Movies were the one way we connected, because we didn’t have to speak. We would sit together to watch a film once a week. Now that I look back on those days, I suspect my mother was the one who pushed my father to spend more time with me.
This particular memory, though—well, I can’t even remember which film it was. It wasn’t a movie with overtly queer characters. It was an action, something my dad usually enjoyed. There were two men who were close throughout the film. They didn’t do anything, not in the way queerness is much more openly accepted now, with kisses and long, romantic embraces, and sexually graphic scenes that don’t fade to black. The men only touched each other’s hands, just barely, just enough for the audience to understand who they were to one another as they fought off the end of the world. It was still a time when even this was groundbreaking, but this touch made me explode with embarrassment and curiosity and just a touch of pre-teen longing, a wondering of whether I could ever touch another boy with that sort of tenderness. My father scowled. He spoke more than he usually would. “Disgusting,” he said. That was all he said, but it was enough.
I would go to church on Sundays with my family. I called myself a Christian, then, in the sense that I believe there is a force that we humans can’t comprehend, a force that has different names across languages and cultures—but I’d always believed, even as a young child, that this force didn’t understand our human definitions of sin. This force would not understand why one man could not love another. This force only knew love and compassion. It was painful that my father couldn’t understand the same.
Mattie
Paola did an amazing job, negotiating for me to be put up in the Winchester, a small luxury hotel near Studio City. One bedroom, kitchenette, pristine white walls and marble countertops. Still, it can be lonely in a city like Los Angeles, even when I have little ways of distracting myself. I bought a little pothos at a garden shop that I water when the leaves look wilted. I play Stardew Valley on my laptop (I’m trying to marry Elliott), and I’ve been slowly making my way through the Louise Penny series to keep my thoughts from spiraling. I’ve even recently started listening to podcasts on my phone, just so that the other voices make me feel like I’m not in an otherwise empty room. It started with me typing into the search bar how to not feel so alone and, over the past few days, the podcasts have ended up in attachment style theory and healing queer trauma. These kinds of topics would’ve made me cringe, once, but that doesn’t stop me from playing a new episode every night.
The only people who have visited me in my hotel room are from the wardrobe department, to fit me for the costumes they’re preparing, and the makeup and hair folks, to let me know what they’re planning. I stand on the balcony, watching the pale blue sky turn pink and gold as I dial my sister’s number on FaceTime.
Emma picks up on the first ring. “Mattie!”
“God, I miss you, Em.” So much that I might just start to cry. Every time I feel tears well up, I hear my father yelling at me to be a man. He never believed that men should have emotions.
“I miss you, too. Mom’s stalking you in the news. She tells me every time her Google alert for your name goes off. Which is, like, every five minutes.”
Emma and I look a lot alike in facial features, but that’s about it. We had a white person somewhere in our lineage, like most Black families, so my skin tone turned out different. She has medium brown skin with thicker black hair and dark brown eyes. I have golden-brown skin that’s covered with freckles and the sort of curly-wavy texture of hair that makes most people assume that I’m white with a strong tan, like Ariana Grande or a Kardashian when they were still in their appropriate-Black-culture phases. Either that, or they’re not sure of my race at all. The “look” of ethnically ambiguous has been trendy in LA for a while now.
I know it’s because of colorism and racism that I’ve even made it this far. The characters in the novel Write Anything were both white, but the studio decided to take a risk and let me and other people of color audition instead. I lost out to Gray for the lead, and I thought that was the end of it—until they rang me up two months later and asked if I wanted to be the love interest.
I was surprised that they were willing to give two Black men the lead roles, even if colorism was a big part of our acceptance. Logan is mixed—Black and white—with lighter brown skin and wavy black hair. He could easily be mistaken as white.
My agent, Jacqueline, is all business in comparison to Paola. I barely interact with her except when she’s offering me roles or information. “There’s been an uptick in financial success for movies featuring Black leads. Write Anything on its own isn’t enough to stand out, with the growing popularity of queer films. They’re hoping you and Logan Gray will bring more success to the film with your diversity.”
I wasn’t exactly sold on her pitch—it sounded like an invitation to microaggression hell—but Paola spoke to me after the phone call. Yeah, it sucks to be the diverse inclusion, but this is also one of the few chances I might have to propel my career forward. And, if I’m successful, I can really start to make change from within the industry. I’m disappointed I didn’t get the main role, but I have to admit: it’s pretty cool to be the love interest of a blockbuster romantic film, and not being the white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed prince that I had to grow up with. Seeing only one kind of person as the one who is worthy of love messed with my head when I was younger. It made me think that I wasn’t good enough for that role, too.
Emma is seventeen, about to start her first year at Sarah Lawrence. I’ve always been overprotective of my little sister. I have memories of being ten years old and clutching her hand when she was four, making sure she wouldn’t fall down. I’m afraid for her to go off to a new place by herself, but I’m excited for her, too. I can’t help but grin. “Are you finished packing?”
She groans. “Not you, too. Mom won’t leave me alone about it.”
It’s like she’s summoned our mother. She sticks her head into the frame. She looks more like Emma with her darker brown skin and thick hair. “You finally found a moment in your busy life?”
“I’m sorry, I should’ve called sooner.”