Equal Affections (19 page)

April shrugged. “Happy. A little scared. But happy. Actually, I'm totally confused.” And she looked into the distance of the kitchen window, in which her own reflection hovered over Walter's newly planted vegetable garden.

“How long have you known?” Danny asked.

“Three days.”

“Have you told Mom and Dad?”

“No, I wanted to tell you first.”

“Well, you better tell them soon because if you don't, I'm just going to have to do it myself.”

April's mouth opened in outrage. “What the hell does that—” It shut again. “I was planning to call them tonight,” she said softly, looking away from her brother. “I haven't even informed the father yet.”

Abruptly Danny stood, circled the kitchen table, then sat again, his forehead on his fist. “Look,” Danny said, “let me just first say I think this is great. I do, I'm really happy I'm going to be an uncle. But there are a few things I've got to ask you about. First of all—well, I know this is a hard question and all, and that you trust your friend, but as he is a gay man—well, has he had an AIDS test?”

“Boy, you go right for the jugular, don't you?” April said, and laughed. “But don't worry. I freaked out about the same thing about a year and a half ago, and before I'd even mustered the courage to ask him, he called me up to tell me he'd gone to have the test, and he was negative. He's so responsible he even had the doctor send me a letter confirming the test results.”

“Good,” Danny said. “That's one worry out of the way. Now, my second question. Have you written up any sort of legal custody agreement?”

“Danny, I've only been pregnant three days! Anyway, Tom's going to take care of it.”

“April, I know he's your friend, and you trust him, but as a lawyer I feel obligated to warn you, you really ought to make sure you're protected.”

Suddenly April smiled big teeth at Danny. “As a lawyer,” she said. “I can't believe it. My little brother.
As a lawyer
.”

“Look, if you don't want my advice, fine, I know plenty of people who'll give you exactly the same advice for five thousand dollars or so. Just spare me the insults.” Dramatically he marched out of the kitchen.

“Oh, Danny,” April said, following him into the living room, “I'm sorry. Please forgive me, I just lapse into this big-sister thing, I look at you and I think, is this big, handsome lawyer really my little squirt of a brother?”

“Think whatever you like about me, April. But I am really worried about the possibility of your getting shafted in this thing.”

April sat down on the sofa. “I'm all ears,” she said.

“All right,” Danny said. “Well, first of all, this primary-caretaker stuff. I think it all has to be laid down in writing. If you want him to be the primary caretaker, I think you have to establish, from the outset, that if at any time you are not satisfied with his performance as primary caretaker, you can regain custody of your child. And I think you also have to establish that if you change your mind once the baby is born, you can nullify the agreement and raise the baby yourself. I mean, you're not that far from surrogate parenting here.”

“Well, of course I see what you mean, Danny,” April said, “but really, Tom's not like that. You talk as if we live in this vicious dog-eat-dog world and he and Brett are really just conspiring to use my womb and take my baby. But they're not. These are very progressive, enlightened leftists here, two men who basically think the American justice system is fucked. They side with the victims. They wouldn't set foot in a courtroom on principle, much less wage a lawsuit. The whole point is, I want to be the baby's mother, and Tom wants to be the baby's father. In fact, it's very sexist of
you
to assume that just because I've decided I want the baby to live with Tom, I somehow don't care about the baby or don't plan to see it or be part of its life, and it's unfair to assume Tom wants me out of the way. I will be very much an active participant in the raising of this child.”

“That's fine. That's great. And that's why you've got to have a legal agreement assuring your continued involvement. Not to mention grandparents' rights, uncles' rights. Who's to say—I'm not saying it, but who's to say—that Tom might not decide he doesn't want your family involved with the baby? I just want to make sure that's covered in the legal agreement. Better you take care of these things before the baby's born and spare yourself a nationally televised trial.”

“You have become so distrustful since you moved to New York,” April said. “Really, such an easterner.”

“It's my job to look out for you, April. I always have. And talk about sexist! This baby is yours more profoundly than it's Tom's. It's your body, remember. Don't let him treat you like you're carrying this precious thing of his, only to have him forget you once it's safely in his house.”

“If you just knew Tom,” April said, “if you met him once, you'd see how pointless all this is.”

“I know from experience, no matter how well you think you know
someone, you can never guess. You've got to protect yourself. Hell, if you're afraid he'll be insulted by a legal agreement, just bat your eyelashes and tell him your big bully lawyer of a brother is forcing you to do it all.”

“Little
bully lawyer of a brother,” April said.

“You just have to get in a last dig, don't you? Big sister to the bitter end.”

She stretched her arms luxuriously behind her head. “Oh, all this is too much,” she said. “Here I am, all alone, with no one in the world. Me and my little baby.” She spoke these words experimentally, as if trying them on for size, then laughed; they didn't fit.

A rattling at the door announced Walter's return. He was carrying two huge cardboard boxes, which covered his face, and when Betty, the dog, leaped to greet him, they nearly tumbled. “Betty, get off, for Christ's sake!” Walter called from behind his boxes. “Danny, can you help me with this stuff?”

Danny hurried to relieve him. “What is this?” he asked as he took one of the boxes.

“Mangoes,” said Walter. “I bought them at the station at Hoboken.”

“This is enough mangoes for about twenty years, Walt; they'll rot before we eat them.”

“So I'll give some to my mother,” Walter said. “Anyway, you just watch. They'll get eaten. Hi, April, how was your day?”

“Fine,” April said. “How was yours, Walt?”

“Just fine.”

For a second April and Danny looked at each other.

“April has some news,” Danny said, and April turned the other way.

“News?”

There was squealing at a significant enough distance away to suggest the mutilation of small dogs by the tires of a bus. “Goddammit,” Walter said. “Betty must have slipped out the front door. I'd better get her.” He went into the kitchen and returned holding the Dustbuster. “This will get her back, it always does.” He pushed the button on the Dustbuster, and the little vacuum cleaner gave out its familiar suction roar. Betty barked more loudly, farther away. “See you soon!” Walter said gaily, and was off, calling, “Betty! Betty!” into the night.

April looked at Danny. “What's with the vacuum cleaner?” she asked.

“Betty and the Dustbuster have a love-hate relationship. She likes to fight with it and lick it. I think she thinks it's alive, since it's about the size of a little dog. And as we've learned from hard experience, it's the one object short of hamburger meat that will entice her back inside once she's escaped into the world.”

“I see,” April said. They walked out onto the front porch and surveyed the early-evening suburban panorama. Across the street a young man wearing cutoffs was watering his lawn, while next door three blond children chased each other in circles, calling, “You're it! You're it! You're it!” And in the middle of the street, like some absurd pied piper, was Walter, in his black lawyer's suit. He waved the Dustbuster over his head, offering its wail to the twilight air, and, in the warm, bark-filled night, waited.

M
arch seventh came and went. Walter did not quit his job. At the office his secretary marked the advent of her fourth year in his employ with the gift of a carnation and a card which, when you opened it, sang out “Auld Lang Syne” in a tinny, computerized voice. Other than that, the only acknowledgments were a letter from a senior partner, congratulating Walter on work well done and expressing hope that his association with the firm would last another five years, and a piece of electronic mail, or e-mail, when he switched on the computer in his office early on the anniversary evening. It was from Bulstrode, one of his computer friends.

To: Hunky Lawyer
From: Bulstrode
Subject: Fifth Year Anniversary

Walter,

Congratulations! You have now passed the point of no return. You have resisted temptation, and great rewards are in store for you as a result. Welcome to the real world! Farewell, dreams of youthful wandering! Just wait till you turn forty!

Fondly,

Bullie

Walter smiled. It seemed ironic to him that of all the people in his life, only Bulstrode, who wasn't really in his life at all, had bothered to acknowledge the passing of this pretty significant day. Bulstrode was a banker in Louisville, Kentucky, and they had “met” (if “met” was the right word) one dreary winter Sunday when Walter was scanning the roster of names logged onto the gay channel in search of some sort of flirtation or dirty conversation. (“Interactive pornography” was how he described it to friends.) Among the Willing Slaves, Sweaty Jocks, Hung Studs, and Tight Ends who were jockeying for space and attention in that strange electronic gay bar of the mind, he had been amused to see for the first time his Louisville friend's aggressively offbeat handle, and since Bulstrode was one of his favorite characters in
Middlemarch,
one of his favorite books, he had dashed off a message, asking if indeed a literary allusion was intended. Bulstrode responded with a chat request; they retreated together to that little hypothetical private room, where Bulstrode acknowledged that Walter had guessed his source. He was Bulstrode because Bulstrode was, like him, a banker; also, he added, because the name had enough of a violent edge to interest the less literary. And who was this hunky lawyer, who recognized a name from
Middlemarch?
What was he doing in semiliterate compu-land? “Information,” Bulstrode typed, “we want information!”

In his past computer-enhanced communications Walter had been reluctant about divulging any true history, but Bulstrode for some reason put him at ease. Walter admitted certain salient facts, being careful not to be too specific, then asked Bulstrode about himself, a subject on which he was less forthcoming not, Walter suspected, because he had anything to hide, but because the facts of his real life simply held no interest for him. “Bulstrode's” biography, which he gave pieces of, was not, it quickly became clear, a thing of the real world. When Walter asked how old he was, he answered, “Bulstrode is 32,” which made him suspect the banker in Louisville to be significantly older. In the meantime, Bulstrode admitted to several other alter egos: In moments of high-campy imaginativeness he was “Rick-18,” and in moments of extreme horniness he was “Rough Master.” His real name was either George or Martin, depending on when you asked him. He said he was 6'2” and weighed 175 pounds, had brown hair, blue eyes, a beard, a medium-hairy chest, and a seven-and-a-half-inch cock. All of this was probably a lie. Why not lie, after all, when there were so many
barriers between you and the person you were speaking to? What harm could it do? And anyway, these particulars, once they were dispensed, never had much bearing on Walter and Bulstrode's conversations, even when those conversations took a decidedly sexual edge.

One cold Sunday evening Bulstrode asked Walter to call him. It seemed an inevitable progression, like sex on the third date. Walter was nervous and excited as he dialed the number, as if he were on the brink of doing something forbidden, but of course it was just ten digits, followed by a distant-sounding series of rings.

“Hello?”

“Bulstrode?” Walter asked.

“Walter? Hi!” And Bulstrode laughed. He had an appealing baritone with a slight, delicate southern lilt to it. “I'm glad to be talking to you!”

“Me too.”

“You have a nice voice. Very masculine, very sexy.”

“Thanks. So do you.”

There were a few seconds of nervous breath, and then Bulstrode said, “I can't believe it. Finally I'm hearing your real voice. And you know what? You sound just like what I imagined you would.”

Bulstrode was, it turned out, a veteran and an aficionado of the gay channel, the denizens of which he had maintained steady relations with for almost three years. “I've had quite my share of adventures as a result of it too,” he told Walter. “For instance, have you noticed a guy who comes on occasionally, not too often, with the handle Barracuda?”

“I'm not sure,” Walter admitted.

“Well, he's this kid up in Boston, a comp sci grad student at MIT. I had a pretty major love affair with him last year. We just broke it off a couple of months ago.”

“Really?” Walter said. “Wow, I'm impressed. I guess I just never imagined people could really start relationships this way.”

“I'd say this was just about the most serious gay relationship I've been in,” Bulstrode said. “Jimmy—that was his real name—he and I were really in love. It was the best and the hardest thing I've ever been in.”

“Long-distance relationships are tough,” Walter said affably. “Did you usually go up there or did he come down to visit you?”