But I knew I had to do something more with this happy happenstance. I don’t believe in such an orderly universe that some Deity decided that my previously-reserved house would be unavailable, forcing me into this room at the nexus of everything that matters to me (gay history, children’s literature, and the men who, like me, live in those overlaps). When Yi told me that this was the Frog and Toad room because Howard, his recently passed partner, had been in a relationship with Arnold Lobel, the part of my brain that processes surprise and joy overloaded and then shut down. When I realized the full extent of the decorations I gasped again, probably theatrically but I couldn’t help myself (I am gay). When I saw the framed print I gasped gleefully. I showed up dragging my suitcase behind me and Yi Zhao-Weiner, the proprietor, led me up to the room. Bear Week is a social gathering for gentleman homosexuals of the burly and hirsute variety, as well as those who enjoy their company). (For the uninitiated: Provincetown is a town at the tip of Cape Cod with a storied LGBT history and present. I booked a room in a Provincetown B&B, the most affordable one I could find but more than I wanted to spend, after my Bear Week plans fell through. The curtains are ruffled, and the bedspread is patterned with seashells. The two of them are also framed on the wall next to the hobbit-like closet, and another framed print hangs between the windows. There’s a stuffed Frog sitting next to a stuffed Toad on the bookshelf, their shoulders touching. I recommend sitting on the floor to read them but then, a lot of my job is sitting on a floor reading children’s books, so you might choose the armchair next to the window. It’s lined with Mouse Soup, Frog and Toad All Year, a story I didn’t know about an elephant. Next to the bed is a low wooden bookshelf. Where mothers put sick children to bed with cold compresses and bulb thermometers. The ceiling slants over the bed, the kind of bed you’d find in a picture book. Since Frog and Toad Together is very concerned with domesticity (tending to a garden, baking, keeping one’s life in some kind of order), let me tell you about this room.
The Frog and Toad room in Howard’s End, the Provincetown bed and breakfast Howard would later own, is at least 26 years away.
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