The Nothingness of Ben (19 page)

“The stupid airline lost my luggage,” Jason complained.

“Don’t worry,” Colin assured him. “If it doesn’t come by tomorrow, I’ll take you shopping and replace everything.”

“You can do that, Uncle Colin?”

“Jason,” he answered, “you can do anything with a black American Express card.”

“Uncle Colin?” Catherine said, raising her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “I don’t recall having children yet.”

“Cathy, you know that Ben is like a brother to me.”

“Don’t you dare call me that.”

Ben knew the quickest way to Catherine’s bad side was to call her Cathy. She asked Quentin about his napkin drawings, which he downplayed as no big deal.

“Did you see our Manet on the second floor?” she inquired.

“No,” replied Quentin. “You have an original?”

“Yes. Granddaddy bought it at auction a few years ago but couldn’t find anywhere to hang it. Can you imagine? Buying a Manet and not having a place to put it. Absurd, really. So he gave it to Mommy and Daddy for their
twenty-fifth.”

Ben felt Travis tug on his pant leg under the table. He put his arm on the back of Travis’s chair and discreetly leaned in so that Travis could whisper into his ear.

“Who’s Manet?”

“A painter,” Ben whispered back. “French impressionist.”

“He a big deal?”

“Very.”

“Travis,” said Norma Mead, a quiet and gracious woman, “you’ve hardly said one word since you arrived. Ben tells me this is your first trip to New York.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled a sad smile. “I can still remember my first trip. What do you think so far?”

“Well, ma’am, I ain’t seen much yet, but it’s as big as all hell and half of Texas—pardon my French.”

Mrs. Mead laughed with delight. “And how long have you known our Ben?”

Travis paused to run the calculation in his head.

“Three months.”

“My,” she said, returning to her sad smile. “Such a big decision for such a short time.”

The next day, an airline rep delivered Jason’s bag and Mother Nature delivered a torrential downpour of rain that lasted all week. Manhattan, a wonderful place to visit when the weather was temperate and inviting, turned depressing and difficult when it rained. They all attempted some sightseeing together, but the wet and cold made it impossible to enjoy anything. On Monday, Ben headed into the Wilson & Mead offices to talk to his boss, and Travis planned to take Cade down to Ground Zero, which Travis insisted he could do on his own. Ben gave him a map of the subway system and detailed directions about how to get there, but an hour later Travis called in a cold sweat. He had taken the uptown train instead of the downtown train and ended up in Spanish Harlem. Ben told him exactly what to do, but when they got back to the Mead residence, they were both soaking wet and visibly shaken.

The next morning, Cade woke up with a vicious cold that kept him in bed for the rest of the week. Ben volunteered to go to the basketball game with Travis that evening, but he had spent the entire day at the office and couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for the sport. They ended up leaving at halftime, much to Travis’s dismay. On Wednesday, with Cade still in bed, the Mead’s real estate agent, a perky woman named Gail D’Angelo, whisked the rest of them through a tour of Manhattan apartments. She showed them at least ten different places, none of which could satisfy everyone. Travis openly expressed his shock at the lack of space. Quentin and Jason balked at the suggestion that one of them might have to share a room with Cade. Ben became increasingly frustrated by the whole experience and was seething with resentment by the end of the day. Travis had no idea how to deal with him when he got that way and steered clear altogether. When they crawled into bed that night, they barely spoke or touched.

Quentin’s plan to spend most of the week doing napkin drawings fell apart from the beginning. The rain made everything gray and murky, but Quentin had his own issues. When the drawings turned into work instead of something he dashed off during a meal, they became arid and uninspired. When he showed them to Stephanie on Thursday, she tactfully expressed her criticism and told Quentin that perhaps she had spoken prematurely about a gallery show. Quentin brushed it off as no big deal, but Ben knew otherwise. He could read Quentin’s moods at this point because it turned out they weren’t that different from his own. They both hated failing at anything, and although Quentin tried to downplay it, Ben knew the rejection stung.

On Friday night, Colin invited Ben and Travis to a dinner party at his apartment in Chelsea, and Catherine invited Quentin to a birthday party for one of her friends. When Jason got wind of that, he begged to tag along until the two acquiesced. Cade, finally out of bed and feeling better, had spent the afternoon with Mr. Mead in the study, learning how to play chess.

“He’s a shark,” Mr. Mead told Ben as he and Travis stood in the foyer, getting ready to go out for the evening.

“Thank you so much for taking care of him this week.”

“It was our pleasure,” said Mrs. Mead. “It breaks my heart that he will grow up without a mother.”

“You two have a wonderful evening and tell my son we expect him for dinner on Sunday.”

“I’ll remember to tell him.”

They walked over to Lexington Avenue and Ben hailed a cab. He and Travis said little during the ride downtown to Colin’s apartment on
Twenty-Third Street. An exhausted Ben allowed himself to think that maybe he had made a huge mistake about everything.

When they arrived, Ben saw David in the living room. Colin had failed to mention that he would be there. David gave Ben a hug that lasted a little too long, and Travis looked at them both, confused. Ben ignored the look. He said hello to Martin and Johnny, two people who always had the ability to cheer his heart. Colin and Ben had met Johnny in law school, and he and Martin had proven to be good friends over the years. They greeted him enthusiastically and made a point of sharing their condolences in person. Martin introduced himself to Travis and immediately tried to make him feel at ease, though from the look on Travis’s face, he had his work cut out for him. Blaine Webster, a friend of Colin’s from prep school, and Blaine’s boyfriend Stewart, rounded out the party. Once Colin completed the introductions, he excused himself and disappeared into the kitchen. Since Martin still had Travis engaged in a conversation, Ben decided to follow Colin.

“What is David doing here?” Ben asked once they were safely out of earshot of the others.

“That sounds like an accusation, Walsh.”

“Why would you invite my ex-boyfriend and my current boyfriend to the same dinner party?”

“Because I needed an even number. And the last time I checked, this was still my apartment and my guest list. Not everything is about you, my friend.”

“But….”

Colin held up his hand and Ben stopped. “You’re acting like a child. David is a great guy and you are the one who brought him into our lives. We are not in high school. Just because you broke up with him does not mean the rest of us have to.”

Ben stared at him, the wheels of his brain spinning.

“Do you like him?”

Colin laughed off the suggestion. “You’ve been gone for three months, Ben. Life goes on. You’d better get back in there and save your boyfriend. You don’t want Blaine digging his claws into him.”

Ben decided to drop the deposition. “Your father asked me to remind you about dinner Sunday night.”

“I got it. Now leave me alone so I can finish in here.”

“Why didn’t you have this catered?”

“Because I don’t need someone to do everything for me anymore. Now, please, git.”

Ben returned to the living room, where Travis was now sitting next to Martin. He looked up when Ben came back and tried to smile. Ben knew Travis needed some reassurance, but instead, he sat down in the only available seat, which was next to David, who asked about his brothers. Ben gave him a brief rundown of their trip so far.

“Sounds like you’ve had a rough week.”

“That’s an understatement. Murphy’s Law was in full effect.” Ben looked across the room and lowered his voice. “I’m sorry if this is awkward. With Travis, I mean.”

“We’re good,” David replied. “That was three months ago. I’ve moved on.”

Blaine stepped into their conversation.

“So sorry to hear about your parents, Ben.”

“Thanks, Blaine.”

“Tragic,” Stewart added.

“Let’s change the subject,” Ben insisted. “What have you been up to these days, Blaine? Still working on that PhD?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What are you studying?” asked Travis.

“I’m doing a post-structuralist reading of Joyce’s
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
. Are you familiar with it?”

“Nu-uh,” Travis answered. “I never heard of her.”

Stewart suppressed a giggle and everyone else looked down, embarrassed for him.

“What did I say?”

“Nothing,” Ben insisted. “It’s a man. James Joyce.”

“Oh. Sorry, I….”

“Martin,” Ben interrupted, “are you going to DC to catch the new revival of
Follies
?”

“Of course,” Martin answered. “We’re going in May. It’s sure to be epic. Whenever Bernadette does Sondheim, it’s historically epic.”

“We have a line-item in the budget now,” Johnny added. “For
Follies
tickets after it transfers to Broadway.”

Martin dismissed him with a wave of his hand. Ben looked at Travis, who was staring down and trying to remove the ever-present grease from underneath his fingernails. Ben felt bad for him but still did nothing.

“I cannot wait to see what Bernadette does with the big numbers,” Martin continued. “I’m not so concerned about ‘In Buddy’s Eyes’, but ‘Losing My Mind’?
I mean, the Dorothy Collins original is iconic. Still, it’s the single greatest song about heartache in the musical theater canon, so… how can she go wrong?”

Everyone fell silent for a moment.

“Travis,” David said. “What do you think of New York?”

Ben appreciated David’s question, an attempt to steer the conversation away from modernist literature and Sondheim musicals. Travis, however, didn’t see it that way.

“I don’t much like it.”

“Excuse me?” Blaine replied.

“People have been asking me that since we first got here, and I been trying my best to be polite and all. But the fact of the matter is, this place is as worthless as chicken crap on the pump handle. It’s cold and wet—I mean, really, is that turd-floater out there ever gonna end? I almost got mugged on the second day we were here. Everything’s crowded and cramped. The apartments we looked at were the size of my closet at home. Ben’s fit to be tied half the time. Quentin got his heart broken yesterday when that Stephanie woman told him his drawings weren’t good enough. Frankly, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to live here.”

His words stunned the room into silence.

“Well,” Stewart said after a few moments, “aren’t we a Negative Nancy?”

“We’ve had a difficult week,” Ben said, trying to contextualize Travis’s comments.

Colin returned from the kitchen. “Dinner is served,” he announced. He looked around the room at the blank stares. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing at all,” said David. “They were just discussing Joyce and Sondheim.”

“Ugh, what a bore. Everyone into the dining room.”

Travis didn’t say another word all evening and barely touched the food on his plate, pushing it around with his fork instead. The others ignored him and engaged in a spirited political discussion about the next presidential election. Ben tried to participate, with limited success. He couldn’t help but wonder if Travis had just broken up with him in front of his friends. Had he changed his mind? Was the move off, at least for him? Ben lost his appetite and excused himself.

“I need to use the john.”

“Charming, Walsh. In the middle of dinner?”

Ben didn’t answer. He got up and went down the hallway to the bathroom. He took a piss and then threw some cold water onto his face, looking at his reflection in the mirror as he dried himself with a hand towel.

Is this worth it?

Ben froze at the thought. He remembered the conversation with his dad in the kitchen. He returned the towel to the rack beside the sink. He opened the door and practically knocked David over.

“Sorry,” David said. “I needed to piss too.”

Ben stepped out into the hallway.

“It’s my fault. I should watch where I’m going. Jesus, this has been the worst… well, second worst week of my life. I can’t believe he just went off like that.”

“Cut him some slack. It can’t be easy.”

“I’m done caring.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I want to crawl into bed and bury myself under the covers.”

“Do you love him?”

“I thought I did. But right now all I feel is broken down.”

David reached out and touched Ben’s arm, gently caressing it in a gesture of comfort. Ben heard some shuffling and looked down the hallway, where Travis stood with tears rimming his eyes, looking crestfallen and alone. David immediately jerked his hand away.

“Travis,” David blurted out. “It’s not what you think.”

“It don’t matter what I think no more.” He grabbed his jacket off the coat tree next to the door. “I’ll get a cab back on my own.”

“Shit,” Ben said as he watched Travis open the door and flee. “Tell Colin we had to go. I’ll call him later.”

He grabbed his coat and ran after Travis, down two flights of stairs and onto the street. He looked both ways and saw him heading toward
Eighth Avenue. Ben called his name but he didn’t stop. He ran until he caught up with him, then he grabbed Travis by the elbow and turned him around.

“Would you wait for me, please?”

“What’s the point?”

Ben stood silently on the sidewalk. He didn’t have an answer.

“What, you ain’t got nothing to say now?” Travis asked in a loud voice. “We both know I don’t belong here. How could you do that?”

“So now it’s my fault you don’t know who James Joyce is?”

“Fuck you. You could have helped me out in there.”

“How?”

“Would it have killed you to sit next to me? Maybe—oh, I don’t know—treat me like I’m your goddamned boyfriend?”