Loonglow (16 page)

After several hours of dining pleasure, Clay wondered how to end the evening; he was clearly expected to squire Brooke home, or at least to ask her out, a prospect he didn't view with much enthusiasm. He was being rude to her, he knew. He was equally unfair to women whom he met at work, at parties: nice ones, women smart enough to be involved with, but never anyone he could feel inclined to see again. It didn't seem quite right to waste the time of some nice, normal person when all he really wanted was to be with one small oddball. See you later, Pops, he thought. Bidding an abrupt good night, he ignored Clayton's obvious displeasure at his failure to take conclusive action. Sorry, I've got to go home and carry a torch for a dyke, he thought as Brooke smoothly got her things and left with him. As they rode the elevator in silence, he strained to think of something light to put her off. She surprised him, saying, “My car's outside. I'll drop you.”

Who had a car in New York City? he thought, falling in beside her. Her decisiveness was impressive; he was almost curious to see what she would do with him.

Instead of asking where he lived, she drove him to her place—luxurious and immaculately furnished, he soon learned. Why he'd been silent, simply following her lead, he couldn't say. As long as there were women to take charge of things, he supposed he'd never have to make a move. Was this the way the world worked, really—was the notion that men were the ones in charge pure myth?

Impassively he watched as she made drinks, then slipped out of her clothes as casually as if she were preparing for a bath in total solitude. He took in the well-formed body as he sipped his drink. She sat down next to him, kissing his neck, then worked the buttons of his shirt with expert hands. (He felt as if he were some large device she was employing for her own release.) Surely they could do better than this, he thought, and willed himself to fondle her, caressing her smooth skin (though in truth he felt more genuine enthusiasm for the drink set to one side of her). Rising slightly off the couch, he let her slip his pants off, brushing her shoulders as her hands moved across him smoothly. Finally she lowered herself onto him. Hearing himself cry out, he put his arms around her, stroking her cool back. The sound of her soft breathing echoed in his ears as she moved over him. Whatever they were doing seemed to go on for a very long time.

The next day Clay walked across the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn, watching the skyline of the city change. So many people were awake early he felt as if he'd happened upon another universe, one that went on all around him as he splashed about in a tiny corner like a child, oblivious. The air was hushed and slightly damp; his feet protested slightly as he walked through Brooklyn Heights until he reached the Promenade.

He sat down on a bench as joggers passed and women in Reeboks and business suits walked dogs. Putting down his things, he gazed across the water at the view of downtown Manhattan, serenely beautiful in the morning light.

I hate Louey, he thought suddenly. He couldn't fathom her complete abandonment of him; it didn't seem within her nature.

A group of teenage girls ogled him. He sighed: he'd write a wry, insulting letter; that would do the trick. Yawning, he rose and made his way down to the subway. “Dear Heartless Bitch”—no, that was far too understated. He'd show her he wasn't some lump who pined for women with no use for him—no matter what their sexual persuasion. “Sincerely and with tragically misplaced affection,” he thought, getting on a train.

Changing his clothes, Clay ran around the reservoir in Central Park, gritting his teeth each time a woman passed him. He should be in better shape than this, he thought; and why should women passing him make him feel so inferior? No doubt it meant deep down he thought he should be better than they were at whatever he might do. Another flaw, he thought—offending people right and left. A gay man eyed him curiously, as if he'd spoken. Clay thought of asking for advice about this lesbian he knew, but luckily the man had passed before he had the chance.

After half an hour he gave up, hobbling away from the energetic horde. He should go and work on his book, but he was damned if he could bring himself to write when Louey couldn't even get herself to speak his name. He threw himself down on a park bench, next to someone's grandmother. After several moments, he began to notice that the conversation she was having was with him. “I'm sure your children love you,” he said once she'd mentioned what was troubling her.

“Young people,” she went on, “all they think about today is making money. Selfish.” She sighed loudly, watching several teenage boys in running gear pass, arguing. “What do you do for a living?”

I'm the coroner, he nearly said. “I'm a musician.” Where had that come from?

“I was a singer when I was a girl.” He stared at her. “Before the Nazis came.” She clucked her tongue.

Clay thought of how he'd heard his father tell his mother he wouldn't be a Jew “for all the money in the world.” (It had seemed odd to Clay, as if it were a fate something as simple as money could arrange.) His father hated everyone, he'd realized early on: poor people, women, men “who might as well be women,” “niggers.” (The word still made Clay's chest tight, as it had when he was a boy, though at the time he hadn't quite known why.) How could someone like that be his father? he'd thought. What if he grew up to be just like him?

“At least in New York City people let each other be,” he mentioned to the woman. In New York you could walk down any street and hear ten different languages, not one of them English. Black faces mixed with Asian, Latin, white ones from around the globe. It was a marvel—where else could the product of so many different lands mix in one place?

“The blacks, they hate the Jews,” the woman said. “The Puerto Ricans hate the black ones, too.”

“Not everyone.” It pained Clay when he came upon dissension among people he had hoped would be more sensitive than he. Well, he had one small problem now himself: gay people.

“Ach, America.” The woman gazed off into the distance, and Clay looked with her.

When he'd met Mia years ago, he'd started noticing gay men—gay women were far harder to pick out—somehow both intrigued and put off by the air of insulation they projected, angry self-protection, proud defiance. When he'd gotten to know Louey, some of the strangeness had worn off: her world seemed private, magical, a family that lived underground but snuck out every night to play. He'd almost envied her for being different, even for having to fight to prove what she was.

Now suddenly he found himself consumed with hatred for the very thing he had admired. Why the fuck did she have to be gay; why couldn't she want him, like other women? Would it have killed her? Would loving him have been so goddamned horrible?

He had nothing to be proud of, he knew that: his lordly, stupidly oblivious background, his shiftless life. He hated the intolerance that had overtaken him, as if before his very eyes he was fulfilling his worst fears, turning into his father. He remembered fleetingly how he'd once wanted to be black; it seemed ironic now.

Well, he loved her. He thought about the friend he'd laughed with, teased, and fallen for, though surely all the physical insanity would soon have passed. He loved her. Even as he clung to newfound bigotry as if his life depended on it, it made him happy just to think of something she had said, some teasing, silly conversation. He loved her; it was the worst thing he had ever done.

After a shower and some hours of lying on his bed composing letters, Clay went down to get his mail. Along with several bills and six requests for money was a postcard of a surly, nude young man whose name appeared to be “Kept Boy.” Next to his blond head was the caption: “‘Not another goddamned Mercedes,' he whined.”

Clay turned it over, feeling slightly dizzy. “Glad to hear the wife's hair is beginning to grow back after that nasty lederhosen incident,” he read. “Too bad you couldn't both have been here for the firing.” He blinked, feeling a strange sensation in his chest. “Hope you're hard at work. (Any chance I can get you to rewrite the character of the bitch editor your hero murders? I know, wishful thinking.) Miss your tawdry face. Best to the little ones.” Clay stood in the middle of his lobby, staring at the card until the doorman came and asked if there was anything he wanted.

“No,” he said. Nothing worth mentioning.

Louey unpacked the last of her boxes, filling one corner of the shelves in the small office. Taking a folder from the pile across her desk, she began to hang up photographs and cartoons to give the room a warmer, lived-in look. In the midst of hanging up a poster, she heard a sound and looked down from the chair she was standing on to see the smiling face of her new boss. She started to step down.

“No, go on with what you're doing,” the woman stopped her. Gloria was nearly as young as she was, tanned from a business trip out West. “I see you're making yourself at home,” she went on. “We're glad you're here.”

“Thank you.” Louey smiled at her. It was odd not having to be tense whenever her boss came into a room. At this new office, everyone was friendly, casual.

“Agents have been calling to tell me what a catch we got,” Gloria added, handing her a pushpin.

“They live to flatter.”

“They think they're telling me something I don't know.” She shook her head. “Well, give a holler if you need anything I haven't thought of. The phones should be connected by tomorrow; your business cards will take a little longer.”

“Thanks.” But tell me, she wanted to ask, when is this elated mood of mine going to fade?

She'd met the editor in chief of one of the few existing civilized publishing houses at a dinner party that an agent friend had thrown; to her surprise, Gloria was not only smart and sane, she even liked Louey. Louey went through the next weeks in shock: she was being courted by a reputable publisher, she might even get a decent job! The thought was overwhelming.

“Well?” Kevin had asked just two weeks earlier at Lincoln Center. “How's freedom?”

“Everyone keeps telling me how half of publishing's been fired.” She sat down by the fountain. “But secretly I know they all think I deserved it.” She'd never known how powerless, how utterly defeated, she could feel—as if she had to prove her competence to everyone. “I wouldn't have gotten fired if it hadn't been for …”

“Your overweening tastefulness?” He sat down next to her. “Your authors are going out of their minds, I have to tell you.” He swung his legs against the ledge of the fountain. “It would have helped if you'd let on what life was really like at Regent—if only you'd been less discreet.”

“It's always been a problem of mine.”

He beat his fists together. “It's horrible without you, Louey. I'm taking my vacation as soon as possible.” He took a breath. “And they promoted me.”

“Kevin!” She grabbed his arm. “That's wonderful! At least now you won't be at the beck and call of some cheap floozy.”

“I was worried they'd give me a straight man.”

“They wouldn't
dare.
” She gazed into the foamy water, shielding her eyes. “I'm so glad my authors have you taking care of them.”

“You aren't mad?” She stared, then put an arm around his shoulders. “Then you don't mind if I put pictures of naked boys on all the covers, right?” He ducked a punch. “Just testing.” He took a deep breath. “So …”

She waited. “What?” He wouldn't meet her eye. “What, Kevin?”

“It's …” He watched a stream of overdressed young concertgoers pass. “Have you called Clay?”

She still could feel the cool hand on her shoulder as she'd turned to find him standing in her office on the verge of tears her last day.

“Every time I tried to mention him—”

“I went into a coma.” She sighed. “I just keep seeing—”

“Louey.” He covered her hand. “It's not his fault.”

“I wrote him.” She studied her feet. “But I can't bring myself to call him. What would I say: Hi, Clay—I'm so sorry about wanting you wiped from the planet, can we be friends a century from now, once I've forgotten how to spell Mia's name?”

“That's v-i-x-e-n.”

“And what if I don't get a job? I won't be much good to him then.” She blinked. “Or anybody.”

“I won't listen to such talk.”

The thought of never working on a book again was too painful to bear. She rose to her feet. “Do you think a girl could get arrested just for leaping into the fountain?”

“What's that got to do with you?”

She laughed, striking a pose as if preparing for a dive. “I know one way to find out …”

He took her outstretched hand. “Going somewhere?” He squeezed hard. She smiled, starting to slip her hand from his, but he wouldn't let go. “Without me?” he asked, holding fast.

Several weeks at her new office increased Louey's elation; rather than confirming her worst fears, she learned there was a decent way to work. For the first time she looked forward to going to the office, going out with agents, authors. This was what it really meant to be an editor: to help books come to life. It was as if she had been freed from prison. She never dreamed she'd get to work with people she respected, people she could learn from, even
like.
It was a miracle.

Clay's unfinished manuscript lay unopened in a corner of her office. She tried to call, but each time she picked up the phone she saw the shame contort his face as he looked first at Mia and then at her. The postcard had been faceless; talking to his voice seemed utterly impossible. Nor had Clay had the nerve to call her, either—though nearly the day after she'd mailed the card, she had gotten a note wishing her good luck finding a job. Now chances were he wouldn't even finish working on his book. No, that was silly; surely he'd have found another publisher by now, an editor impressed by his connections, soaking up his charm! He was charming, she thought. Still, there was something that kept Clay from seeming smug or arrogant like other pretty, rich boys.