Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney -- these exciting cities are standard fare in the life of flight attendant Todd Eisenbraun, and he chases a romance with sexy-but-straight Josh through them all. Closer to home, a new neighbor in his San Francisco apartment building has a huge crush on Todd. His friends -- Katie, a flight attendant-turned-small appliance repairwoman, and Marzipan Q. Thespian, a man-dangling local philanthropist -- think Todd should at least give Chris a shot. Sure, he’s overweight, but he’s also handsome, a hilarious playwright, and a great cook ... what’s not to love? Todd and Chris become quick friends, but Todd’s idea of the perfect man is skinny and straight, and Chris is decidedly neither. Josh may have a fiancée and a teenaged son, but Todd just knows he’s “the One.” But if Josh is straight, the road to love is not; Todd is jostled by internalized homophobia, body image issues, exotic locales, the glamorous world of sewing machine repair, and a community theater musical salute to the life of Judy Garland before he arrives at the realization that he’s been looking way too hard for something he may have already found.

Kiss Me, Straight

“Oh, don’t even try,” I scolded. “You could never leave those kids now. You wouldn’t be any fun on a layover, these days.”


“I couldn’t stand to be away from home for so long now, you’re right,” she conceded. “But I most certainly would be fun on a layover! I may be all married up now, but my husband is Argentinean! We eat dinner at nine P.M., may I remind you? That means we are still fun.”


Sharing a healthy sense of adventure and a very healthy interest in Latin men, Katie and I were thrilled to be based in Buenos Aires right out of training, and enjoyed a certain amount of success with the local menfolk. Katie—she was O’Brien in those days—enjoyed quite lasting success with a particular member of the local menfolk, and when her boyfriend Francisco was transferred to Northern California for his job with a local wine distributor, she transferred to our base in San Francisco and made him her husband. 


Chapter 3