Page 58 of On Fire Island

“Josie, this is our good friend Ben.”

“Nice to meet you.” She smiled, and Ben mumbled something unintelligible in return, before stiffening up like a board.

“Josie is visiting friends,” Pam informed us, before motioning to the empty chair for her to join us.

Ben looked her over, and I knew he was sizing up her “gayness.” His eyes traveled from her crisp white blouse to her loosely cropped jeans before focusing in on her tan suede Birkenstocksandals. He looked at the feet of two women canoodling at the next table and focused in on their Birkenstock sandals as well; he visibly breathed a sigh of relief, ignoring the fact that every straight woman and their mother owns a pair too.

“I come this time every summer,” Josie explained, as she sat.

Ben smiled like a human being and nodded.

“I feel awful that we lost touch,” Pam remarked. “Last time we spoke you were engaged to that British guy.”

Ben’s smile immediately disappeared, and he went from not paying attention to the game to playing as if his life depended on it.

“OOOOOOOOOOOH—sixty-nine.”

Ben had O69.

“What was his name?” Pam asks Josie.

“Reginald Lord.”

“And wasn’t he, like, actual royalty? Wasn’t it Lord Reginald Lord?”

“G fitty—like my titty!”

Ben had G50.

“Something like that,” Josie confirmed. “He was a baronet. And it’s long over. Turns out Sir Lord was a bit more racist than he let on.”

“That’s awful, Josie, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be—glad I found out before the wedding. I would have had to go all Harry and Meghan on them.”

“N and out and N and out 17!”

Ben had N17.

“Are you still in finance?” Pam asked.

“Wow, we really lost touch. I’m not. I opened a cupcake company.”

“Oh my God, you’re Josie-cakes?”

“I am.”

I knew this story. To get through the breakup, Josie had started baking chocolate and vanilla cupcakes filled with cream, somewhat like the Hostess cakes we ate as kids—but with adult flavored fillings like coffee and amaretto and Grand Marnier. She would bring them to work every day. They were so popular that the hedge fund she worked at approached her to start up a business. I read an article about it—out loud to Ben, bragging about how she was that girl who fixed my dress at the wedding. I didn’t know if he hadn’t been listening then or wasn’t now. His eyes looked dead, like he had completely checked out.

Urethra Franklin called out, “B fifty-two—bang, bang, bang on the door, baby!”

Andie looked down at Ben’s board and yelled with the force of ten cis men, “Bingo!! Ben’s got bingo!”

All eyes turned to Ben as the hoopla surrounding the crowning of the bingo winner began. Ben was in complete shock. Urethra approached our table to check his numbers while beginning a number of her own. She belted, “You got to think—think about what you’re trying to do to me... Think, think...”

By the time she got to our table—and the chorus, “Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom”—Ben took her up on the suggestion and fled the scene.

“Where you going, papi chula?” she yelled out after him. “You gonna end up in the meat rack!”

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