Raincheck (2 page)

He didn’t know why it mattered. He only knew he’d like to be able to talk to Rodney tonight.

The door to the roof groaned as he opened it. He didn’t remember it making that much noise the last time. He’d have to bring a can of silicone spray up here and work on it. He shook his head; like it mattered if the door groaned or not. Still, it bugged him, and it was an easy fix.

Unlike the previous time he’d been up here, the moon was only a thin sliver in the sky and barely cast any light at all. He wished he’d thought to bring a flashlight.
Next time,
he told himself and wondered why he was so sure there would be a next time.

“Hey, Rodney,” he said into the darkness as he stood on the roof, looking around. “You out here, buddy?”

He heard a slight whisper of sound over by the air-conditioning unit. It didn’t strike him as sounding human, more like the rustle of wings or the furtive movement of some animal. Maybe a rat; no, more likely a bird. One of those pigeons that seemed to be on every building ledge in the city. He had no idea why this disappointed him. Maybe it was because he had no other way of getting in contact with Rodney, and he wanted to speak to him.

The sibilant noise wasn’t repeated; all David heard was the slightly muted sounds from the street below. It reminded him of a beehive with all its busy, seemingly pointless activity. Just as he was turning to leave, he heard Rodney’s rich baritone, sounding eerily close yet impossible to pinpoint.

“Um, yes?”

David felt a smile steal over his face. It was funny to think that the guy who sounded so sure of himself last time seemed uncertain now.

“Hey, I’m glad you’re up here. I just wanted to let you know I took your advice.”

“My advice?”

David wished he could see Rodney’s face. The guy sounded stunned and it made David want to laugh.

“Yes, your advice. I told my father that I didn’t want to join the company and I had no intentions of marrying, ever. There was a lot of yelling, and then he kicked me out, this time for good.”

David heard another sound in the darkness, as though Rodney had made an involuntary movement toward him but thought better of it. “Oh, wow. I’m so sorry. Really, you have no idea.” There was a pause before Rodney’s voice sharpened. “Wait a minute. You said ‘this time’. You mean he’s kicked you out before?”

David shrugged. “This makes the third time. When I was seventeen, he told me that I was a business investment that wasn’t meeting expectations and he cut me off for a while, but my mom talked him into funding my college tuition again. After her death, he stopped using the threat of disowning me to keep me in line. I think he really means it this time, though.
I
certainly do.”

“You must be really pissed with me.”

David did laugh this time, and it struck him that his laughter sounded as free as a bird. He could picture it, soaring overhead, above the city’s noise and pollution, to where the sky was clean and full of stars. “No, I want to thank you. I can’t tell you how much better I feel. I’m thirty-five, with no foreseeable income, and cut off from my family connections. I have no idea how I’m going to pay the rent three months from now, but I feel better than I’ve felt in my whole life. I feel
alive
.”

“Oh, hey. That’s really great.” David could hear it then, the longing in Rodney’s voice. It spoke of years of living in silence, and David recognized that sort of deadness with every fiber of his being. He thought back to Rodney’s anger with him over the concept of living in a prison, and it seemed to make a bit more sense now.

“Anyway,” he said, suddenly feeling awkward. “I wanted to buy you a drink. Come on. Let’s go grab a beer, on me.”

“Look at you, the big spender. Don’t you think you’d better hold onto your cash until you find a job?” The grumpy quality was back in Rodney’s voice, and David found that much easier to bear. It seemed right somehow.

“I think I can spring for a beer.” He wished Rodney would come out where he could see him. The disembodied voice, no matter how deep and seductive it sounded, was starting to feel a little creepy.

“Call me when you make your first million.”

David felt the breath rush out of him. He hadn’t thought Rodney would be like that. In fact, Rodney’s rudeness to him the time before had convinced him that Rodney wasn’t the type to be swayed by money. Apparently, he was wrong.

“Right.” He could hear the stiffness in his voice but he no longer cared. “Guess you’ll have to take a raincheck on that, huh?”

He was halfway back to the door when he heard Rodney call out to him. “David. Wait.”

He glanced back over his shoulder, where he could just make out the shape of someone standing in the shadow of the exhaust vent for the cooling system. The dim light must be playing some weird trick on his eyes, because the guy looked huge, much taller than David expected, with broad shoulders like a weight lifter and a body that seemed to taper to an unexpectedly narrow waist. He turned completely to face Rodney’s direction. Rodney seemed to melt into the shadows as he did so, merging once again with the upright ducts on the rooftop.

“It’s not what you think, okay?” Rodney’s voice was pleading, and David could hear a different kind of longing there. “I
can’t.
”

“Hey, it’s cool by me if you don’t drink,” David said, relieved that he’d misinterpreted the situation. “We can get a sandwich instead.”

He sensed that Rodney was shaking his head. “There’s nothing I’d like more. But I can’t go out with you. I can’t be seen with you. I’m… different.”

“Different how?” David frowned, taking a step forward. There was a whisper of sound, which suggested to David that Rodney had retreated even farther away.

“I can’t explain. Trust me on this one, though.”

“I don’t care about appearances, Rodney. I’ve been living for appearances my whole life.”

“Easy for you to say, gorgeous.” Rodney’s voice was dry. “You’re easily the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

David felt heat rush into his face. “Now who’s talking crap? I don’t see why….” His cell phone went off. Frowning, David pulled it out. “Oh, hey,” he said, seeing that it was from Richard. “I need to take this call. We haven’t finished here, though. Will I find you here if I come back again?” He peered into the shadows, trying to see where Rodney was standing.

“I’m here most nights.” Rodney definitely sounded as though he’d moved farther away and was on the other side of the roof now.

“Right.” David picked up the call, walking back to the door as he spoke. “Richard. Thanks for returning my call so late tonight. Listen, I had this idea that you might find interesting…. Hang on a second, I’m on the roof, and it’s windy up here. Let me get back inside where I can hear you better.”

He paused at the door to look back at the alien landscape of shadows on the roof. There was no sign of Rodney. It was as if he didn’t exist.

Rodney
stretched and yawned before moving off of his pedestal, only to feel a slight give to the base when he did so. He hurriedly swung over the wall to the rooftop, breathing heavily as a jolt of adrenaline coursed through him. Cautiously, afraid of what he might find, he crawled back out over the railing, clinging upside down to the wall to get a closer look at the crack in the base. He’d waited longer to move tonight, making certain that the sun had completely set before opening his eyes. Fortunately, he could see very well in the dark.

The crack didn’t look any worse than the day before. He knew what he’d felt, though; he didn’t think he was imagining things. With a resigned sigh, he quickly pulled himself back up to the roof.

That was when he saw it. The small table set out in the middle of the rooftop. As he approached, he could see that it really was a packing crate covered with a red-and-white-checked cloth. On it sat a bottle of beer, condensation still beading on the surface of the glass. Beside the bottle was a plate holding a large sandwich, a mound of potato chips, and a pickle slice. Rodney looked around to see if someone else was on the roof, planning to enjoy an al fresco meal, but there was no one else there. That’s when his eye caught sight of the folded piece of paper sticking out from underneath the plate.

He opened the sheet of paper and angled it so he could read it in the ambient light from the city around him.

Rodney,
it read.

I’ve been thinking about what you said and decided that despite the fact you won’t come out with me, that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, right? It’s cool with me if you don’t want to leave the building. I’ve narrowed down the possibilities—you’re a reclusive genius with agoraphobia or a wanted fugitive or a superhero. I’m right, aren’t I? Now if I only knew which one.

David

PS. Since you won’t grab a bite with me, I brought it to you. Hope you find it in time. Otherwise, I’ll owe you another raincheck. Damn. I should have put this in a cooler, huh?

Rodney grinned. So, David was an idiot and a bit of a romantic as well, whether he realized it or not. It didn’t mean Rodney couldn’t enjoy the meal. It would make a nice change from pigeon. He peered at the top of the beer bottle, trying to figure out how he was supposed to open it. “Huh. Fancy that,” he said aloud to the night as he grasped the bottle top with clawed fingers and twisted it off. “Screw top. What will they think of next?”

He’d tasted beer before, in the dregs of bottles left behind in the trash. Never before had he consumed a beer still cold from the fridge, though. It was so unexpectedly satisfying that he’d drunk almost half the bottle before he’d realized it. He quickly turned his attention to the sandwich. The layers of meat and cheese, combined with the crisp bacon and fresh lettuce, exploded on his taste buds in a way that made him moan with pleasure. The only drawbacks were the little wooden sticks embedded within; he didn’t see the appeal to them whatsoever. It was only when he’d eaten three quarters of the sandwich that he realized that the sticks were meant to pin the layers together and that he probably wasn’t supposed to eat them.

He left the empty plate and bottle on the packing crate, the idea of flying down to ground level to dispose of the trash as ludicrous as his going shopping in the local hardware store for concrete mix and a trowel. He started to leave the note as well but thought better of it. Walking over to the air-conditioning unit, he removed a panel at its base. Inside, he kept a few private things. The playbill from
Phantom of the Opera
; a cracked snow globe, rescued from the trash and depicting a family setting out from a well-lit home in a horse-drawn sleigh; three different versions of the Bible—well, two and a half, if you considered that the pocket copy contained only the New Testament and Psalms; a crystal pendant, found twinkling in a storm gutter on a frosty winter night; a well-thumbed copy of
Gaudy Night
by Dorothy Sayers; and
A Tale of Two Cities
by Charles Dickens, snagged out of the fifty-cent box in front of the used bookstore three blocks over and paid for with the dollar he’d found the week before. Pity the bookseller hadn’t made the mistake of leaving the box out overnight again. He never knew if the owner had found the money he’d left under the box.

The note from David would make a nice bookmark.

Apartment
14 C proved to be an interesting apartment from Rodney’s point of view. The Freemont was an old building, built back in the early 1920s. Rodney himself had been shipped over from England, from an even older building, to form part of the rainspout system. He shuddered briefly at the memory of waking up in a packing crate and the moment of panic when he’d had to decide whether to break out or wait and see where he ended up. He was glad now he’d chosen to wait it out. The Freemont was a nice building, and the neighborhood had been an interesting place in its heyday.