Page 74 of This Is Who I Am

Hunter hugs us, then settles in a chair with a glass of wine. He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Guess who texted?”

“Estelle?” Despite my ambivalence, I’d like to know she’s doing okay.

“The one and only.” He dangles his phone in front of me like it’s a carrot and I’m a rabbit.

“What did she say?” I ask.

“Just that she’s back at her house in Berkeley and misses us.”

“Us?”

“The message was sent in the group chat Bobby and I have with her, so I assume she’s referring to me and my lovely husband, but I’m just a simple gay man, and with you women folk, you just never know.”

“She probably needs a breather from all the turmoil she’s been through.” Suzy sounds suddenly mild. “Her dad died. She quit her job. She metandlost you.” Suzy looks at me. “It’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” I concur.

“How are you holding up?” Hunter scoots over and pats my knee.

“When the restaurant’s open, I do okay, but on closing days… It’s tough.”

“No more one-night stands with visiting makeup artists?” He gives my knee one final pat.

“Oh, god…” I lean my head backward.

“What was it like?” Suzy asks. “I’m just curious. You know how I feel about one-night stands.”

“It was…” I wish I didn’t remember, but I do. I was drunk and ravenous for Bijou but all I could think of, the entire time, was how much I wanted her to be Estelle. “Messy and good in ways it could never be with Estelle but also sad because it wasn’t Bijou I wanted to be with.”

“Even after your night with Bijou, you still want Estelle?” Suzy asks.

“I’m in love with Estelle and even though it was more complicated than I liked, we could have made it work.” Although, in hindsight, it’s easy enough to say. Now that I don’t actually have to make it work, words are undemanding. I can also see Estelle’s point of view. I can even understand her fear. And her complete unwillingness to go through all of that with me, at this stage of my life, by her side. “Anyway, it’s over now, so.” I drink to swallow a lump out of my throat.

“Bobby and I were talking about meeting up with her in San Fran,” Hunter says. “First, would that be okay with you? And, second, if so, do you want me to talk to her?”

“There’s no point. She has made up her mind. She’s done with me.” No wonder Estelle has so many scars on her heart. Sometimes, it was almost as though she wore them like a badge of honor for all the suffering she’d been through. I wonder if she loved me long enough for our break-up to add another one. “I think she was right all along. She’s not relationship material.” I sigh deeply. “The best I can do is try to get over her as quickly as possible.”

“Rebound?” Hunter tries to sound excited, but we’re all too old for that now. To plan a wild weekend away and go out all night, drink too much, and do things we regret in the morning.

“I already had my rebound sex,” I say sheepishly.

A silence falls until Suzy breaks it the way only Suzy can. “Let’s talk about my birthday then. About the big event in three short weeks.”

“Remind me, do you want a male or a female stripper?” Hunter jokes.

“Everything’s arranged,” I say. “There’s nothing for you to worry your almost-fifty-year-old pretty little head about.”

“Thank you.” Suzy smiles. “Can we talk about my present, then?”

“I thought us organizing the party was the present?” Hunter pretends to be offended, although Bobby is making Suzy an engraved rocking chair for her porch, where she loves to sit and strike up a conversation with anyone who walks by.

“Yes, and I’m very grateful, but…” She looks me straight in the eye. “Now that you’re no longer so busy falling in love, I’d like for you to finally join my support group. It’s not like you’d have to go far.”

Being with Estelle has, at the very least, opened my eyes to how my menopause affects others, so I don’t immediately dismiss Suzy’s idea. The only reason I was horrible to her was because my hormones were in disarray. She was nothing but incredibly kind and empathetic throughout.

“Do it for your fifty-year-old friend, please?” Suzy bats her lashes. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it could really help. Especially now.”

“Okay,” I agree, because I have to fill up the emptiness Estelle has left. The hours of free time I perfectly knew what to do with before I met her, but have now become a wasteland of loneliness and longing. Because we might both have acted unreasonably, it didn’t make the love I have for her magically disappear.

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