A SURPRISE WEDDING

 

At some point between four and five o’clock this morning, I got married.

It was a long time coming.

John and I met at a time when gay men were fighting for their lives, not the right to exchange vows at an altar or in some municipal building. Thirty years ago, an AIDS Project Los Angeles volunteer appreciation gala called Friends in Deed was in the winding down stage. I stood awkwardly with a few volunteers I’d trained with nine months prior. They were the only people I knew and, as much as I’d arrived with the hope of meeting some cute, single guy, that notion quickly evaporated as I snuck glances at men in trendier, tighter shirts, flashing whiter smiles and repeating a mantra in their heads: “I am fabulous!” Sometimes it’s a curse being a mind reader.

Call it a hunch, but I don’t think this is the only 

issue this guy and I would disagree on.

Normally, I’d have headed home already, stopping at a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf to console myself with an ice-blended mocha, but the gathering had a kitschy ’70s theme and I’d never caved to the “Disco sucks” movement. I grinned into my cup of ice—Look! I can make something melt!—and tried to tell myself that casually swaying in place was a super chill version of boogie-oogie-oogie-ing.

 

The facilitator of our volunteer group rushed over, grabbed my hand and pulled me across the dance floor, stopping upon reaching a group of people dancing in a friendship cluster. Scott yanked one of them toward me, shouted introductions over the chorus of “Boogie Wonderland,” said, “You two need to know each other,” and walked off.

My notoriously pale complexion went all B-52s Rock Lobster, but I managed to grin and refrain from staring at my shoes. I’m rarely at ease in a social situation, but perhaps Scott sensed that my best shot of shining came with a retro disco beat. John and I grooved out of obligation as organizers took down tables and chairs on the fringes. Then the music stopped completely and we stood awkwardly, with me willing a stupid grin—was it frozen in place?—to stand in for witty conversation. Nobody pulled John back to his group and none of my acquaintances swooped in to rescue me. The deejay announced it was time for the final song—What else but Queen of Disco Donna Summer’s “Last Dance.” I remained in place as the song started into its slow beginning—not all that danceable for two strangers. I expected John to utter a carefree “Thanks” and walk away, but both of us shuffled slightly from one foot to the other, again and again, until the beat picked up and we were back in a full-on geeky groove again. (Most likely heavier of the geeky than the groovy.)

A week later, we had our first date. It should never have happened.

That afternoon, I’d met a law school classmate for a margarita and couldn’t find a way to wrap up our conversation. If I told her I had a date, it would lead to questions with me answering awkwardly using they/them pronouns—at the time a sign of still being hopelessly closeted rather than anything to do with gender fluidity or enlightenment. I showed up at his Silverlake apartment two hours later than agreed upon after sitting in Sunday summer beach traffic on the PCH in Malibu. It was probably a sign of things to come, something always a bit off, but we made a go of it for nine months until my First Love ended with a thud as John dumped me for a friend of mine, another guy in my APLA buddy group.

Scum. Both of them.

Imagine my surprise to wake up three decades later married to him.

It’s another reason I need to talk to my psychiatrist about changing my meds. The dreams are too vivid, often surreal, persistently continuing, picking up right where I left them, even when I wake myself up to make them stop.

It wasn’t all bad. It’s not like I woke up in Vegas with a hangover and a snake tattoo on my forehead. Finding myself married to John wasn’t a nightmare. Mostly, I just kept saying to myself, “Really?” while sneaking peeks at him through the crowd of people celebrating at “our” place. The dream offered me a chance to see a dear friend from my APLA days who died from brain cancer a few years ago. And, hey, “our” place was a trippy, expansive beachside hippie condo, swathed in avocado green, burnt orange and dark brown, adorned with oversized pillows and enormous rubber tree plants. Needs an update, I told myself, but listen to those ocean waves.

As with most of the dreams that I still recall long after awakening, I kept shaking my head and wondering, What brought that on? Surely it wasn’t the roasted cauliflower.

I last saw John over coffee at a fledgling cafe off La Brea Avenue in the spring of 1993. The get-together was my doing. I’d been a terrible mess after our breakup and I suppose I had a need for him to see me calm, composed, even happy again, having found myself in another (grievously flawed) relationship. It was an unexpected bonus to hear his disappointment that things had fizzled quickly with Rick, my ex-friend, the guy he left me for, even if it seemed misplaced for him to be seeking solace from me. I’d recovered but I met his dejection with stoicism.

As we parted, I knew I needed nothing more from him. I’d entertained the notion of friendship as proof that I was an evolved person, in the spirit of thinking that a person who was once important would always be important, just differently. Nope, notion shattered. As our catch-up conversation dragged on, I found myself bored. As much as I hadn’t liked the way it ended, it was always going to end. Being with someone had been too new to me. My mistakes were many...and messy. Our relationship would only linger as a learning experience.

Married? Unfathomable! It wouldn’t hurt to steer clear of cauliflower for a while. A precautionary measure.

I was tempted to Google him. Nah, I told myself, rigorously shaking my head. What would be the point of it? But then I remembered a dream from a year ago in which a lovely but not particularly work colleague from 1988 popped up. When I Googled her, I found her obituary. It was the anniversary of her death. Was I clairvoyant? Was there something the universe was trying to message me about John?

I caved; I Googled. I’d watched enough episodes of “Charmed” to know you don’t mess with clairvoyance.

I had instant results. For as common as his first name is, adding John’s surname yielded only one person in the whole world wide web. Hello, Facebook page. Palm Springs. Retired. Grayer, heftier, but clearly the same guy, that first love.

The search also yielded relief. No obituary. No abhorrence with me muttering, Hoo, boy, what was I thinking?! Nope. Just a mild hmm as in, We’ll, that’s that. There was a LinkedIn profile too which, judging from the search page, seemed more active. I thought of clicking onto it but shot that down with, “Why?” No answers were forthcoming.

No urge to make a nostalgic Friend request either. I’d searched as much as I wanted to. Last time ever? That may depend on my dinnertime meal choices and whatever the side effects will be for my new meds. As astonishingly indiscriminate I apparently am in saying “I do,” it’s best to never say never.

And so the day moves on. By evening, I suspect my shotgun, three-decades-in-the-making marriage will be annulled. Wedded bliss, but a dream. In this case, a good thing.