by Rachel Kane
Once, Theo had felt distant from Micah. Once, long ago, they’d slept together, and he’d had some kind of out of body experience. Not a good one, one that had troubled him with the detachment he had felt.
That’s why he cherished this closeness now, this feeling that they almost had one single body, that they were almost the same person. No more distance between them. No more misunderstandings, no one to pry them apart.
To be loved, to be pressed together, to be inseparable. To love his best friend, and know that he would be with him forever.
“And here I was thinking you wanted to go swimming,” says Micah, barely able to catch his breath.
* * *
“And he goes, He’s a shark, a goddamn shark! And I told him, Well he certainly took a bite out of you!” Bernard looks really pleased with himself, telling that joke for the hundredth time, but you take the victories where you can. Micah doesn’t mind hearing it again.
Bernard and Taggart came early, much earlier than expected.
The caterers were here, driving Consuela mad with their demands. “They forget who owns the kitchen in this house!” she says, brandishing her ladle like a club.
“It’ll be fine,” says Micah, throwing a pained glance at Theo, who just smiles. Go ahead, go make peace, Theo thinks, and Micah gives him a grateful nod. Micah loves these kinds of problems. He’s got a knack for soothing angry people, for getting everyone to work out a deal.
Theo is showing Bernard and Taggart the owls, but he’s watching them closely. Is there something between them? Or maybe it’s just the effect summer has on him, that he thinks everyone should be in love as much as he is. The lawyer and the environmentalist coo appropriately over the painting of the owls, but they keep glancing at each other.
“The battle isn’t over yet,” says Taggart, and this is true, but it’s also a thought Theo would rather save for the party. It’s something you tell the donors, not something you want to hear in the sanctity of your studio.
Taggart is very noble, although he spends too much time in the sun. He’d be a good subject for a painting, Theo decides, tucking that thought away for later.
“At least it won’t be Braddock Moore we’re fighting next time,” Bernard says.
“Yeah,” Taggart agrees, “where are his gangster buddies now?”
A glance back towards the kitchen, where Micah is no doubt hammering out an agreement that gives both Consuela and the caterer room to breathe. That was one version of Micah the Lawyer. The happy one. The one where everything worked out and everyone was pleased.
There was another side to Micah the Lawyer. The side that knew exactly how to go after a man like Braddock. It wasn’t enough to get the city to turn down the construction plans. There were always more plans. There would always be someone to look at the environmental impact statement, and rubber-stamp it. The bulldozers couldn’t be stopped like that.
No, it took something colder.
Micah knew where to look, because he’d seen Braddock’s finances. He subpoenaed tax records. Suddenly the IRS took an interest in Braddock.
A shark. A goddamn shark. Theo didn’t think Micah himself was a shark…just a man who knew how to summon the biggest, deadliest shark of all.
Braddock was going to be a very busy man the next few months. No time for bulldozing wetlands, when you’re on the run for tax evasion.
But there was so much more to save.
It felt good to love a man who believed in things.
* * *
“I don’t like parties,” says Val, looking around nervously.
“I’m glad you came anyway.” Theo offers him a glass of spring water. “It means a lot to me.”
He can tell Val wants to apologize again. He hopes he won’t. There is a limit to how many times he can accept. How many times he can listen to Val puzzle over how he had been so wrong.
Val is a little lost right now, without Theo to help him run the company. It’s looking like he might step down. Theo thinks it would do him good. He should find something new to do, something he can do without help. Something that fulfills him.
“I just want to say—”
“Please don’t,” Theo counters. “I believe you.”
“I’m very sorry. I didn’t understand what it was doing to you. I didn’t understand the strain, until I tried to do it myself. These salesmen drink so much, Theo. All they want to talk about is golf and strippers. I don’t like golf or strippers or drinking.”
“Just hang out here,” Theo offers. “You can go for a swim, or take a nap, or…well, anything, until you figure out what you do like.”
Micah isn’t around to hear that offer. Good thing. Micah and Val are wary of each other. Each sees the other as The Man That Took Theo Away.
“Mother sends her regards,” Val says.
“Her regards, or her love?”
Val winces. He doesn’t like the word love. “The second.”
“How’s she doing? Still feeling okay?”
“She wanted me to tell you, the silk turban you picked out is perfect. She says it feels better than having hair anyway. The doctor says her scans are still clear.”
“Thank god.” Relief feels like a heavy blanket has been pulled off of him. The radiation had been hard on her, and even after she recovered, he still worried about her.
Still, she had Nick. He’d turned out to be a good partner for her, a damn fine one. Loyal, by her side through everything. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad person after all, even if he did keep trying to convince Theo that he needed gallery representation.
Not yet, he’d insisted. I’m not good enough yet. Give me a few years.
Nonsense, boy, you’ve got a natural eye. That picture you did of your mother, standing in the shadows, beautiful, beautiful.
He throws his arm around Val, doesn’t care that Val immediately stiffens. Val doesn’t like hugs. Val doesn’t like anything, but he doesn’t care. He loves his big brother, and somewhere, deep down, Val knows he loves Theo too.
They’re a family again. Not a business. A family.
* * *
You can’t put these things off forever. The donors were here, mingling. Theo had learned a lot of skills during his time at the company, and people laughed at his jokes, grabbed his shoulder, brought him close to tell him stories.
Micah hadn’t meant for Theo to be the social director for the wetlands charity, but things just turned out that way. He was as good at schmoozing as he was at painting. The wealthy ladies of Corinth loved him, and their checkbooks fell open to support the animals he paints.
Even when he is an entire room away, even when they’re separated by a hundred people, Micah still feels the connection to Theo, like they’re tied together somehow, entangled in each other. Like he could just pull somehow, and Theo would come tumbling over.
“Everyone,” says Micah in his big courtroom voice. He taps his fork against his wine glass. Ting ting ting. “Everyone, it’s time to unveil the picture.”
Theo’s owls are back under cover, on a new easel, not the paint-spattered on he works with. They’re hidden away, ready to be revealed to the donors in a dramatic unveiling. The owls will go on pamphlets, brochures, billboards. They’ll be the symbol of the Corinth Nature Society.
Micah has practiced this speech, in the study, with the door closed, so Theo can’t interrupt. He has paced the room, working out the speed and intonation of his words. It’s like the closing argument before a jury. You want to get it right. So much depends on your phrasing. You want to draw them in. You want them to believe they’re on your side, to feel like they’re taking part in something greater, the grand tradition of justice, or in this case, of conservation.
He begins to open his mouth.
“One moment, actually,” says Theo.
Objection, your honor.
You’re not supposed to object during closing arguments.
He gives Theo a quizzical look. “Would you like to begin with an artist’s stateme
nt?”
“Sort of,” says Theo. “Everybody, you all know how hard we’ve worked in recent months to save the wetlands. We’re getting there, and the work is finally paying off. But before we look at the painting, and talk about where the Nature Society is going next, I want to step back a second, and remind everyone how we got here, through the efforts and organization of Mr. Micah Reynolds. Could we have a hand for Micah?”
Micah fidgets as they clap. He wasn’t doing this for praise. He was doing it because it felt right, and it had always been his dream. I don’t need applause, he wants to say. I just want to believe we can make a difference.
But Theo isn’t done. “I’ve known Micah since we were little, and I’ve watched him grow into a strong, incredible man. A force of nature…a force for nature. These past months have been the happiest time in my life. But you all know me. I’m rich and spoiled. I’m greedy. I want more. Much more.”
Tittering from the ladies. Val looks uncomfortable, like he wants to disappear into the shadows. Why are you so worried, Micah thinks, he’s not talking about you, he’s not putting you in the spotlight, it’s me everyone is looking at.
Theo is beside him now, turned toward him, facing him. Oh no. Come on. In front of people?
“Micah, as much as I love living with you, and working with you, and seeing you ever day… Well, you’re a lawyer. You like to make things all official and legal, right? Well how about we make ourselves official and legal? Mr. Micah Reynolds, Attorney at Law, will you marry me?”
The room is waiting for an answer.
This is the formal dining room, with all the furniture moved out to make room for the party. Years ago, when he was small, Micah would stand at the entrance of this room and look inside, awestruck at the grandeur, the great and heavy paintings hanging from the wall, the thick legs of the tables and chairs suggesting a stability that would never end.
A room he was not allowed into. You’ll muss the tablecloth. You’ll smudge the silver. Go eat in the kitchen, dear. This room is for family.
He smiles, hoping his certainty shows through his nervousness. He takes Theo’s hand.
This room is for family.
That summer’s day long ago, the day before they’d broken up, it had seemed like things might last forever, didn’t it? Like the summer might stretch on and on, Theo by his side, lying in the tall grass. Like nothing ever had to end, like you could stare up at the sky, dreaming, with no one to stop you.
His fingers tighten around Theo’s.
It will be like that again, for Micah. It’s already starting. The sense of forever. The sense that he has something he will never, ever let go of.
“Yes,” he says simply.
He says it to Theo.
He says it to this room, to this house, to the lake, to the child who ran through the tall grass, skinned knees and muddy shoes, laughing at the summer before him, yelling Theo wait up, wait for me.
“Yes. Yes, yes.” There’s more he wants to say, the lawyer in him wants to make the case, to lay out the facts, the reasons for his happiness, the logic behind his joy, but he can’t, the words won’t come, he’s about to burst, it might be laughter, or tears, or both, but he’s overwhelmed by the love he feels in this room, and he holds on to Theo for dear life, feeling the gratitude, the love, the hope for the future.
I will, he whispers to Theo. You know I will. I already have. I always have. I’ve been yours my whole life.
I know, Theo whispers back.
It’s like a dream. He can barely speak over the sound of applause.
No more dreams, says Theo, just before they kiss. From now on, everything’s real. Everything.
Wrapped
1
Val
If you’d told me that by the end of the week, I’d be losing my virginity to a Christmas elf who lived in an abandoned school bus just outside of town, I would’ve said—
Wait. Let me start over. There is no possible way anyone would ever tell me that.
Do I need to list the objections for you? Do I really?
Put it this way: It’s not the sort of thing I do.
Then again, I’m not sure I would’ve believed it either, if you’d told me I’d be spending my day in the Corinth Mall, that hotbed of sparkling Christmas decorations and seasonal cheer, where the chances of meeting such an elf were much higher. Going to the mall to buy presents for my family? Not the sort of thing I do.
Yet here I was, and my brother Theo was insistent that I should get out and do my shopping, instead of doing it all online.
“Look, I could call in my old assistant,” I tried to explain to him. “He was good at picking out presents.”
I could hear Theo sighing inside my Bluetooth earpiece. “You don’t have assistants anymore. Remember? No secretaries, no personal shoppers. You’re a free man!”
A free man. What he meant was an unemployed man. I, Valentinian Augustus Harrison, jobless for the first time in my life.
How was I supposed to feel about that? Theo thought it was great. Ever since he’d stepped down from our family company to pursue his dreams, he was a changed man. Good for him.
But some of us like our jobs, and have no interest in dreams, and when people like us discover that our company is imploding and investors are suddenly fleeing and all you’ve worked for your entire life is suddenly crumbling around you--
I’m straying from the topic. I’ve been doing that lately.
Hard to keep my mind on things.
Maybe it was all these people around me. I have a lot of trouble thinking when there are people around, especially excited, rushing people who shoulder past you. I stopped for a second and looked up, gazing at the mall levels above my head, decked with tinsel and lights, crowded with even more people.
“Did we own this mall?” I asked Theo.
“We owned a lot of things in Corinth, Val. I can’t keep track of them all. That was always your job.”
“I have some changes to suggest. I think the mall could dramatically increase revenue if—”
“Would you just go shop?”
“Listen, can you hear the music? There’s loud Christmas music coming out of the speakers in the main section…but different music coming out of each store. It’s a cacophony, Theo. But what if the music was coordinated? Shoppers would be more relaxed, they would spend more—”
“Val, for god’s sake! It’s Christmas! Leave the business side of things alone! C’mon, the whole point of you stepping down as CEO was that you could just live a normal life, do things for yourself—”
“I don’t like doing things for myself.”
“Oh, that’s not true. Remember your Big List? There’s lots of things you enjoy now that you live in the regular world. Like cooking for yourself!”
That was true. I had learned to use the microwave recently. “I do like canned spaghetti. A lot.”
“See? There you go. And there will be something you like there at the mall, I promise. Something to enjoy other than thinking about supply chains or leases or whatever’s going through your head right now. Think of it as an assignment, to find a present someone will like.”
“You? Something you will like?”
“It doesn’t have to be me! You could buy something for Mother, or her boyfriend, or my boyfriend, or—”
The crowds pushed around me and I froze. Suddenly the phone connection was cut. I reached up to touch the earpiece.
“Theo? Theo?”
But Theo was gone.
I was alone, in this alien world. I’d have to figure things out myself.
Of course I could figure things out. I’m very, very smart. Back when I was on the Forbes Thirty Under Thirty list, they called me an investment genius.
Looking around, I was almost positive we had owned this mall, or I guess I should say, owned a percentage of the company that owned the mall…and yet I’d never set foot inside it. Why would I? Having other people do your shopping for you is the most sensible use of tim
e and resources. You do the thing you’re good at, your assistant does the thing he’s good at, and the whole world works better.
Theo would say that’s an excuse. You don’t like going in public, and you’re making up a rationalization.
So I’d added it to the big list…although, given these crowds, once this trip was done, I might mark it off the list and never do it again.
A Big List of Things to Try:
1. Eat canned spaghetti (done)
2. Drive a car (by yourself) (not done yet…apparently you have to take a class before they will give you a license)
3. Wash hands using liquid soap (still a little worried about this one…)
4. Visit a local bar or pub and order a drink (not likely, but Theo says it’s what people do)
5. Do your own Christmas shopping at the mall (and here I am)
There was more to the list; every day I found new things to add to it. It makes me feel like an explorer, an anthropologist who has come to visit a strange new people and learn their ways.
(Admittedly, even though I’d already done #1 on the list, I left it there, and even circled it. I don’t know whether you have ever had canned spaghetti, but it is very exciting. They have several different flavors, different shapes, and it’s all ready for you. You don’t have to hire a cook, you don’t have to have your staff bring it to you, it’s just there, ready to be placed into a microwave-safe bowl. As long as you’ve carefully studied your microwave’s safety and usage instructions and are comfortable with its functions, you’ve made a meal, all by yourself!
This was such an interesting development that when I’d discovered it a few days ago, I’d immediately called Theo.
“You’re calling to tell me about spaghetti?”
