One night in a crowded bar in West Hollywood, my dear friend Ed, the great unrequited love of my life, bought me an appletini and smiled like he was glad to see me. It had been more than a year since I’d been graced with that smile, so I imagined it meant Ed actually was glad to see me. This was big news in my personal universe, because I’d been moping after him since we were teens. Ed had come up to L.A. from his home in San Diego to attend his brother’s birthday party, and since it was the first time in ten years that he’d invited me anywhere without my asking, I let myself pretend it was a date.
At the time, I was a champion pretender. My robust fantasy life had sustained our relationship through high school (Someday he’ll realize he’s just fooling himself with those other girls—he really loves me), college (Just because Ed never calls me doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about me), and my recent decision to move all the way from New York to Los Angeles in large part to be closer to him (Okay, so he still never calls me—but it has to mean something that I’ve come all the way out here and it hasn’t made him freak out and move!).
That night I was sure there had to be a special reason Ed had asked me out. I was twenty-four years old, and lately it had seemed to me as if I’d aged past the realm of casual dating. When I met men now, I looked past the one-night stand to the long-term possibilities—after all, my mother had been married at twenty-five. So I couldn’t help wondering if Ed’s asking me there didn’t presage something greater, if maybe the power of nostalgia might not nudge us toward a shared future. I enjoyed the free drinks and got a little high off his smile. When he leaned across the table to whisper in my ear, I went warm imagining what he was going to say to me. I even unbuttoned another button on my shirt.
“Do you think my brother’s gay?” Ed said.
Those six little words changed my life.
Ed had pointed out his brother Moises when I arrived at the bar, but for most of the evening, Moises had registered as little more than a face in the center of a loud and happy crowd, a flicker in my peripheral vision while my gaze stayed locked on Ed. But I had reason to search him out now, and I easily picked him out among the mass of bodies on the dance floor. I say “easily” because Moises looked so much like Ed they might have been twins. They shared the same compact build, the same golden skin, the same short, short curly hair, the same mischievous smile and sparkling eyes. I watched Moi dance, and I watched the way he looked at the tall brunet man he was dancing with, and I knew that look cold. That look was the same look I’d seen Ed give every girl I’d ever brought him. It was the look I’d waited more than a decade for Ed to shine on me.
But I didn’t tell Ed that. What I said was, “Do I think he’s gay? Ed honey, this place is packed wall-to-wall with dancing men.”
I’m still not sure why Ed couldn’t see what I saw. In fact, I should have known right then that if Ed could be so clueless about someone so close to him, so completely oblivious to the obvious, then the chances were pretty slim he’d ever really come to understand me. But if Ed was suffering his own case of massive self-denial, then, man, did I have him beat: There I stood at the end of the evening, waiting for the valet, popping Altoids like they were candy, because Ed had suggested he come back to my place to crash.
Ed was inside, talking with his brother, but I wasn’t the only one in the valet line. Bryan, the man Ed knew as Moises’ roommate, was out there, too. I thanked him for the party, he thanked me for coming, and then he asked me how I knew Moi.
“I don’t,” I said. “I’m a friend of Ed’s. I’ve been in love with him since I was fourteen.”
Bryan did not give any indication that this was an odd thing to tell a stranger. “You know the secret is getting in with his mother,” he said. “All she wants on earth is for Ed to end up with a nice Jewish girl.”
“I’ve tried that, but she never seems to remember me.”
“Try her again. Call her over Thanksgiving. She won’t be there—you’ll get her machine—but then she’ll have to call you back, and the two of you can chat.”
“You’re not a Jewish girl. Does she like you?” I asked.
“She has to,” Bryan said, “because I’m not going anywhere.”
“How long have you been with Moi?” I asked him.
“We’re going on eight years,” Bryan said.
Ed might not have known they were lovers, but eight years together sounded pretty married to me.
Just then, a fight broke out in the street, white boys lunging at each other as if they’d been choreographed.
“Look,” I said, “West Side Story.”
Bryan sang a rousing verse of “Maria.”
“Ed’s going to flip out that I’m getting on so well with the family,” I said.
“Let him,” Bryan said. “We have to inject some edge into this.”
Bryan’s enthusiasm was infectious. No one else in my life had expressed the slightest interest in my feelings for Ed in a very, very long time.
I’ve always struggled to explain how it was possible to feel so strongly for a man who was completely out of my reach, how I could consider Ed my love, or even my friend, though he rarely visited or wrote or called.
Ed was one of the first people I’d met my first day at boarding school, just minutes after my parents had finished unpacking my suitcases, climbed back into their car, and driven away. That afternoon, Ed and I had walked down to the town side of the lake with a girl from my dorm and a boy from his. The four of us rented a rowboat, which the boys rocked back and forth on the water, trying to make us girls scream. Out there on that lake, I felt like these three strangers would be my friends for life. Then Ed announced his plans to run away.
“How are you going to pull that off?” I asked him.
“I’ve got a credit card,” he said.
I was impressed. I’d run away once, for about six minutes, but I’d only gotten halfway down the driveway before I changed my mind. Ed’s plan involved actual funding and a real destination—he was heading back to Florida as soon as possible, because he couldn’t live without water, and by water he meant the ocean, not some stupid lake. There was a mystery and darkness to his personality that enthralled me. I was the sort of girl who wanted to plumb that pain.
I was also flat chested, frizzy haired, and prisoner to a pair of exceptionally thick-lensed glasses, while Ed at fourteen was tanned and muscled, the only boy in our class already proportioned like a full-grown man. It’s no wonder, then, that despite periodically mortifying us both by declaring my undying adoration for him, I was never Ed’s girlfriend; he was drawn to manicured blondes, Southern belles in padded bras. But I was his confidante. Mostly he talked to me about other girls. He’d tell me which ones he liked, and he’d ask me to introduce him to them, and once he had those girls, he’d come to me for advice on how to keep them, or if I thought he should let them go. I thought I knew Ed well, which made me feel special, because those other girls did not.
As I got older, I discovered underwire, hair products, and contact lenses. But I never stopped loving Ed. I thought knowing him like I did had to mean something. I thought he’d figure that out, eventually, if I waited long enough, if I just put in the time.
Ten years later, I was still waiting. After that night in West Hollywood, months would pass without a word from Ed, but Bryan started to call. He behaved as if my friendship with Ed was as important as I imagined it, as if my place in Ed’s life was special and secure. Bryan was optimistic and encouraging, completely convinced that he could help me win Ed. His plan was simple: He integrated me into his and Moi’s life, which was, by extension, Ed’s life, and waited for Ed to wise up. He invited me to parties, and I went, even when Ed wouldn’t be there, because being with Bryan and Moi did spectacular things for my self-esteem. They showered me with attention; at their parties, I was never alone for a moment, never allowed to retreat to a corner chair. With Bryan and Moi, I was a woman I barely recognized, fun and flirty, even hot. A lot of that had to do with how Bryan spoke to me—he called me Sexy, as if that were my name. (Thanks to ten years of unrequited longing, I was a sucker for anyone who called me that, straight or gay.) When I was with Bryan and Moi, I was sexy, and the thought that I might one day end up in Ed’s arms seemed less and less improbable.
Maybe this was because Bryan and Moises had done the improbable themselves: They had found each other and fallen in love, a Southern man and a Latin Jewish man in a domestic arrangement that both cultures might view askance. It didn’t escape me that they’d been hiding their love from Ed almost as many years as I’d been shouting mine from the treetops at him. But despite those difficulties, they’d built a relationship so vibrant and loving that it spread to everything they touched. They’d created a beautiful home that they filled with friends, and they were building a business empire together, buying and selling and developing properties on both coasts.
We all know them, the Super Couples, those couples that all other couples measure themselves against, those couples whose health (or dysfunction) act as markers for the rest. Bryan and Moi were my Super Couple. The way they behaved around each other—their intimacy, their generosity toward each other, their good humor—made me want all those things for myself. I fell for Bryan and Moi almost as quickly as I’d fallen for Ed all those years earlier. Now, when I let myself fantasize about Ed, it wasn’t just the two of us in the picture. It was the four of us: me and Ed and Bryan and Moises, double-dating. I wanted us to be family: me and Ed and my perfect brothers-in-law.
Ironically the closer I got to Bryan and Moises, the more distant Ed and I became. We exchanged calls at our birthdays, but the only reason I knew how to reach him was because Bryan sent me Ed’s new contact information every time he changed his number, or moved. If I knew when Ed was coming to town, it was not because he told me; it was Bryan who did that, suggesting dinners for the four of us that would never come to pass. Bryan’s commitment to the dream rivaled my own, but he wasn’t just my cheerleader—ultimately, he was a true enough friend to be my reality check. One afternoon, he broke the news that everyone else had been keeping from me: Ed was back together with the most significant of his high school girlfriends, the Southern belle to beat all my nightmares of Southern belles. This time it looked like it was for keeps.
Lately I’d been thinking my entire strategy toward Ed was flawed, that no amount of time could make Ed love me the way I wanted. He wasn’t naturally constant, he wasn’t easily intimate, he could never give me what Bryan and Moises had. I’d assumed he simply wasn’t as driven to build a coupled life. But it seemed while I was waiting for him, he’d been waiting for this other woman. For the first time in a decade, I could see through my fantasies. It wasn’t love Ed had no interest in. It was me.
I’m not sure which of us was more disappointed, me or Bryan. “Just thought you ought to know, Sugar,” Bryan said. Sugar was what Bryan called me when the news was less sexy than sad.
Three years later, I’m not Sugar anymore. Now I’m Hon’ or Darlin’, which I suppose are more fitting terms of endearment from one married person to another. I’ll admit to missing Sexy, but gone is the single girl at parties. I’m all grown up, paired off, a shockingly contented wife.
It was while my fiancé, Dave, and I were planning our wedding that Bryan called to tell me Ed was sick. “Sugar,” Bryan said, “if you’re in your car, pull over to the side of the road.” He told me Ed had just been diagnosed with an advanced, aggressive cancer, and that afternoon he’d be leaving San Diego for treatment in New York.
I couldn’t follow him across the country this time, so I sent e-mails and letters, placed upbeat-sounding calls. But I didn’t feel upbeat. Sometimes I was so scared for Ed I couldn’t even manage to ask Bryan about him. Dave did it for me, often without my knowledge, only passing on the news if it seemed good.
We were married while Ed was still in chemo, so he missed our wedding. Bryan and Moises were busy traveling from L.A. to New York to see him, so they missed it, too. But Dave ensured they were all there that day. He toasted absent friends at our reception, and surprised me by singling out Ed by name.
Loving Dave is easy, and mostly painless. I don’t adore his habit of spinning long, punny riffs from the names of our cats, nor do I appreciate being pressed to do the same. The way he moves through our house, shedding socks and soda cans and newspaper pages all over the floor in his wake drives me nuts. But there is no man on earth who can make me feel so much myself when I’m with him, no person I’ve ever met who is so fully invested in my happiness, who is so convinced that I am a woman who can achieve every imagined success. Dave may be completely incapable of doing a load of laundry without written instructions reminding him that drying our clothes is an essential part of the laundering process, but loath as I am to admit it, that’s a small price to pay to secure what I really wanted: a love like Bryan and Moi’s.
It took two full rounds of chemo, but eventually Ed got better. Dave and I are ecstatically married; we’re looking forward to having children and recently got a dog. And after years of waiting, I finally have a partner for my Bryan and Moises double-dates.
A few weeks ago, the four of us had dinner at our favorite Los Feliz Italian place. We talked about real estate, work, traveling. We didn’t talk about Ed, because we didn’t have to. For the first time in ages, I have Ed’s number because he gave it to me. If I want to know what’s he’s up to, all I have to do is call.
Over dessert, Dave asked Bryan and Moi if they ever thought about having children—now that we’re pregnant, Dave wants everyone we know to reproduce.
“I don’t know that we’re there yet,” Moises said. He looked at Bryan.
“Maybe when we’re forty,” Bryan said.
I don’t want them to wait that long. Every time I see them, I am reminded how much I owe them for my own happiness, how they ushered me away from my fantasy and back toward a much more full, real life. In some small way, I like to think that I’ve returned the favor. I hope I’m a little bit responsible for Moi’s finally confiding in his brother the whole truth about Bryan, as he did only a few weeks after that first night in West Hollywood five years ago, the night we met.
Now I want to pull them forward into a life with kids. I want to raise our families together, I want our kids to grow up together, I want them all to be best friends. I want them to grow up, fall in love, get married.
And maybe then, with the next generation, I’ll get my perfect in-laws, after all.