The Lord Won't Mind (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (17 page)

“I see. Another little girlie heart-to-heart. And what about this great new discovery we’ve made?” He seized on what to him was the least likely interpretation of the unfinished sentence. “I suppose you were going to tell him all about how we make love together.”

Peter straightened defiantly. “Well, what if I was? What’s wrong with that?”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t you understand anything about privacy?”

“Privacy? Boy, do I ever. I understand so much about privacy that sometimes I want to go running out into the street and start shouting, ‘I’m in love with Charlie Mills.’ That’s how much I understand about privacy. Don’t you understand? I’m bursting with it. There must be people around who take it for granted and don’t think it’s awful. Why can’t we see them? No, we can’t see anybody. I’m supposed not to even exist. I’m a dirty secret. You have friends. You see them all the time. Not me. I’m not allowed to know who half of them are.”

“At least, they’re decent normal people, not some cock-crazy kid.”

“
Me
cock-crazy? What about your—” He stopped and his jaws clamped shut. He lowered his eyes and turned back to the desk. He picked up the crumpled letter and began to bob it about in his hand like a ball. When he spoke again, he sounded as if he were making himself a speech. “No, I’m not going to do it. It hurts too much. Why should I try to say things to hurt you too? I don’t want to hurt you. I want to love you.” He tossed the letter away and turned back to Charlie. “OK, I’m cock-crazy. I admit it. Why can’t we admit I’m a homosexual, too? I see people all the time who talk about it. They don’t think it’s strange. I don’t care if you don’t want to be, so long as you let me go to bed with you.”

“Listen. Once and for all, I don’t want to hear any more of this homosexual crap. I see queers all the time, too. Sometimes they follow me. We’re not like that.”

A little smile twisted the corners of Peter’s mouth. “I’ll say we’re not. But I probably would be if it weren’t for you. Golly, if I saw you coming down the street, I’d certainly follow you.”

“Stop talking like that.”

“I’m sorry. But do you realize I’m twenty years old and I’ve never had anything to do with anybody but you? In my whole life? It’s the way I want it but it’s pretty shattering sometimes.”

“Why not just accept things the way they are? It’s all this talk that’s so unhealthy. Writing letters, for God’s sake. If you were the raging queer you claim to be, you wouldn’t be satisfied with me. You’d be out picking up guys all over town.”

Peter shook his head. “I’m in love with you, Charlie. That’s what it’s all about.”

“And I love you. I’ve told you all along, there’s nothing wrong with us loving each other. It’s wonderful. If you just wouldn’t turn it all queer.”

“I don’t want to. I won’t write any more letters, if that’s what you mean. You know I never have any secrets from you, don’t you? I was going to let you read it if you’d wanted to.”

“I’m sorry I did. I just want to forget it.”

“I’m sorry.” He stood contritely in front of Charlie for an uncertain moment. Then he kicked a hassock out into the room and sat facing him. He took off his jacket and threw it onto a chair in back of him and loosened his tie. Charlie studied the flow of muscle under the shirt. “Listen, darling. Can I quit those damn classes? It’s not queer to want to be with you, is it?”

Charlie looked into the eager face, open, trusting, lighted with love. His proximity made him want to reach out to him, touch him. “Of course not,” he said. “I certainly wish we could be together more. It was a hell of a lot nicer for me when we could have dinner together. But you can’t quit now. It’s part of the whole bargain. Later, things may change. Maybe I’ll get something in the theater. Then we couldn’t have evenings together. If I get into a hit, maybe you could quit your job. We’d have all day together.”

“You mean you’d keep me?”

“We could call it a loan. It doesn’t matter. Two can live as cheaply as one. Everyone knows that.”

Peter rested his forehead on his hand. He shook his head. “Oh, darling. You think of the damnedest things.” He lifted his head and shook back his golden hair. “I almost wish you hadn’t mentioned it. Now I won’t be able to think about anything else.” He laughed exultantly and leaned over and untied his shoes and kicked them off. “I’ll be your valet. How about that?”

“If I really get a break, there’ll be lots of things you can do. I talked to Hank Forbes again this afternoon. He says he’s going to make an appointment for me with somebody. He’s being very mysterious about it.”

Peter drew off his socks and wiggled his toes. “Is Hattie in on it, too?”

Charlie made a little face at the mention of her name. “Not that I know of. Listen, baby. Hattie thinks something’s going on between us.”

Peter started to pull off his tie, but stopped in mid-gesture. “She does? Why?”

“Oh, feminine intuition. Who knows? It’s nothing. But if she starts hinting around with you, for God’s sake be careful.”

“When would she? I’m not apt to see her.” He flung away the tie and started to unbutton his shirt.

Charlie looked at the strong throat emerging from the collar and followed the movement of his long fingers as they moved down, exposing smooth skin. “No, probably not. But just in case, be damn careful you don’t say anything she can make something of.”

“Don’t worry. I suppose she’s in love with you, too.” He pulled the shirt out of his trousers and peeled it off. Light fell along his shoulders and modeled the muscles of his chest. He undid the top two buttons of his trousers and ran his hand over his abdomen. Charlie’s fingers closed on an imaginary pencil as his eyes followed the line of neck and shoulder down to the straying hand. His vision was dazzled by beauty.

“Who cares what she is?” he said. “Go ahead. What are you waiting for? Finish undressing.”

Peter looked at him and then stood up and dropped his trousers and shorts and kicked them off. His sex slanted off at an angle in partial erection.

“Come here.”

Peter stepped forward and his sex rose to complete its erection. Charlie took his hands and pulled him down to him and gripped him between his legs. He drew him close and held him for a long moment, his heart pounding, his head bowed over the golden one.

“God, I’m nuts about you,” he said, speaking into the golden hair. “I really am, you know. You. Peter. My love. Sometimes it seems too much. I want so for it not to be bad.”

“How can it be bad? There’s just you and me. Nobody else. Don’t let there be anybody else.”

A FEW days later—a week? a month? Who knows?—the faithful Hank Forbes called again. This time the mystery was resolved. He had arranged for Charlie to do a reading for Meyer Rapper’s new play. No, it wouldn’t be possible for Charlie to see the script in advance. The part wasn’t long, but had one or two nice scenes.

Unable to prepare in any other way, Charlie spent the next couple of days talking to Peter about Meyer Rapper, about the likelihood of the play being a hit, about what they would do when it was. Rapper was at the height of his success, his last three plays had each run for over a year, the boy who had played the juvenile in the one before last was already a big Hollywood star.

He tried not to think about having to tell C. B. He assumed that being actually cast for a Broadway show would be so thrilling that he wouldn’t care who knew. In his mind, he eliminated the time lag between casting and triumphal opening, so that he could appear before her as a successful member of the profession. Who could fight a
fait accompli?

The reading was set for noon at a Broadway theater. Charlie arranged for an early lunch hour and told a few lies to cover himself in case it took longer than he expected. On the way to the theater, he stopped at a bar and had a drink, which, on an empty stomach, made him agreeably drunk. He entered the stage door two minutes ahead of time, his nerves taut but under control, feeling that he had a date with destiny. It was bound to work out, it had to work out, he had always been told that his future was assured in the theater.

Two youths were lolling in the dingy corridor, both rather cheap looking, Charlie thought, dismissing them as potential rivals. He brushed past them, aware of being given a long, careful scrutiny, and went to an old man in shirt sleeves sitting in a sort of cage.

“Meyer Rapper, please,” he said.

The old man glanced up at him. “Oh, yeah. You’re up for the part of Johnny,” he said without asking his name. He picked up a typescript from a pile at his side and opened it at a marked page and handed it over. “They’ll call you when they want you.”

“Thanks.” Charlie’s eye ran down the page until he came to the stage directions:
“JOHNNY ENTERS.”
He stood by the cage and read. The scene ran for three pages to
“JOHNNY EXITS.”
It was apparently a youthful love scene with comic intent. Accustomed to playing big parts, such as Hamlet, at school, Charlie could find no clue to the character in the colorless dialogue. He read through it several times. The girl had a couple of rather cute lines, but Johnny remained a total nonentity. He felt a strange tingling in his legs, and the palms of his hands were moist. What was he supposed to do with it? He turned pages, looking for more of Johnny, but his eyes were beginning to fail him. He went back to the scene indicated and read it again, trying to hear his voice saying the words. He found that the lines were written to be spoken, running easily and naturally against the girl’s lines. His optimism revived. It could be a nice little scene. Come on slow. He would have to make himself slightly gawky. A bit of business where the girl laughs. He was just exiting to applause when a voice said, on an interrogatory note, “Charles Mills?”

He slapped the script shut and pulled himself up and saw a man in a rumpled sweater standing in a doorway in a thick wall. He stepped forward. “Yes,” he said.

The man looked at him without interest. “You Mills? Come along.” He turned, and Charlie folllowed him into the dark area of the wings and out onto the stage. A single bare bulb hung in the middle of it, lighting elements of a living-room set. Charlie was accustomed to walking onto stages. He moved well and with authority. He could have been back at Princeton. Except this was Broadway. This was the way the big hits and the big stars were born. A chill ran down his spine, and his knees began to tremble. The man in the sweater stopped and turned to him, holding an open script in his hand.

“Page forty-six. You’ve had a chance to run through it?”

“Yes. Can you give me an idea of what the character is like?” Their voices sounded conspiratorial in the empty theater. Charlie became aware of two figures sitting in the middle of the orchestra. He was careful not to look at them. He shifted on his feet and got his knees under control. He wished he had had another drink.

“We’re casting to type,” the man in the sweater said. “Just read it as it comes. Ready?”

“Sure. I guess so.” He lifted the script and found the page. He was pleased to see that his hands were trembling only slightly. The first line was his and he read it. He couldn’t hear his own voice. A cue was thrown him, and he read on. All the little effects he had been planning were forgotten. There was no opportunity for movement. The girl’s lines came at him in a mumbled monotone. They were getting toward the end of the second page when a voice called out, “Fine. That’ll do.” The shock of it ran down his legs and into the soles of his feet. He dropped his hands to his sides and looked out into the dark auditorium and then at the man in the sweater. The latter nodded toward the wings. Charlie turned and started off slowly, wondering whether he should ask for Mr. Rapper, explain that he was Charles Mills, that Henry Forbes had sent him. He became aware of movement in the auditorium and glanced out and saw a man approaching down the aisle. Charlie hesitated and then saw who it was and stopped. The man came down to the rail of the orchestra pit and leaned against it looking up at Charlie with a smile of great charm. “I’m Meyer Rapper,” he explained unnecessarily. Charlie knew him from a hundred photographs—the swooping hairline, the Mephistophelian features, the elegantly tailored figure. He seemed to glitter with gold. “Hank’s told me about you. That was very nice. I’d like to go over it with you again.”

“Well, thanks.” Charlie broke into an ecstatic grin.

“That’s it. That’s exactly it. That’s just the way I see the boy. We’ve got other people waiting now. How’s my schedule, Herbie? Can I work Mr. Mills in this evening?”

“You’re having dinner with Charlotte Harris,” the man in the sweater said.

Charlie was thrilled by the casual mention of the great name.

“Ah, yes, Frankenstein’s mother. Well, perhaps later. Could you meet me after the theater, Charles? Say eleven-thirty at my place? I’ll give you some supper.”

“Yes, sure. Any time you say,” Charlie agreed.

“Splendid. The Waldorf Towers. Just ask for me. They’ll be expecting you.”

Charlie had no recollection of leaving the theater. He found himself in the street. It was a crisp, clear day with a wind blowing off the river. He wanted to leap in the air, he wanted to burst into song. Wait till he told Peter. Nobody else. It was bad luck to talk about it until it was definite. But what could go wrong? “That’s the way I see the boy.” Meyer Rapper had said it. Meyer Rapper was his own director. He was in. There remained the problem of C. B., but she would be fascinated once she got over the first shock, especially if he was with a big star like Charlotte Harris. He wondered how much notice he would be expected to give at the office. He would have to get all the dates straight with Meyer Rapper this evening. Once he started rehearsals, Peter could quit his job. C. B. wouldn’t necessarily find out about that. Life would begin to really make sense. There was no reason why he shouldn’t call Peter his secretary. He could introduce him everywhere that way. In the theater, such arrangements were common and accepted. It was all too fabulous, too incredible, too marvelous to be quite taken in, and yet it seemed to him that he had always known that this was the way it was going to happen.