiles again. “Are you?” he asks, and the girl, who’d sat down, looks around to realize the whole place is laughing. She turns as pink as her shirt and tries to hide inside it. Ryan sits back, and I’m jealous as hell. I should have thought of that.
The next question is for Annie, and it’s a normal one. I mouth to Ryan, “Nice one.” He grins and gives me a thumbs-up. For a moment it feels like he’s just another pal.
Maybe I can make this work after all. Maybe we can be buddies. Maybe I was just nervous because I haven’t worked with him before, and once we start sharing scenes more often this stupid bizarre stomach flu of a feeling will go away.
Maybe I’m fooling myself, though.
All right, here’s the thing. The camera thing has gone away. I’m no longer taking these internal extreme close-ups of things that I shouldn’t be focusing on. Instead, he makes me nervous as hell. I don’t even know what I’m scared of, I just know that when he shows up I go all to pieces. It’s fucking embarrassing is what it is. I don’t think I’ve let on to the rest of the cast or crew, but then again, I’m an actor. That’s what I do. And if acting’s about anything, it’s about discipline. Show must go on and all that. Poker face.
Anyway. I lost my train of thought. So we’re signing autographs, and the girl with the pink T-shirt comes over and looks really sheepish. I can’t help watching this out of the corner of my eye. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, I just wanted–”
Ryan actually leans over the table and puts a finger to her lips. She’s T-shirt-pink again as he says, “Don’t ask, don’t tell, right?” and winks. The guy fucking WINKS. Who the hell winks and gets away with it?
She’s cross-eyed looking down at his finger on her lips and she sort of nods and slinks away clutching her autographed poster like it’s the last thing on earth she has to hang on to. Oh, that poor girl. She’ll spend the rest of her life wondering. And poor Ryan Markey. He’s going to end up with a gabillion fan blogs speculating about his secret gay love life.
Assuming he was joking. Assuming he didn’t mean it.
Oh, what the hell is that about? Look at the guy. What part of that screams “gay”?
And what the hell do I care about a co-worker’s love life, no matter who it involves?
All of a sudden I really feel like punching something.
See, this is what this has done to me. Ryan is messing me up inside. I can’t think anymore without thinking about what I’m thinking and then thinking about that. There’s something that scares me about the way I react to him, and I keep thinking, if I can just figure it out and understand it I’ll be halfway to getting rid of it. I’m sure it’s nothing. He reminds me of a childhood friend, or we met fifteen years ago in a K-Mart, or he has just about the most incredible face I’ve ever seen on anybody of any gender at any time in my life.
Oh, shit. Shit on a fucking stick. With horseradish.
I’m imagining it. I’m Jordan Sullivan, soap star, and I don’t get crushes on co-workers. It’s policy. Leaving the gender thing aside.
(Except for I’m not really Jordan Sullivan, I’m really Gordon Solomon, so how much of the rest of it is a lie, too?)
“Jordan.” Voice light like pastry puffs in my ear. Hand on my shoulder…
I jump and wheel. Ryan steps back and he’s looking at me blank as a rebooted computer screen. “Sorry, did I startle you?”
Relax relax relax. “No, man, you’re fine. Sorry. Fans make me jumpy.”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “That’s got to be the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to me in a while.”
“You handled it OK.” See? No problem. Conversation with him’s no problem. “I would probably have jumped six feet in the air and come down screaming NO at the top of my lungs.”
He gives me a sideways smile. “Emphatically heterosexual. Good to know.”
“Hwha?” It’s a less than dignified noise that sort of snorts out my nose like a sneeze.
He just keeps on smiling. Does he even know what he’s…
Holy shit NO you motherfucker you are not walking away! “Wait wait wait wait. What does that – does that mean–”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he says, and he gives me this look that at once paralyzes me and makes me feel like a gigantic fool. “I’m messing with you.”
There’s a grain of doubt rolling around in the back of his voice that makes me think he’s maybe not so convinced of that himself. Not sure if that scares me or makes me feel better.
We walk along the sidewalk toward the bus. His hair is sort of caramel in the light. I wonder how he was raised that he got to be this way. This unbelievably infuriating, intimidating way. I wonder where he came from. I can see him as a farm boy, learning to jump from tire swings into lakes. Or maybe a kid from the city, hanging out on steps outside AC-less apartments. Or maybe nothing.
I keep walking with him. For no less stupid a reason than this: I want to know.
