Chapter_2_World_s_Tal

“I thought you’d never ask,” I say to Wyatt with a smile.

I search for the right song on my phone. It has to be upbeat to get us out of this funk.

We need to have fun! I mean, c’mon. We’re about to have a baby. This is huge.

Life changing.

This is officially happening.

Oh my god. This is officially happening.

Ever since that day we decided on our egg donor, I’ve been having a ton of doubt if I’m going to be a good father. Can I provide our kid with the same happy childhood I had?

The idea for this trip came to me right after we found out Flora was pregnant. Basically, when shit got real.

Vacation. Road trip. Babymoon!

I have no idea how it happens, but these things just pop into my head, and I go with them. Look, I don’t make the rules.

What if we took a road trip for some fun along the way to where the baby is born? The road trips I took with my family every year from Chicago to Door County, Wisconsin, are some of my greatest memories.

Plus, I’m not a fan of flying and I’ll do anything to avoid being trapped forty thousand feet in the air.

I play “Rolling in the Deep.” Its driving drum beat sends tingles up my neck. I turn to Wyatt and he bobs his head to the bass in approval.

“Good one,” Wyatt says.

As Adele’s raspy, smoky voice glides us along the highway, I wonder if this is the song we’ll sing out loud to, like we usually do on our way to P-town.

Sure enough, the chorus comes and we belt out the lyrics at the top of our lungs together.

It feels good to finally connect and temporarily escape our worries.

If anyone wants to judge me for wanting to have some fun before having a baby, go ahead. I’m writing my own pregnancy journey.

Ugh, that word again.

The truth is, I’m hoping this road trip will clear my mind, and I can make sense of why I’ve been having major anxiety about becoming a father.

Ideally, Wyatt can let loose on this trip a little bit too before the baby comes. I also wanted to plan a vacation for him because he’s been cranking out commercial after commercial, killing himself physically and emotionally with the pressure cooker of his work.

My job, on the other hand, could not be lower stakes compared to Wyatt’s. I sit at a desk four days a week, writing copy for the Italian beat of a food magazine called Chef’s Kiss. The toughest part about my job is finding a new synonym for the word delicious.

Glancing at Wyatt driving now, with his hands on the wheel precisely at ten and two, always in complete control, all I see are waves of stress emanating off him like a steaming bowl of minestrone.

I was right. He needs a break.

That’s the thing about Wyatt though. It sounds corny but he inspires me to be better.

When it finally came time to researching the surrogacy process, Wyatt was the one who took charge. I came home one night from work and he’d made an impressive mood board of things that didn’t even cross my mind. 1. Pros and Cons of Adoption vs. Surrogacy. 2. Legal Representation. 3. East Coast Fertility Clinics. 4. Nursery Necessities.

He’s used to storyboarding commercials. Here he was mapping out our future family.

Sometimes I can’t stand that he’s so perfect. Let’s just say I don’t excel at spreadsheets.

But as much as I want kids, I wasn’t prepared to feel this unprepared. Wyatt seems to have everything under control, asking all the right questions, knowing everything we need and always staying completely calm that we’re about to co-father a human baby.

For me, the closer we head to our due date, the more intensely frightened I become.

It feels like at any minute, a shadowy figure is going to tap on my shoulder and tell me that Wyatt and our future baby are way out of my league.

The only way I was able to get Wyatt to say yes to a vacation before having a baby was by literally buttering him up.

A few months ago, one night I made his favorite dish, cacio e pepe. It wasn’t until dessert, while savoring my homemade tiramisu (Mom’s recipe), that Wyatt leaned back in his chair, scratched the back of his head and finally asked, “So what kind of road trip?”

The tiramisu was doing the trick.

“The kind where you take a trip. On a road,” I said. We looked at each other as our brains surged with sugar-induced dopamine. The first taste of that cocoa powder dusting always does it.

I couldn’t help but smile, thinking what an epic adventure we could have before we meet our little one.

My grin was matched with that wrinkle just above Wyatt’s eyebrows, which forms when he overthinks something. It’s so ruggedly cute but it telegraphs so much.

“We’d have to map something out,” Wyatt said. Of course he would say that.

“Can’t we just rent like an RV or something and play it by ear?” I asked.

“I knew you were going to say that. If we’re serious, we should plan it,” Wyatt said.

“I knew you were going to say that,” I said. At least we find extreme comfort, never boredom, in how well we know each other. “I’ve always wanted to tour the South,” I offered.

“The South?” Wyatt asked, making a face like he just ate a lemon. “That’s the opposite direction of where we’re going.”

“Okay. I’m just spitballing here. No bad ideas,” I said.

“Except I kinda think that going south is not a great idea.”

“Oh! Here’s a better idea: how about a food road trip where we stop at the best restaurants and must-eats in different states?” I suggested, thinking I could get a good article for the magazine out of it.

“Too Guy Fieri,” Wyatt said. “What about a national park road trip? We can see Yellowstone, Arches, Yosemite...”

“We’ve been to two of those already.”

“Okay, what else ya got?” Wyatt asked.

“I don’t need to workshop a road trip itinerary. I would literally get in our car and just drive.”

“We have a baby on the way, Biz,” Wyatt said. “We can’t just wander the country aimlessly like Beat poets on LSD, trying to find ourselves.”

“That sounds amazing, actually,” I said.

“What if we visit all the quirky landmarks? Go see the largest ball of ear wax or the world’s tallest thermometer or whatever,” Wyatt said.

I love it when he talks nerdy to me but I’d decided we needed to have fun.

Like real fun.

“I personally need one last hurrah before we become tired dads. If you really want a themed road trip, let’s do a gay one,” I said. “We can stop at all the gay resort destinations from New York to California. We could even make it to Patrick and Nathan’s wedding.” Our old friends Patrick and Nathan recently left New York for the mountains of Evergreen, Colorado, and they’re getting married a month before the baby is due. Wyatt met Patrick in film school at Columbia and he especially didn’t want to miss the big day.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Wyatt said. “I’d love to make their wedding, but a gay resort town trip feels like our ‘Summer of Hedonism.’?”

Ah, our “Summer of Hedonism.” It was when Wyatt wasn’t working much and I was in between jobs. We spent one summer going back and forth from our Fire Island share house to a friend’s house in P-town for various themed weeks. P-town is what the cool kids call Provincetown. We were there for the Fourth of July, Bear Week and, by mistake, Lesbian Week. The most fun we had that summer was Lesbian Week. “The pressure was off,” Wyatt said.

“We can do Fire Island, P-town, Miami, then maybe Saugatuck. Remember our weekend there? It’s the P-town of Michigan. Or neither of us have been to Rehoboth. Is there anything in the southwest? Austin is kinda queerish,” I said.

“You’re going all over the place again. We can’t go up and down and zigzag across the country. That’s too much driving and we’d never make the birth,” Wyatt said.

“We don’t wanna go straight either. Not if we’re doing a gay trip.” I was trying to be funny but it wasn’t working.

Wyatt threw me a faux annoyed side-glance. I sighed in an overexaggerated way.

“What’s wrong?” Wyatt asked.

“I’m just hoping we could be more spontaneous. Like a wanderlust Jack Kerouac On the Road situation, but this is totally fine,” I said.

“Your idea is more of a Thelma and Louise situation,” Wyatt said. “If we want gay resort towns, let’s do this...” I love when he takes charge. “We’ll start in Provincetown, then Saugatuck, then Patrick and Nathan’s wedding in Colorado—”

“Oh! Maybe my cousins will let us stay at their place in Palm Springs after that,” I said, getting excited.

“I like that idea,” Wyatt said. “So Provincetown, Saugatuck, Colorado, Palm Springs, then we can make our way to Baker for the baby.”

I lit up. “All our favorite gay places.”

It sounded perfect.

“Just no fast-food stops,” I said. “Only quality food along the way.”

“Deal,” Wyatt agreed, making the gourmet food writer in me happy.

Wyatt, the organizer, the planner and always the director, spent the next week designing a whole itinerary. By the following week, he had every item we needed for our road trip and the birth, and we were still months away.

“Did you know the world’s tallest thermometer is actually in Baker, California?” Wyatt asked me later one night. “I totally made that up!”

“Oh, wow,” I said mildly amused.

“Diapers. Bottles. Blankets. The baby seat your parents gave us. Check. Check. Check. You’re in charge of snacks and music...” Wyatt went on and on.

He can never wing it.

Winging it is my forte. I can’t help it. I’ve always been in constant motion. My older sisters called me “Busy Body” as a little kid because I wouldn’t stop running in circles around the house, bouncing off the walls, not able to sit still for more than ten minutes at a stretch. Everyone started calling me “Biz” and it stuck.

My nickname always felt right since my birth name, Massimo Giorgio Petterelli, made me stand out too much in my very all-American town of Arlington Heights, Illinois. I didn’t know if the older boys in school stuffed me in gym lockers and made fun of me because I was second-generation Italian-American or because they knew I was gay or both.

My parents wanted me to live the American dream. When I was a kid they introduced me to a casting agent through a family friend, and I quickly booked a job walking the runway in a shopping mall fashion show, which snowballed into catalogue modeling jobs. That’s when my sisters jokingly started calling me “Show Biz.”

Before my junior year of high school, there was an open casting call in Chicago for a new Disney Channel sitcom called Back in the Saddle about a group of teenagers and their parents working on a dude ranch. I auditioned, and to everyone’s surprise, I was hired as a lead, so I left Illinois for LA to shoot the show, which lasted for three seasons.

I started getting caught up with too many teen actors who just wanted to party all the time, and I needed to leave LA, so I enrolled in NYU. After graduation I was writing blogs about my teenage acting years, which turned into freelance journalism jobs. Somehow I stumbled into a staff writing job at the magazine. Now after all these years, I’ve gone full circle and I’m longing to get back into my days of performing.

After my playlist ends in the car, there’s silence between us again. It feels like we’re not agreeing on anything lately, and both of us are cautious not to say the wrong thing.

I decide to check in on my favorite nemesis Instagram account, @quaddaddiez. It’s two handsome gay guys in their twenties who parade around their five-year-old quadruplets. The Quad Daddies’s life seems impossibly perfect. Every post is taken in their ornate Salt Lake City McMansion, with their four kids always primped and poised.

“Funny” ugly Christmas sweaters during the holidays.

Sunday best pastels on Easter.

Matching swimsuits on a random Wednesday by the pool.

I’m fascinated by their need to post like twelve times a day. I can’t look away.

For some reason, I’ve never shared @quaddaddiez with Wyatt.

Somewhere inside of me is envious, like I’ll never live up to these perfect Instagays.

When I look over at Wyatt, he’s studying the formation of traffic like he’s about to make a chess move. He flips his turn signal on and expertly rolls us into the fast lane. His perfect posture and command of the steering wheel make me feel safe.

On top of being a calming force of nature, Wyatt Wallace is just a stud. His prematurely salt-and-pepper facial scruff. A head of dark blond wavy hair you can get lost in. His solid, brick-house build looks perfect in everything from a tux to sweaty gym clothes to a concert T-shirt and jeans. His affable demeanor is like a magnet in any social situation. Moms love him.

How can I measure up to this saintly creature who is so clearly going to be the greatest living dad on earth?

“Take exit 36A to merge onto I-195 East,” the GPS lady informs us. “In six weeks, you’re not going to be a good dad and you know it, Biz,” I imagine her adding.

“How about another song?” I ask, trying to shake the voice inside my head that’s making me question everything lately.

“Something kinda quiet. We’re almost there,” Wyatt suggests.

I immediately drown out my thoughts with “Ocean Eyes” by Billie Eilish as we race toward our favorite place on earth.