A Poor Gay Frat Boy Gets Serious With a Rich Girl
By: Laurence Best
Tags: Coming Of Age, Equality, LGBTQ, Memoir, Creative Non Fiction

Christmas approaches before I know it, and Sue invites me to her family’s Christmas Eve party. I’m nervous. I won’t know anyone, so Sue generously suggests I bring another couple. I settle on my fraternity brother Anthony and his girlfriend Joanie whom I’ve known since junior high. She is also from a well-to-do Lakefront family.

When the three of us arrive, Mrs. Wentworth again answers the door. This time, however, her hair is beauty parlor fresh and she is holiday dressed. Her glossy black cane is topped with a silver handle. Her eyes flinch when she sees Joanie wearing a black-lace, mostly see-through pants suit with a bare midriff. Joanie visibly revels in her nonconformity and Mrs. Wentworth’s thinly veiled scorn. I worried when I saw Joanie earlier, but am now mortified at how my choice has backfired. Instead of being elevated in her mother’s esteem, I fear I am diminished.

All evening I see family and friends of the Wentworth's staring at and whispering about shocking Joanie. I pretend not to notice while Anthony chuckles and smirks. He is from a middle-class Italian family and enjoys the attention. I am very close to them, am often in their homes, and love their families, so there is no question which side I am on, but this does not relieve my dismay. The evening is otherwise good and I continue to hope Susan’s family will come to accept me regardless of my shortcomings.

Another opportunity to impress them soon presents itself. Just after New Years’, Alan decides the fraternity should host an elegant coffee for parents. There will also be brandy, pastries, and an open bar. One of our new pledges lives in a large Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired home, also in Lake Terrace. It is spacious enough and otherwise appropriate.

I agree to help, because this is the perfect time and place to introduce my mother to Sue’s parents. She has already met Sue and was gracious and approving. I have several concerns about this meeting, but it is unavoidable because Sue is “the one” and they will all have to meet.

My mother has not remarried. She is an office manager at a prominent life insurance agency, but women do not make men’s salaries, so we barely scrape by. We’ve had several eviction moments that were finally, after much anxiety, averted.

Mom has been dating a New Orleans lawyer, Richard, ever since her separation, but they have never married. Dating is perhaps the wrong word since they also travel together frequently to places like Europe, Las Vegas, and the Kentucky Derby. He drops her off after work every day and often spends all day Saturday with us. Richard is my inspiration for becoming a lawyer. I admire his sharp intellect, career, and exciting life.

When I pledged TKE and explained all this to Alan, he asked the lawyer’s last name. It turns out Alan’s girlfriend’s family also knows him and knows him to be married! Poor Alan was probably more embarrassed about breaking this news than I was about hearing it.

So my mother has been lying to us all these years in saying he was divorced. This distressing revelation also prompts me to put together that she likely had a relationship with Richard even before she left my dad.

To be fair, she works diligently and more than competently at her job. The company’s home office in New York occasionally summons her, and she is recognized for her accomplishments.

Her assistance is so vital that insurance agents sometimes cut her in for a token slice of their commissions. However, her pay and benefits are not remotely commensurate with her value. Like other women of the middle of this century, her options are limited and she settles for what she can get.



She does what women have done throughout history and allies herself with a well-to-do man. For this, I do not fault her. She is thoroughly devoted to her three sons, determined we will have every opportunity she did not.

For example, she used a 1965 New York business trip to take my brother Stevie and me to The World’s Fair. We stayed in her room at the Waldorf furnished by the company. She worked at their office one day while we stayed in our room watching TV, but before and after we had a whirlwind tour of the city, a day at The Fair, and even an evening at the theater to see How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. She finagled it all for us and herself. So if her wardrobe, our new car, and other odds and ends are courtesy of Richard, it is what the world allows her. Scandalous yes, but necessary and resourceful.



I carefully explain to mom that the Wentworths are very conservative people who might not approve of her relationship with Richard, so she should be discreet when she meets them. She says this is no problem.



The day comes and the event goes exactly according to plan, making a great impression on all the parents who are relieved to see their children can behave like adults, at least for one afternoon. We are nonetheless swilling as much brandy and booze as we can manage without being obvious about it.

Sue’s parents arrive and I introduce them around. Sue is my date. All the men are in suits and the ladies are wearing special occasion dresses. Sue’s mother is even wearing a mink stole and looks fine, if a bit matronly.

Mom walks in looking a bit too much like a million bucks. She wanted to look good to impress Sue’s parents and she knocks it out of the park. While mom is not wearing the much better-looking mink Richard gave her, she is wearing a beautiful navy blue raw silk suit accented with a colorful silk scarf at her throat. Her already great legs look even better in tasteful high heels. Mrs. Robinson, with her cane, is wearing practical low pumps.



This contrast is unwelcome and I have again failed to anticipate the predictable. My mother, at 50, is an attractive woman who takes pride in her appearance. We may have no money, but Richard pays for her clothes so she can look fabulous. And she does. She is certainly not dressed like a financially struggling woman raising two boys on her own.



I introduce her around and work my way to Sue’s parents. Mr. Wentworth, eyes twinkling a bit too much over his big smile, jumps up and extends a hand. He gallantly gives mom his seat next to his wife and takes the next one over so mom is in the middle. Appalled, I promise to return with their coffee. Mom accepts my offer of brandy in hers. Mrs. Wentworth declines.



Sue helps with their coffee, and I pretend everything is fine. I look back to see my mother beaming as she performs at her charming intelligent best. She is well-read and can converse on literature, politics, and culture. She can certainly charm when she wants to, especially in her limitless ambition for her son. Unbeknownst to all but me, she can also be an angry disappointed woman prone to daily storms of cursing invective.



Mr. Wentworth only has eyes for her as they talk, and I am worried. She looks far too good and far too prosperous. The Robinsons are not fools, and I fear they will quickly figure out she is virtually a kept woman, even if Sue does not appear to put two and two together.

After, mom swears it all went perfectly. She had a wonderful time and enjoyed their company. I am not as certain all is well, but I worry too much about everything.



My relationship with Sue continues through the spring, and we grow even closer. At the same time, I date other girls too because I don’t think she is yet ready for the more bacchanalian aspects of fraternity life. I also date other girls for the sexual adventures she is no more prepared for.

Though we are making out on dates, and I want her, I have not expected sex since I have the impression that she is such a delicate flower that greater physical intimacy might doom our relationship. It would certainly not please her parents. So I put long-term gain over short-term satisfaction.

After all, she is “The One.”

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