Sam and Ilsa's Last Hurrah
“If you’d invited Rudy, I would have heard about it,” Ilsa says, her faith in gossip unwavering. “He’s the apple of #Stantastic’s rebounding eye now. And #Stantastic tweets anything that makes him jealous.”
My date with #Stantastic had been even worse than my date with Rudolph. As we were talking over dinner, he kept typing it all down on his phone. I tried not to give him any material, and as a result ended up being called #sleepyandhollow when he gave everyone his side of the story. Amazingly, he didn’t understand why I passed on a second date. I know this because he told his (fifty-six) followers he was #Stantagonized by the fact that I hadn’t been #Stantalized.
I study Ilsa’s face, to see if she’s invited Rudolph or #Stantastic. It’s looking like a no. I’m relieved . . . and still a little worried about who else that leaves.
I check the oven, and at least everything there seems to be going according to plan. Satisfied by the tick of the timer, I sugar the tart and give the Waldorf salad an extra toss, making sure the lemon-juiced apples haven’t defied me and started to brown. I know it’s time for me to take off my apron and get into host mode . . . but I want to linger in the kitchen a little bit longer. It’s so much safer there.
“This is it,” I tell Ilsa. “Our last dinner party of high school.”
This is the beginning of all the goodbyes. I’ve been preparing for them, in my own way. I’m ready for graduation. But I’m not ready for life to change so much, so soon.
I can’t say any of this to Ilsa because it’s too depressing. And my sister does not like to be depressed. I may be the gay one, but she’s the one who lives by gaiety. Carefree and careless, the life of the party trying to make a party out of her life – that’s my unidentical twin, with her unidentity.
“It all looks so grand,” she says, trying on the last word like a little girl tries on her mother’s shoes.
Or her grandmother’s shoes. I guess we’re both wearing our grandmother’s shoes. Look at me, with all of my culinary creations – I want to dazzle. Look at Ilsa, in her shimmering flapper dress – she wants to be dazzling.
“The humdrum won’t know what hit it,” I promise her.
“It won’t dare set foot in this apartment, not while we’re around.”
“It shall be a night to remember.”
She nods. “For the ages.”
I make one last check that everything is boiling, brewing and baking as it should. With ten minutes left, I retreat to my room to change. My clothes hang ready on the closet door. Black suit. White shirt. Dark blue tie. I always wear this outfit because I don’t think I look as good in anything else. And I want to look good tonight.
Despite myself, I have hopes.
I’m far from certain that he’s going to show up. This boy whose name I don’t even know.
I told Parker about it, of course. I’m sure one of the reasons I did was because I knew it would make him think I had the potential to be at least momentarily brave. After months of him telling me to talk to Subway Boy, of him threatening to go up to Subway Boy and say, “Hey, my friend here likes you,” I finally made the move.
And now, the waiting.
You’re good, Parker tells me. I need to borrow his voice sometimes, when I don’t trust my own.
Eight minutes. I button my buttons.
Six minutes. I tie my tie.
Five minutes. I –
I –
I can’t go out there. I can’t do this. I can’t. I really can’t. I’m going to tell Ilsa I’m feeling sick. I can’t let any of this happen. Whatever’s going to happen, I don’t want it to happen. This was such a mistake. I am such a fraud. I want to stay in the kitchen. I don’t want anyone else to come in. I don’t want to have to talk to anybody. My body knows this. My body is shutting down, saying, That’s enough for you, Sam. I tried to believe I could. I tried to trick myself. But the only thing I’m smart at is knowing when I’m going to fail. There’s no way to disguise that. I am going to fail.
Four minutes.
I can’t fool anybody.
Three minutes.
Ilsa is calling my name. I am trying to do all the things the doctors told me to do. Slow down. Deep breaths. Affirm. I can do this. Whether or not he comes. Whether or not this is the end of our dinner parties. Whether or not Ilsa appreciates it.
Two minutes. I consult my mirror.
I do look better than I usually do.
I remember that at some point in the night, I’ll be taking the jacket off. So I’m careful. Very careful.
I make sure my sleeves are rolled down and buttoned, covering any lingering trace of my damage.
One minute. The buzzer buzzes.
The first guest has arrived.
3
ILSA
I open the door and immediately I know.
This must be Wild Card Boy.
I know because he has the shy, sweet look of so many of Sam’s city crushes. Starbucks Boy. AMC Theatre Boy. Pret a Manger Boy. Terminal 5 Boy. Trader Joe’s Boy.
Whoever this guy standing here is, he’s exactly why I’ve invited Freddie. Our dinner party absolutely needs a Smoking Hot, Seemed Uncomplicated on the B-ball Court but Could Be Deeply Disturbed Eastern European Guy to break Sam’s infatuation mold of Nice, Safe Boys.
Wild Card Boy is long and skinny, just like the others, and he’s wearing black jeans (not garish at all – did he even read the invitation?), just like the others. Wild Card’s major improvement is his white T-shirt picturing a hipster black cat standing on its hind legs, playing a fiddle with its front legs. The shirt says, I PAWS FOR BLUEGRASS. Wild Card Boy is pale-skinned like he’s a shut-in, with shaggy ginger hair and a scruffy ginger beard and deep-green eyes. With his red-orange hair and black skinny jeans, Wild Card Boy looks like an upside-down pumpkin. But Wild Card Boy is highly cute, and has a big, warm smile that I try not to find suspicious. He holds a violin case.
“Hi,” I say. “Welcome. I’m Ilsa. And you are . . . ?”
“Johan!” he says jovially. “Delighted to be here, but disappointed that Czarina won’t be here! With a name like that –”
I interrupt. “You have a funny accent. Are you Australian?”
“South African.”
“Isn’t that like the same?”
“In no way whatsoever.”
“You’re a long way from home, Johan. What brought you to New York?”
“Juilliard. I play the violin.”
“Classical?”
“At school, yes. But American bluegrass is where my heart is.”
I hear Sam’s voice behind me. “Stop with the interrogation, Ilsa! Let the poor guy in already. He’s not a vampire.” He stands behind me and loudly whispers in my ear, “Is he?”
I turn around and see Sam wearing his favorite suit, with his regrettably red-cheeked blush revealing his every feeling. Hope! Anticipation! The kid’s never going to be a poker champion.
“I think this one’s mortal,” I tell Sam. But just to be sure, I ask Johan, “You’re not a vampire are you?”
“No,” says Johan, “despite how tempting your neck is looking.” He winks at me, then at Sam. “His neck too.”
What. A. Pro. My favorite guest of the night, already.
“Come in, please,” I say, holding the door open for him to step through.
Johan carries in his violin case, but nothing else so far as I can see. You can tell a lot about a person by the type of gift they bring for their host (Pret a Manger Boy – leftover cookies; Terminal 5 Boy – flowers; Starbucks Boy – gingerbread syrup), or if they don’t (Trader Joe’s Boy – the worst). I suppose Johan is in the Don’t category. Maybe they don’t bring gifts in South Africa. Not like I throw a party just to get the gifts. (But please bring those amazing chocolates, Li Zhang.)
“This is your granny’s actual apartment?” Johan asks as we lead him through the foyer and into the living room, which is at the building’s corner and offers views of the Empire State Building and midtown Manhattan to the south and the Hudson River to the west. “Everyone I know lives in dirty dorms or crowded shares in Bushwick.”
“The apartment’s been in the family for three generations. Before everything got so crazy expensive around here,” says Sam, sounding like he’s apologizing for Czarina not living up to starving-artist, bohemian standards.
“Rent controlled,” I add, so Johan will know we’re only surrounded by lucky moneybags folk. We’re not them.
Sam hates hates hates when I bring up the rent-control subject – especially so soon – to total strangers, but I’ve found it’s a good way to appraise their character right away. Either they’re happy for you or they literally hate your guts for having such luck in your family. It’s better to know right away. What’s it matter, anyway? The luck’s all ending.
Johan says, “This is what rent controlled means? I’ve heard about it, but I thought it had to be an urban myth.”
“It’s a rarity, but not a myth. And it’s all going bye-bye,” I say, pointing to the movers’ boxes against the far corner of the living-room wall. “This whole apartment cost our grandmother significantly less every month than you probably pay for a tiny dorm room you share with a snoring roommate, or mice, or both.”
“I have both!” Johan says.
“May I get you a drink?” Sam asks Johan, trying to change the subject. “We have sparkling water, pomegranate juice, ginger ale . . .”
“Beer?” Johan asks. With his accent, the word sounds like beeyrah?
“Sorry,” says Sam the Saint. “I promised our grandmother we wouldn’t serve alcohol.”
“I’ll get you one,” I say. “Sam Adams or Sierra Nevada?” Sam and I have a tacit understanding: he repeats the party line about Czarina’s rules, then looks the other way when I disobey them.
“You choose,” says Johan. “Thanks, mate.”
I leave for the kitchen, to give Sam some time alone with Johan. New guests – especially if they’re not from the city – always want a tour of the grand, chipping-away old apartment. I hope Johan appreciates my party-decorating efforts. I pinned decorations across the living-room walls, picturing Liberace in his many years of spectacularly garish fashions. I dangled small, mirrored disco balls from the chandelier over the dining-room table. I stocked the bathrooms with Czarina’s best hand towels from Ireland, and stocked the bathroom vanity drawers with Advil (for guests who can’t handle the booze), Pepto-Bismol (can’t handle Sam’s cooking) and a colorful array of condoms (want to get handled).
The house phone in the kitchen that connects our apartment to the building lobby, rings, like it’s still 1956 and people don’t have cell phones.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Announcing . . .” the doorman starts to say.
“Please don’t announce, Bert. Please just send them up. Thank you!”
I hang up the phone and pull out a Sam Adams from the fridge for me and one for Johan, taking a count of the beers in there so I know how many I’ll have to replace with swiped stock from KK’s parents before Czarina gets home. They never notice the beer missing any more than they notice that KK practically subsists exclusively on sushi and frozen Jell-O pops.
As I head to the front door, I hear Sam playing the piano in the study, Duke Ellington’s ‘Prelude to a Kiss’. Bold move, brother, so early in the night! Such a sweet, hopeful melody. I’m encouraged. This is going to be our best dinner party ever. I can feel it.
I wait for the doorbell to ring, as I always do, resisting the urge to open the front door and look down the hallway to see our guests disembarking from the elevator onto the eighth floor. A good hostess welcomes her guests but doesn’t seem desperate for them. I look at myself in the mirror in the foyer, blotting my matte burgundy lips, de-smudging the black kohl lined beneath my eyes and smoothing down the black bangs of my newly cut, razor-sharp twenties showgirl bob, whose ends come to points on either side of my chin.
I wish upon the next guest: Please be Wilson Salazar, please be Wilson Salazar. Johan, one of Sam’s three mystery guests, has been accounted for, and I can already tell Johan is awesome. Sam will obviously invite Jason Goldstein-Chung, because Jason is Sam’s habitual safe choice. Jason is like the comfort food of ex-boyfriends. That leaves one more guest on Sam’s list, and I salivate with hope that Sam finally extended an invitation to Wilson Salazar, the most talented and hottest actor in the senior class at LaGuardia’s. Wilson killed as Macbeth last fall. He broke my heart in West Side Story this spring.
The doorbell rings. I cross my fingers and softly sing a little prayer invoking Wilson Salazar’s presence. “Tonight, tonight / It all began tonight.”
I open the door.
DAMMIT!
“You’re looking very fetching, Ilsa,” Parker Jordan manages to say, seemingly effortlessly, while holding a rose stem between his teeth. He’s wearing the sequined, Michael Jackson-style black and white tuxedo he always wore when we used to compete as ballroom dance partners. He’s let his hair grow to high-top, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air height, the style Parker always used to tease me that he’d finally get when I wasn’t telling the barber how to shave his head anymore. Wish = fulfilled.
I grab the red rose from his mouth and throw it down the hallway. “Fetch this, Parker!” I say.
Parker laughs. “Oh, Ilsa. Bygones already.”
“You’re early,” I tell Parker.
“What time was I supposed to arrive?”
“Never.”
“Right on time!” Parker says.
He doesn’t wait for me to usher him, but boldly steps past me, walks through the foyer and into the living room with the ease of someone who’s been here a million times. I close the front door and follow him. He hands me a brown paper shopping bag. “Here. These are from Mom and Dad.” His ears take notice of the sound of the piano-playing coming from the study. “Ellington. Nice start, Sam.”
I snatch the bag from Parker’s hand and don’t bother with “Thanks”. I’ll save that for an email, later, directly to his parents. The bag has two stacked boxes inside it, and I know exactly what’s inside them: a sweet potato pie and a lemon chess pie, my favorites from Parker’s parents’ vegan soul food café in Hell’s Kitchen.
I guess if they’ve sent my favorite pies, they’ve forgiven me for the video I posted of Parker breaking up with me, which went viral (at least among everyone we know, and a good deal of Manhattan). According to Sam’s report, that video has caused Parker to be besieged by hordes of angry girls recognizing him on the street and repeating his line back to him: “It’s not you, it’s me . . .” Then the girls swat at him and shrill, “JERK!” (I’m pleased every time I get this report. Sisters who’ve been dumped, unite!)
I guess if Parker’s here tonight, he’s forgiven me too.
I don’t know how long it will take me to forgive Sam though. He knows I have a moratorium on seeing Parker again until the school year is officially over. I don’t want to be so blatantly reminded of Parker until after prom night, until after senior week, until after graduation and all the things Parker and I were supposed to share together.
“No gifts to me from your parents?” Parker teases. I resist a laugh. No one was more relieved when we broke up than my parents. Relieved for Parker, not me.
“They’re at Home Depot right now looking for just the right ax to bash your high-top down to baldy height.”
“Tell them no interest on purchases over $250 if they use their HD credit card. They oughta splurge on that plasma welder your dad’s always dreamed of owning to finally shut your damn mouth.”
My parents don’t even know where Home Depot is.
Sam and Johan return from the study and Sam introduces Johan to Parker.
“You look familiar,” Johan tells Parker. “Do I know you from somewhere? Like a commercial?”
I try to telepathically message Johan the punch line of his recognition. It’s not you, it’s me . . . JERK! But Johan doesn’t receive it, and Sam quickly changes the subject. “Ilsa. Where have we decided to check the phones tonight?”
After four dinner parties ago, when #Stantastic #livetweeted #Stanstunnedbyboredom all night, we banned cell phones from our parties, which improved our parties to an infinite degree. Now our guests savor their food instead of just Instagramming it. They enjoy the city view instead of getting lost on their phones trying to add “@theStanwyck” location to their Facebook posts. They talk to each other.
Now I have a change of heart. “Let’s not put away the phones tonight.” I maybe can’t handle a whole evening of witty conversation with guests when suddenly I’d rather spend the night crying in my room because Parker is here, and he’s probably going to talk all night about what amazing (not reckless) girl he’s taking to prom, or about all the first- and second-tier colleges he got into because what Ivy League school wouldn’t want a half-Dominican, half-African American male valedictorian who’s also a star lacrosse player, a champion ballroom dancer (in his previous Ilsa life) and the son of vegan baking royalty.
I’m going to be a hostess like Czarina tonight. I’m going to act like everything’s just grand even though I can’t believe Sam invited Parker. I feel so betrayed. Much as I think it would be healthy for Sam to have his heart broken, I would never then invite the cause of his pain to his own party after the breakup! This hurts.
“Please, let’s put away the phones!” says Johan. “I’ve always been curious to go to a party without them. I know, we could lock the phones in my violin case.” He walks over to where his violin case rests on the floor by the foyer. As he’s about to open the case, Johan looks up at us and says, “I didn’t know what to bring as a host gift. So I brought the ‘garish’ inside here.”
4
SAM
Once upon a time, there was a marketing genius. And this marketing genius noticed that boys wouldn’t play with dolls, so dolls for boys needed a new name. He decided to call them action figures, and because of this, boys began to play with dolls. The marketing genius must have been proud.
I wonder what this marketing genius would think of what’s inside Johan’s violin case. Because these are definitely action figures. Same height. Same plastic.
Only, all of these action figures are Dolly Parton.
It’s not just the chests, which would make a shrimp out of Barbie’s. It’s the whole package. Petite and big and bold all at the same time.
There’s Dolly in her coat of many colors, a poor, sweet girl about to make millions.
There’s Dolly singing ‘I Will Always Love You’ – which you know because an angel-winged Whitney is smiling behind her.
There’s Dolly standing on a desk in a triumphant 9 to 5 pose. Her boss cowers, hog-tied below.
And finally, there’s Dolly arm-wrestling . . . someone.
“That’s Sylvester Stallone,” Johan explains in his charming woodwind voice. “From Rhinestone.”
Rhinestone.
I am nearly at a loss for words. “You’ve built Dollywood. In a violin case.”
“I like to think of it as a fiddle case. But yes. When you specified garish, I assumed you meant awesome.”
Parker gives me one of his oh, so this is what white people do in their free time looks, but I can tell he’s glad Subway Boy hasn’t proven to be the instant disappointment that most Subway Boys must be once you have them over for dinner. Ilsa looks annoyed – maybe because Parker’s within ejection range without a trapdoor in sight, or maybe because a stranger has just upped the garish ante, and she’s not sure how many chips she has left to place.
“Let me get you that beer,” she says, off to the kitchen before Johan can tell her the hair in the Dollys’ wigs was spun from unicorn tears.
“I’m going to go see if she needs help carrying that beer,” Parker says, following.
Johan moves to close the violin case, and I cry out, way too loud, “No! Don’t!” Then, as if to compound this manic burst of uncoolness, I walk over to the piano and clear a place for the case . . . by sweeping off all the sheet music with my arm, as if I’m in some retirement home’s production of Amadeus. As a result, the Goldberg Variations scatter through the air, Debussy ducks for cover under the bench, and Muhly mulishly meanders toward Czarina’s beloved lime-green couch.
If Johan is alarmed, he doesn’t show it. He gives the Dolly clones their pride of place. He casually plays a few notes on the piano in honor of the installation. I hear the words in my head.
Islands in the stream.
That is what we are.
If Ilsa were here, she’d be on the piano, singing along.
I –
I –
I look away. I know a new person is supposed to mean a new start. But I’m still me, and eventually he will see that.
“Do you want something to drink?” I ask.
He looks at me like I’ve made a joke. Then he realizes maybe I haven’t.
Right. Pretty much the only fact I know about him is that he wants a beer.
“It’ll be any minute now,” I say, looking down. I am rolling over Beethoven. I want to apologize to him.
“I loved hearing you play,” Johan says.
“I loved the feeling of you standing right behind me as I played,” I don’t reply. “There was even a moment when I forgot to worry about impressing you and actually enjoyed myself.”
It had been so simple. He’d seen the piano. Asked me who played.
All I had to do was say, “I do.”
All I had to do was sit there and let the song happen.
No. Make the song happen.
“I gave it up,” I find myself saying to him now.
There are so many things I am saying underneath this. Mostly to myself. But beneath that. Something I am trying to give him. Some indication of who I am, of what this is.
“When?” he asks.
“A couple of years ago,” I tell him. Even though it was actually only seven months ago, after I sabotaged myself out of music school and vowed never to perform in public – never to be put on display like that, with all of the pressure – ever again.
“But clearly you didn’t give it up entirely?” He lifts some fallen notes from the floor.
“That was the weird thing. I gave up on it, but it didn’t give up on me.”
“Music is inescapable, isn’t it?”
The way he says it, I can tell there are things he already knows.
I nod. Even if I wasn’t playing in public anymore, it was still a part of my most private self.
He’s looking at me with such curiosity. I was Subway Boy to him too, and now I am not. I have yet to be determined.
We have yet to be determined.
The doorbell marks the arrival of another guest. I pause, trying to sense some movement from the kitchen. When I don’t notice any, I make an excuse to Johan and head for the door.
I am sorry to leave him. Which seems prematurely foolish, but there it is.
When I get to the door, I open it and find Ilsa’s friend Li, who is usually a model of sense and sensibility.
But tonight she’s dressed in what can only be called a slutty French-maid outfit. By which I mean: one of those Halloween costumes that’s supposed to look like a French maid, only sluttier.
She takes one look at my outfit and another at my face. Then she says, “It isn’t a costume party, is it?”
I shake my head.
“Why did I think it was a costume party?” she asks.
I have no answer for this.
“I live in Jackson Heights.”
Meaning: there is no turning around and going back home. This is what she’s wearing tonight.
“And I’ll never fit into your sister’s clothes.”
Meaning: no, really, this is what she’s wearing tonight.
“Well, it is garish,” I say. “I’m sure there were at least three guys at each of Liberace’s parties wearing the exact same thing.”
I can see her compartmentalize her embarrassment. I envy that.
She holds up a bag. “I brought the chocolate your sister loves.”