In Between Days (4 page)

What’s that?

No more family meals
.

It had been a joke between them. Family meals. The one thing they both hated. The one thing they both despised. Their father sitting at the far end of the table, carving the meat, their mother sitting beside him, pretending to love him. The two of them sitting around obediently at the far end of the room, pretending to be two well-adjusted children in a well-adjusted home.
It had been the greatest hypocrisy of all. These family meals. The greatest charade.

At the edge of the exit, Richard takes a left onto a side street, and suddenly the city of Houston comes into view: the neon-lit supermarkets, the taqueries, the giant palm trees swaying in the wind. This old familiar setting, the tropical paradise of her youth, coming back into view. She leans back in her seat and takes it all in.

As Richard pulls onto another street, she looks at him.

“You know, I read those poems you sent me.”

“Oh yeah? Which ones?”

“All of them,” she says, smiling at him. “They’re good.”

“You think?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I’m not an expert or anything, but they’re definitely a lot better than that crap they publish in the literary magazine back at school.”

He looks at her and smiles. “Thanks,” he says. Then he idles the car at a stoplight. “You know, this professor of mine—this guy I’m working with—he’s been trying to get me to apply to grad school in creative writing. For poetry, you know.”

“You should.”

“Right,” he says. “Can you imagine what Dad would say?”

“Have you talked to him about it?”

“Well, no—I mean yeah, kind of. I mentioned it to him once and he was all,
What? They actually have schools for that?
”

Richard mimics his father’s voice, his consternation, until she finally laughs.

“It’s bad enough I’m gay. But a gay poet. I mean, I think that’s just a little too much for him.”

She laughs again and realizes then how long it’s been since she’s laughed like this. How long it’s been since she’s had a reason. She imagines Raja sitting in his motel room all alone, then his parents sitting in the room next door, spending their very last penny to get him legal counsel. She pushes this image from her mind, readjusts her seat, rolls down the window.

“I think I’m going to smoke,” she says.

“Be my guest.”

She reaches into her purse for the pack, just as a thin stream of rain comes into the car, dampening her lap. She pulls out a cigarette and lights it, then closes her eyes, letting the rain hit her face.

“You know,” Richard says after a moment, “I don’t know what happened up there at Stratham and, I mean, I don’t really need to know. You can tell me whenever you want. I just want you to know that if you ever feel like talking about it, you know, I’m here.” He looks at her. “I mean, you don’t have to worry about me saying shit to Mom and Dad.”

“I know that,” she says and smiles. Then she pats his hand. “Thanks.”

She leans back in her seat again and closes her eyes.

A moment later, Richard’s cell phone rings, and after a few brief exchanges, he pulls over on the side of the road and takes out a pen from the glove compartment and writes down something on his hand. An address? A number? When he finally hangs up, he looks at her and smiles.

“Change of plans,” he says.

“Oh yeah? What’s up?”

“Well, it looks like that club thing’s not going to be happening anymore. Something about the weather or something. Anyway, we’re going to a party instead.”

“Whose party?”

He turns up the radio and hits the gas, and for a moment she thinks she sees him smile. “Beto’s,” he says, winking. “This guy named Beto.”

LORNA’S BEST FRIEND
, Elise Henriquez, is standing at the counter, making tea, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. Elise had arrived only minutes before Elson, just as he was about to walk through the door and tell Lorna what had happened. There had been a blackout in Elise’s apartment apparently, and so she’d brought over half her refrigerator in a cooler, all of the perishables, all of the meats. And now, as a sign of gratitude to Lorna, she is making them tea.

Elson leans back in his chair and watches her. Just moments before, he had given Lorna a look, a nasty look, which Lorna had ignored. Now he wonders if he should have played it differently, maybe been a little more gracious. He tries to catch her eye again, but she has turned away.

The apartment itself is dimly lit, the walls covered with original artwork given to Lorna by friends. There’s a warmth to this place, a warmth to this apartment, that belies her own personal aesthetic for clean lines and barren walls. A minimalist in theory, but not in practice, Elson thinks. On the wall to his left, there’s an enormous bookcase filled with books, more books than Elson has ever read, mostly political biographies and socialist rants, abstract discourses on the state of the world. On the wall to his right, there’s an enormous painting of Lorna herself, a nude, painted by an old boyfriend. When they’d first started dating, he’d asked her to take it down, demanded that she remove it, and she’d refused. He’d told her that it made him feel uncomfortable, especially when her friends were over, and she’d laughed. To have her body laid out like that for everyone to see, he’d said, what would they think? She had told him that they were all artists and that they wouldn’t think anything, and that had been the end of that. But now, as he looks at the painting, he wonders
why he’d ever cared so much. The figure itself barely resembles her. It’s a crude rendering at best. He leans back in his chair and considers this.

“How do you like your tea?” Elise says to Elson, turning around and taking the kettle off the stove. “With cream? Sugar?”

“I think I’ll just stick with what I’m having,” Elson says, nodding toward the gin and tonic on the table that he’s just made for himself.

Lorna looks at the drink, perhaps noticing it for the first time, then at Elson.

They have a rule lately, or rather, she has a rule: no more than two drinks a night. A rule implemented after Elson drove his car into one of her neighbors’ trash cans and spilled half of its contents onto the street. But Lorna doesn’t know about the Brunswick Hotel or the two drinks Elson has had earlier, so for all intents and purposes, this is really his first. His first real drink anyway. The other two were starter drinks, what his wife would have called
relaxers
. And besides, he thinks, his daughter just got expelled from college, right? Didn’t that warrant a drink?

He leans back in his chair and stares at the two women.

“So, I meant to congratulate you,” Elise says as she and Lorna sit down at the table with their tea. “For that building you just built. That music building over at Rice. It’s lovely.” She smiles at him. “I understand you had a hand in that.”

“Oh no,” Elson says. “Not really.” He picks up his drink and sips it. “They had me on it at first, but then they took me off.”

“Oh,” Elise says, looking down.

“It’s not that uncommon,” Elson continues, trying to recover. “Happens all the time in a big firm like ours. They think they want you on one thing, and then they decide they want you on something else. There’s a lot of moving around, you know, a lot of reshuffling.”

Elise nods. “I’m sure,” she says. “I can imagine.”

The truth was, it did happen all the time in a big firm like theirs. People were always being moved around, reshuffled. But it was also true that this had been happening to Elson more and more often lately. He had been reassigned twice in the past month alone, and when he had made a formal complaint about it to one of the partners, Ted Sullivan, Ted had told him not to worry about it, that they’d soon put him on something else, something better, which of course they never did. What Ted didn’t tell him, and what Elson knew to be the truth, was that they no
longer cared for his aesthetic. They felt he’d gone too far, that his buildings were too severe, too cold. There had been some complaints among some of the clients as well. One of them, a very famous movie actor, who had actually requested that Elson design his house, had threatened to sue the firm after seeing the final product. He claimed that the house itself had caused emotional distress in his marriage, that his wife had cried when she’d seen it, and that it wasn’t the type of place where a normal human being could raise children. Never mind that Elson had won a prestigious national award in the late seventies that had brought in more recognition, and more clients, to the firm than ever before. Never mind that one of the first buildings he’d ever built, a small Presbyterian church on the outskirts of Houston, was still being used in graduate classrooms as a model of formal simplicity. Never mind that half of the interns who worked there had listed him as their number one reason for choosing Sullivan & Gordon. None of that mattered anymore. What mattered now were profits. The bottom line. And none of his buildings were bringing in profits anymore, or at least not like they used to. The materials he chose were too expensive, they’d told him, his timelines too long. It was for these reasons and others that he’d never made partner. That he’d remained an associate architect for twenty-two years.

He picks up his drink and takes a sip and notices that both Elise and Lorna are looking at him expectantly.

“Isn’t that crazy?” Lorna says.

“What?”

“Weren’t you even listening?”

And he realizes then that he must have zoned out, something that’s been happening to him more and more often lately. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I must have drifted.”

They both stare at him. “Well, Elise was just telling me that Woody Harrelson came into their gallery today and bought three paintings. All by Guzman. Stayed, what—five minutes?”

“Five minutes,” Elise confirms.

“Woody Harrelson?” Elson says.

“Come on, Elson. You know who Woody Harrelson is. The actor?”

Elson stares at them blankly.

“Jesus, Elson. Don’t you ever go to the movies?” Elise starts to laugh.

“I don’t like movies,” Elson says.

They both stare at him in disbelief, and Elson feels a sudden need to rescue himself. “I like Godard,” he says finally, “but I’m not sure if he’s still making movies anymore. Is he still alive?”

They both smile at him, but before they can answer, the phone rings, and Lorna jumps up and runs over to the counter to answer it. She starts to laugh at something the caller has just said and then she says, “This is so weird. We were just talking about you.” Then she looks at Elise.
It’s Guzman
, she mouths. “Well, aren’t you the little star,” she continues, laughing. “Uh-huh. I know. It’s totally nuts, right?”

Elson reaches for his drink and finishes it off. He tries to remember who Guzman is. He’s met so many of Lorna’s friends in the past year that it’s hard for him to distinguish one from another. All wannabe artists, he thinks. Poseurs. Frauds. He looks at Elise and asks her for a cigarette, which she happily gives him.

“What are these?” he says, eyeing the soft turquoise pack.

“American Spirits,” she says. “They’re organic. No chemicals.”

Elson looks at the cigarette, then lights it. In the background, he can still hear Lorna talking. “No, totally, it’s fine. Sure. Come over anytime. We’re just sitting here having tea.”

Elson looks at her, and she looks away. A moment later, she’s off the phone and back at the table.

“Guzman’s coming over,” she says. “He’s blacked out, too. The whole east side of Montrose apparently. Anyway, he’s bringing Carrie.”

“Well, if we’re having a party …,” Elson says, reaching for the bottle of gin, not finishing his sentence.

Lorna purses her lips.

“I love Guzman,” Elise says.

“Who’s Guzman?” Elson says, reaching for the tonic. He looks at Lorna, who’s no longer looking at him.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ve met him,” Elise says after a moment, trying to break the tension. “Tall gay man. Always wears black. Even in the summer. I think you met him at Carrie’s, or maybe it was Stu’s. Anyways, he’s a brilliant artist.”

“Apparently,” Elson says smugly, drawing on his cigarette.

“Don’t mind Elson,” Lorna says to Elise. “He’s just had a bad day.”

“Oh yeah?” Elise says. “What happened?”

Elson downs the rest of his drink quickly, then reaches for the bottle.
“My daughter just got expelled from college,” he says, looking at the back of Lorna’s head.

Lorna turns around finally, her eyes suddenly soft. He can see her surprise. “Are you serious?” she says. “Chloe?”

“Yep.”

“What happened?”

“That I can’t tell you, my dear. Wish I could, but Cadence won’t tell me a thing. All I know is that she’s back at home for the rest of the term.”

“So, it’s not permanent?” Elise says.

“I have no idea,” he says. Then he takes the bottle and starts to pour, forgoing the tonic this time.

“Why don’t you slow down,” Lorna says, grabbing his wrist.

“My daughter just got expelled from school,” he says to her evenly, as if that would be the answer to every question she asked him for the rest of the night.

After a moment, Lorna lets go, and he continues pouring.

“Maybe I should leave the two of you alone,” Elise says. “I feel really bad for being here right now.”

“Nonsense,” Elson says, waving her off. “We’re just having a drink, right? We’re just a bunch of friends having a drink.”

“You’re the only one drinking,” Lorna points out.

“Okay,” he says, “so I’m the only one drinking. Big deal. I’m also the only one who’s about to stand up and go take a piss.” And with that, he stands up clumsily, feeling the shift of the room, and starts toward the hall. In the background, he can hear Lorna apologizing to Elise.
His divorce
, she is saying.
His daughter
. He moves toward the bathroom and closes the door. He stares at his face in the mirror, its distorted image, then runs some water. Suddenly the room is tilting, the Mexican tiles changing shape. He sits down on the edge of the tub and tries to catch his bearings. He feels a little nauseous, a little ill, and then suddenly he’s on the floor and crawling toward the toilet. In the background, he can hear some music coming on. Marvin Gaye? The Four Tops? As the singer sings
Oh baby, baby
, Elson vomits twice, very violently, into the bowl. The music goes off, and then he hears his name being called. He vomits again, this time so forcefully that he feels it in his gut, his stomach muscles tightening, and then he looks in the bowl and notices that there are tiny red specks on the porcelain rim. Others float around in the
bowl. He wipes his forehead, loosens his tie, stares at the specks, then moves over toward the wall and tries to relax. As he slumps down on the floor, he can feel the dampness on the back of his shirt and feels faint. A moment later, there’s a knock on the door, and then another, and then he hears his name being called. When the door finally opens, he can see Lorna’s worried face looking in.