The Hideaway Inn

by Philip William Stover

  “Vince, those scissors, right there. Cut each one from here to here,” he says, pointing at the tiny chickens. At first, I bristle at being told what to do, but one glance at the clock tells me I don’t have time to be a hard-ass if I want this luncheon to not be a disaster.

  I quickly start working on my task. I try to focus on what I’m doing so I don’t wind up serving a side of my thumb with the dish, but it’s hard to do that and keep sneaking glances at Tack, not to mention my hands are covered in slimy chicken guts. I notice that Tack didn’t assign me the cocktail or salad task.

  I also notice the way he moves around the kitchen is masterful. It’s not just his confidence, it’s seeing him do something he seems to truly love. It reminds me of watching him during football games. He was mesmerizing on the field, like a Greek god in tight pants. I’d sit in the bleachers with the marching band as assholes threw crumpled-up pieces of paper with witty expressions like “Skinny Vinny is a fag.” I was so focused on watching Tack play that I barely noticed until I had to clean out my tuba. I think I filled an entire notebook of erotic poetry about him in that uniform.

  I finish my first and hopefully last stint as a country butcher and shake all of the pornographic images of Tack from my mind. It’s time to turn on the charm with my first guests. I freshen up in the bathroom by wiping the mud off my shoes and retying my tie. I splash some water on my face and smooth my thick black hair down so my appearance is polished and professional. I look at myself in the mirror for a second and think about my band uniform and that dumb tuba. No one would ever have thought that skinny, shy kid with acne would turn into a square-jawed, thickly muscled alpha with a perfect smile and flawless skin. Well, my orthodontist, dermatologist and personal trainer would, of course, but my secrets are safe with them.

  Anita wheels ahead of me and I follow her into the dining room, and it’s filled with about twenty people. The last time I spoke in front of a group this size was the board at the firm—a room with windows larger than the entire inn overlooking Wall Street, one enormous glossy table, and about two dozen elderly white men all wearing dark suits and sour expressions.

  I feel like I have walked through some kind of inversion portal.

  Sitting at small tables under the exposed wooden beams holding up the low ceiling is the most diverse group of people I may have ever seen in one room. There are women, men and all gender expressions in between and beyond that range. Some look much younger than me while others are clearly past retirement age. I wouldn’t guess at the ethnicity of anyone but it’s clear this group represents a wide range.

  “Everyone,” Anita says, clinking a spoon to a water glass. “I am pleased to introduce you to Vincent Amato, the new owner of The Hideaway Inn.” Everyone politely applauds.

  I nod and smile. “Thank you. Please call me Vince,” I say. “I’m thrilled to be here and excited about the upcoming changes.”

  “What do you mean ‘upcoming changes’?” a person dressed in a violet dress over men’s suit pants and wearing a vintage emerald and black lace hat asks as she uses one hand to quiet the rest of the group.

  “Vince,” Anita says, stepping in. “This is Serilda Jackson. They are the president of the LGBTQ Historical Society.” Anita emphasizes the word they as if I’ve been living in a corporate boardroom for the last decade but I’m more than aware of what it feels like to be named and misnamed.

  “My pronouns are they, them, theirs. I can’t make it any clearer and anyone who messes them up makes a voluntary ten-dollar donation to the society on the spot.” Serilda’s voice is pure Southern fried honey and hot sauce. They extend their hand to me and smile deliberately. I’m not sure if I should kiss or grip it firmly but I choose a light shake. “Now, what do you mean by upcoming changes?” they repeat.

  “Well, to be honest...” I start and immediately stop myself. Nothing can kill a business faster than rumors of a corporate takeover. If I tell them—or anyone—my plan to sell to a national chain, I can pretty much count on the customer base shrinking. Not to mention some angry online reviews. I quickly shut my mouth.

  “This town has always had a strong connection to our community. Our expectation is that the businesses in New Hope will honor that relationship. What do you plan to do? We don’t want some corporate chain coming in here and changing the local character,” Serilda presses.

  This person is no joke. I have met some real sharks on Wall Street but Serilda could hold their own with any titan of industry. I have no intention of telling them that FunTyme Inc. couldn’t care less who dines at the Inn once they buy it as long as the tables keep turning. All money is green. I also don’t tell them that I didn’t go to a single meeting of the LGBTQ group in college or that I always schedule work out of town during the Pride Parade. I also don’t tell them that I annually donate buckets of money to the LGBTQ No Name Calling Week national organizing committee. That detail is just between me and my accountant.

  “Mr. Amato. What do you plan to do?” they repeat.

  “Well...”

  The door to the kitchen opens and Tack appears. His radiant smile and energy cut through the tension. “Welcome, everyone. Lunch is served,” he says, and Clayton begins placing plates of perfectly roasted chicken and fresh salad at the tables.

  Serilda walks over to me but now their smile is friendly and gentle. “Why didn’t you tell me you hired Tack? Oh, he’s a fine young man. Now I know you have your priorities right.” Serilda squeezes my arm gently and goes to sit at their table.

  I look back at the kitchen door and see that Tack has been watching me. He isn’t beaming that searchlight smile anymore. Instead he has a smaller, more intense smile that he is throwing directly at me and me alone.

  I’ve been out of New York City less than a day and Tack has already saved me more than once. Maybe he thinks this somehow makes up for lost time or evens the score from when we were kids.

  Nice try, Tack, but you aren’t running the show anymore. I am.

  Chapter Four

  I wait until the minted fruit cups are served and tea service has begun before I walk back into the kitchen. Tack is wiping down the steel counters. I avoid eye contact as I walk past him behind the line and go right to my bag to get my checkbook.

  “What did they say?” Tack asks anxiously. “Are people enjoying everything? Was there enough seasoning on the hen? Too much garlic in the dressing? I know some people don’t like garlic at lunch but the greens were a bit bitter so I wanted...”

  Shock number three thousand for the day. Tack isn’t cocky about his talent? The lunch was fantastic. The truth is everyone in the dining room was raving about the meal. I assumed Tack knew it was excellent but hearing him ask all these questions tells me how he really feels. He’s insecure. He’s nervous and anxious about what people are saying about him—and I love it. After everything he did to me all those years ago, part of me can’t help wanting to see him knocked down a few pegs. He deserves it.

  “Oh, the food? Is that what you are asking about? Yeah,” I say, “I think it was fine. No one complained.” I open my checkbook without looking at him. “Invoice me for the produce but I want to pay you right now for your time. Just tell me your day rate. I’ll beat it by twenty percent because this was a rush. That’s standard.”

  Tack comes out from behind the line and takes off his apron. I refuse to look over at him. This is how our story ends. This is how I say goodbye to Tack—on my terms with a big fat check that says Fuck you in the memo line. Well, I might leave that out because I don’t need the bank knowing how petty I am, but I will trace the words in the memo without leaving a mark.

  “Zero. I don’t have a rate,” he says.

  “Well, let me ask Anita when she comes in what the local rate is and we can use that. Plus the twenty percent I already mentioned.”

  “No, I mean, I don’t want to get paid for cooking today. I was just helpin
g you out.” He balls up his apron and throws it in the hamper. He walks closer to me.

  “No,” I say. “That’s not possible. You work. You get paid. That’s how business operates. Now why don’t I just say five hundred?” I sit down at the small desk by the door and turn to a blank check.

  “No,” he says.

  “I respect good negotiators. Fine,” I say. “Let’s do seven-fifty.” I do not look up from the checkbook or get up from the desk. I stay calm, focused and cold. He thinks he can make up for everything that went down between us in high school by throwing a few hens in the oven and tossing a salad. I don’t think so.

  “No, Vince,” Tack says. His voice is firm and strong but not angry. His natural strength feels like the real deal unlike the show I’m putting on. I hear him taking a few steps closer until I can feel him standing directly behind me. I can hear his breathing and feel the heat from his body against my back.

  “You don’t understand,” he says, and puts his right hand gently on my shoulder. Feeling him reach for me and having him intentionally touch me sends a rush of excitement throughout my body but I am able to kill it quickly. I turn any feelings of desire I might have to anger and frustration. It’s the way I have learned to protect myself and it always works.

  “What?” I snap at him, flinching away from him and turning in the chair. “What don’t I understand? Please tell me. Tell me what someone with an Ivy League MBA doesn’t understand about business that a farm boy from rural nowhere does. Please, enlighten me with your business acumen, or are the words I’m using too big for you?”

  Tack has never seen this side of me—the pissed-off alpha male who more than once has made someone who works under him cry. I’m not sure if he’s confused, pissed or hurt, and I don’t care. I write a check for one thousand dollars, stand up and shove it in his hand. There. Take that, Tack.

  He looks at me and then down at the ridiculous amount of money I’m flashing at him. He holds the check in my face, rips it in half and says, “Fuck,” and then rips it in half the other way and says, “you.” The pieces float to the floor and he walks out the door.

  I tell myself I couldn’t be happier and it almost doesn’t even feel like a lie.

  Chapter Five

  Tack

  I’m not taking Vinny’s money. I’m not taking anything from him. Who does he think he is throwing money at me like that? More importantly who is this guy who vaguely resembles Vinny but acts like Darth Vader and sounds like Barry White before he’s had his coffee?

  Damn, this kid always knew how to press my buttons. But he isn’t a kid anymore. He’s definitely become a man. The way he struts around in that expensive suit like he came back owning the place, which I guess he did since he is the owner of the Hide-a-went, but he doesn’t need all that attitude.

  I sit in my truck and think about getting out, walking into the kitchen and telling Vinny to cut the crap. I’ll tell him to get back in the truck and me and him will just drive around the rolling countryside until we run out of gas, and then we’ll put a blanket down and fall asleep under the stars.

  I slam my hands against the wheel of my truck. “Damn!” As soon as I realize what I’ve done, I apologize. “Sorry, Axel. You know how this guy makes me crazy,” I tell my truck. I turn the key in the ignition and the motor starts chugging. The familiar sputters and spurts calm me down. We head back over the bridge to New Jersey. Since this luncheon put a serious delay in my day, I’ll barely have time to make it back to the farm and then back over to Pennsylvania for the last week of the spring semester at school. At least I’ll only have one class in the summer session. Right now, I’m constantly backtracking from the farm to New Hope to school to New Hope. Poor Axel barely knows which way he’s going some days but it’s the only way to get off the farm and into the kitchen. It’s not just the physical miles that take a toll on me, it’s navigating the different worlds. The farm may only be a dozen miles from the rainbow flags, drag bars and community pride parades of New Hope but once I cross the river I’m in a different world.

  I convince myself that cutting across on Grafton Hollow will make the trip quicker. I know it won’t and I don’t really have time to go out of my way, but still I can’t help myself from driving by Vinny’s old house. The old road snakes along a seasonal stream but eventually leads me right to the spot I’ve been avoiding for years. His square house sits alone on a small patch of land with woods in the back and fields on the three other sides.

  The faded red split-level looks as bad as it did the day I first met Vinny—broken gutters, peeling paint and the same cracked window in the door. That day, I was fixing the fence way back at the far end of our farm. School had ended a few weeks back and my dad gave me the summer to get the fence in shape before needing me in the fields. We had more acreage back then and the farm felt like a kingdom that expanded off the page of the map. I’d walk to the edge of the farm each morning to work on a new section of fence and feel like I was on the brink of something about to happen.

  I was struggling to hammer a brace into a post at a section where the fence ran against the property line of Vinny’s house. I’d always thought the house had been abandoned years before but I saw this kid in black jeans and black T-shirt come out carrying a book.

  “Hey!” I yelled out. “Can you hold this brace for me? Will only take a second.” The kid kept walking but I knew he heard me so I got up and yelled louder. “It will only take a second. We’re neighbors. Come on.”

  He stood there without moving, like an animal trying to be invisible in front of his prey.

  “Pleeeaaaassse!” I squealed in a funny high-pitched voice like I was stuck in a cartoon desert and he had a bucket of water. I watched him soften just a bit. He looked up just enough for me to see that the corners of his mouth were fighting a smile. Then he walked over.

  “Thanks, man, I’m Tack.”

  “Vinny,” he said but nothing else. His eyes stayed down.

  “You go to Eisenhower High?” I asked since I hadn’t seen him before and a kid like this would definitely stand out at school. He had dark piercing eyes that were delicate yet distant. His hair was even darker and the bangs that fell down one side of his face were dyed the color of eggplants during harvest.

  “Starting this year.” The words came out of his mouth like each one was a struggle.

  “The teachers are a pain in the ass but the coaches are okay. You play any sports?”

  “I do not,” he said and I could see his eyes roll back and his shoulders hunch toward his ears.

  “Can you just hold this brace right here while I hammer?”

  Vinny used his free hand to hold the brace but he wasn’t strong enough to hold it in place with just one arm.

  “Can you put down the book and use both hands?” I asked.

  “Put the book down? Where?” he asked, looking around as if he was expecting a bookcase to magically reveal itself on the edge of the field.

  “Just on the ground,” I said, wondering what exactly I had gotten myself into.

  “Are you out of your mind? This is Chekhov. I won’t just throw it on the ground,” he said defiantly. His stubbornness was never something he could control.

  “It’s just a book and it’s summer anyway. You ain’t gotta read.”

  “I don’t have to read this book. I want to. It’s a play about these sisters and they live in this small town in Russia and they are totally bored and the people in the town don’t get them at all so they make this plan to move to the big city. I haven’t finished it yet but I can’t wait until they get to Moscow.”

  When he spoke about the book his entire demeanor changed. He didn’t seem shy or scared of anything. His eyes opened wide and he gestured wildly with his hands and arms. It was like someone had just changed his batteries. He talked about the worlds he was reading in a way that made me as excited as him. No one I hung ou
t with read over the summer or talked about some sisters moving to Moscow or worried about putting a book on the dirt. Who was this kid? He seemed strange and familiar all at once to me.

  “Hold on, I’ve got an idea.” He put his book under one arm and grabbed the brace with both hands so I could hammer it in easily. He had more strength in his body than I had assumed.

  That summer Vinny would come by and see me almost every day, usually with a new book. I loved hearing him talk. He described the spiritual journey of Siddhartha, the complicated plot of King Lear and even read some of James Baldwin’s poems to me that were so riveting I almost hammered my finger to a post. At school I was in a class called “Reading Foundations” and even I was smart enough to know it was for kids who were barely passing. I never felt dumb around Vinny. He treated me like I was just as smart as he was and after hanging out with him for a few weeks, I started to believe it.

  Being alone with Vinny was easy. We were so different but also had so much in common. My mom died when I was a kid and he never knew his father. I never talked to anyone about not really having many memories of her and wanting more. He only had a single picture of his dad and never wanted to know more. We fit like opposite pieces of a puzzle that click when joined. Being alone together at the edge of the farm felt like freedom. But when the fence was done and school started, the world shifted back to where it was and whatever we had evaporated.

  A small-town high school is a network of territories with strict borders. Vinny didn’t belong anywhere and it made his life miserable but it made me admire him more because he didn’t need to. He did what he wanted, how he wanted to do it.

  My life felt like an endless list of obligations. I followed some script then and I don’t even know why or where it came from. I had to place at the meets, have the hottest girlfriend, drink like an animal at parties on the weekends. These things were expected of me or I expected them of myself. At the time I couldn’t tell the difference. I couldn’t imagine a life being anything other than the one that was already attached to me, but meeting Vinny put a crack in that heavy iron chain.