by Ella James
It’s the wishful thinking that’s so common to people who need hope. Two days later, in a vote at a meeting of the board of elders, Evermore’s leadership commits to keep its status non-affirming, “respecting,” the minutes say, “the six board members who do not feel certain scripture plainly indicates a correct interpretation of the will of God on the issue of same-sex marriage. This is not,” it adds, “a statement of denial of approval on the part of the board, nor is it a treatise on this topic. It is an acknowledgment that without a vote of confidence from all fourteen board members, paradigm shifts in church philosophy and practice need not be endeavored.”
Luke shows up at my house after with a blank look on his face and crawls into bed. When I ask, he relays the unexpected vote in sparse monotone. I’m not sure if he wants my company, but I’d rather offer it than not. When I wrap my arms around him, he pushes his face against my throat and doesn’t move for what feels like forever.
“I would have to go,” he whispers after some time.
The words are so soft that at first I don’t process them. Then I do, and my gut clenches.
If I were to come out—if I were to be with you—I’d have to go.
Things are worse the next morning. Someone on the board of elders—Luke thinks a young dude who’s got a gay sister—leaked the minutes of the meeting to the Hollywood Reporter, which puts up an article that wrongly states that Luke voted against affirming. They’ve got a correction up within an hour, but the whole time, Luke is pacing the bedroom at the townhouse on the phone. And then he’s leaving.
“Sorry—I’ve got so much stuff to deal with.”
“Hey, no sorries here, guy.” I lock him in a tight hug, and he hugs me back, and there’s no way for me to know that it’s the last time for the next five days. He’s at work until eleven-thirty that night dealing with the fallout of the vote. The next morning at five, he flies off to a keynote at Yale, followed immediately by two days in Ottawa to marry a good friend from his college fraternity. In Ottawa, he doesn’t text me much—because the wedding festivities are “involved,” he says.
I’m so focused on him—so worried and in love, and so wrapped up in missing him—that it takes me until Monday morning, when Pearl makes a comment about the trip, to realize they’ve been home since Sunday morning.
“You and Luke? You got back Sunday?”
“Yeah, you know.” It’s off-handed, part of a longer story. “We got home, and that’s when I went home to Arman and…” She beams as she holds her hand up for me.
“Oh, hell. Wow, so he gave you a ring.”
She squeals. “I’m engaged!”
I ask the right questions, hit all the right notes.
“How are you?” she asks, still beaming.
“I’m not bad. How was the wedding Luke officiated?”
“It was really nice. I think Luke had a nice time, too.”
“I guess yours is next.”
“Possibly soon. We want to go and do it on the fly.”
I smile. “That’s always sounded good to me, too. Who needs a crowd?”
We chat until her phone rings. Then I walk out to my car. I think of Luke, back home since Sunday, and I have to breathe into a plastic baggie I left in the passenger’s seat.
I look out the windshield, and I think of when I broke the easel. All that anger I felt. Heat.
Now I feel nothing.
I decide to leave, but almost hit another car on my way out of the deck. So I go back. I pull into the same spot and get back out. As if moving might help ease the throbbing wound inside me.
All this time, I thought that it would peter out. That I’d finish the mural and…I don’t know. I guess I didn’t believe that it would really end. That seems to be the only explanation for my...blindness.
I walk back into my atrium, and numbness simmers. Now it’s hurt. Betrayal. I feel envious even of Pearl. He’ll replace me, but she’ll always have him. Like one of those psychos from the stalker movies, I tell myself harshly, as I thrust my shaking hands under the water in the men’s room. Those ones who fall in love with someone through the window glass. What are you, a step or two away from that? It was always more you and less him. What did you want? Someone to pick you? Did you want Daddy to pick Vance?
I splash my face. I understand—the facts are here, and they are easy to interpret—but my mind just can’t believe it. What did you think, asshat? That he lost his phone in Ottawa?
I thought he had lost his phone. It seemed to be the only explanation for such a long silence.
Sometime after dark, I end up in the room with centaur. He’s so beautiful. By far the best piece that I’ve ever made.
I know what I’m going to do—and it’s so strange the way I love how much I hate it.
There’s a grinder here. A long extension cord. I unravel it methodically, with steady hands. Then I turn the grinder on, and start with centaur’s head. Once his head is gone, the rest will feel easy. I’ve spent so long looking at his face—it’s like an old friend. Once that’s gone, a weird, tight pressure fills my chest. If I take shallow breaths, I can still breathe. I stop for a second. Gotta get a facemask. I only have the one, though. It’s the mask he wore. It’s at the townhouse. I take my shirt off and tie it around my head.
I remove the neck and shoulders next. His legs…his hips…his flank. I don’t realize I’m crying until I stop because my shirt is wet enough to sag. Finally there’s just a tail left. I wipe my eyes, and then I finish it.
It’s daylight again in the atrium when I start the next part of my project. It’s complex, a slight challenge—but I see it so clearly. I’m so good at marble. Really, it’s my gift. People still hire me for murals, but I’ve got a wait list four years out for sculptures.
I do the beach first…then the sea: a wild and reckless sea with gorgeous, curling waves. I give the island trees, a clearing. Then I start the boat. There’s just one piece of hull…a mast and crumpled sails. I know the sails are flawless even as my hands begin to shake and my throat gets so dry breathing makes me choke. All the wreckage next. So many splintered boards. There are mangled railings, part of the couch-like thing where we sat and smoked. When everything is finished—all the wreckage, anyway—I lay the steering wheel just so in the sand. Then I get the grinder out again…then the hammer…and the medium flat chisel. Mini chisels. With one of them, I give it a title between underbrush, between two palm trees. Worship.
“Sir?”
I turn to see a man in a suit standing in the doorway.
“Do you have clearance to be in here?”
I blink, near shocked to find it’s dark outside the atrium’s windows.
I look back at the man and tell him, “I’m the artist.”
He steps closer. “I’m Howard. One of the church elders.”
I can’t bring myself to speak or even nod.
“This has changed since I was here last,” he says, coming closer still. “The last piece was a stunner. What you have here now is maybe even more special.”
I see a spot I don’t like and start at it with a point chisel.
“Do you need something? A glass of water?”
I look at him. His eyes look like…something.
“No.” I step away. “No thank you.”
With the chisel in my hand, I walk toward the nearest men’s room—but I don’t stop. I go to my atrium. It’s empty. I can smell the roses. I think of the port-a-room outside in the walled garden, and my throat closes.
I know where he is if he’s here. I know where the stairwell is—the one they led him up after he said in fifth grade that he planned to marry one of his male friends and not the boy’s twin sister. It feels right for me to go up those stairs.
Sweat drips from my elbows onto the soft rubber stair tread. My shorts are covered in fine marble particles. I realize as I open the third floor door that I’m not wearing a shirt.
Dark.
He may be gone. I walk farther. Past some desks, a
sitting area, a fountain, several paintings.
His door is slightly open. I can see its light from thirty or so yards because of how the area is laid out; his door is punched into the center of a wall.
I walk faster. Suddenly I want to see his face. Because I still believe that he will be the same man. My man. If I see him, this will all go back to normal.
I see her first. She’s small from behind—narrow shoulders and an even narrower waist. I see her pale arm raised. It takes me a long second—a second staring at the image stamped into my retina—to realize she’s melded to his side. Her arm is raised because it’s wrapped around his neck.
I hear her sigh. He moans, and something in my chest cracks. I feel it so much, I raise my hand to touch that place.
They’re kissing.
That’s when they stop to breathe, and he looks right at me.
Part III
23
Vance
I understand now—why they run. Fairy tale princesses. Men through high-rise windows. Overwhelmed sensory kids, abused teenagers, people who go poof without a bag or wallet. Everyone who’s ever seen a horror, heard horrible news. People run when they can’t bear it. When the energy inside you is so great, there’s no way not to be demolished by the force of it. You have to move.
I run to the parking deck and point the Prius east toward Oakland. I get through the traffic glut and fly up I-80. Past exits for Berkeley, University Village, Richmond Annex, Park View, Park Plaza, East Richmond, Hasford Heights and Hilltop Green and Hercules.
By Cordelia, no one’s on the road. The Prius’s clock says it’s 2:40 AM. I feel okay until I realize the lines on the road won’t stay straight. I pull off on a shoulder and find some water in the trunk beside a first aid kit. I drink three bottles and almost throw up.
No shirt. I’m insane. I sit there on the roadside shivering…trying to get my diaphragm to breathe like normal. I don’t have my phone, I realize. I don’t have my phone…and I’m a phone guy. I don’t want to run away without a phone.
I turn around and drive back toward the city, feeling steadier.
You knew it would end.
That’s not true, though. I’m a liar—to myself. I made sure I never knew because if I had known, I would have had to stop. No one looks their own destruction in the face and says bring it on.
It’s quiet in the city, 4:30 AM.
It will take me probably a week to finish up the mural. He leaves for Japan in eleven days. I need to take a leave of absence until he’s gone. Go back home. It’s like a gut-punch when I re-remember…Luke has been there. He’s been in my apartment.
Is this how it starts for him? My breaths all feel…not enough. It’s so hard to get a good one. I push my lungs out, suck air in. I’m still breathing like that when I get to the townhouse.
Southern Comfort. That’s what I need. I see my hands as I unlock the garage-to-stairwell door and realize they’re blistered—badly. I can barely move the right one. Tears sting my eyes. I’m a wreck, and I hate it. I let the damn tears fall as I climb the six stairs to the foyer. Then I drag in a deep breath and lift my head.
He’s kneeling on the floor in front of me. Our eyes catch and hold. He looks sad. Somber, maybe. What he doesn’t look is the same. The way I thought that if we saw each other, he would be the same him—that was wrong.
“I’m sorry, Vance.” It’s barely a rasp. I step closer, and I see his eyes are red. His mouth is tight.
“Sorry for what?”
He rubs his hair. “I don’t know.” He blows a breath out. “I just…” He shakes his head, his eyes on mine. “It was such a shock to me. I always thought that if it came down to it…that they would go affirming. It’s the Bay.”
I shake my head. I can’t believe that this is what he’s saying to me.
“That is what you’re sorry for?”
“No. I mean—”
“Luke, I saw you kissing someone. Did you see me there?”
“No…I did.” He gets to his feet, moving toward me at first and then standing away. “She came by, and—”
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Megan.”
My chest feels like there’s a vice around it. “Is that who you broke up with?”
“That doesn’t matter. I didn’t—”
“Didn’t what, Luke? Did you fuck her?”
He flinches. “I would never—”
“Did you ever fuck her?”
His mouth tightens. “Don’t say that.”
I sneer. “What was it, making love?”
“No.” He looks at me like I’ve grown three heads. “What’s the matter, Vance? You look—”
“Like you just wrecked my shit.” I can’t breathe. It’s so sudden. I’m panting, and I can see him realize.
He steps closer. “Vance—”
“Don’t come any closer to me!”
His face transforms. Confused. Anguished.
“I don’t want you near me. Can you leave?” I manage.
His eyes widen. My chest heaves. I shut my eyes and just say the damn words. The ones that scar my heart. “We both know you’ll never pick me.”
I wait for him to say it’s not true. To say he loves me. That’s what he said. He said that he loved me.
A tear spills from my eye, then another. “I made a mistake. I’m not…” Everything blurs. I should never have come here. I hear myself say, “I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this bullshit with you anymore. I’m fucking out, Luke.”
I can’t see his face when I say that. After I blink, his face is hard and still. His eyes hold mine, and they don’t seem like his eyes. They’re so cold.
“Are you sure about it?” His voice is low, an octave lower than normal.
I swallow hard, so I can whisper, “Yes.”
At that word, he takes a step back. He turns toward the door, then stops and looks back at me.
“Vance?”
I’m so conditioned—such an animal—that hearing my name from his lips makes my heart beat harder.
His face falls apart for just a second. It’s so fast that afterwards, I question whether it happened. His face twists like he’s going to sob—and then it locks down. “You need to avoid me at the church.”
24
Vance
I call Pearl and tell her that my cousin died and I’ll be going home for several days. Then I take the Prius and drive up to Napa, planning to stay with Tia and Liz, my college friends who run a B&B beside some vines. I don’t get that far, though. I stop at a little country store to get a drink and something to eat. As I eat my cashews in the parking lot, I notice that behind the store, by a little trail that winds into a lush, green valley, there’s a sign: Tiny House Hotel.
I don’t know why, but I like those tiny house Travel Channel shows. Tia and Liz don’t know I’m coming, and I don’t know how I’d talk to them without screaming something’s wrong.
I rent a tiny house—and for the next three days, I barely leave it. There’s a bed up in the top, reminding me of a nest. You can sit up in it, but you can’t stand. On each side of the bed—punched into the short walls—are three vertical windows.
Every morning, the owners come by with fresh eggs and produce. Every morning, I have breakfast since it’s brought to my door. It’s the only meal that I can bring myself to eat.
I sit in the bed. It’s queen sized, just a mattress on a wood floor in what amounts to the tiny house’s tiny attic. I look down into the tiny living space, and out the tiny bedroom windows at the grass. Try to shower every day and move down to the hard couch for a little while, so I can say I left the bed.
I’m not moving around much—but my thoughts are. I replay the whole thing, mapping out the space between right now and our first meeting on his yacht the way I might map out a mural on a sheet of paper before getting started.
I think on the two of us, and all our actions. Everything he said and who he is, and what kind of motherfucker I am. And I find,
no matter how much I don’t want to, just one logical conclusion: Luke did love me. Maybe he still does.
But he’s so fucking stuck. So locked in his life…that he can’t follow through on any feelings. Not even those most important ones. The worst thing? I know why. He told me his whole life’s story—with respect to being gay and a McDowell. The conversion weekend at Tahoe with his father’s friends dumping ice water on him if they showed him pictures of men and his dick got partway hard. All the comments and the implications and omissions and manipulation—well-intentioned, I think—from both his parents, who knew and didn’t condemn him, but also never accepted him.
Affirming. Even that word haunts me. Affirmation was never offered to him. In the last year, he said everything got a lot worse for him. In Tokyo on that night he called me—it was day for him—he got so paranoid that he had looked at some dude’s dick as the guy walked past, he skipped a speech and shut himself into one of those pod hotels, and he even thought of taking his life.
That makes it harder to be done with him. Because I’ll never know he’s okay. But I can’t save him.
I think that’s the biggest shock from my time thinking things through in the tiny house. Since I met him—since that night we spent together my grandparents’ cabin—I wanted to help him. Sure, there’s fucking and attraction and love, even, but below all that, I think I really always thought that I could save him from his pain. All that time, I never could.
I roll out of Napa on a Wednesday morning feeling just a little more human. I’m still fucking pissed off. That he kissed her, mostly. More than anything, I can’t snuff out the jealousy. That wound gets ripped open when I get back to San Francisco, check into a hotel, and hear some girl talking in the breakfast line about “Pastor Luke” being “fuck goals.”
Mine.
