Venetian Masks (12 page)

Cleve punched him lightly in the arm. “Nope. It’s for… later, okay? It’s something you shouldn’t leave Venice without.”

If he had been honest, Jeff would have said that the only thing he wanted to leave Venice with at this point was Cleve. Instead he said, “Where to today?”

“Culture, my good man. But sustenance first. Are you up for a walk in the rain?”

“I won’t melt.” Jeff shook one of his damp legs. “And I’m wet already.”

“Cool. I know a good place.”

Cleve’s good place was located just off the old Jewish ghetto, where Hebrew signs were still affixed to some walls and where ancient former synagogues towered over the square. The restaurant was tiny and crowded, but the waiter nodded familiarly at Cleve and managed to squeeze them in at a small table near the kitchen. The place smelled heavenly, like bread and olive oil, and felt steamy and cozy after the hour spent outdoors.

But Jeff and Cleve had just dug into their big bowls of pasta when a man came out from the kitchen. His face was shiny with sweat, and he wore a stained apron around his waist; he had a potbelly and an enormous hooked nose. Cleve had his back to the man and didn’t see him coming, but the man made a beeline for Cleve, speaking with apparent urgency even before he reached the table.

Jeff didn’t know what the guy was saying, but the more he talked, the paler Cleve became and the deeper the shadows that gathered in his eyes. Cleve asked the chef only a few questions and didn’t seem at all happy with the answers. Finally, the chef shook his head and retired to the kitchen, and Cleve rubbed his face with his hands.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jeff.

“It’s… nothing.”

“It’s obviously
something
, Cleve. You know the chef?”

“He’s the owner, and yeah. I used to come here a lot.” He picked up his fork and then set it down again with a sigh. “Look, this has nothing to do with you. Just eat.”

Jeff was hurt at being excluded and he was fucking tired of all the secrecy. He’d spent several days with this man, he’d fucked this man, he was beginning to have feelings for this man… but he knew nothing about him except a couple of guesses and half-truths. “Is it something I can help with?” he asked, more gently than he felt.

The response was sharp and succinct. “No.” Then Cleve closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he looked tired and regretful. “I’m sorry. This shit—it won’t touch you. We’re gonna focus on you. You’re the man in charge, right?”

Jeff snorted. “Since when?”

“You are. You… you have the whole world just ready for you, you know that? You can go anywhere, see what you want, or you can go back home to people who love you. And find someone a million times better than the ex. Do you have any idea how much some people would give for that?”

“Like you?”

Cleve shook his head slightly and worked his jaw, and Jeff took pity on him.

“I got an e-mail from the ex today,” Jeff said.

“Yeah? Bastard trying to crawl back to you?”

Jeff poked viciously at a noodle with the tines of his fork. “Hardly. He wants closure, he says. Mostly I think he wanted to gloat and convince himself he’s not a prick.”

“Gloat, huh?” Cleve asked pensively. Then he seemed to decide something. He set his napkin on the table and stood. “C’mon. Let’s blow this place.”

Jeff paid the waiter and followed Cleve back into the gloom. They didn’t go far; when they reached a covered arcade near a canal, Cleve called to a gondolier who was leaning against the wall, looking excruciatingly bored. Whatever Cleve said to him made the guy grin broadly. “Give him twenty euros and your iPhone,” Cleve commanded, and because Jeff knew better by now than to question why, he complied.

Cleve spent a few moments looking around thoughtfully, then grabbed Jeff’s arm and dragged him over to one of the carved stone columns that supported the building above them. “This is good. You can see the campanile behind you.” He tugged at Jeff a little and then stood beside him, pressing their bodies intimately together. “Look happy to be here, baby,” he whispered in his ear.

Jeff really didn’t have to act. He knew it was all a show for the camera, but for that minute, he
was
happy to be there—in Italy on a rainy day with the sexiest man he’d ever met breathing warmly in his face. So he smiled as the gondolier snapped some photos, and he didn’t squirm with embarrassment when Cleve brought their mouths together in a long, deep kiss. They cupped each other’s heads as they kissed, Jeff’s pinkies against the damp and tender nape of Cleve’s neck. For a short time, it was as if the gondolier and the camera weren’t even there.

Eventually, though, their makeshift photographer laughed and said something lewd-sounding, and Cleve broke off the kiss to smirk at him. Jeff got his phone back, but Cleve immediately took it away to scroll through the pictures. “Yeah,” he said with satisfaction. “Send Mr. Closure a couple of those.”

And the really bizarre thing was that, at that very moment, Jeff
did
feel closure. It was as if a door had shut very firmly, and suddenly he didn’t care anymore what was on the other side. Let Kyle have his lawyer and his penthouse—Jeff was having a bona fide adventure, and however things turned out in the end, his experience during a few Venetian days felt more valuable than long, boring years in a mediocre relationship.

“I’ve seen Kyle’s new boyfriend,” he said with a grin. “He’s balding and I think he specializes in tax law.”

From the covered arcade, it was a long, wet walk to Piazza San Marco. Cleve was clearly troubled—he kept glancing around nervously, as if he expected something to jump out at him—but he made an obvious effort to keep the conversation light. He spoke about what the city was like at Carnevale, and told a story about a man he’d recently seen who was texting so obliviously that he stepped right into the lagoon. “Couple bystanders had to fish him out, and then his girlfriend stood there and screamed at him while he dripped onto the sidewalk. Tourists took pictures. I bet he’s all over YouTube.”

The big square was much emptier than usual, with the tourists huddled in arcades or under café awnings. Because it was almost one o’clock, Cleve made Jeff pause to watch the bronze giants on the clock tower strike the hour on the big bell. “Five-hundred-year-old robots, Jeff. I bet some medieval IT guy helped them design the thing.”

Jeff chuckled, imagining himself in hose and tunic and a silly hat with feathers. Would he get to wear a codpiece?

Museo Correr made up the south end of St. Mark’s Square. The outside was long and low, elegantly colonnaded, the sort of place where you could easily imagine royalty hanging out. The inside was even more impressive: marble and gilt, fancy domes and crystal chandeliers. Even if Jeff wasn’t usually into museums, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the enormous paintings and beautiful statues. He liked the exhibits that showed Venetian life throughout history, and he was especially pleased when he could recognize some of the locations in centuries-old drawings and paintings.

They paused at a glass case containing some of the tall wooden platform shoes the locals used to wear to keep their fine clothes out of the water that accumulated on the pavement. “Fashionable,” Jeff said. “Maybe I should get a pair to take home to Sacramento.”

Cleve was looking at Jeff, not at the shoes. “Home,” he said very quietly. “Sounds so nice.”

“Sacramento’s not that great. I mean, it’s not horrible, but it’s not all that exciting. It’s pretty much the opposite of exotic.”

“But it’s home.”

“Yeah.” Jeff sighed despite himself. “Except I’m about to lose mine.”

Cleve frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m selling my house. I bought it when Kyle and I hooked up—he was still in school then, so the mortgage is in my name. But he was splitting the costs with me, and now….” He shrugged. But then he saw the slightly stricken look on Cleve’s face and felt guilty. Here Jeff was, whining, when he at least had a home of some kind and knew he’d find someplace else. He didn’t know where Cleve went at night, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t anywhere permanent.

“Where would you set down roots, Cleve? If you could pick anywhere in the world?”

Cleve’s answer was immediate and direct. “Where someone loved me, man.”

They wandered the museum in silence after that until they passed the café and, with unspoken agreement, sat down with cups of espresso. Cleve’s face was drawn, his gaze inward. Jeff wished he had a single fucking clue what was going on in the man’s head.

An elderly couple sat at the next table. They were both reading books—the man what looked like a novel, the woman a guide to Venice in German—but sometimes they looked up at the same time and smiled at each other. Once they reached across the table and squeezed hands for a moment. They must have had problems in their lives—everyone did—but they had each other and they seemed so content. Jeff had to look away before he was overcome with jealousy.

“I once read
Death in Venice
,” Jeff said for no particular reason. “Had to for one of my classes.”

“Yeah? What’s it about?”

“Middle-aged guy visits Venice and falls in love with a beautiful boy. He gets obsessed with the kid and follows him around—kinda freaks out the kid’s parents—but never touches him, never even talks to him. And then the old guy dies.”

Cleve raised his eyebrows. “That’s cheery. Is it one of those ‘Oh, you’re a fag so naturally your life has to be a total tragedy’ things?”

“Dunno. My prof said it had to do with passion and wisdom and… um, I forget. It’s been a while.” He sipped at his second espresso.

“Well, it sounds like bullshit to me.” He lifted one corner of his mouth. “You’re not worrying about croaking from cholera, are you?”

“No, it’s not in my top ten concerns. And I thought you weren’t familiar with the book.”

Cleve shrugged, apparently unworried about being caught in another untruth. “Maybe I saw the movie. Anyway, you’re not middle-aged and I’m not a kid.” That mysterious shadow passed briefly across his face. “I’m definitely not a kid anymore. Plus, we touched, kiddo.”

Jeff blushed, which made Cleve laugh.

A
LTHOUGH
gray clouds still hung low in the sky and the air was cold, the rain had stopped by the time they left the museum, so they simply wandered for a while. Jeff bought his mother an eight-euro scarf he thought might go with the earrings, but he couldn’t find anything just right for his father.

“Maybe I’ll find him something in Vienna,” he said as they left a shop, empty-handed.

“That where you’re going next, Just Jeff?”

“Yep.”

“You’ll like it. It’s a lot bigger than Venice and pretty gay-friendly.”

Jeff splashed through a puddle. “Yeah, I saw even the official website has a whole queer section.”

“There’s a decent club scene, if you’re into that.”

After waiting a minute or two, Jeff said carefully, “Sounds like you know Vienna pretty well.”

“Sure. As well as Venice, probably, but my Italian’s better than my German.”

“You know… I wouldn’t mind a guide there.”

Cleve stopped in the middle of the street, nearly causing a collision with the lady behind him. “I can’t,” he said.

“Yeah, sure. I mean, of course. I didn’t—”

Cleve grabbed Jeff’s arm. “I would. You gotta believe me on this, okay? I
want
to. Fuck, I’d give anything….” He shook his head and released Jeff. “I just can’t.”

“Okay,” Jeff replied evenly and continued walking. Cleve waited a few seconds before hurrying to catch up.

Chapter 8

C
LEVE
got more nervous as the afternoon wore on, until finally Jeff said, “Look. If we’re done, I’ll pay you now and you can go.”

“Do you want me to go now?”

“No,” Jeff answered with complete honesty.

Cleve rewarded him with a bright smile. “Good. I got an idea. C’mon.”

Apparently, Cleve’s idea involved a visit to Billa, where he quickly cruised the aisles, throwing various things into the basket on his arm. When he paused in front of the beer display, Jeff pushed him gently forward. “I have some back at the apartment.”

Jeff was pretty pleased that he knew how to bag his groceries this time.

They each carried a bag back to the time-share. Mita was at the desk when they entered; she looked at Jeff with a broad smile that was maybe just a little smug. “So is it love yet, Signore Dawkins?”

Predictably, Jeff’s face reddened. “Sh-she means Venice,” he stammered quickly to Cleve. “She means have I fallen in love with Venice.”

Cleve’s expression was definitely a smirk. “And have you?” he asked, his head cocked slightly.

“Yeah. I guess I have.”

Mita seemed to take that as a personal triumph and looked delighted. Cleve looked happy too, although the hint of those shadows remained in his eyes. “Have a good evening,” she said to them both.

Cleve responded with something in Italian that made her laugh and waggle her pierced eyebrows in Jeff’s direction. Jeff’s face heated a few more degrees, and he stomped off in the direction of his apartment.