team. He’s got the skills to carry the ball on this one.”
Andrew had been a jock in high school and it showed.
“Thanks,” Laurent answered. Before joining Sophie’s Voice, he had worked on 60 Minutes for three years. He was well versed in covert video technology. He explained to the group-sorry, Andrew, team — where the cameras and microphones would be concealed on our persons. Laurent was a true geek-passionate about his equipment and oblivious to the mind-numbing boredom settling over the room. My mother suppressed yawns, Andrew started texting on his BlackBerry, Steven appeared to have fallen asleep, and even Roni, whose job was to understand all the details of any given shoot, doodled elaborate designs on her notebook while he droned on for over an hour.
The video would be streamed to monitors in a van that’d be parked on the street, as close to Families by Design as they could get. Andrew, Laurent, Roni, and Steven would be waiting for us in there, observing the proceedings in case something went wrong.
And when I say “in case” I mean “when.”
Steven was coming to apply any last touches to our makeup, a process we’d begun hours earlier in the studio.
“How close in age do you think you’ll be able to get them to look?” Andrew asked him. I don’t think Andrew had anything particularly against Steven, so why he put him in that position I’ll never know. My mother had me late in life and was a good forty years older than I was.
Steven’s eyes darted nervously around the room, like a man looking for the shooter with the worst aim on the executioner’s line.
As he’d just helped me the other day with my SwordFight makeup, I felt compelled to rush to his aid. “I was just talking to Steven about it this morning,” I answered brightly. “He says my mother and I will be totally believable as an unmarried couple looking to adopt.”
I left out the last part of his warning: “if they’re deaf, dumb, and blind. Or just very, very dumb.”
“Yes,” Andrew said, “but exactly how close can you… ow!”
I’d kicked him under the table. Hard.
“Andrew, darling”-my mother slipped into her maternal voice-“are you okay?”
Andrew shot me a dirty look. “I’m fine. Just a cramp.”
“Probably from sitting so long,” my mother concluded sagely. “I think we’ve covered everything we need to. Shall we break for now?”
Under the best circumstances, my mother had the attention span of a hyperactive three-year-old. I suspected she’d been looking for a way to wind up the meeting halfway into Laurent’s excruciating monologue.
“Good idea!” I sprang to my feet. “It’s a wrap!”
On set, that’d be Roni’s line, but I felt free to use it here. Steven’s grateful nod toward me affirmed I’d been right.
“Kevin, just a minute,” Andrew said as I made a beeline for the door. “Could I have a word?”
Andrew’s tone implied the word wasn’t thanks.
“Just one,” I said, trying to keep it light. “Choose carefully.”
“Is there some reason you kneecapped me just now?”
I explained I was protecting Steven from having to pretend that even with all the makeup in the world, he could get me and my mother looking within a decade of each other.
“Fine,” Andrew granted. “But next time you want to change the subject, can you do it without pulling a Tonya Harding on me?”
“Sorry,” I said, ducking my head, giving him a look of boyish repentance through my blond bangs. It was a move that worked with most guys. Even the straight ones fell for the contrite choirboy routine. “Forgive me?”
Andrew sat on the edge of his desk and spread his legs. He dropped a hand mid-thigh. “You could,” he offered, “kiss it all better.”
I should have known that on perennial horn dog Andrew, that look would work too well. Lucky I hadn’t kicked him in the balls.
“You know Tony carries a gun, right? Even when he’s off duty?”
“How is it,” Andrew asked, snapping his knees together, “that the mere mention of that man’s name is like the anti-Viagra for me?”
“It’s a good sign,” I encouraged. “It means your desire to remain alive is stronger than your desire for a blow job.”
“Oh god,” Andrew groaned. “That’s a good sign? What’s a bad one? Male pattern baldness? Early Alzheimer’s? Erectile dysfunction?”
“We already covered that last one. You got aging on the mind, old man?” I figured Andrew was around twenty-seven. A little young to be worried about joining AARP.
“It’s just everyone I know is settling down. Partnering up. Getting married. Whatever.” He hunched over in a defeated slump. “Soon, I’m going to be the last single man in Manhattan.”
“Please,” I said. “You’ve got more men nipping at your heels than Joan Rivers has had face-lifts. You’ve got a pretty deep pool of potential husbands out there. All you have to do is pick one.”
“That’s just it,” he complained. “How do you pick one? How will I know?”
“Oh, honey, not even Whitney Houston, god rest her soul, could have answered that question. Although she did hit number one with it.”
He looked at me blankly.
“Okay, forget the eighties pop culture reference. Listen, the grass is always greener, right? Half the people I know in relationships wish they were single. Almost all my single friends wish they had a partner. Just enjoy what you have now. The chance for variety. When you meet the right guy, you’ll know.”
“What,” he said, regarding me gravely with a dramatic hoarseness in his voice, “if the one you know is ‘the right one’ is otherwise engaged? Like, to a jealous cop who could break me in two, for instance?”
Andrew and I met in high school and I think he was still stuck there in his interactions with me. Any day now, I expected him to have Suzy pass me a note in homeroom saying, I think you’re cute. Love, Guess who???
“You can say that to me because it’s easy,” I told him, sounding harsh even to myself. “It’s safe. You know I’m unavailable.”
He looked surprised at my directness.
“The trick,” I said, “is being able to say it to someone who is available. To make the offer to someone who can say yes.”
“You could say yes,” he countered. “If you wanted to. There’s no ring on your finger, Kevin. At least not yet. Are you really going to wait forever for a man who won’t even admit he’s gay?”
Was there some reason everyone felt compelled to comment on my personal life? It was starting to piss me off.
“Self-pity isn’t a good look for you, Andrew. There’s hundreds of guys out there who’d cut off a finger for you. Stop pining for the ones you can’t have.”
“Hundreds?” he asked. “Not thousands?”
Oh. My. God. “Do you want me to get the other knee? If you can wait a minute, I think I have a baseball bat in my office.”
“Fine,” he barked, but not without humor. “I hear you. Switching roles for a moment, don’t think I haven’t noticed how much time you’ve spent out of the office these past few days. You don’t have another job or anything, do you?”
No, but had the audition gone better, I might have.
“Sorry,” I said. “I had some personal issues to take care of.” Thinking how I’d run out of leads on my quest to find Brent Havens, I felt safe adding, “I think I’ve taken them as far as I can, though. I shouldn’t have to miss any more work.”
“Good,” he said. “Please don’t make me get all ‘boss’ with you. I’d hate to have my flirting mistaken for sexual harassment.”
“No,” I assured him, “you were a pig way before I started working for you. Safe as houses there, chief.”
“Cute. Just try to cut back on the outside activities a little, okay? At least during working hours.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” I said, taking this as my opportunity to make an exit. “I promise no more sneaking out during the day.”
