Michael's Secrets by Milton Stern Page B

himself a diet soda, and sat at the kitchen table. “Do you have any cigarettes?” he asked, ignoring her question.
    “Michael, I thought you didn’t smoke,” Sharon said as she tied up the trash bag she had brought into the kitchen.
    “Only when I’m a little stressed,” he answered.
    “You and your secrets. I have some, but we have to smoke on the patio,” she said as she walked toward the refrigerator. She then tried to reach into the cabinet above the refrigerator but was having no luck. Michael walked over to the refrigerator and opened the cabinet and found her pack of Marlboro Lights and handed them to her.
    “Now, who has secrets?” he asked with a slight smile.
    They walked out onto the patio, and it was unusually warm for a December night in Washington. The view from her Adams Morgan condo was magnificent. One could see the Washington Monument and the Capitol Dome, and they could still hear a few partygoers whooping it up around town. Michael lit her cigarette and then his own, and they smoked in silence for a while.
    “OK, Michael, what’s up?” she asked with her brow furrowed and looking directly at him.
    “I don’t know, Sharon. I guess my coming out here was a mistake,” Michael said, avoiding her gaze.
    “Why do you say that?” she asked.
    He took another puff and answered, “Well, I never really took the time to digest all that happened, what with the show being cancelled and Aunt Clara and Sylvia dying. I just hopped on a plane and came out here. I’m really lonely here. I don’t know that many people.”
    “You know me, you idiot,” she said indignantly.
    “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “I don’t go out to the bars. I’m not meeting anyone. I sit in that apartment all day writing. The only time I get out is when I go to the gym in the morning.”
    She looked at him and put out her cigarette in a plastic ash tray she had sitting on a table just for these occasions. “When you say you’re not meeting people, do you mean men?”
    Michael put his cigarette out and immediately grabbed another one. She gave him a look and proceeded to do the same. Did he mean men? Did he mean friends? Why was he so lonely? In Hollywood, Michael went to one party after another. He met people all the time, and he rarely stayed home on a Saturday night. But here in Washington, he had become a hermit. What has happened to me? Michael thought.
    “I guess that’s part of it. I just have no social life either,” Michael said.
    “Michael, when was the last time you had a real boyfriend?” she asked.
    “It’s been a long time,” he answered.
    “Why?” Sharon asked, interrupting his thoughts.
    “I only attract selfish jerks, who can’t love me as I love them. I gave up on dating as I was tired of falling into the same patterns all the time,” he answered. Intellectually, he could see where he was going wrong, but emotionally, he had no control.
    “Did you ever think that rather than attracting them, you are attracted to men who can’t love you back?” Sharon asked.
    “No. I figured I was a magnet … and now, you sound like my therapist,” Michael said, as if her question were ridiculous.
    “You’re not a magnet, Michael. You’re a walking billboard,” Sharon said. “I’ve listened over the years to your stories about Roy and Doug and Philip, and it’s always the same thing. These guys only stay with you because you make yourself available to them. You change in an effort to make them fall in love with you. But, they’ll never love you. They use you. They only love themselves. They know whatever they do you’ll stick around and allow yourself to be treated like shit.”
    Michael was starting to get upset. Sharon was harsh, but she had also touched a nerve. Michael lit a third cigarette and wondered if in fact she was right?
    “I allow myself to be treated like this?” he asked looking right at her.
    “Yes, Michael,” she said. “You allow yourself to be treated like