The Men from the Boys (33 page)

I stroke her hair. “Look, I'm not about to let my relationship with Lloyd slip away. Relationships are fragile, precious, delicate. If you toss ‘em around, leave ‘em lying about—they're bound to shatter. You've got to hold them tightly, not let them drop.”

“If you hold something too tight, it breaks,” she says.

“Problem was, you stopped holding Wendy at all. You love her, Chanel. Don't just walk away.”

She sighs. “It's too late, Jeff. What's done is done.”

“It's never too late.”

The pot returns to hang in a haze behind her eyes. “Why are you so afraid?” she asks all at once.

“I'm not afraid. Afraid of what?”

She shrugs. “Let's just keep talking, Jeff. Let's not fight, ever again. Let's just keep being there for each other, because it's going to get harder for us now.”

It's the pot and the booze talking. “Of
course
we'll be there for each. other,” I assure her. “That's what family is for.”

“And that man? That Greek god? Don't let him get in the way.”

I smile. She's high. She doesn't know what she's saying.

“Don't worry, Chanel. I'm all done with him.”

I might have added: Whether I like it or not.

Boston, April 1995

“Cat, I wish you'd decide one way or another, so I know where to reach you,” Lloyd says. “But maybe that's just it. Maybe you don't
want
me to reach you.”

We haven't spoken much in the last few days. Now he's leaving. He's all packed, ready to go. Naomi will soon be here with her van. Melissa and Rose, too, will arrive with their truck to cart off the bulk of our stuff to storage. We have to be out by Sunday, which is tomorrow. Lloyd's leaving a day early, so he can be settled into Naomi's by Sunday night and thus be able to get up for work refreshed on Monday morning. What he wants to know now is where I'm going to be, where I'll be living after tomorrow, when I can no longer stay here.

“Of course I want you to reach me.”

“Wouldn't have known that from the last couple of days.”

I look around at the apartment. It's empty now, hollow and cold. It doesn't look like the same place at all. Over there, in front of the window, is where the couch once stood, a cozy little corner with a big brass lamp and a magazine rack, jammed with issues of Time and the
Advocate
and
Men's Fitness.
It's not very cozy now, just a hard, bare stretch of floor. To the right is the spot where we always had our Christmas tree, with its big gaudy red lights and Rose's tattered angel on top. Over there, near the closet door, Lloyd once fucked me against the wall, right after a heavy breakfast of pancakes and syrup. I had to lie down for the rest of the day. Here, near the entry to the kitchen, we popped the cork on a bottle of champagne when Lloyd finally finished his dissertation; you can still see the black mark on the ceiling where the cork ricocheted. Over there, on the kitchen floor, next to the oven where I baked hundreds of veggie pies, Lloyd consoled me when I finally collapsed, finally cried over my father's death, a day after the funeral.

“How can we just leave here?” I whisper. “How can we just walk out that door—without a plan, without a goal, after so many years together?”

“Cat, this isn't permanent. I just need some time.”

“Are you making me a guarantee?”

He frowns. “There are no guarantees in life.”

“So let's rewrite the rules. Let's
make
some guarantees.”

He seems exasperated. “You're asking me to do something I can't.”

“Bullshit. You just don't want to.”

“Let's not argue again, okay?”

Poor Mr. Tompkins. All morning he sat angry and confused in the middle of the room, sniffing around the piles of cardboard boxes looming over him. He could sense something momentous was about to happen. Then, big brute that he is, he padded out of the room with hard, deliberate steps. Now he's sulking in the bedroom closet, little green eyes glowing in the dark.

I'm cross-legged on the floor, taping one last box, when Lloyd bends down and hands me a cat. A purple one with pink dots.

“One more cat for the road,” he says.

“Oh, Dog.” And I melt again, goddamnit, standing up and falling into him. “Oh, Dog.”

“I wish we had been there for each other these last few days.” He's crying. It startles me. “I wish we could have had some kind of ritual, leaving this house.”

“It's not too late,” I say. “It's never too late.” I step back to look at him. His face hasn't changed, not one iota, since that first night I saw him. Oh, sure, the wrinkles, and that damned shaved head and goatee, but his eyes are as green as the Emerald City, same as they ever were. He looks like a child, standing here in front of me crying. And I feel like a shit, giving him the cold shoulder these last several days.

“I've got some sage,” he says. “We could burn it. We could walk through the rooms and remember our happiest moments in each of them and leave behind some of that energy for the people who follow us. And take some of it with us in our hearts.”

I think it's a splendid idea. I really do. There are no more tears. Instead, we burn sage and laugh, remembering the time Javitz stepped on the Easter egg we'd hidden in his slipper, the time Melissa got drunk and sang “Whatever Lola Wants” on top of our kitchen table, the time Lloyd fucked me against the wall after all those pancakes. “It was like pumping cement!” he cries, and we laugh and laugh until we fall on the floor.

“Here we thought we'd find you both moping around like gloomy Gerts,” says Rose, as we look up to discover her in the doorway.

Melissa's behind her. “Are they crying? Are they fighting?” she chirps.

“Looks like they were gettin' ready to boink,” Rose concludes, stepping over us to pick up the first of the boxes.

“I can't do heavy lifting,” Melissa says. “The nails, you know.”

It takes us about an hour. Naomi arrives, and Lloyd's clothes and meditation supplies are directed into her van. Everything else goes into Rose's truck to be carted over to the storage bin. It's sweaty work, but Melissa has brought over some frozen lemonade. She makes a pitcher of it with the last few ice cubes from our freezer. “See?” she says. “I'm good for something.”

Then Rose heads off to the storage bin, Lloyd and Naomi following. “Don't worry, Cat,” he says. “We'll take it from here.”

I kiss him good-bye.

“I'll be with Javitz,” I tell him. “In Provincetown.”

He hugs me. “Tell Mr. Tompkins I'll see him soon,” he says. “I don't dare go in that closet. He'd probably bite my hand off.”

I smile.

Then he's gone.

“I've been dreading this moment,” I say to Melissa. As expected, my voice echoes in the empty apartment.

“That's why I'm still here.”

“Oh, baloney. You just didn't want to unload the stuff at the storage bin.”

“Maybe that, too.”

We both laugh. We sit down on the floor. She refills my glass with lemonade.

“Tell me something,” I say. “How long have you and Rose been together?”

“Eleven years.”

I knew that. I just wanted to hear her say it. I want to believe it's possible. I want to close my eyes and imagine them together—just together, not necessarily doing anything, just being together. Not laughing or cooking or having fun or fighting or anything at all. Just together: Rose in front of the TV eating a bag of pretzels, Melissa writing poetry at the kitchen table, idly scratching her back with the eraser on her pencil. Neither would have any use, in that second, for the other; but they'd be there together, just the same.

“How long were your parents together?” I ask.

“Thirty years.”

“Really?”

“Then they got divorced.”

“After
thirty years?”

“Yup. My mother found out Dad had been having an affair with their marriage counselor.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Man or woman?”

“Woman, silly.”

“Hope she at least reported her to the ethics commission.” I laugh. “Fuckin' heteros. The things they do.”

Mr. Tompkins suddenly appears from around the doorframe, poking his fat little face into the room. Melissa gestures for him, but all he'll show us is his snout, which I'd swear is pursed together in a mad little sulk.

“Me,” I say, “I was cursed with a mother and father who really loved each other. They made a commitment some forty years ago, and by God they stuck to it. I'm sure there were times they didn't know what the fuck
path
they were on, or if it was the right one. But they figured it out
together.
They still got up in the morning and had breakfast together. They still watched TV together at night and shared the same bed. And when they got old, and their kids had moved away and disappointed them, they still had each other. They never let each other down. Right up until the day my father died.”

Melissa gets up and walks gingerly toward the doorframe to the bedroom. “Come here, baby,” she says, but Mr. Tompkins bolts away. She turns back to me. “How do you know your parents never disappointed each other? Parents aren't going to admit something like that to their kids—not if they're good parents, anyway, and they want to keep up a united front. How do you know your mother didn't stop putting out for your dad after the last kid was born, and he was bitter about it ever since? How do you know your mother didn't want a bigger, better house, and blamed your father, for never making enough money?”

“I just know. In fact, my mother
did
want a bigger house, and I don't imagine she put out for my father as much as he once would have liked. But there was no bitterness. No resentment. They loved each other. They had a
commitment.”

“Blind allegiance to a commitment made forty years before is not something to admire,” she says, kneeling beside me.

“It's not blind allegiance. It's called love.”

She hugs me. “Oh, Jeff. For all your tricking, for all your queer theories, for all your boys, you're the most romantic guy I know.” She kisses my forehead. “And I love you for it.”

“I just don't want to lose my family.”

“You won't.”

“Oh no? What if I stay in Provincetown longer than a few months? What if Lloyd and I split up? You've already cut Chanel out of your life.”

“Jeff, that's different.”

“No, it's not. Look, my brother has barely spoken to me since the Christmas Eve I decided not to go to my mother's house and instead spent it here with Javitz and Lloyd. ‘Families should be together on Christmas,' my brother insisted. Well, precisely. That's why I was staying with Javitz and Lloyd. My brother sits there on Christmas Eve with a beer in his hand, griping about my cousins, yelling at his kids, arguing with my sister, not speaking to whatever boyfriend she's brought that year. His wife gets drunk and silly and stupid, and then they all go to midnight mass. Do I want that life? No fucking way. But every year, it's still that same wife and those same kids and the same house and the same ‘Angels We Have Heard on High' at midnight mass. And there's something to be said about all that.”

There's a knock. We both jump. There, in the open doorway, is Drake—of all people—poking his head tentatively into the apartment.

“Hello?” he calls.

“Hi,” I say, not bothering to stand up. Melissa does, approaching him and gesturing for him to come inside. He does, and he's carrying a bouquet of daffodils, their stems wrapped in aluminum foil.

“I just wanted to give you guys a little going-away gift,” he says awkwardly.

“Lloyd's already left.” I still don't stand up.

“Well,” he says, smiling like an idiot, “these are for you too.” He thrusts them at me.

I'm forced to stand and accept them. “Thank you,” I tell him. “Unfortunately, all the vases are packed up—”

“That's okay. I wrapped them in a wet paper towel and then put the foil around them. That should keep them until you get to—wherever you're going.”

Our eyes hold for several seconds. “Well, gee, thanks an awful lot, Drake.”

“Oh, sure.” He shrugs. “Sorry I wasn't here to help move. I had a job interview.”

“So you're not hittin' the road now that you've taken your leap, huh?”

“No,” he says. “I've decided to stay in the area.”

Our eyes hold again. “Well,” I say. “Thanks again.”

“Sure.” He smiles at Melissa, then turns to leave. “Oh, say hey to Lloyd for me,” he says over his shoulder. “Tell him I'm sorry I missed him.”

I just smile.

After he's gone, I look at Melissa. “Take these for me. Please.”

She understands. She relieves me of the daffodils. We feel a warmth suddenly on our feet. Mr. Tompkins has dared to enter. He looks around the room, as if unsure where he is. “Oh, baby,” I say to him. “Where did everything go, huh?”

We take advantage of the moment to stuff him into his traveling box, all twenty pounds of him squirming against our hands, trying to bite. Melissa's taking him for the time being; Javitz's new landlord in Provincetown strictly forbids pets. Anyway, I'll be back here in a few months. Poor Mr. Tompkins. He thinks he's going to the vet. Once he's inside, two fluorescent eyes peer out through the grating, radiating outrage at my betrayal. “It'll be okay, little one,” I soothe.