The Cranberry Hush: A Novel (17 page)

“So I’m covered tomorrow?”

“You’re covered,” Zane said. “I think he’s excited. A reason
to have to go in.”

“I’ll give Beth a call,” Griff said. He wiggled his phone at
us and walked under the awning of a Walgreens, sharing the space with a hobo
sitting on a stacker and humming “I Am the Walrus” in a gravelly but not
altogether terrible voice.

I walked over and leaned against a row of newspaper boxes
near the curb. To my right and across the street, stretching high into the
evening sky, was the Prudential Building, and to my left, the towering,
all-glass Hancock. There was a new building between them now, shorter than both
but still tall. It had a domed roof, looked like R2-D2. Zane came and stood
near me.

“Is that homeless guy a man or a woman?” he asked.

The singer was saying
goo
goo g’joob
in big clouds of white breath.

“Beats me,” I said. The singer wasn’t particularly
androgynous but he looked so used and abused by life that all distinguishing
features had been worn flat and characterless. “I guess since you called him a
guy, you have some sense that he’s male.”

“Good point.”

“He’s not bad,” I said.

“The voice? No.”

I pointed up at the skyscrapers. “This used to be my view,”
I told him. “These buildings. When the sunset hit them it looked like they were
glowing or something.”

“You miss it.”

“Yeah.”

“The city—or college?”

A row of windows on one of the top floors of the Hancock
went dark. “Both, I guess. They’re sort of the same thing to me.”

“I’m jealous of your college experience,” he said. He set
the aloe on top of a snow-covered
Phoenix
box. “I just drive to West Barnstable twice a week for classes. There’s nothing
life-changing about that.”

“College doesn’t have to be exactly like Shuster to be
good.”

“You seem like you were happy here though.”

“It’s not that I was so happy. It was just so me or
something,” I said. “Especially the people. Having a whole building be your
living room and having all the people in it belong there, but at the same time
be strangers. Comfortable strangers.” I paused. Sometimes I wondered whether I
thought too much about this stuff, whether I made too much of memories, put too
much stock in the past at the expense of the present and the future. “Yeah, I
miss it.”

For a moment we stood watching snowflakes zip over the
windshields of taxis speeding by.

“So he wants to stay at Beth’s, huh?” Zane said. He picked
up the aloe and wiped snow off the pot.

“I know, it’s weird. I guess we’ll humor him. I don’t want
to pay for a hotel either.”

Griff was walking toward us now. The homeless guy glanced up
at him but kept humming. “We have shelter,” Griff said.

“Cool.”

“It’s pretty early, though,” he said. “I just want to get
there and sleep.” He looked at the time on his phone. “Anybody want to catch a
movie?”

We walked in on a movie fifteen minutes late at the
Copley Mall cinemas. They showed art films ever since the new multiplex opened
beside the Common my junior year. I’d always preferred the run-down Copley
cinemas, with its shoebox-size theaters, over the glossy state-of-the-art
multiplex.

We sat for two hours reading subtitles, enjoying the warmth
like the homeless men who buy tickets in the morning and then sneak from movie
to movie, avoiding for the whole day the snow or rain outside. We sat three in
a row, Griff, me, Zane, all of our boots off, our feet hanging over the backs
of the chairs in front of us. We sat through the closing credits, and when the
lights came up we put on our boots and walked squinty-eyed out of the theater.

We left the mall and crossed Copley Square in front of the
library, walked down the steps into the T station, were greeted with a blast of
warm air. We bought tokens and pushed through turnstiles. A student with shaggy
brown hair sat on the floor with his back against a huge subway map, strumming
a guitar. Zane dropped a dollar into his guitar case. The musician nodded a
thank-you.

“Supporting the arts?” Griff said.

“Supporting sexy artists,” Zane said, shrugging his
shoulders.

“Yeah he’s not bad looking,” said Griff.

The three of us stood at the edge of the platform, staring
down at the third rail. A Starbucks cup rolled back and forth along the track,
but when it touched the third rail it did not burst into flames, as I had
expected and hoped. Finally a train rumbled to a stop. We took it to the
Fenway.

“I thought I’d gotten rid of you guys,” Beth said
when she opened the door on our cold red faces. Her terra cotta walls glowed
warmly and I seemed to float into the apartment like a cartoon character on the
scent of a chocolate cake. It was just after ten o’clock. The day stretched
behind me, had begun in bed with Griff eons ago. I could barely remember it.

“Thanks for letting us stay,” Griff told her. Zane and I
chimed in our gratitude.

“It’s OK,” she said, but her eyes showed that it wasn’t, not
totally. And of course she was right—even Zane and I knew this was weird.
“I’m just getting some work done,” she added. She gestured to the bedroom,
where the bed was piled with short stacks of white paper. Nosebag circled on
some pages and laid down. “I put some blankets on the couch, and there are
pillows.” She closed the door behind us, set the chain. “Make yourselves at
home. I leave for work at 7:50, though, so I just need you on your way by
then.”

She was being awfully generous opening her home like this,
and yet it seemed cold to treat Griff like a guest no different from Zane and
me—as if he wouldn’t know where the pillows were or what time she left
for work. My opinion of her seemed to change by the minute.

“Thanks Beth,” Griff said again and she replied, “It’s OK.”
She went into her bedroom and closed the door.

We hung our coats on the hooks by the door and ventured into
the kitchen. It felt like being home alone in someone else’s place, and I
wondered if, for Griff, it just felt like being home. Zane put the aloe on the
counter beside the sink. The set of keys was still there; it seemed odd she
hadn’t moved them yet.

I excused myself and went into the little bathroom off the
kitchen. The walls were painted green and a trio of cactuses the same color sat
in a row on the window sill. I stared up at the ceiling and peed for what
seemed like forever. Since I already had my dick in my hand, I thought about
relieving some of the tension that threatened to make the night impossibly
long. For once I didn’t think too much, and just went for it.

I came quick but it felt less utilitarian than I expected.
Instead my thoughts of Zane, and that anemone hole in his jeans, had made it
almost romantic. But in my post-orgasm rush the small details of things stood
out—sloppy painting around the baseboards, spatters of toothpaste on the
mirror and on the tile backsplash. I found these things depressing. In the same
way that some people are sad drunks, I tended to have sad orgasms. The idea of
sleeping with both Griff and Zane, and the fact that for various reasons
nothing could come of that with either of them, made me want to cry. I flushed
the toilet and turned on the sink, splashed water on my face and swished some
in my mouth.

When I opened the door Zane was standing there. I said “Oh!”
and felt caught. We maneuvered around each other to exchange places in the
bathroom.

“You took a long time,” he said before shutting the door.

There were three blankets folded on the couch,
which Griff explained was a pullout. He took off the cushions, stacked them on
the floor and slid his hands into the bowels of the couch. It was old and the
springs were heavy and stiff, and he looked like he could use some help, but
Zane and I remained side by side in the doorway, watching uncomfortably as
Griff navigated this home that was his and not his. Finally the mattress yawned
out. Before unfolding it completely Griff stopped, let the nylon strap fall
from his hand. He exhaled; it wasn’t a sigh, exactly, but rather the sound of
someone making peace, or trying to. When the mattress was all the way open he
sat down. Along the edges ran bare metal bars.

“I’m just going to get to sleep, guys,” he said. “I’m beat.”

He reached for one of the throw pillows on a rocking chair
beside the television and put it at the top of the mattress. He stood up enough
to pull down and off his jeans and then he laid down on the bed. He unfurled a
blue and white knitted afghan over himself. The metal bar ran through his fist,
and he said nothing more.

“So, uh,” Zane said, looking at me. We were still standing
in the doorway as though we were awaiting an earthquake.

“Take the bed,” I told him. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“You don’t have to. There’s room.”

“I’d rather not go there, Zane.” Quietly I lined the couch
cushions up on the floor at the foot of the bed.

Zane laid down on the bed and rolled onto his side, facing
away from Griff.

I folded the blanket—a throw made of sweatshirt fabric
bearing an embroidered Shuster shield—in half lengthwise across the
cushions like a sleeping bag and crawled in. The cushions shifted uncomfortably
and the spaces between them grew more cavernous with my every attempt to get
settled. My feet hung off the end. I could see Zane’s feet, too, tenting his
fleece blanket at the foot of the bed. I spent about fifteen terrible minutes
psyching myself up and finally I told him to make room on the bed.

He scooted to the edge, grinning but trying not to. I tossed
my pillow into the empty space between his and Griff’s and settled into the
middle of the lumpy mattress. Griff and Zane were warm and smelled like a full
day.

“It’s no Ritz Carlton,” Zane said, “but it’s nice.”

Although I kept closer to Griff, could feel his back against
my arm, Zane’s face was still only inches from my cheek; there just wasn’t room
for it to be anything more. I lay on my back feigning concern for the rippled
plaster ceiling. As though if I took my eyes away to meet Zane’s I ran the risk
of missing some important message from above.

Griff exhaled again; this time it was more of a sigh. I
sighed too, or started to, and then stopped because I was afraid it would sound
like I was making fun of him rather than commiserating. I was hot already under
the blanket and I wished I’d taken off my jeans—with Zane there that was
somehow out of the question. I kicked it to the side, freeing a leg.

A toilet flushed in the apartment next door.

“So
Matt Morrow
is
good?” I whispered without taking my eyes off the ceiling.

“Yeah,” Zane said.

“I haven’t been keeping up with it.”

“It’s the
Time Knights
crossover. Glanthur somehow crash-landed in El Paso. We’re not quite sure why
yet.”

“How about Matt?”

“Paco’s missing—you know, Matt’s friend? I think
Glanthur is going to die and Paco is going to get his ring and become a Knight.
If they find him, I mean.”

“That would be cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck this,” Griff said, his voice warbling as though he was
three seconds away from crying. He sat up and touched my shoulder gently, as if
to soothe any offense he may have unintentionally caused Zane and me.
“No— I’ll be back, guys.” He got out of bed and left the living room.

“What just happened?” Zane said, leaning up one elbow.

“I don’t know.”

Griff’s blanket, left hanging over the edge of the bed,
pulled itself onto the floor. I heard him open Beth’s bedroom door and the
kitchen lit up briefly before going dark again. There were voices, soft. I
scooted to the end of the mattress, and off.

“Were we talking too loud?” Zane said.

“I don’t think that’s it.”

“Maybe he’s not ready to share a bed with more than one
guy?” Zane laid back down, grinning. The springs squeaked.

I stood at the living room door for a moment until I
realized both that I shouldn’t be snooping and that I didn’t want to know what
they were talking about in there anyway.

Unnerved, I left the doorway and returned to my place beside
Zane. I didn’t strain my ears to try to make sense of the whispers through the
wall, but my mind still swirled with theories about what could be going on. Was
Griff trying to make up with her? Is that why he wanted to come back here, for
a second chance? Would we have to come back tomorrow and return all his things?
Would I lose him? I studied the ceiling for answers and crossed my hands over
my belly to hold in the pessimistic creature who had awoken in the coils of my
intestines.

“I never thought I’d see this, you know,” Zane said after a
few minutes, moving his hand back and forth in the small space between us. “Us
in bed.”

“Zane, come on.”

“I know—your space. Right. I’m sorry.” He crossed his
arms beneath his head. His feet hung out the end of the blanket. “Does it
bother you that I like you, Vince?”

“It doesn’t
bother
me.”

“But you’d prefer I didn’t.”

“...”

“Well don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’ve been giving
me the cold shoulder ever since Halloween.”

“I have not.”

“Sure.”

“We were talking in the store just the other day.”

“I mean outside the store. When was the last time we hung
out outside the store? We used to do that, remember? We did it all the time.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re not in the store right now.”

“OK,” he said. “But
I’m
pretty sure it wasn’t
your
idea that
I come along.”

I sighed. “It’s just... I don’t know, it’s been busy.”

“I think you’re still mad about Halloween,” he said, bolder
now; he was conjuring confidence the way he did, manifesting it through sheer
will. “But I don’t care. I don’t regret it.”