8/29/2011 The Comedian

Little did she know it, but in telling me her coming-of-age coming out story at the Cat and Fiddle, Wendy was actually talking with someone who could empathize with the torment of breaking up with an older, more controlling woman.  Back in New York when I had encouraged Maureen, another actress, to read Collette before she had entered into a gay relationship with Christine, her French teacher, I had inadvertently found myself being used as a decoy so that the two women wouldn’t be busted by Christine’s ex-husband who might, if he had known they were in a relationship, have started a child custody battle for their son, Pierre.  So that tongues (mostly Pierre’s) wouldn’t wag, I would come over to Christine’s Village apartment as Maureen’s “date”.  Halfway through the evening, when Pierre was asleep, I would leave. 

For someone who, at the time, was on a tight budget, it was a comfort to forgo pricey meals out and enjoy Christine’s French cooking.  I was in rehearsals for a play that was moving from the American Renaissance Theater to an Off-Broadway run at what was then the Harold Clurman Theater (now the Henry Miller) on Theater Row (43^rd Street).  It was late summer and Maureen’s love affair with Christine had been going on since April.  To make sure their relationship was hidden from her ex, Christine monitored the complicated dating logistics with a strict regimen that, just before my play went into previews, was beginning to wear on both their nerves.

One night, after one of my final preview performances, Christine invited me over for a late night dinner.  Pierre was being picked up by his dad around ten o’clock, and, if I slipped away from my show early, I could meet up with Maureen and show up at the apartment before he got there to say hello to Christine’s “theater friends.”  I left my show at intermission—the booking agent had sold out the house to a group of blind people who seemed to be having a good time (even laughing while I winced at one my actresses referring to one of the baseball players she was watching as “swinging the bat like a bland man chasing butterflies”), so I didn’t feel as if I had to give any notes to the director afterwards. 

When I got to Christine’s place, Maureen was already there, which was as planned, but so was Christine’s ex-husband, Roger.  This wasn’t as planned.  For some reason Roger had arrived early, so when I walked through the door the normally spirited Christine--all voulez-vous this and permittez-moi that in a high-piping Marriage of Figaro voice--squeaked a timid, “A-lo,” and then awkwardly tried to introduce me as “Un ami du Maureen ooze play it opeens...een a vew days, n’est ce pas?”

“Day after tomorrow,” I nodded, as I watched Christine, pale as a Parisian, begin to turn red.  Roger, a bald, portly man in a grey suit, frowned.  Maureen gave me a wide-eyed look that screamed, “Do something!”  For lack of a better move, I put my arm around her shoulders and said, as apologetically as I could muster, “Sorry, I couldn’t get away as soon as I thought.  Had an audience of blind people.”

This was not the clever cue line that Maureen expected.  Speechless, she stared at me as if I were off my meds.  I gave her a squeeze and then grinned, like some kind of moron, at Roger.  He was not amused.  In fact, his frown had hardened into lines of disgust.

Christine, brave soul, tried to cut the tension with a giggling, “They buy the billets to see a play they could not see?”

“All ears,” I quipped, and we both laughed. 

Roger gave her a scornful glance.  “I’ll have Pierre back at noon on Sunday.” Then, as he turned his back to usher his son out the door, he scowled, “Have fun with your comedian!”

It took us a moment, punctuated by his slamming the door shut as he left, to realize that it wasn’t Maureen’s presence at Christine’s apartment that irked him.  “Did you catch that?” Maureen gasped.

“He thinks you’re the decoy,” I said.

“But does he think she’s gay?” Christine asked.

“Does it matter?”  I laughed.  “As long as he thinks you’re not, then any time Maureen is here he’ll be happy.”

“If you stay away,” Christine added.

“I’m going back to New Mexico next week.  I think things will work out perfectly.”

And they would have—in a perfect universe.  As it was, my absence only sped up their splitting up.