There was no real reason why I hadn’t told my brother that I was gay. Then again, I just didn’t really have a reason to tell him. I wasn’t dating anyone, and because none of his friends had any idea that I was gay, I wasn’t worried that he’d find out from someone other than me. I knew Mom wouldn’t tell him. She didn’t want anyone to know.
I could hear my brother talking to the bartender about how he just arrived from LA and the old-fashioned cash register make the ding sound as it popped open its drawer to swallow up the gold two-dollar coins. I took a drag of my cigarette and found it hard to breathe the smoke back out of my mouth. My throat had constricted with anxiety, trapping the smoke in my lungs. It was time to reveal myself to my brother. I was sure he’d be confused and have a lot of questions, but I had to tell him how alone and misunderstood I’ve felt. I could no longer keep this secret from him and I just had to hope that he would understand.
He returned with the beers. He put them down on the table. He sat down. He took a sip.
“Brother. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time. Something I’ve known since I was a kid, really. Well, teenager, I guess. Umm . . .” I took a deep breath and looked at him in his eyes. “I’m gay.”
There was an eruption of laughter at the pool table. One man had apparently scratched by sinking the white ball in behind the black to lose the game. The man who won was yelling and walking backward with his arms spread wide, a pool cue in his right hand. He was coming dangerously close to our table. To my surprise, my brother didn’t seem to notice and to my even bigger surprise he looked angry. He’d been staring at the table for what seemed like an eternity and for a brief moment I wondered if he’d even heard what I’d said.
“What did you think I would say, Porshe? Why would you think that I’d care about something like that? I’m not some narrow-minded bigot that you’d have to hide this from. I mean, who do you think I am?”
Of all the feelings I thought he would have, betrayal had never crossed my mind. I had betrayed him by hiding the person I really was from him for fear that he would reject me. I had insulted him by insinuating that he harbored thoughts of discrimination and bigotry. His reaction was so surprising to me and it left me feeling ashamed for judging him. And yet I couldn’t remember feeling happier. I could tell by his expression that once he got over his anger at me for keeping this secret from him, there was nothing left to talk about. He wasn’t confused. He didn’t need questions answered. He didn’t ask why or how or with whom or whether I thought maybe it might just be a phase. He didn’t ask who knew and who didn’t know or whether I thought it might ruin my career. I was his sister and he didn’t care whether I was straight or gay; it simply didn’t matter to him. I’d been worried that he wouldn’t believe me, but he didn’t even question me. All that mattered to him was that I had been struggling with this tortuous secret without his help.
His phone rang. It was a work call from LA; it wasn’t yet Christmas Eve over there—it was just the twenty-third of the month, a day like any other. He took the call and spoke in a tone that was all business. In his voice there was no evidence of anger or betrayal—it was light and friendly without a hint of emotion. He spoke and chugged down his beer.
“You ready?” He didn’t even look at my untouched beer.
“Let’s go.”
As we walked side by side down the Melbourne street in the late-afternoon heat of summer, he put his arm around my shoulder. He understood. He still loved me. We sauntered down the city street listening to the magpies that squarked so loudly we couldn’t have heard each other even if we had needed to talk. But we didn’t. We just needed to silently acknowledge that we were home, that we were where we came from, that for that moment we didn’t need to live in another country just to feel accomplished. We were okay just as we were. Our silence was broken by the remote unlocking the rental car. He uncharacteristically opened my side first, like a gentleman, and just as I was about to thank him for his valor he said:
“You’re good at wrapping gifts, aren’t you?”
24
CHRISTMAS MORNING, like every other morning since I’d arrived in Melbourne, began in the dark, as jet lag, the discomfort of an unfamiliar bed, and hunger prevented me from sleeping past 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. I lay in the darkness of the master bedroom of my two-bedroom hotel suite and ran through my calorie consumption and calorie burn of the day before. This mental calculation had become a ritual, and it was done with precision and some urgency. Only when I could solve the equation of calories in and calories out could I feel relief and begin my day. There was a scale in the bathroom. I saw it when I arrived the night before. It was digital and measured weight in pounds, unlike other Australian scales, which measured in kilograms. Could I possibly stand on it? Could I weigh myself? I’d been too scared to check my weight since arriving in Australia because of the water retention that can occur during plane travel, and I didn’t want to upset myself. But lying in bed Christmas morning, I felt thin. I could feel my hip bones and my ribs. I lay on my side with my legs slightly bent with one knee on top of the other for the ultimate test of weight loss: if the fat on my top thigh didn’t touch my bottom thigh, if there was a gap between my thighs even when I was lying down, then my thighs had to be thin. There was a wide gap and I made a mental note to measure that gap with one of those stiff metal tape measures when I got back home. I felt as though I could get on that digital scale and give myself the Christmas present of a good number, a number that would show my hard work; a number that would congratulate me for dieting successfully for eight months.
For eight months, I hadn’t gained a pound. I’d stayed the same for a few days at a time, but I hadn’t gained. My initial goal weight was 115 pounds. My mistake was that I set a goal weight thinking that 115 pounds would feel different from how it really felt. I thought I would look thinner than I did at that weight. At 115 pounds, although my stomach was flatter and my arms looked good, my thighs were still too big. At 110 pounds, I was happy. I really liked how I looked. I only went under that weight because I needed a cushion in case that uncontrollable urge to binge happened again and it wasn’t chewing gum, but ice cream, candy, or potato chips that abducted me.
The only thing I cared about now was not gaining. As long as I never gained, weight loss was no longer that important. But seeing a new low on the scale did give me a high. And the lower the number, the bigger the high.
I walked into the bathroom and used the toilet. I then held my breath as I eased onto the scale, my arms holding me up on the bathroom counter, holding my weight off the scale for as long as it took to gently add weight pound by pound until I could let go of the counter and stand with my arms by my side. In this hotel bathroom, naked and vulnerable, I closed my eyes and prayed. The red digital number in between and just in front of my feet would determine whether I had a happy Christmas or a miserable one. To no one in particular I said out loud, “Please let me be in the nineties. I’ll take ninety-five, I’m not greedy, just don’t let it be in the hundreds. I’d rather die than be in the hundreds. Please, please, please, please.” I started to cry with anxiety, but I quickly calmed myself down as I was worried the jerkiness my body makes when I cry might have caused the number on the scale to shoot up and not come down again. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to start over, to ease back on the scale again just to make sure that the number I saw would be the accurate one. As I got off the scale looking straight ahead at my reflection in the mirror, I felt as though I needed to use the bathroom again and I did so hoping that I’d gotten all the excess water out of my body. I eased myself back onto the scale feeling fortunate that I hadn’t read the first number, that God had whispered in my ear and told me to get off the scale and use the bathroom so I could avoid the pain that the false read would’ve given me. I stood now with my hands by my side. I was empty. I was no longer crying. I was ready to receive my Christmas present, the gift of health and self-love that I’d given myself this year. With complete calmness and acceptance, I looked down at my feet.