Slightly Single (5 page)

Suddenly, I’m in no mood to conga.

I find myself wondering what Will is doing. I check my watch and decide he might be home by now. Maybe I can take a cab up to his place and spend the night with him.

But when I try calling his apartment, the machine picks up.

I don’t leave a message.

S
unday morning.

Will is cranky.

It’s raining.

Will is most likely cranky
because
it’s raining and
because
it’s Sunday morning, but naturally, being me, I can’t help feeling like it’s somehow my fault. Ever since we met for breakfast at the coffee shop a few blocks from his apartment a half hour ago, I’ve been struggling to make conversation with him while he broods.

The thing is, he’s moody. I’ve always known that. Part of me is attracted to the temperamental artist in him. Part of me wants him to just cheer up, goddammit.

As the waitress pours more coffee into his cup and then mine, I ask him again about last night’s wedding. It turned out the big top-secret affair was the marriage of two major movie stars who left their spouses for each other in a big tabloid scandal last year. I’m dying to know the details, but so far, Will hasn’t been forthcoming.

“So what was the food like?” I ask him, taking three of those little creamers from the shallow white bowl in the middle of the table and peeling back the lids to dump them, one by one, into my coffee. I tear two sugar packets at once and pour them in, then stir.

“Shrimp bisque, grilled salmon, filet mignon, lobster mashed potatoes…nothing spectacular.” Will sips his own coffee. He takes it black. No sugar.

“What about the cake?”

“White chocolate raspberry.”

“Yum.” I swallow a hunk of rubbery western omelet smothered in ketchup and Tabasco and wish that it were white chocolate raspberry wedding cake.

I wish that I were a bride eating my white chocolate raspberry wedding cake.

No, I don’t.

I definitely want to be a bride, but when Will and I get married—okay,
if
Will and I get married—I’d love to have a fall wedding with a pumpkin cake and cream cheese frosting. I wonder what he’d think of that, but I don’t dare ask him.

“So, Will, do you want me to come back to your place after I go to the movies?”

I already told him—first thing—about Buckley and
Flight of Fancy,
and how I was hoping to play matchmaker for Buckley and Raphael.

I also gave him a blow-by-blow description of the party, right up to and including the part where Raphael lit a tiki torch he’d hidden in his closet—defying my warning—and carried it around the apartment until he accidentally set a drag queen’s synthetic teased hair on fire. Jones tried to save the day by throwing the shimmering blue fake water fabric over him to smother it, but it turned out that was even more flammable than the wig, and it, too, went up in flames. Luckily, some quick-thinking bystander doused the fire with water from the spray hose at the sink. I left shortly after that, telling Buckley I’d meet him at one in front of the Cineplex Odeon on Eighth Avenue, a few blocks up from Will’s apartment.

I was thinking that after we see the movie, I could walk over to Will’s and we could get take-out Chinese or something.

Okay, what I was really thinking is that we can have sex. It’s been almost a week since we spent the night together, and the last time—the last few times—have been pretty blah.

But Will dashes my hopes now, shaking his head. “Nah, I’ve got a lot to do after the gym. I’m packing boxes to ship up to the cast house so I don’t have to lug everything on Amtrak.”

I could help him pack boxes. But maybe that would be too depressing.

Unless I were going with him…

But I still can’t work up the nerve to ask him about it.

I try to think of something else to talk about.

We’re in a booth beside the window. Will is wearing a maroon hooded sweatshirt I really like. It’s from L.L. Bean, and he’s had it as long as I’ve known him, and it’s not the least bit raggy, unlike most of my knock-around wardrobe.

Over his shoulder, through the rain-splattered glass, I can see people hurrying by carrying umbrellas. I notice that it’s a purely gray landscape dotted with splashes of bright yellow: slickers and taxicabs. I want to point it out to Will, but he won’t appreciate the aesthetic in his mood.

I reach for the salt shaker and dump some on my hash browns before taking a bite.

“You really should watch the salt, Trace,” Will says.

“If it’s not salty enough, I can’t eat it,” I tell him with a shrug.

There’s nothing worse than bland, under-salted food. My grandparents are supposed to be on a low-salt diet, and you never tasted anything more vile than the no-salt-added tomato sauce they tried to serve everyone one Sunday a few years back. We all agreed that it was disgusting, and my grandmother immediately switched back to making her usual sauce. The doctor keeps scolding them about their blood pressure
or whatever it is they’re both supposed to be watching, but I don’t blame them for cheating. I would, too.

“You’d get used to less after a while,” Will points out.

“Maybe, but I don’t want to. It’s not like my health is in any danger.” I’m never comfortable discussing my eating habits with Will. I guess I’m afraid he might bring up my weight. So far he never has, but it’s not as though I think he isn’t aware that I could stand to lose a few pounds.

Okay, thirty or forty pounds.

Luckily, he’s never acknowledged it.

And if my luck continues, he never will.

“There are worse vices than salt,” I point out to him, still feeling defensive. “Like…”

“Cigarettes?”

I grin. “Exactly. Okay, salt and cigs. So I have two vices. Look at the bright side. At least I’m not a junkie.”

He cracks a smile at that.

“Why don’t you have any vices?” I ask, watching him take a bite of his toast. Whole grain. Unbuttered. No jelly.

I half expect him to protest that he does have vices—not that I can think of any.

But he doesn’t. He just shrugs, smiling and chewing his boring toast, confidently vice-free.

“Listen…what if I came with you, Will?”

Who said that?

My God, did
I
say that?

Apparently I did, because Will has stopped chewing and is looking at me, confused. “Came with me where?”

What the hell was I thinking?

I wasn’t thinking. I just blurted it out somehow, and now I can’t take it back.

I frantically try to come up with something else to say. Something to add, something that would make sense…

What if I came with you…

What if I came with you…

What if I came with you……to the bathroom the next time you go?

No, there’s no way out of this.

Now that I’ve started, I have to finish.

I put down my fork, take a deep breath, then pick up my fork again, realizing that setting it down seemed too ceremonious, as though I’m about to make a major announcement.

I am, but I don’t want it to come across that way to Will.

That would only scare him off before he really has a chance to think about it.

I stab a hunk of green pepper-dotted egg and pop it into my mouth. It’s always easier to sound casual when you’re munching something. “What if I came with you this summer?”

So much for casual.

I sound like I’m being strangled, and he looks horrified.

“Come with me?” he echoes. “You can’t come with me!”

I attempt to swallow the sodden hunk of chewed-up egg and almost gag. “I don’t mean
with
you, with you,” I say quickly, to reassure him. “I just mean, what if I found a place to live in North Mannfield and got a job waitressing or something for the summer? Then we wouldn’t have to be apart for three months.”

“Tracey, we can’t be together this summer! I’m doing a different show every other week. I won’t have time to spend with you even if you’re two minutes away.”

I feel a lump in my throat, trying to rise past the soggy wad of pepper and egg making its way down. I can’t speak.

But that’s okay, because Will isn’t done yet. He’s put down his fork and is shaking his head. “I can’t believe you would spring something like this on me now. I mean, I thought we’d agreed that this summer stock thing is great for me. I have to do this for my career. You’ve known that all along, Tracey. Now you have a problem with it?”

I finally gulp down the egg and the lump. “I didn’t say I have a problem with it, Will. I just said I want to come with you.”

“But you know you can’t do that, right? Look, I know what this is. You’re just trying to make me feel guilty so that I’ll change my mind and stay here. And I—”

“I am not!”

There’s an uncomfortable pause.

“You honestly wanted to come with me?”

“Yes! Not with you, though…I just wanted to be near you.”

I feel a pathetic sense of abandonment and panic. I feel like a little girl whose Daddy is trying to dump her off at preschool against her will.

“But, Trace…” He’s at a loss for words. To his credit, he doesn’t mock me. Nor does he look angry anymore.

He looks…concerned.

I realize, with a sick churning in my stomach, that I’ve overstepped the line I’m always so careful not to cross with him.

I’ve gone and smothered Will, the Man Who Needs Space.

“Okay, well, I just thought I’d run it by you,” I say, trying to be nonchalant.

I pick up my coffee cup and notice that the cream has separated into clumps on top. Ugh. It must have been sour. I plunk the mug back into its saucer and fumble for some distraction, wishing there was something left on my plate besides the strawberry stem and orange rind from the garnish I already devoured.

I have nothing to eat.

Nothing to do.

Will says nothing.

Does nothing.

This is awful. I should never have brought it up.

Not like this.

I should have planned it more effectively.

I should have rehearsed what I was going to say, so that he wouldn’t be caught off guard. So that I wouldn’t seem like such a desperate cling-on.

But deep inside, I know that no matter when or how I approached him, he wouldn’t have thought my going to North Mannfield was a good idea.

So anyway, there it is.

It’s settled.

I’ll be spending the summer here in New York, without Will.

“Y
ou ready?” Buckley asks, turning to me.

“Wait, the credits,” I say, still fixated on the screen.

“You want to see the credits?”

Will and I always stay for the credits. But this isn’t Will. And anyway, I’m eager to discuss the film with Buckley, so I say, “Never mind.”

“We can stay if you want to.”

“Nah, it’s no big deal.” I stand, clutching my almost-empty jumbo box of Snowcaps.

“Want any more popcorn?” Buckley asks, as we make our way up the aisle. “Or should I throw it away?”

“No, don’t throw it,” I say, reaching into the bucket and grabbing a handful. I love movie theater
popcorn, especially with butter. Will never wants to get butter, because he says it isn’t really butter—it’s some kind of melted chemical-laden yellow lard. Not that he’d be willing to get butter even if it was butter, because butter is loaded with fat and calories.

Buckley ordered extra. He didn’t even consult me. Maybe he just assumed I was an extra-melted-lard kind of gal.

Whatever.

It’s a relief to be with someone like him after that disastrous breakfast with Will. When we parted ways in front of his gym, it was awkward. He said he’ll call me tonight, but I almost wish he wouldn’t. I’m afraid he’ll bring up the fact that I wanted to go with him. Or maybe I’m afraid that he won’t bring it up, and it will always be this huge, unspoken
thing
lying between us.

Meanwhile, here’s Buckley, shoving the popcorn tub at me again, encouraging me to take more.

“So what’d you think?” he asks, helping himself to another handful. “Did the big twist live up to your expectations?”

“I don’t know.” I mull it over. “I mean, it wasn’t
Sixth Sense
-shocking. It wasn’t
Crying Game
-shocking. I guess there was too much build-up.”

“That’s why I wasn’t really into seeing this movie.”

“You weren’t into seeing it?” I ask, stopping in the aisle. “But you came with me. You didn’t have to
come with me. Oh, God, you kind of did. Look, I didn’t mean to drag you here.”

“You didn’t.”

“Oh, come on, Buckley. I pretty much ordered you to come with me. I guess I just assumed—”

“It’s okay,” he says quickly. “I didn’t mind. Everyone I know has seen it too, so I figured this was my only chance.”

“Too bad it didn’t live up to all the hype. I mean, I was surprised that the whole thing turned out to be a dream, but wasn’t it kind of a letdown?”

“I don’t know. It was kind of like that short story ‘Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.’ Ever read that?”

“Are you kidding? The Ambrose Bierce story? I was an English major. I must’ve read it a dozen times for lit and writing courses.”

“Me, too,” Buckley says. “I remember really loving that story when I read it the first time back in high school. I thought it was such an amazing twist, you know, that it was all just this stream-of-consciousness escape thing happening in the moment before he died. This was the same kind of thing. I liked it.”

“But you didn’t love it.”

He shrugs. “How about you?”

“I really wanted to love it. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a great movie. The last one I really loved was the one with Gwyneth Paltrow that came out at Christmas.”

Naturally, Will hated that movie. He thought it was poorly acted, sappily written and unrealistic.

“Oh, I loved that one too!” Buckley says, pulling on his pullover hooded khaki raincoat as we pause just inside the doors. “Man. It’s still pouring out.”

“What a crummy day. I’ll never get a cab.” I sigh, hunting through the pockets of my jeans for a subway token I thought I had.

“Want to go have a beer?”

“A beer? Now?” Surprised, I look up at him. Then I check my watch—as if it matters. As if there’s a cutoff time for beer on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Manhattan.

“Or…do you have to be someplace?”

“No!” I say too quickly. Because I really want that beer. It beats the hell out of taking the subway back to my lonely apartment while thinking of Will uptown, packing his boxes.

“Great. So let’s get a beer.”

I pull on my rain slicker. It’s one of those doofy shiny yellow touristy ones, and it makes me look as wide as a big old school bus from behind. I’d worry about that if I were with Will—in fact, I was doing just that earlier, when he and I left the restaurant—but naturally, I don’t have to worry with Buckley. That’s the nice thing about having gay guys as friends. You get male companionship without the female competitive PMS angle and without the whole messy sexual attraction issue.

“Where should we go?” Buckley asks.

“I know a good pub a block from here,” I tell him. “I spend a lot of time in this neighborhood.”

“So do I.”

“You do?”

“Actually, I live here.”

“Really? Where?”

“Fifty-fourth off Broadway.”

“No kidding.”

“You live here, too?”

“No, I live in the East Village.”

“Really? Then why’d you want to meet way up here?”

I don’t want to get into the whole Will thing, so I just say, “I had an errand to run up here earlier, so I thought it made sense. So do you have someplace you want to go? Since this is your neighborhood…”

“No, let’s try your place. I’m always up for something new. Hey, I’m spontaneous, remember?”

I grin at him, and note that he’s wearing another crewneck sweater with his jeans. “I see you went with the beige today.”

“What can I say? It was a beige kind of day. Apparently, you beg to differ. Do you always wear black?” he asks, eyeing my outfit.

Black jeans. A black long-sleeved tunic-jersey-type shirt that camouflages my thighs—or so I like to think.

“Always,” I tell him.

“Any particular reason?”

“It’s slimming,” I say promptly, and he grins.

“And here I thought you were trying to make some kind of political or artistic or spiritual statement.”

“Me? Nope, I’m just a full-figured gal trying to pass for a waif.”

We splash out into the rain and cross the street against the light. Two minutes later, we’re sitting on barstools at Frieda’s, this semi-cool dive Will and I come to sometimes. They have awesome potato skins with cheddar and bacon, a fact I mention to Buckley pretty much the moment we sit down.

“You want to order some?” he asks.

“After all that popcorn?”

“You’re too full?”

“See, Buckley, that’s the thing. I’m never full. I could eat all day long. I’m always up for some potato skins. Hence the flab.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Tracey. It’s not like you’re obese.”

“You’re sweet.” Too bad he’s gay. “So tell me about your failed relationship.”

“Do I have to?”

“Nah. Not if you don’t want to. We can talk about something more upbeat. Like…where are you from?”

“Long Island.”

“
You’re
from Long Island?”

He nods. “Why do you look so surprised?”

“You just don’t have that Lo-awn Guyland thing going on. You know…the accent. You don’t have one.”

“You do,” he says with a grin. “Upstate, right?”

“How’d you know?”

“The flat
a
gives you away. You said
ay-ack-sent.
So where are you from?”

“You never heard of it. Brookside.”

“I’ve heard of it. There’s a state college there, right?”

“Right.”

“I thought about going there.”

“You’re kidding. Why?”

“Because it was as far away from Long Island as I could go and still be at a state school. My parents couldn’t afford private college tuition and I didn’t get any scholarships.”

“Really?”

“Why are you surprised?”

“Because…I don’t know. You just seem like the studious type.”

He grins. “Trust me, I wasn’t. With my grades, I barely made it into a state school.”

That really is surprising, for some reason. He just seems like the type of person who would do everything well. I like knowing he was just an average student, like I was. It doesn’t mean he isn’t smart, because I can tell that he is.

“So where’d you end up going to college?” I ask him.

“SUNY Stony Brook. I wound up staying on the island and living at home.”

“Why?”

I catch a fleeting glimpse of unexpected emotion in his expression. When he speaks, I understand why, but
his face is carefully neutral. “My dad died the summer after I graduated from high school. I couldn’t go away and leave my mom and my sister and brother on their own. So I stayed home.” He says it like it’s no big deal, but I can tell that it is. Or was.

“I’m really sorry about your dad.”

“It was a long time ago.” He bends over and ties his shoe, his foot propped on the bottom rung of his barstool. I wonder if the lace was untied, or if he just needed a distraction.

“Yeah,” I say, “but that’s not something that goes away, is it?”

He straightens and looks me in the eye. “Not really. Sometimes it’s still hard when I let myself dwell on it. Which I usually don’t do.”

“I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“You didn’t know. And anyway, it’s okay. I don’t mind talking about it.”

I don’t know what else to say, so I ask, “What happened? To your dad, I mean.”

“He had been having stomach pains, and when he finally went to the doctor, they found out it was pancreatic cancer. By the time they found it, it was too late—it had spread everywhere. They gave him six weeks. He died five weeks and five days later.”

“God.” I see tears in his eyes and feel a lump rising in my throat. Here I am, wanting to burst into tears for the loss of somebody I never even met—the father of this guy I barely know.

“I know. It was horrible,” Buckley says. He takes
a deep breath, then sighs. “But like I said, it was a long time ago. My mom is finally getting over it. She even went out on a date a few weeks ago.”

“Her first date?”

“Yeah.”

I try to imagine my mother going on a date, and it’s all I can do not to shudder. But then, maybe Buckley’s mother isn’t a four-eleven, overweight, overly pious, stubborn Italian woman in doubleknit pants who doesn’t bleach her mustache as often as she should.

“Did that bother you?” I ask Buckley. “Your mother dating?”

“Nah. I hate that she’s alone. My sister just got married and my brother’s in the service now, so it would be good if she met someone else. I wouldn’t worry about her so much.”

What a guy. I find myself thinking that maybe he’s too nice for Raphael. Not that Raphael isn’t wonderful, but when it comes to romance, he can be sort of fickle. He’s broken more than a few hearts, and I can’t stand the thought of nice, sweet, noble Buckley getting his heart broken.

Which reminds me—Buckley’s ex. I wonder what happened there, but I couldn’t ask for details when he’d already shown a reluctance to talk about it. Just then, the waiter appears. He’s flamboyant and effeminate, and he’s practically drooling over Buckley as we order a couple of beers and the potato skins. The thing is, Buckley isn’t movie-star handsome. He’s nice looking enough, but something about him is even
more appealing than his looks. Maybe it’s the warm expression in his crinkly Irish eyes, or his quick smile or his genuine Mr. Nice Guy attitude. Whatever it is, it’s not lost on the blatantly gay waiter, and it’s not lost on me.

Too bad he’s not straight.

It’s becoming my new mantra, I realize. If Buckley weren’t gay, and I didn’t have Will…

But if Buckley weren’t gay and I didn’t have Will, we probably wouldn’t be here together, and I sure as hell wouldn’t be ordering potato-cheddar-bacon skins or blabbing about my excess flab, which is what I do when I’m with Raphael or Kate.

Anyway, I doubt I’d be Buckley’s type.

Then again, it still amazes me, three years later, that I’m Will’s type. After all, he
is
movie-star handsome, and I’m no goddess. Luckily, relationships go deeper than looks. At least, ours does. Physical attraction was a huge part of why I was drawn to Will, but I think he was drawn to me because I was one of the few people who ever understood his dream of breaking out of a small midwestern town and making it in New York. That burning ambition to escape the mundane lives to which we were born was the thing we had in common, the thing that ultimately brought us together.

Now it seems to be driving us apart. Christ, Will is leaving me behind. Maybe not for good, but for now, and it hurts. It hurts enough that when the waiter leaves and Buckley looks at me again, he immediately asks, “What’s wrong, Tracey?”

I try to look cheerful. “Nothing. Why?”

“You’re down about something. I can tell.”