by Rachel Kane
"Dad didn't die because he kept his life a secret from us. He died because he didn't use condoms. Being in the closet didn't keep him from knowing about condoms, it didn't keep him from using them, it didn't keep him from trying to be safe."
"Damn it, would you stop being so frustrating to talk to? Dad died without anybody knowing about his life, without letting anyone know about this house, this whole huge chunk of him, just a mystery—"
"Why can't people have mysteries? It sounds like you're the one with the problem, Liam. Let me break it into its component parts. You are lonely. For some reason, when you are here in the city, you refuse to see anyone. You spend your days doing your routine of childcare, work, and then relaxing either alone or with us. Now you are away from those routines, and you find yourself with a man who brings you pleasure. But because the man reminds you of something painful you went through, you want to refuse yourself the pleasure of being with him, so you can return to your routines. That sounds more like self-sabotage than rationality."
"You really are the worst brother ever. Fine. Tell me what's rational here."
"You should weigh the pros and cons."
"No one makes little lists like that, except on TV, and then it's only to demonstrate what a lousy method of decision-making it is."
Why was he so mad at Judah? Judah hadn't changed. With his brother, you always knew the kind of conversation you'd have. Same with Noah. His friends were always the same. They were stable. Just the way he needed them to be. But it meant they weren't prepared to help him when his life had changed drastically.
"Listen, drop the pros and cons for a minute, okay? I'm telling you that I'm scared of getting hurt. I'm telling you that I don't think I can be in a relationship with someone who isn't honest."
"Then now would be a good time to tell him that. Things are still early. It will hurt, but not too much." As though you could quantify pain. As though you could get out the measuring cups and dole out only a certain amount of agony over lost chances.
There was nothing left to say. He thanked Judah, reminded him to use the spare key, and hung up.
"What should I do, Roo?"
But the baby wasn't paying attention to him. She'd found a blade of grass, plucked it from the immaculate Mulgrew Park lawn, and was holding it to the sun, examining it. He was totally ignored.
27
Mason
When he saw who was in Alex's bookshop, he knew he had been betrayed. Even if he had not seen Violet Mulgrew in her signature color, standing stiffly near the counter, he would've seen the betrayal on Alex's face when he walked in. Maybe it was time for Mason to make new friends.
"Shut the door behind you, dear," said Violet. "Go ahead and put the Closed sign up, won't you? This will take a moment."
"What the hell, man?" Mason whispered to Alex, who turned the sign in the window.
He shook his head. "She owns the building. I can't argue with the landlady. She wanted to meet you."
"Yes," she said, in her dry voice, like a violin bow that hasn't received enough rosin. "I wanted to see you, Mr. Tisdale, considering my son is doing such a clumsy job. Alex, leave."
"Now just a minute, Mrs. Mulgrew, this is my store and my best friend, I think I should—"
"One more word and I'll rent the space out to someone else. Or to no one at all, and leave it vacant. Now. Out."
The last person in town Mason wanted to be alone with was Violet. It was like being locked in a pit with a rattlesnake. Maybe you'd come out alive, maybe you wouldn't, but you weren't going to enjoy the time you were stuck there.
Alex clapped him on the shoulder, then disappeared through the door, walking out onto the street.
"I have a problem," she said, "and it's one that you are tangled up in."
"I haven't broken my promise," he said. "I haven't said a word to anyone in town about being gay. Nobody's going to put two-and-two together and figure out that me and Justin—"
She winced. "The less you refer to that awful humiliation, the better. Justin's brief dalliance with iniquity is over, and he has proven himself to be an upstanding member of the community ever since."
"Just not one that dates girls."
"Not your problem," she said. "When the time is right, I will find a woman for him."
Ewww.
"So why the drama? Why make my best friend lie to me, to get me in here?"
"Because you are not keeping your promise to me, Mason. Not at all. Not while you are seen all over town, hanging on to Mr. Liam Cooper. Don't deny it, everyone is aware that you two are an item."
I'm not even sure I'm aware we're an item, he thought.
But that was being unfair to himself. The thing that had happened to them in the bar the other night, what they had shared…he was connected to Liam, and whatever one wanted to call that connection, it was not something he wanted to sever.
"Walk me through this," he said to Violet. "Because I'm not seeing how any of this is your business."
She scoffed, and moved her silk scarf further up on her throat, as though a chill had entered the room. "My business? This entire town is my business. Do you think I can't see the connections? Of all the men who pass through Superbia, the one you attach yourself to—no, no, don't shake your head, there is no use denying it—is the one who stands in the way of me buying Superbia Springs. Land that rightfully belongs to the Mulgrews."
"How do you figure that? It's always been Cooper land."
"And look what they've done to it. Gone out of business. Abandoned the property, abandoned Superbia. The Coopers were once great men. Now look at what they produce. A gay man with a baby. Disgusting."
"You might want to watch your tongue, you old viper."
She spun to face him. "And you might want to remember who owns the bank that keeps your business afloat. You might want to remember how much the Mulgrews have been silent partners in keeping Tisdale Electrical and Construction going, even through lean times."
"Oh, I remember. You made it very clear what you thought you were buying. Keeping anyone from ever knowing how much your precious son likes taking it up the ass."
"I won't have this vulgarity!"
"It's you who makes it all vulgar, who turns it into something nasty. Leave Liam alone. Let him decide what to do with the property himself."
The flush that had reached her cheeks had settled. Violet Mulgrew was nothing if not master of her emotions. "I have made him a handsome offer. Far more than the place is worth. A hot-springs resort with no spring? Ludicrous. Too huge for a bed-and-breakfast, too ancient for a conference center… Cooper's Folly has no place in this world, Mason. You know that. It's nothing more than a haunted house to frighten children. We could turn it into so much more. I have a vision for this town. I could include you in it. Would you like to be my contractor, Mason? Would you like to have the biggest job of your entire life…the one that enriches you to the point that you are a force in this town?"
Mason flashed back to Sunday School, and the story of how the devil took Jesus up onto the mountaintop, tempting him with promises of power and wealth.
"You're asking me to sell my soul."
"I'm asking you to be practical. You can't have Liam anyway. He's not the kind of man Superbia wants. Flaunting his sexuality like that—"
"Liam doesn't flaunt anything. He's as button-down as they come."
She raised her hand to stop him, and her heavy rings clicked together. "I'll make this very easy. Tell him you can't see him again, and make him sell to me. You will be richly rewarded."
"And if I don't…you'll do something. Make some threats."
"I'll call in the business loan, and Tisdale Electrical and Construction will simply cease to exist. There will be no money to help your ailing father. Here, let me make it even more compelling: I'll kick Alex out of this store. I'll kick Toby out of his vile little gay-bar. You and your friends, you enterprising young businessmen, will be out of business. Broke. Alone. I'll destroy each one of you."
"Fuck you," Mason said, and the words surprised both of them. "If you try anything, then the whole town is going to hear about my past with Justin. And trust me, Violet, there are things you don't know. Things I know he never worked up the nerve to tell you. Experiments we tried, multiple guys at once—"
"Enough! That is something you will not do. You do not want me as an enemy, Mason Lee Tisdale. You think that prior threat wasn't strong enough? You don't think that the Mulgrews have people to do dirty work, when dirty work is required? You watch your step. One word about Justin, and it won't be just your business that's broken. It'll be you, as well."
"So there it is. That's the whole truth, right there. When the Mulgrews don't get their way, they use money, and when money doesn't work, they use muscle."
"We have not spent years getting to the top of this town by keeping our hands clean," said Violet. "None of these threats are idle, dear. Give them some thought. I want papers in my hand in three days, saying that the house is signed over to me. I want Liam out of this town. And I want you working for me…where I can keep an eye on you."
She swept past him, leaving a cloud of floral scents in her wake, sickly-sweet, cloying. The little bell over the door signaled her exit. He followed her as far as the door, then flipped the sign back to Open.
He spent some time in the shop behind his dad's house. The tools didn't need reorganizing or cleaning, so instead he just touched them, the racks of hammers, the nail gun, the cylinders of acetylene and oxygen. His entire life, hung up neatly on peg-boards.
He'd never told his father. He'd never told anyone, not Alex, not Toby, no one, the secret deal he'd made with the Mulgrews, back when his father had injured himself. Back then, it seemed like Dad would be disabled forever, unable to even get out of bed. Desperate times, and he'd done a desperate thing.
You do a deal with the devil, you know you'll have to pay up eventually…but if there's one thing you know about those deals, it's that the price is never what you expected.
Everything in their lives had circled about this shop, and had done so for generations. Before Mason, there had been his dad, then Pop-pop, and then the great-grandfather he'd never met, that everybody called Papa Paul. One after another, they'd all taken up the mantle of keeping Superbia running, keeping the rust and the chaos at bay, pipe by pipe, board by board, shingle by shingle.
But that was always going to be a losing race. Time would eventually take its toll. It wasn't enough for a place to be tidy and well-maintained; for survival, a town had to grow.
That's where the Mulgrews came in, with their vision of a town of bustling commerce, a hub of industry, highways of cash pouring into their bank accounts as they grew richer and richer. Whatever it was they saw in the future of Superbia, it wasn't the same small town Mason had grown up in, that his dad had grown up in, that Pop had.
Should the town eventually give in to decay, or should it be the piggy-bank of the Mulgrews?
Wasn't there any other way to do things?
It left him feeling hemmed in. Uncertain of what to do.
He had to talk to Liam. He knew that. But what could he possibly tell him? The whole, unvarnished truth? The truth that made him look like a schemer, or worse, the willing recipient of the Mulgrew's blood-money? That the whole reason he stayed in the closet was to protect the reputation of a man he hated?
His new phone started its jingle-bell tone. He still hadn't managed to change the sounds it made. It was Liam, sending him a message.
Can we meet? Please? Maybe at the spring-house?
"I just want you to know, first off, that I don't do ultimatums," said Liam.
"Now there's an encouraging line to start with," Mason said with an uncomfortable laugh. Liam slipped out of his arms, and went to the mosaic. Mason had the lights set up in here as well, and the place was beautiful, like walking through a strange dream. His fingers traced the edge of one of the great tubs, so smooth and cold.
They had greeted each other with a hesitant kiss. Both knew something was wrong. They could feel it. Something had changed since the night on the bar. Maybe it was just that it had deepened, become more serious. Surely Liam couldn't know the tangles Mason had gotten himself into today.
"What you do with your own, personal identity, is none of my business," Liam said. "I mean, it is my business...but I can't force you to come out."
"Oh…we're talking about that."
"Yeah. What did you think we were going to talk about?"
He'd wondered if Alex had run off to tell Liam about the secret meeting with Violet.
Apparently not. Alex was a loyal friend. And just as much a victim of Mulgrew treachery as Mason was.
He shrugged in response. "Don't know. You called me."
"It's hard," said Liam. "I live my life in the open. You live yours closed off—"
"Well, not really. I mean, everyone in town knows me, I know everybody's story. There's just this one part of me—"
"Yes, the most important part, as far as I'm concerned. I don't care how well you can fix a pipe or whatever, I care about who I give my heart to, and whether that person will take care of it, and not lie to me, and not keep secrets from me."
Mason started to say I would never keep secrets— But he knew that was a lie. And he hated Violet Mulgrew for putting him in this situation, where he felt he couldn't help but lie.
Why did that whole family's homophobia have to determine everything about his life? He wasn't related to them. He'd had nothing to do with them, other than that stupid, ill-advised affair a million years ago, an affair he had no fond regard for, one that he tried never to think of these days. It had been painful and stupid, and apparently he was never, ever going to be done paying for it.
"Maybe I better just let you say what you need to say, and not try to interrupt," Mason offered.
Liam turned from where he was studying the tiles. His eyes widened, as though surprised Mason had moved up so close behind him. He touched Mason's chin.
"I don't know what to do, babe. Your secrets are your own, but secrets hurt me. Their mere presence hurts me. It's not your fault, it's just the stuff I've been through… But I can't take any of it back. I can't go back in time. If I could, if I could force Richard to tell me about his damned condition, or tell my dad to just be honest about his private life—" Liam's head slowly swung side to side. "But where does that leave me? So this isn't an ultimatum, it's a request. You like me, don't you?"
Mason didn't like the way his eyes felt, hot and wet. "Of course I do. I like you more than any man I've ever met. You're so fucking hot, and yet you're still like…super-practical, you're not some wide-eyed dreamer, you understand me, and…and… Oh, hell, Liam, can't you just trust me, that life is more complicated than I can say?"
It must have been the pain in his voice that alerted Liam that this wasn't just about coming out of the closet.
That there were deeper, darker things, things he couldn't speak of.
Secrets formed into a trap, a trap with hooks, with blades, ready to hurt anyone who tried to penetrate their darkness.
"I believe you," Liam said finally, quietly. "And you have to believe how much I want to help you. But I can't do that, if you shut the door. If you never let me see that part of you. It's not even that I need you to proclaim your big gayness to the world…it's not quite that…it's that I don't understand why you won't. Why you can't explain it to me."
"It's not just my story to tell," he said, and realized when he said it that it was the wrong thing, that the confused look it inspired on Liam's face was one that he could not soothe. "Just… Christ. Damn it!”
He kicked the side of the tub, and pain rang out through his nerves like the striking of a great church bell.
He couldn't do any of this.
How could he ask Liam to sell all this to Violet? What did she think, that Liam would welcome the suggestion, if it came from Mason? She was foolish, so drunk on her own power that she'd forgotten how normal people operate
.
How could he do anything she'd demanded of him?
He was going to lose this guy, this beautiful, sensitive man, all because of her.
And he couldn't even explain it to him, because the second he did, she'd begin dismantling not only his own life, but that of his friends and family as well.
How did he get so fucking tangled in this? He could not possibly win. He couldn't do what she wanted, he couldn't do what Liam wanted, he couldn't do what he himself wanted.
Unless, of course, he broke up with Liam. If he did that, then Liam wouldn't want to stay in town. He wouldn't want to keep the house. Maybe he'd sell then…perhaps not to Violet directly, but through one of the little fake companies she'd create, encircling Liam with reasonable-sounding offers until he caved in.
It was, he realized, exactly what Violet wanted him to do. One less gay relationship in Superbia. One more property for the Mulgrews to own.
And then he could keep his business, and Alex could keep his, and Toby could keep his, and everyone could pretend that they were happy, even though they all knew that another crisis might lurk right around the corner, the next time Violet needed them all to jump.
What a fucking life. He was a fly caught in a web, with the spider’s poison working its way through his system, making him heavy, lethargic and confused as the life left him.
Looked at from one perspective, Superbia seemed idyllic. The perfect little town with its white picket fences and peach trees and school-kids, the library and the bookstore.
But look behind the scenes, and it was all a puppet show. Nothing was real except the strings, and Violet Mulgrew held all of them, pulling, tugging, until everyone was dancing to her tune.
"Mason…are you okay? You haven't said anything in a while."
He shook his head. "Liam… I need you to believe one thing, okay? You are more special to me than anyone I have ever met. No matter what happens, believe that. You deserve the truth. You deserved it back then with your dad, and with your husband, and from me now. But I can't tell you anything about what's going on with me. It's for your own good, your own protection. And I think the only way to make it work, the only way…”
