I Hate Everyone, Except You(34)
“That’s my job!”
When I got back to my office, I decided that I was going to ask Damon out on a date. I just couldn’t stop thinking about him. He was smart, funny, athletic, gorgeous, and not an asshole—a breed so rare in New York many assume it’s extinct. But I didn’t want to ask him out over the phone or e-mail. Too pedestrian. So, I decided to handwrite him a note on my nicest stationery. Maybe that would make me stand out, I hoped, from the mob of homosexuals most certainly clawing at him daily.
I pulled out a note card with my name embossed across the top and wrote: “Can I take you out for coffee sometime?”
It was the me I wanted to be, strong and decisive. A real man’s man. But then I decided it was too straightforward, and part of my charm, I hoped, was being kind of a spaz, so I took another note card out of the box and wrote: “I was thinking, maybe, if you had nothing better to do, I could, like, take you out for a coffee, or a tea, or some kind of other beverage if you don’t do caffeine. Or not. I mean, I wouldn’t want to bother you so . . . ummm . . . give me a call if you feel like it. Or if you’re busy I totally understand. Have a nice day. Or a nice life. Or I’ll see you soon. Whatever.”
I set both note cards down on my desk and tried to decide which one to send. Rambling or direct? Direct or rambling? I must have looked at them for five minutes before I choked. I crammed both into a blue-metallic-lined envelope, along with my business card, addressed it to Damon Bayles at Chelsea Piers, and threw it in the company mail bin.
Four days later I received an e-mail—an e-mail!—that read: “Dear Clinton, I really enjoyed speaking with you. Thank you for your invitation(s), but I’m seeing someone right now. I hope you understand. Maybe we’ll bump into each other one of these days. I’ll look forward to that. Sincerely, Damon Bayles.”
And I thought, He’s lying. I’m not his type, but he’s telling me he’s in a relationship because he doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. Because I’ve never been the type to think about what I can’t have, I put Damon out of my mind, quite successfully.
The next day I received another significant e-mail, this one from a casting agent asking if I would like to audition for a television makeover show called What Not to Wear.
Switch.
*
Now, where were we again? Oh, that’s right. We were in that crowded bar, two years later.
The friend dragging the handsome guy in the orange-striped shirt asked me, “Are you Clinton Kelly?”
“I am,” I said.
“I think you know my friend . . .”
“Damon!” I said. “Damon Bayles. How the hell are you?”
When I said that I had put Damon out of my mind, I meant that I had forgotten he existed, forgot what he looked like, everything about him, until that exact moment when it all came flooding back into my brain, my whole being. A switch had been flipped, but not just a switch that triggers memories of platonic encounters of years past. It was a track change. And I felt it. It’s like being sprayed with a superfine mist of ice-cold water on an excruciatingly hot day, all over your body, all at once. Or standing in a room in which the atmospheric pressure changes so suddenly that you have to take a little breath. Or, I would imagine, watching your baby walk clear across the room, out of the blue, smiling his face off.
“I’m great,” he said. “How are you?”
“You know, I’m a big TV star now,” I said with a laugh.
“I don’t own a television.”
He really didn’t. That was 2005, and today Damon and I have decided that this story, at least insomuch as it concerns you, is best ended here. I hope you’re not offended, but the complete story of “us” just isn’t one we want publicly consumed. I will, however, tidy up a few loose ends because I’d hate to leave you hanging. I’m no tease.
Damon was being truthful when he said he was seeing someone. When he called it off with whomever that was (I’ve never asked), he e-mailed me again to ask me out, but the e-mail bounced back because I had quit my job to embark upon my television journey. He called too, but no one answered. He only had my work information from my business card. And those two note cards I sent him: He kept them. I didn’t believe him, but he showed them to me once. I could have died of embarrassment—how ridiculous I was—and yet I wanted to cry from the chest-crushing happiness.
We’ve been together for eleven years. Sometimes I think about how, if I hadn’t accepted the job on What Not to Wear, Damon and I would have gotten together much sooner. But would I have been ready? Would he have been ready? Would I have felt the switch—click!—the same way I did that night? I’ll never know, of course. Unless when I die, some godlike being shows me a map, perhaps an incredibly detailed decision tree of my life, in which all paths lead to Damon. But in this reality, I’m happy with the track I’m on.
CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT!
Joan Rivers released a comedy album in 1983 called What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most? I literally have no idea how an 8-track of it found its way into my first car a few years later, but I listened to it constantly for a month or so, until I stopped laughing at the jokes out of familiarity. Today, I remember little about her routine, except one short bit that still resonates with me: “Drugs,” Joan says. “I don’t do drugs. But every once in a while I sprinkle a little Fresca on a panty shield. Perks me right up.”