Alice said, “Do you feel like you love me?”
Mikey looked away from her. He didn’t know what he felt. Numb? Weary?
He said, “I don’t know what I feel.”
Alice said, “Why?”
Mikey stared out over the white lake, then up into the thick splatter of white stars. How would he remember this black sky, positively stuffed with stars, when he no longer had sight? He couldn’t—there was no way. It would be lost. At one point, he had decided that a clear, starry night sky like this was Liszt’s Waldesrauschen for piano, but realized now that the piece didn’t quite capture it. It wasn’t right.
Mikey heard a dog howling far away, and the shriek of a predatory bird. His hands were fists. He felt tears on his cheeks, and they were cold and weird.
Alice said, “Mikey, you’re hurting me.”
He said, “I know.”
Chapter 21
Finn had been circling a tree up the path, and now he returned to them, nosing his old gray face up toward Alice’s crotch. Alice laughed and leaned down to kiss his head. She drank more bourbon, then passed the bottle to Mikey, who did the same. He drank so much his throat turned to fire. He shivered.
Alice reached down to retrieve Chris’s glove from the snow where she had thrown it moments earlier. She shook off the glove and was helping Mikey maneuver his stiff and swollen fingers back into it, when the moment was interrupted by a snowball that smacked directly into Mikey’s back.
Mikey spun around.
A thin, athletic figure was running down the path from which they had come, sprinting at top speed, kicking up little snowstorms in his wake.
Alice said, “What the . . .” And she stared at the approaching figure for a moment before shrieking, “Jimmy!”
Jimmy hurtled toward the two of them, then performed an elegant slide right at Alice’s feet. He rose and brushed snow off himself. He laughed and threw his arms around both of them. In the soft light of the moon, with flushed cheeks and bright eyes, Jimmy looked healthy and radiant, sporting a neat black beard, his dark hair long and wavy.
“What are you guys doing out here in this snow?” Jimmy said.
“My dog had to piss, and I decided to try to seduce Mikey,” Alice said. “Thought it’d be like taking candy from a baby. I was wrong.”
Jimmy laughed heartily, then clapped Mikey over the back. “It’s been way too long!”
Alice said, “How’d you know we were out here?”
“Just pulled in five minutes ago,” Jimmy said. He clapped his hands together and danced up and down for warmth. “On my way into the house, I saw footprints out the side door. Couldn’t tell who they belonged to, but figured I’d come find out and check.”
“Yo-ho-ho,” Alice said. “Well, I’m just about frozen now, and Finn’s had more than enough time to pee. Let’s head in and warm up. We’ve just about killed this bottle of bourbon, anyway.”
“How’s everybody?” Jimmy said on the way back to the house.
Mikey gave him a rundown on who all was at the house as they made their way up the path.
Inside, Alice brushed the snow off Finn and hung up Sam’s coat.
Mikey said, “How are things with you, man?”
Jimmy said, “I’m good, you guys. I’m really good.” He wore slim-fitting jeans, a cream button-down, and a dark wool jacket, which he removed. He ran a hand through very glossy dark locks.
Alice looked him over and said, “Damn, Jimmy. I wouldn’t’ve thought it possible, but you’ve managed to get even more handsome. What’s your secret? Maybelline?”
Jimmy said, “You’re catching me right after a six-day cleanse.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Six days on juice. I do it every year after the holidays.”
“Just juice?” Alice said. “Good God. Does gravy count?”
Alice and Mikey followed Jimmy through the kitchen, where he rummaged through the refrigerator and prepared a plate of cold leftovers for himself, then to the liquor cabinet, where he picked out a bottle of Côtes du Rhône. He poured a glass for each of them. They went into the main room, where Jimmy started to eat his leftovers at the coffee table.
Alice sniffed the air and looked at Mikey. “Is that me or you?” she said. “Because it’s obviously not Jimmy. Rich people don’t sweat.”
She sniffed her own armpit, then leaned over to sniff Mikey’s. “It’s you,” she confirmed. “Very . . . athletic.”
“Thank you for that.”
Jimmy swallowed the food that was in his mouth and wiped his lips. “Guys,” he said, “how are we doing with this Sally stuff? Everybody doing okay?”
Mikey nodded.
Alice briefly filled Jimmy in on the conversations they’d had earlier with Lynn and Sam, and then she told him about her own romantic relationship with Sally.
Jimmy said, “Oh, I knew all about that.” He turned to face Mikey. “You didn’t know about that?”
Mikey shook his head. “You did? How?”
“Sally told me,” Jimmy said.
Alice said, “Really? She told me she didn’t want anyone to know . . . I had no idea the two of you talked.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “She came to me about it because . . . well, because she knew . . . She thought I would understand.” Jimmy set down the silverware on his plate and leaned back into the couch. “Look, I don’t want this to be a big thing. I was sort of hoping to avoid doing it in front of everybody in any sort of lookie-at-me way, but—” His blue eyes darted up toward the ceiling.
Alice cut in, “You’re gay.”
Jimmy let out a big laugh. “I should’ve known . . . Nothing gets by Alice Clancy!”
Mikey said, “You’ll have to excuse her. In case you’ve forgotten, she—”
“Knows everything about everybody?” Jimmy finished the thought.
Mikey said, “Oh. Oh?” He stared at Jimmy, who laughed again.
“Yeah, I’m gay,” Jimmy said. “I’m out out in LA.”
Alice said, “I was partly joking, Jimmy, but, jeez. I mean . . . I’m happy for you!”
Jimmy said, “You guys remember my parents. Catholic as they come. It’s part of the reason I moved out west. There were other reasons, but I knew I wasn’t ready to come out to my parents, and I also didn’t want to keep pretending in everyday life. Modifying my voice, my body language. Faking interest in girls. I wanted to start a new life where everyone knew. So, at least this way, I only have to pretend once or twice a year when we do family trips.”
Alice said, “Your parents still don’t know?”
Jimmy shook his head. “We haven’t had the talk.”
Mikey said, “I hope you were never scared of our reaction . . .”
Jimmy said, “The only reason I didn’t come out sooner to you guys was because, Mikey, I know you’re still local, and I didn’t want you to be in a position where you’d have to lie to my parents or other mutual friends. I didn’t want anyone else to have to tell lies to keep my secret. It’s always seemed easier to just keep these lives fully separate,” Jimmy explained.
Alice said, “I’m sorry you’ve had to keep this from your folks. That’s heavy. I mean my parents weren’t thrilled when I started dating women, but they’ve always been live-and-let-live. No secrets.”
Jimmy said, “I always thought that maybe when I met the right guy, when I was actually ready to settle down, think about getting married . . . maybe that’s when I’ll be ready for them to know.”
Mikey said, “So, when did you know?” His calves were hard from their trek through the snow, and he massaged them with his thumbs.
“I always knew,” Jimmy said. “But around thirteen, fourteen is when I knew knew. Even once I knew, though, I tried to reverse it. Tried to make my voice deeper, my laugh, you know, less of a giggle. Tried to use my h
ands differently. Sat on them so they wouldn’t flip around the way they wanted to flip around.”
Alice said, “And Sally knew, too? You told her?”
Jimmy nodded. “Sally and I confided in one another about a lot of things. Her mother, for example.”
“What about her mother?”
Jimmy was quiet for a bit. “Corinne . . . had a lot of troubles,” he said. “Full-blown alcoholic, for starters. That was obvious. Started every single day with a glass of vodka before she could even get out of bed. Shaking like a leaf, Sally said, if she went more than an hour without a sip of something.” Jimmy gripped his bottom lip with his teeth, then continued. “And Corinne had men in and out of their house constantly. Sally was exposed to it all. And way too early. Thin walls.”
Mikey said, “I always sort of got that impression, but never knew for sure.”
Jimmy said, “The reason Sally first confided in me was because she slept in my basement sometimes.”
Alice said, “She didn’t feel safe in her own home?”
Jimmy nodded. “We were just two houses down from Sally, you guys remember. And we had that storm window that led into the basement—tiny thing, no grown person ever would’ve been able to crawl in. But when Sally was ten or eleven, she asked me if she could sneak over and sleep in our basement sometimes, when things got noisy at her own house. Noisy, and also . . . God . . . this still haunts me. But there were times when Corinne would be passed out cold, and the men would go wandering through the house . . .” Jimmy paused and rubbed his eye sockets hard before looking directly at them both, his bright eyes watery.
“Oh, no,” Mikey breathed, aching, a deep, deep cramp of sorrow in his chest.
Jimmy was nodding slowly. “So . . .” He sighed but eventually continued. “I made it part of my nightly routine to unlock and prop that basement window open so Sally could have a safe and quiet place to sleep when her mother had a man over. My parents never knew.”
“Did she sleep over often?” Alice asked.
Jimmy nodded. “Sometimes, if I happened to be up anyway, I’d go down to the basement in the middle of the night. If Sally was there and if she was awake, we’d talk. That was when we told each other our hard secrets. The ones Sally and I only shared with each other.”
“Like who her mother really was,” Alice said. “What Sally was exposed to in their own home.”
Jimmy nodded. “And eventually, when I learned what it meant to be gay, and realized that I was, and worked up the courage to say that word aloud . . . Sally was the one I trusted with that hard secret.”
Alice said, “And Sally trusted you with our secret—hers and mine I mean—that she thought she might be gay, too.”
Jimmy nodded.
Mikey said, “Did Sally ever tell you why she cut us all off?”
Jimmy shook his head sadly. “She didn’t give me any more warning than she gave either of you. And she never sought me out personally later to explain. It was just . . . it must have been a terrible, terrible place she was in.”
Mikey said, “Alone.”
“Alone,” Jimmy repeated. His eyes skittered back and forth between Mikey and Alice. “Look, it kills me to say this, but it was my fault that she left us.”
Alice said, “No, Jimmy, there’s no—”
Jimmy held up a hand, silencing her. “I mean it,” he said. “The thing is, these secrets . . . it was too much. Sally needed help. I’m not even talking professionally. I just mean . . . she needed more than I could offer her. I wasn’t equipped to talk her through everything she was feeling. In my mind, I think, I equated my own problems—discovering that I was gay and coming to grips with that—with what she was going through, but the reality is, I didn’t have a clue how to talk to Sally, how to help her. If I had encouraged her to reach out to you guys, or to an adult, to anyone, her burden might have been less. I didn’t, though, because I was too wrapped up in my own self, and I was too afraid.”
Mikey said, “Afraid of what?”
“I was afraid that if Sally’s secrets came out, mine would, too.” Jimmy swallowed and gripped his nose, then released it. “Things might have turned out so different. She might not have . . . broken.”
Alice said, “You didn’t break her, Jimmy.”
Jimmy said, “I didn’t fix her either, and I was really the only one who had the chance.”
The three of them sat in a dark silence for a bit, and then Alice rose to use the restroom.
After she had left the room, Jimmy leaned close to Mikey and said, “There’s something else I really need to tell you, Mikey. Just you.” Jimmy’s voice was thick and strained with nerves.
Mikey felt a deeply unsettling little tremor of adrenaline spike through him. He said, “What is it?”
The muscles of Jimmy’s lips were trembling. “It’s about . . .” But before he could continue, he was interrupted by a creak that suddenly rose from the stairway across the room.
Lynn was in red flannel pajamas and making her way down the stairs. Issa followed, in sweatpants and a UPenn T-shirt. Sam followed closely behind, rubbing his sleepy eyes as he lumbered down the stairs in navy pajamas with white piping.
Jimmy leaned toward Mikey and whispered, “We’ll talk sometime when it’s just the two of us.” He gave Mikey’s shoulder a squeeze.
Lynn cried, “Jimmy!” when she saw him, and she ran to him. Sam said, “Jimbo!” and his whole posture immediately woke as he saw his old friend. Jimmy embraced both of them, and Sam erupted in happy laughter, holding Jimmy close. Alice returned.
Lynn introduced Jimmy to Issa. Then she said, “Jimmy, I had no idea you were here! I just dragged Sam out of bed and was coming down to tell everyone the news.”
Jimmy said, “What’s the news?”
Lynn smiled broadly and said, “He said yes!”
“What now?”
Lynn pushed curls from her face and said, “I woke Issa up and asked him to marry me.”
Alice shook her fists and said, “Yo-ho-ho!”
They all exchanged hugs and happy words, then Jimmy corralled the group into the kitchen, where he located ingredients for a nonalcoholic fizzy red drink, which he served from a punch bowl, and Alice popped a bottle of champagne.
Jimmy turned on the stereo and found a station that was playing a sultry ballad. He turned the volume up and grabbed Alice by the waist and spun her around the kitchen, dipping her, nearly dropping her, singing lyrics to her with great emotion.
“It had to be youuuuu,” Jimmy sang. “Just say yes, please doooooo.”
Sam cut in as Jimmy’s partner, and the two men laughed and sung and spun one another clumsily through the room.
Alice asked Lynn if they had set a date, and Lynn told her to cool her jets.
Issa and Sam took dinner leftovers from the refrigerator, removed the foil, made themselves plates, and microwaved them.
Sam asked Jimmy about life in LA and gazed at him curiously when Jimmy told anecdotes that included details the rest of them simply could not fathom: tacos with raw fish in them, surf competitions held right outside his back window, wheatgrass, Bikram yoga—the room set to 104 degrees, with forty percent humidity, Jimmy explained.
“Why would you want to do that?” Alice said, blinking at Jimmy incredulously. “Why would anyone, ever, want to do that?”
Mikey and Lynn went to the main room, where they stood next to each other at that massive wall of windows, looking out across the great snowy expanse.
The snow was blue and gray and white and silver and pink and gold. It spun up in little frosty cones that danced over the landscape. Mikey could still see his and Alice’s and Jimmy’s footprints in the path leading down to the beach.
“What’s it like to find love?” Mikey said to Lynn.
“Hm.” Lynn was quiet for a bit. Then she said, “It’s like finding the gr
ound.”
“The ground?” Mikey didn’t understand.
Lynn hooked her arm through his elbow.
“You’ll come to my wedding, won’t you?” she said.
Suddenly, Alice was behind them, then between them, putting both Mikey and Lynn in a gentle headlock on either side of her.
“Of course,” Mikey said. “You’ll need someone to keep Alice in line.”
Alice said, “Wouldn’t a wedding be boring and terrible without me?”
Lynn laughed.
Alice sang, “Can’t hold me back, can’t hold me back, get a heart attack, can’t hold me back!” Then she skipped across the room to Finn, who lay in front of the fire. She roused him and said, “Watch me!” She performed a wild and clumsy dance before him, and Finn’s tongue sagged long out of his mouth.
Lynn and Mikey watched Alice for a bit, then Lynn leaned close to Mikey and said, “There’s something Alice isn’t telling you.”
Mikey turned to face Lynn. “Oh?”
Lynn nodded.
“I didn’t think there was anything Alice didn’t tell anybody,” Mikey said. “Hm.” He wondered if it had anything to do with whatever Jimmy had to tell him, too.
Sam sidled up next to Mikey once Lynn had gone to join Issa elsewhere in the room.
“Mikey . . .” Sam spoke softly. “Your face earlier, when we talked. I know you think . . . You think I’m a bad man?” Sam spoke these words earnestly, a direct question with no trace of self-pity.
Mikey shook his head. “No,” he said.
The Gunners Page 15
