The Mothers A Novel - By Jennifer Gilmore Page 0,15
trip we managed to stretch into thirty minutes. The mixer consisted of Ramon and me; five other couples; two twelve-year-old social workers, Crystal and Tiffany; and the branch director, Nickie.
Ramon and I were the last ones in, which I noted with anxiety as Nickie, tall and mahogany colored, stood up and handed us name tags, white stickers framed in blue, our names printed in childlike letters with a red marker. With a gesture, she invited us to sit at the table, which was really several tables, like we had in grade school, and nothing like the modern tables of Smith Chasen, pushed together. I could see the mini squares of light in between the fake wood where the corners of the tables met up.
“Hi. I’m Jesse, and this is Ramon.” I pushed Ramon forward. “We’re from New York.”
He nodded his head. “Hi.” He put on a smile.
I unpeeled my name tag and pasted it over my heart.
“I’m Tiffany,” one of the blond social workers said. “I used to live in Manhattan!”
“Neat,” I said. “We’re in Brooklyn. Lots of babies in Brooklyn!” I laughed, too loudly.
It was impossible not to notice that the others, all of them, were same-sex couples.
Nickie stepped forward and reached out her hand. “We spoke on the phone. I registered you for this weekend.”
“Yes.” I shook her hand, which was dry and strong.
The lighting—bright, fluorescent, buzzing—was not the kind of lighting I associate with getting to know anyone in a civilized manner. I could see Ramon’s pores, the size of dimes, and the little pubic-like hairs springing from Nickie’s chin. And it illuminated all too clearly who was around the table: one set of lesbians and three sets of gay men. Ramon and I appeared to be the oldest by at least five years. At least.
Being the only heterosexual pair, while anthropologically fascinating, lighted the fear and panic-in-constant-waiting that we had come to the wrong place. Of all the agencies outside of New York, why, I wondered now, had we not chosen the one in Vermont, another popular agency with New Yorkers? Vermont would be beautiful right now, with the leaves, and the maple syrup, and the inns, and the straight couples, I thought, as I put aside that the Vermont agency’s sessions were full through the year and that Ramon and I had been anxious to begin. And so here we were in a strip mall off a highway, in this place I now feared would not get babies for straight people in New York City, no matter how punctual they were.
Forget that there was no ambient music playing, not a single pig resting in a burnt or soggy blanket, nothing skewered—at least not chicken—at this mixer. And forget that everyone sat beneath the glare of the humming light, drinking Dr Pepper from cans. My heart flipped in my chest and I thought of the way this poor goldfish I’d won at a school fair slapped my cupped palms when I held him. I don’t know why I would be so cruel as to take a fish out of water, though I do recall wanting to offer it comfort.
“Sorry we’re late.” I looked around the room, blinking. “We drove in from New York.”
One of the men—Herman, his name tag said—rolled his eyes.
“I just meant it was far,” I said. “And there was an accident.”
“Oh, I heard!” another man, Gabe, said. “I heard Miley Cyrus’s tour bus overturned.”
“No way!” someone else responded.
Gabe nodded. “She wasn’t in it though.”
“Well, thank goodness for that,” he said.
My head bobbed frantically at everything being said. Yes! It was Miley Cyrus! Yes! She wasn’t there! Yes! Thank goodness she was okay. Yes! We were there!
The woman to my right, Anita, her fleece pullover flinty with animal hair, smiled back at me.
Ramon swallowed hard. He had not yet put on his name tag, I noted, as I wondered if, when we returned to the hotel, he would blame me for not signing up with that agency in Vermont.
“I’m Jesse,” I again said, gesturing to my name tag and sliding into one of the two remaining chairs.
“Hi, Jesse!” the room said in unison.
I nodded my head around the room.
Ramon looked at the floor and sat down.
I unpeeled his name tag and slapped it on. “Ramon!” I pointed.
The room bubbled with laughter, and Ramon grabbed my hand beneath the table, with an urgency that startled me. I wasn’t sure if it was to stop me from speaking, to offer comfort, or to receive it.