FAUSTINA AND THE MAN stood side by side on Leonard’s doorstep, each staring straight ahead. Faustina held a bottle of pinot grigio. The man admired Leonard’s door. He wondered who chose the bright red paint, Leonard or his husband. Perhaps the prior owners did. Or maybe the realtor, who wanted to give a pop of color in contrast to the subdued off-white paint chosen for the rest of the house. Yes, that must be it. The man saw that on HGTV. It’s amazing how little tricks like that can work. The man suddenly realized that raucous laughter emanated from behind the red door.
“Sounds like someone is having fun,” said Faustina.
“Yes,” said the man.
“I suppose one of us should ring the doorbell.”
“Yes.”
They stood in silence without moving.
“I will introduce you as my friend,” said Faustina.
“That would be an accurate statement,” said the man.
Faustina looked at the man, who kept his eyes on Leonard’s red door. She sighed, turned toward the door, and rang the doorbell. A neighbor’s dog barked. They could hear someone yelling, “I’ll get it!” After a few seconds, the door opened and the party’s sounds spilled out.
“Faustina!” said Leonard, who held a boy with both arms. The boy buried his face into Leonard’s chest. “Forgive Diego. He just woke up from a nap.”
“He’s so big!” said Faustina as she leaned in to give Leonard—and by default, his son—a hug.
“I know! I won’t be able to carry him soon!”
Faustina pulled back and held up the bottle of pinot grigio so that Leonard could see the label.
“Oh, my favorite,” said Leonard. He turned to the man. “And this is…?”
Faustina laughed. She introduced the man as her “good friend.”
“Any good friend of Faustina’s is a good friend of mine,” said Leonard. “Excuse me if I don’t shake hands, but as you can see, they are a bit busy right now.”
The man nodded, smiled, and said, “Hello.”
“Come on in,” said Leonard as he moved to the side. “Plenty of food and drink just waiting for you. Hubby is behind the bar, per usual. Go say hi and put in your order.”
“Your wish is my command,” said Faustina.
The house undulated with people of all ages who laughed, chatted, ate, and drank. Faustina dutifully introduced the man to her law firm team members, their significant others, and a few children of various sizes and energy levels. All the while, Faustina kept an eye on the bar at the far end of the living room, where Leonard’s husband took his role as bartender quite seriously.
“Almost there,” whispered Faustina into the man’s right ear.
The man nodded and appreciated Faustina’s focus. After a few more introductions to various partygoers, they arrived at their destination.
“¡Hola, mi vida!” said Faustina.
“¡Hola, mi amor!” said Alejandro. “You look beautiful!”
“Not too loud, or else your hubby might hear.”
“No te preocupes. He loves you too.”
“Maybe I should marry the both of you and live happily ever after.”
“Perfecto.”
“And I wouldn’t need to have a baby and ruin this hot body. Diego is all I need for a kid.”
Alejandro laughed and then offered a welcoming smile to the man. “I’m Alejandro Venegas, Leonard’s husband.”
“Where are my manners?” said Faustina and introduced the man to Alejandro.
“Mucho gusto,” said Alejandro.
“Mucho gusto,” said the man.
“And how do you know each other?” said Alejandro.
“He is my very good friend,” said Faustina.
The man turned to Faustina. “I thought I was just your good friend,” he said.
Faustina laughed. “Yes, let me correct the record: he is my good friend, not my very good friend.”
“I remember you,” said Alejandro as he chuckled. “You attended the Yosemite environmental law conference.”
“Yes,” said the man, “I did.”
“And here is a lovely bottle of pinot grigio to help restock your bar,” said Faustina as she handed the wine to Alejandro, who examined the label with appreciation. He then set it aside with the other bottles of wine.
“What can I get for you two?” said Alejandro as he gestured toward the many bottles of alcohol arrayed before him. “I assume you will want a cocktail first, and then move to wine when you fill a plate with the wonderful food Leonard has been cooking all day.”
“I want to experiment and try an old-timey drink,” said Faustina.
“¡Qué interesante!” said Alejandro.
“I will have a Manhattan,” said Faustina. “I watched Some Like It Hot for like the billionth time last week and that was the preferred drink of the lady band members.”
“Old-timey is right, but a delicious choice and great movie too.” Alejandro picked a glass from beneath the bar, set it down, and looked up at the man. “And are you having the same, or do you have a different movie drink in mind?”
The man thought about the movies he had watched since his reanimation three years ago. A coworker at his first law firm job ranked all of the James Bond films in order of quality based on this coworker’s own private algorithm, which included factors such as the number of car crashes, beautiful women, drinks consumed, people shot, people tortured, the quality of the opening sequence song, and other key elements of Bond films. So the man promised his coworker to watch each one, which he did over the course of several months. He tried to remember what drinks 007 had in each movie. There were so many. The man thought for a moment.
“Rum Collins, please,” the man finally said.
“Oh, interesting,” said Alejandro. “Which film is that from?”
“Thunderball.”
“Not my favorite Bond film, but a good drink.”
Faustina looked at the man and let out a small laugh. “I didn’t know you were a James Bond fan.”
“See what you learn at parties,” said Alejandro as he mixed the drinks.
“I have seen all of the Bond films once,” said the man thoughtfully. “I don’t know if that makes me a fan, but maybe it does. I never really thought about it.”
Alejandro carefully set the finished drinks before Faustina and the man. “Drink up,” he said. “Time to catch up with everyone else.”
They grabbed their drinks. Faustina held hers out to clink with the man’s glass. The man simply held his glass and looked at Faustina’s glass suspended before him. He then realized what he needed to do, so he clinked his glass to hers. They each took a drink.
“Oh God, that is good,” said Faustina.
“Gracias,” said Alejandro. “And yours?”
The man nodded. “Yes, I like mine.”
“Good! I have done my job to save thirsty souls! I am the Mother Teresa of cocktails. I am on my way to becoming a saint.”
“Isn’t death the first step to becoming a saint?” said the man.
Alejandro laughed. “So maybe I can skip that step for now.”
“I have a question about your son,” said the man.
Faustina’s head jerked back just a bit, and she looked at the man.
“Yes?” said Alejandro. “What about Diego?”
“He looks like you, not Leonard.”
“True. Is that a question?”
“No,” said the man. “What I mean is, where did Diego come from?”
Alejandro smiled. “Oh, I see what you’re getting at.”
“Please forgive him,” said Faustina. “He’s very plainspoken.”
“I do not mind at all,” said Alejandro. “I prefer honesty.”
A wobbly woman came up to the bar and held up an empty wineglass. Alejandro dutifully refilled it without missing a beat. The woman tried to curtsy but lost her balance and almost fell. She recovered, nodded, and wobbled off.
“My sperm and one surrogate,” said Alejandro. “Leonard and I both supplied our own samples and let chance decide whose sperm would reach the egg first. IVF clinics wouldn’t do that in years past. The most they’d do was use the two guys’ sperm to fertilize multiple eggs so that it was still one egg being fertilized by one donor. But things have loosened up—regulation-wise.”
“You mean with the drop in our country’s birthrate?” said the man.
“Bingo!” said Alejandro. “All kinds of regulations have loosened up.”
Faustina coughed a little and shot a look at Alejandro.
“Anyhoo,” said Alejandro, “we found a clinic that would mix our sperm so that we’d leave it to chance as to who would be the biological father. Mine were clearly the faster swimmers. Well, at least one was.”
Faustina almost spat out a mouthful of Manhattan as she stifled a laugh.
“Now, there have been remarkable breakthroughs with three-person IVF, where the one donor egg can be modified by two donor sperm—I don’t know all of the exact terminology—but you get what I mean. But Leonard and I didn’t want to go down that route. Too controversial, too sci-fi, you know what I mean?”
“Sci-fi?” said the man.
“You know, kind of too close to Gattaca.”
“Gattaca?” said the man.
“The movie,” said Faustina.
“Anyway,” said Alejandro, “we wanted to leave a little to chance and not get too deep into genetic engineering.”
“So,” said the man, “if Leonard’s sperm had been faster, Diego would have been darker?”
“¡Dios mío! You are plainspoken!” said Alejandro. “But yes, that likely would have been the case. Either way, we are blessed.”
“Yes,” said the man. “I agree. Either way, you two are blessed. You are lucky to have Diego.”
Alejandro turned to Faustina and winked. Faustina shook her head and took a long drink of her Manhattan.
“Go mingle,” said Alejandro. “And try some of the stuffed mushrooms. They are Leonard’s masterpiece.”
“Oh, I love his stuffed mushrooms!” said Faustina.
“But don’t ruin your dinner,” said Alejandro. “Leonard’s tri-tip is manna from heaven.”
“I know why you married him,” said Faustina.
“He is a Renaissance man,” said Alejandro. “A brilliant lawyer, an even better cook. Plus he ain’t bad to look at.”
Faustina raised her glass in agreement.
“Yes, I agree,” said the man. “Leonard is very handsome.”
Alejandro and Faustina looked at each other and then broke out in laughter simultaneously.
“I think I am beginning to appreciate this man’s plainspoken manner,” said Alejandro. “It’s refreshing.”
“It is that,” said Faustina. “Refreshing is the perfect way to put it.”
“Faustina!”
Faustina turned to where the voice came from. Across the room, on a couch, sat Grace and Brandon. Grace waved frantically at Faustina.
“Who is that?” said the man.
“My other law partner.”
“Why is she smiling so much and waving like that?”
“She’s dying to meet you, that’s why.”
“Oh.”
Faustina took a long drink. “Okay, I’m ready for the lion’s den.”
“That’s from the Bible,” said the man.
“You are an educated man. Let’s go.”
“Have fun,” said Alejandro. “And nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you,” said the man.
Faustina grabbed the man’s arm and put it around her waist. “Fuck it. Let’s give her a show,” she said as she pulled the man along. “You only live twice.”
“Number six,” said the man.
“What?”
“On my old coworker’s list of best Bond films.”
“Well, let’s make it number one,” said Faustina. “Let’s say hi to Grace and her hubby.”
“I HAD A NICE time tonight,” said Faustina. She rested her head on the man’s bare chest as they lay in his bed under a rumpled sheet. A lamp in the far corner of the room gave off a soft amber glow.
“I am glad I met your friends,” said the man.
They were silent for three minutes before Faustina broke the silence: “What was all that about Diego’s skin color?”
“I wanted to understand,” said the man as he stared up at the ceiling.
“Understand what?”
“How Diego came to be.”
“Oh,” said Faustina. “I guess I just took it for granted since I’ve known Leonard and Alejandro for so long. They actually came to me when they first started looking for a surrogate. They thought that I might want to do it, but it was too much of a commitment.”
“Commitment?”
“Even though they would have adopted the child to make it legal, if I carried that baby in me for nine months, I would have had, you know, feelings.”
“Feelings?”
“Motherly feelings. I think it’s inevitable, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I suspect most men would not know or even understand the concern,” said Faustina.
The man thought about this. He did not have another question.
“But no matter,” said Faustina. “Like I said, I had a nice time tonight.”
“Thank you,” said the man.
“Oh, you’re taking all the credit for my good time?”
“No, that’s not what I was thanking you for.”
“Oh.”
“Thank you for inviting me to the party.”
“Actually, if you think about it, my mother invited you,” said Faustina. “So what choice did I have?”
The man let out a little laugh.
“Oh, so you find me funny?”
The man nodded.
“Happy to entertain you,” said Faustina.
“Well,” said the man, “it is a funny statement because, in the end, you always have a choice. So you could have told your mother that you were not ready to have your coworkers meet me. And I know you are not shy about saying how you feel. That much I know.”
“Well, either way, I actually had a good time,” said Faustina. “It wasn’t as weird as I thought it would be.”
The man held Faustina. After a few minutes, he could hear her snore softly. The man smiled and stared at the ceiling. Within a few more minutes, the man fell asleep, his soft snores falling into sync with hers.