Page 99 of Like a Love Story
We don’t say anything else. It’s enough for now.
The memorial is being held in one of Stephen’s favorite nightclubs. The owner was a friend of his, and a memberof ACT UP. He has allowed the space to be transformed for this celebration. When we walk in, the stereo is blasting the Communards’ “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” and a few people are dancing. Jimmy is one of them, but he looks more like Diana Ross in a red dress, high heels, and a sky-high wig. He looks like a star. Art’s photographs line the walls. Photos of protests and actions. Photos of Stephen and José. Photos of Judy. Photos of Jimmy and other activists posed like glamorous movie stars. And photos of me. I freeze in front of the photo of me outside that stock exchange protest. I almost don’t recognize myself. I was so much younger then, and yet I almost feel younger now. So much freer. Art’s arms wrap around me. “I love you,” he whispers in my ear.
I turn around to face him. I want to kiss him so badly, but I know my mother’s eyes are probably on me, and she couldn’t handle seeing that. “Did your parents come?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I didn’t think they would,” he says. “Or maybe I did. I don’t know. I guess I hoped that maybe death would make them see things differently. Death is supposed to bring people together, right?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. I know how it feels to have a parent who can’t love you. I also know how it feels to have a parent who can.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Look at all these people Stephen brought together. Who needs two more?”
Judy catches my eye. She’s at the buffet table, nextto her parents and Annabel de la Roche, serving herself a plate of arroz con pollo. She whispers something to Annabel and then walks over to us. We hug her. “Uncle Stephen didn’t cook the food,” she says. “So it’s really good.”
“It’s kind of weird to have food in a nightclub,” Art says.
“He left very specific instructions,” Judy says wistfully. “The menu. The art. The soundtrack.” As she says this, the song changes to Sylvester’s “Be with You,” and even more people join the dance floor. I recognize so many of them from the protests and meetings. Men on the verge of death finding a moment of joy through music. Women with conviction singing the words to the song with all the force of their love and commitment.I want to be with you forever. I want to share this love in heaven.
When the dancing stops, and when people have eaten and hugged and said hello, the memorial itself begins. The owner of the club gives the first speech. He says that Stephen used to be a regular at this club, even before he met José. And then Stephen and José were regulars together. And then it was just Stephen again. And now it’s us. He describes Stephen as someone “who knew how to live, even when he was dying,” and I love that. A Judy Garland impersonator sings “Over the Rainbow.” A man with a guitar sings a slow, mournful version of Marilyn’s “I Wanna Be Loved by You.” My sister clutches Massimo, tears in their eyes. My mother’s and Abbas’s eyes are misty. Even Saadi seems moved, his baseball hatpulled a little lower, perhaps to hide the emotion in his eyes. And am I imagining it, or does Saadi keep glancing over at Judy? Jimmy gets up onstage and explains that Stephen’s favorite cinematic funeral scene was fromImitation of Life, “the Lana Turner and Juanita Moore version, obviously.” He then lip-synchs the song from that scene, Mahalia Jackson’s “Trouble of the World,” imbuing every movement of his lips with so much passion that it sometimes feels like it really is his voice we are hearing.
Stephen has asked Judy and Art to speak together. I’m sure this was intentional, that he wanted to make sure they had to work together, remember together, grieve together. Their friendship mattered to him, and it probably matters even more now that he’s gone. “Hey, everyone,” Judy says. “I’m Judy, Stephen’s niece. You know, the girl he named after Judy Garland. No pressure there.” There are loud cheers from the crowd. She and Art speak of Stephen’s love, his mentorship, his guidance. At the end of the speech, they read Stephen’s notecard about love. “The most important four-letter word in our history will always be love,” Judy says, before Art finishes with “That’s what we are fighting for. That’s who we are. Love is our legacy.”
After the speeches, there is more music. More dancing. All his favorites are on the mix. Bette and Barbra and Grace Jones and George Michael and Diana. Then Madonna’s “Keep It Together” comes on, and it feels like he’s playing it just for us. Judy pulls me and Art and Annabel to the dance floor. Mr. and Mrs. Bowman joinus. Jimmy shimmies to the middle of our circle, spinning with abandon. I wave Tara and Massimo over, and Tara puts her arms around me, swaying with me. My sister, the first person who accepted me. I realize how much I love her. Even my mom and Abbas and Saadi reluctantly join the circle. We all dance. Family, new friends, old friends, keeping people together forever and ever.
The night ends. We give hugs, we say our goodbyes.
I tell my family I’m going to stay behind with Judy and Art. Before my mom leaves, she gives me a long hug and whispers in my ear, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Then she lets me go but keeps searching my eyes for something. She places a hand on my cheek. “I love you,” she says.
“I love you, too,” I whisper. I hug her once more, because I need to. And because she deserves my love and acceptance and patience, just like I deserve hers.
And then there is me, and Art, and Judy. The three of us. We decide to go get ice cream. We sit on the stoop of a downtown tarot card reader, tasting the sweetness, saying nothing for a long time. Through the window of the building, the tarot card reader waves to us. I wish she would tell me my future, flip over a card that will ease all the fear inside me. But I don’t step inside. This is not a time for crystal balls, or a time to think about the future. It’s a moment to honor the past.
Judy puts her head on my shoulder. Art is on the other side of her. When he finishes his ice cream, he puts his head on her lap, and she runs her hands through his hair tenderly. We’re so connected, and yet something insideus has shifted, just as something in this universe has shifted. When someone leaves this planet, they take so much with them. So much energy. So much connective tissue.
“Let’s walk,” Art says, and we do. I hold his left hand. Judy holds his right. It’s not until I see the river again that I realize he has led us directly west, to the very edge of this island. Art looks out, not at the water, but out past it. I watch him gaze at the horizon, like he’s trying to see what is beyond it.
Judy
It’s been almost two weeks since Stephen died. Life has felt like a blur ever since. My mother’s tears, endless. Art’s decision to leave, unbelievable. I sometimes think I dreamed it all, but I didn’t. It’s real, too real.
“I want you both to come with me,” Art said as he stared out at the Hudson River. “We belong together, the three of us. Let’s start over in San Francisco.” I brushed him off. I thought he was just looking for an easy way to escape the pain of grief. I told him it isn’t that easy. “Maybe it is that easy,” Art said. “How do we know until we try? We’d be like the three heroines ofHow to Marry a Millionaire, living in a pad together. Except instead of marrying millionaires, we’d be changing the world.”
I went along with the joke. I said that if we were going to be like the heroines of that movie, I’d be Lauren Bacall. Art said he’d obviously be Marilyn, which meant Reza would be Betty Grable. And Reza asked who BettyGrable is. And we managed to laugh through our tears.
But there were more tears in store for us. And more anger. With every day that passed, Art became more resolved. At first, he decided he would go to Berkeley in the fall. Then he announced he wouldn’t go to Berkeley at all. He wouldn’t go to college, because that would mean taking more money from his dad, and he was done with him.
I guess I always knew he had to escape his parents’ world to forge his own path. I just didn’t realize his parents’ world encompassed the entire East Coast, and I didn’t think that once he made this decision, he would choose to leave so soon. “I need to go before I change my mind,” he told me.
Now the day of his departure has arrived. Reza and I wait for Art in the lobby of his parents’ apartment building. “How’d it go?” I ask when he emerges holding a small carry-on suitcase.
“As good as it could have,” he says. “My dad wished me luck and told me never to ask for money.” He shakes his head as he says this, but then his face softens and his eyes well up. “And my mom cried. A lot.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, my heart breaking a little. “Your parents love you. I know they do.”
“It’s just, their love comes with a lot of conditions,” he says. “Anyway, it’s not them I’ll miss most. It’s you guys.”
He looks into Reza’s misty eyes. Reza says nothing. His lips just quiver, words hovering under them that won’t come out.
“Before we go,” Art says, “can we stop by a photocopy place?”
