As a kid, I never thought much about food. I ate when prompted. I recognized the difference between a good meal and a bad one. Sometimes I skipped eating entirely if I was in the middle of something fun, like a tennis match or a book.

But then I turned sixteen, and I was starving almost all the time.

For breakfast, I’d wolf down a slice of Sara Lee cherry cheesecake straight out of the freezer, three or four frozen hash brown triangles heated in the microwave, and a toasted bagel slice with sweaty Muenster cheese melted on top. In school, I buried my head in my locker and sneaked bites of cheap chocolate bars or potato chips sprinkled with cracked black pepper. At lunchtime, I’d race to the head of the line in the cafeteria. The ladies in severe hairnets would only dole out one portion per student, but it was easy to find a kid who didn’t want all or part of her meal, especially if you sat with girls, which I always did.

After tennis practice—my team nickname was “Eric the Inhaler”—I’d stop by McDonald’s for fries and a shake, and then at home, I’d ransack the kitchen cupboards for chips or cookies or fruit strips. My mother warned me not to ruin my appetite for dinner, but I could easily work through a pack of cupcakes, a handful of pretzel sticks, maybe an apple if I was in the mood for something healthy, wash it all down with a bottle of syrupy Faygo Red Pop or a swig of Vernor’s ginger ale, and still consume a full meal afterwards. With seconds.

And somehow, I never got fat.

On weekends, the other kids went to school dances or parties that devolved into boy-girl groping sessions in the shadows, but I hung out in my mother’s kitchen and watched her bake mini yeast crescents, brownies, and blueberry buckle. Or sometimes I watched cooking shows I’d DVR’d off PBS or the Food Network. I liked French Food Made Easy featuring Chef Antoine—French, giggly, and kind of gay. He’d pound sticks of butter paper-thin between layers of dough, folding and folding the pastry in on itself and then rolling it out until it drooped from his fingers like a kitchen towel. I wanted to press my face through the screen and lick a taste of that dough off his thumb.

Or sometimes, I got in the car and drove by the Golden Mushroom.

By some amazing coincidence, our humble Detroit metro area was home to one of three restaurants in the entire country (excluding New York and California) that had earned a mention of honor in the Red Guide to Fine American Dining. Stranger still, this restaurant, the Golden Mushroom, was a long-time favorite of my parents, who were hardly foodies and hated mushrooms like poison. Still, that’s where they always went to celebrate anniversaries or birthdays, or when my dad, a lawyer who negotiated pension plans between Chrysler and the auto unions, was going out on the corporate credit card.

Whenever a trip to the Golden Mushroom was in the offing, my mother would put on her St. John knit suit, or her black silk dress with the silver shawl, or her brown beaded tunic with the matching skirt, and then her emerald or sapphire earrings, and then a misting of Chanel Number Five. And she’d take out her good purse, the petit-point bag with the gold clasp and spidery thin chain, a present from my father during a trip to Vienna. The fine embroidery, hand-sewn by Austrian nuns with a magnifying glass, depicted lords and ladies in eighteenth-century dress flirting with each other.

Once or twice, I’d asked my parents what was so great about the Golden Mushroom. Their answers sounded vague, except when they talked about their favorite waiter, Jim, whom my father praised as “a real professional.” This struck me as odd because my father wasn’t one to admire waiters.

For years, while my parents enjoyed the delights of the Golden Mushroom, I’d typically be left home with a babysitter, who let me stay up late to watch “The Bachelor” or “Sex and the City” on DVD. When I turned fourteen, my dad finally agreed to ditch the babysitter, and I took advantage of being left alone to troll the gay websites and dating profiles, though I was too chicken to actually leave a comment or send a message of my own.

Because I’d always seemed happy to stay home, my parents were shocked when I announced one night at dinner that the next time they visited the Golden Mushroom, I wanted to go with them.

“That’s a lot of money to waste on a kid,” my dad said while digging his fork through my mother’s spaghetti with meat sauce. Mom left the pasta in the cooking water instead of draining it just before it turned al dente. Also, she bought Prince spaghetti instead of an Italian brand like De Cecco. According to Gourmand magazine, these were cardinal sins, and yet the spaghetti still tasted good to us.

“So? You can afford it,” I said.

“How does he know what I can or can’t afford?” my father said to my mother.

“I haven’t been a kid for a long time,” I said, waving my water glass to get him to look at me. “Maybe you haven’t noticed.”

“We don’t have to decide now,” my mother interjected.

“People change,” I told my father. “Haven’t you ever thought about that?”

“They don’t change so much,” he said between gulps of spaghetti. Dad could take in food even faster than I. In the past few years, he’d passed through two pants sizes.

“I’m changing all the time,” I said. “If you don’t change, you die.”

“Is that so?” he asked, the corners of his mouth twitching as if amused.

I wanted to throw my plate across the table at him, but that would have been a waste of good food, and Mom made a wicked spaghetti with meat sauce. My father liked it even better the next day, cold from the fridge, but I preferred it fresh.

As soon as I’d cleaned my plate, I dumped it in the kitchen sink, sliced myself a thick portion of seven-layer cake from the bakery at the corner strip mall, and retreated to my room to blast music. I was going through a John Lennon phase, especially his songs about Yoko, which were pretty much all of them.

I’d turned up the music so loud that I didn’t hear my mother knocking. She came in my room and as she sat on the edge of my bed. “John Lennon,” she said in a strangely high voice. “Is he one of your . . . heroes?”

I tried not to laugh; I didn’t go for guys with beady eyes and crooked noses, no matter how pretty their love songs. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said wistfully. “He might be.”

She nodded slowly, pressing her lips together. “I came to tell you the good news,” she said finally. “Your father and I talked it over, and he said, and these were his words, Eric’s a good kid. He doesn’t ask for special favors, so why not.” She paused for dramatic effect, then announced: “We’re going to the Golden Mushroom.”


 
After my mother left, I clicked on a few of my favorite pictures I’d downloaded from the gay dating sites. That night, instead of doing their usual magic, they made me sad. All these handsome faces with windswept hair and startling eyes, they belonged to a different world, as far away as the fat French chefs who pounded butter into pastry. And I would never get to that world because I didn’t know any homosexuals and where I lived I wasn’t likely to meet any. Unless you counted the hairdressers at the mall.

When I’d first asked my father what a homosexual was—I was seven at the time and I already had an inkling of what they were but I wanted to hear his answer—that’s what he’d said: “Like the hairdressers at the mall.”

Now I knew full well what a homosexual was, but what I didn’t understand was how you got to be one. Whenever you saw a gay person on a TV show or in a movie, they were, well, fully sprouted. But they never explained how you went from being someone presumed straight to a publicly acknowledged homosexual, like a hairdresser at the mall, or a certain “professional” waiter at the Golden Mushroom.

I thought I’d taken a good first step by telling my parents. I was fifteen at the time and seeing a therapist three days a week before school, so as not to interfere with tennis practice afterward. Dad and I had just come back from a Tigers’ game—my therapist’s idea of male bonding. The Tigers had won, so I figured my parents would be in a good mood, and I just spilled it. We were standing around the granite island in the kitchen, and my mother was pouring pink lemonade (defrosted from a frozen can of concentrate). She set down the pitcher a bit too loudly. My father didn’t yell or anything, but he also didn’t look at me.

The next day, they rushed over to my therapist’s office. He told them it wasn’t anything they had done, and that their job was to love and support me just the way I was. “So that’s what we’re going to do,” my father announced that night at the kitchen table, while my mother sliced up coffee cake and passed around mugs of Lipton tea. Three mugs from the same bag, dunked just long enough into each serving of boiling water to change its color. “That’s our job now.”

They should have thanked me for making their job easy. I didn’t dress up in women’s clothing or bring home hairdressers, or anyone for that matter. I told one friend at school but no one else because I didn’t want to be like Tristan Senkowski, who dyed his hair blond and starred in the school musicals. My private nickname for Tristan was “It’s No Big Deal,” because that’s what everyone in school said about him. Of course it didn’t matter that It’s No Big Deal was gay because he advertised it even before he fucking opened his mouth and belted out some Lady Gaga number. But what about someone like me, who played sports and showered in the gym locker room five days a week? Who’d made out with Julie Paymer and Adrienne Schwartz on a dare and was thoroughly disgusted by the experiences but never dared say so? Who knew how football worked? I was a snake in the grass. I was asking for a beatdown.

So my life remained mostly the same except that my mom stopped pestering me about joining Jewish youth groups to meet girls. As for my dad, he never discussed my romantic life anymore, as if coming out meant I’d given up sexuality in general.


 
Driving up to the Golden Mushroom, you’d never know what was inside. The building was just a dirty pink cement box with a square white sign on the side. It was all the way down in Southfield, where Jews like my parents used to live until the neighborhood “changed.”

There were two parking lots, one in front for valet parking, which my father avoided on principle, and one in back. Mom argued the car wasn’t safe there. Dad accused Mom of being racist.

Inside, the lighting was dim, except for a soft spotlight on each table. The noise of silverware clinking against plates was muffled by thick carpets and heavy black drapes hanging along the walls, though there were no windows. The diners all spoke in quiet tones, except a loud couple in a far corner who seemed to be on a date and were tittering all over each other. My father gave them a dirty look as he explained to the hostess that he’d reserved a table for a party of three, a number I suddenly found mortifying.

“Animals,” my father barked. “Worse than animals. Animals would know how to behave themselves in a place like this.”

“Max, calm down,” my mother whispered.

When my parents weren’t looking, I grabbed a couple of chocolate mints from a bowl on the hostess station and popped them in my mouth.

We had six people serving us that evening: the hostess, who led us to our table and pulled out our chairs; the man who filled our water glasses, whom I mistook for Jim; the man who brought the bread, whom I also mistook for Jim; the owner, who came by to greet my father and assure him that yes, Jim was there that night; the man who eventually brought our meals; and then, finally, the famous Jim.

Jim had a fawning smile and bad skin. He dropped his voice a full octave as he solemnly described the specials with terms like “simmered gently in a Barolo reduction” or “lightly finished with a swirl of savory grapefruit curd.” He called my father “sir,” my mother “ma’am,” and me “the young gentleman.” In fact, all his questions to me were addressed in the third person, as in “Would the young gentleman care for another Coke?”

Worst of all, it turned out he wasn’t even gay.

“Good seeing you again, Jim-bo,” my father boomed.

Mom frowned at Dad, then asked, “Jim, how’s your wife been?”

Wife? Jim had a wife? Somehow I couldn’t picture a professional waiter as having a wife.

From off in the corner, we heard the noise of a cell phone ringing, playing the theme song to “Sex and the City.” It came from the lovey-dovey couple, and the woman, with a cry of “Oh!” answered it in a loud voice.

“Can’t you do something about them?” my father asked.

“How I wish I could,” said Jim, rolling his eyes in sympathy.

After Jim brought my parents wine and me a Coke, my father raised his wine glass in a toast, surprisingly, in my honor. “Most kids your age would be out doing God knows what on a Saturday night. Probably knocking up some girl.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Mom said, clinking her wine glass against my glass of pop.

“No, he’s right,” I said. “You never have to worry about me knocking up some girl.”

And then their faces fell.

Not long afterward, our food came, and at least in that respect, the Golden Mushroom did not disappoint. My goat cheese tart appetizer flaked apart easily against the side of my fork. It was followed by a seared filet mignon, crunchy brown on the outside and a pale ruby shade of pink inside, served on a nest of steamed broccoli spears, bright green and crunchy. There were also mashed potatoes with a tang of crème fraiche, enlivened by a confetti of fresh minced parsley.

Okay, maybe I’d been reading Gourmand magazine too religiously.

For some odd reason I wasn’t hungry, but I cleaned my plate out of habit. My father kept watching me, waiting to see my reaction as I took my first bite of each new dish.

“What?” I asked.

“Just want to make sure you’re enjoying yourself.”

“So you can make sure you got your money’s worth?”

He paused before answering. “No,” he said sadly. “Not that.”

When I was done, I felt overstuffed, weighted down by all that cream and meat and pop. I excused myself to go to the bathroom.

“Here,” my father said, slipping me a dollar bill. “For the guy.”

The bathroom had carpeting instead of tile, which struck me as unhygienic. A brightly lit mirror ran down one wall, with all kinds of different soaps and lotions on the sink, and a stack of thick paper towels as thick as napkins. Against the opposite wall was a red velvet divan with a man dressed in a tuxedo lying across it, fast asleep.

He seemed very tall, judging from his long legs dangling over the edge of the sofa, and he wore thin-soled black loafers so delicate they looked like ballet slippers. His skin was dark and his curly black hair glistened with gel. I wondered if he was Chaldean. His mouth hung slightly open, and he made soft little snoring noises. Beside him, on a small table, sat two silver dishes, one filled with candy and the other with tips. I felt like an idiot, because until then I’d thought he was one of the customers.

I watched him for several minutes, during which no one else came into the bathroom. The only sounds were the man’s light snoring and, playing overhead, a muzak version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” I probably should have nudged his sleeve or his knee—what if he got in trouble for snoozing on the job?—but I couldn’t move.

I wanted to lick the stubble dotting his tanned jawline. I wanted to thread his black curls through my fingers. I wanted to bury my nose in his neck and inhale the scent of his aftershave. I wanted to hear the rustle of silk pants sliding down his legs. I wanted to slide between his black-jacketed arms, feel the weight of his chest and hips on top of mine, the crush of his firm hands kneading my back.

What if someone walked in and caught me spying? What if my parents came looking for me? They were probably wondering what was taking me so long. I knew there was no point in staying, but the idea of walking out of that bathroom, never to see him again—it just seemed like death. I had to do something. At the very least, I had to try to touch him. Maybe if my fingers moved gently enough, he wouldn’t notice.

Or maybe he would notice.

And then I spotted the comment cards on the counter, next to the hand lotion. No, no, that’s stupid. But I didn’t care. I grabbed a card and began to write.

“I’ve never done anything like this before. I think I love you.”

Even I knew how ridiculous that sounded. I scratched out my message, going over and over my words with the black pen, but you could still see what I’d written. Finally, I ripped the card into tiny pieces, threw them away, and took another one:

“I’d like to talk to you about something. My name is Eric. Call me at this number.”

I folded my note in half and dropped it in with his tips.

When I got back to the table, my father frowned. Mom gave me a look, to ask, where were you? Maybe they thought I was taking drugs. I ignored their stares, just tapped my spoon against the crust of my crème brulée as if I weren’t some pervert who’d just publicly embarrassed himself forever. You fucking idiot, I thought as I idly stirred my custard. The second he sees that note, you’re dead. You’ve got to get it back.

So on our way out of the restaurant, I told my parents I thought I’d left something in the bathroom. The man was awake now, standing by the sink and ready to spritz perfumed soap into my hands. He was taller than I’d thought, long and lean, the perfect body for a tennis player. I almost thought about challenging him to a match. Instead, I went to the sink and turned it on. When I finished washing my hands, he nodded at me. I wondered if he’d read my note, if he knew it was mine. But no, he just wanted to offer me a paper towel. As I took it from him, I peered into his tip dish. The note was still there, still folded. I could fish it out again, and he’d never have to read it.

“Can I help you, sir?” he asked in a deep voice, with a harsh Downriver accent. He sounded a little annoyed.

Maybe he thought I was trying to steal the money from his tip jar, and that he’d caught me red-handed. “I was in here before,” I said, hesitating.

He nodded slowly, not understanding, or worse, misunderstanding.

I dug my hand in my pocket, felt the crisp dollar bill my father had given me. “I forgot to leave a tip for you!” I said. “Here.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” he said. The “sir” sounded funny coming from him. At least it was better than Jim-the-waiter’s “the young gentleman.”

He was going to read that note and laugh his ass off. He was going to read that note and . . .

As we drove home, my mother turned around and said something I didn’t hear. “I asked you, what did you think?” she said. “You didn’t seem very impressed.”

“What? No, it was great,” I said. “I loved it. Let’s go back again. Soon.”


 
But we didn’t go back, and my father was in such a bad mood for the next few days that I didn’t dare suggest going there again. Instead, I sulked around the house and at school. I skipped tennis practice and stayed all afternoon in my room to stare at my phone, waiting for it to ring. It didn’t.

At breakfast, I absent-mindedly stirred my cereal until it dissolved into my milk. At lunch, I cut my food into smaller and smaller pieces, then threw them away. When Mom called me for dinner, I told her I had a stomachache. While she and Dad ate, I lay on the carpet in my bedroom and listened to “Sara” by Fleetwood Mac, over and over. Why hadn’t I been born in the seventies?

After a few days, I went back to tennis practice, but rather than stop at McDonald’s afterward, I drove by the Golden Mushroom. I parked across the street and stayed there a while staring at that pink cement box, hoping I might see him park and go in, but nothing happened. And the day after that, I went in.

I told the hostess that I’d left something in the bathroom.

“We have a lost and found right here,” she said, getting a box out of the cloakroom. All the lights were on in the dining room, which was noisy with busboys and waiters setting the tables, and a man in dirty jeans vacuuming the carpets. I didn’t see Jim anywhere. Maybe he was like a vampire and only came out in the dark.

“No, it isn’t in here,” I said.

“What was it exactly?” she asked. “Jake, he’s the attendant, Jake always checks.”

Jake. Of course. His name had to be Jake.

“It was a pen.” That was the lie I’d prepared. “A Cross pen I got for my bar mitzvah.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “Well, feel free to have a look. You can ask Jake too. He’s just getting set up.”

Maybe it won’t be him, I thought as I made my way to the bathroom. Maybe there was another attendant named Jake who was fat and old and ugly. I was almost too scared to open the door.

And there he was, dressed in the same tuxedo and filling the bottles on the sink with lotion and soap, which he did very gracefully, in smooth fluid movements. He turned my way, and like an idiot, I blurted out, “I was just looking for my Cross pen . . . the one I got for my bar mitzvah.”

He held up his hands as if I’d accused him of stealing. “Haven’t seen anything like that around here, but look around if you want.”

I shrugged. I hadn’t thought of what to say next. “Do you mind if I sit here for a second?” I said, touching the divan.

“It’s a free country, buddy.”

I sat there stroking the plush fabric while Jake filled a few more bottles. Then he pulled something out of his pocket. “This yours?” He was holding up the note. I blushed. “Yeah, I figured,” he said. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

I looked at the door. I could dash for the car before he realized what he was doing and drive off. He might jot down my license plate number, or maybe now he’d actually call me and then report what I’d done to my parents. He could ruin my whole life.

“I think I know what it is,” he said.

“You do?” I felt a trickle of sweat drip down my back.

“Of course,” he said. “You’re looking for sex.” I wanted to faint, but I didn’t know how. He went on, “Everyone thinks because I work in a bathroom, I’ve got some kind of connection. But aren’t you a bit young to run around with hookers?”

“No, no,” I said quickly. “That’s not it.” My eyes searched the room for an excuse and landed on the tip jar. It was as good a story as any. “Actually, I was thinking, I need a job after school. I play on the tennis team. And I need a new racquet.”

Jake’s face relaxed. “You’re right. It’s a good gig. Easy money. And that’s why I’m not giving it up.”

So now I was free to go, as if nothing had happened. Nothing would change.

“But I don’t mind answering a couple of questions,” he said. “There are lots of places where you could do this.”

I tried to think of something I could ask him. “Do you get food?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “But you get sick of it. Too rich, you know?”

I did know. “How much do you make a night?”

Jake shrugged. I loved the way he shrugged, in a single firm natural upswing of the shoulders. “People can be so cheap. I mean, it’s one thing if you’re coming in here just to take a piss, but if you’re going to take a crap, then you’d better be leaving at least a couple of bucks, you know?”

“That doesn’t sound very glamorous.”

He gave me a funny look. “What?”

I was a total idiot. Glamorous? What straight guy dropped the word glamorous in casual conversation? “I mean, isn’t that kind of gross, having to listen to all those sounds all night?”

Jake shrugged again. “And why don’t people wash their hands? Maybe they don’t want to tip for the towel, but at least they could wipe their hands on their pants or something, or let them air dry, but just wash them, you know? That’s why I always buy wrapped candy. You have to buy your own candy, by the way.” He grabbed a mint and tossed it to me. The plastic crackled in my palm. “Here, on the house.”

“So, do you have some other job, or is this it?”

“I go to Wayne State,” he said. “I’m still trying to figure out my major, but maybe something like criminology.”

This was never going to work. There was no point in prolonging my agony. “I guess I should go,” I said.

But Jake stood in my way. “So, Eric, did you get what you came for?” He held up the note. “I don’t need to keep this, do I?”

“Keep it anyway,” I said. “As a souvenir.”

He jabbed my shoulder. “Hey, if I ever need someone, I’ll call you,” he said.

I realized he meant as a substitute.

“That’d be nice,” I said.

“But I gotta warn you,” he said, “don’t tell the girls this is what you do. For them, it’s a big turn-off.”

“What about for the guys?” I asked.

He paused to consider the question. “I wouldn’t mind dating some girl who worked a restroom,” he said. “If she was hot, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think too,” I said.

“Oh, and one more thing, you have to be careful. One time, this guy was in here, taking a piss right over there, in that urinal, and he says to me, can I get some help? So I come over, and I see he isn’t taking a piss at all. He’s got this hard-on.”

“Jesus,” I said, worried that I was feeling one coming on too. I crossed my legs.

“It’s really no big deal. I just said, you need to put that away, sir, or I’m calling the manager.” Jake patted my shoulder and let his hand rest there. I felt the heat and the weight of his fingers. “You have to be polite. This is the Golden Mushroom, not McDonald’s.” He patted my shoulder again. “You’re a cool kid. You’d do fine here.”


 
On the way home, I stopped at the drive-thru for a Big Mac and fries, which I attacked in my car while doing eighty on I-275. As soon as I’d finished the last greasy bite, I pulled over and threw it all up on the side of the highway. I stood there a while, watching the cars zip by and wiping my lips with my sleeve. I kept looking up at the stars, as if they could help me.

To get the rancid taste out of my mouth, I took out the mint Jake had given me. I’d meant to save it, but really, what was the point? What was the point in anything?

Slowly, carefully, I untwisted the plastic wrapper, exposing the hard and sticky red and white pinwheel striped candy inside. I licked it off my palm, then let it clank against my teeth for a while. After all the sweetness had dissolved, the cool, sharp taste of mint burned my tongue and the roof of my mouth, killing off the traces of fat and grease from my fries and cheap hamburger, which had gone down and then come up again bathed in pink acid. I rolled the candy around the inside of my mouth, slowly sucking at it, working the thinning white disc into a stream of sugar that trickled icily down my throat, making me shiver.

Would it always be this way? Would life always hurt so much?

No. I knew that the answer was probably no, that someday my life would change. But knowing that didn’t help me just then.

Jake’s advice popped in my head: “You have to buy your own candy.”

I closed my eyes and experienced the strange mix of acid and cheap mint rolling on my tongue. For now at least, this was how love tasted.