The Good Neighbor: A Novel

by Jay Quinn

  Rory looked at him and shrugged. “They’re good. Nothing’s changed between us, if that’s what you mean.”

  Austin gave him a searching look. “So nothing’s weird between you then, because of…”

  “No way,” Rory interrupted him. “Bruno understands how he fucked up and I understand why I did what I did. There’s no need to drag him into that.” Rory hesitated a moment, then continued, “What we’ve done… that’s just for you and me. It’s separate and apart from who I… from my life,” he concluded awkwardly.

  “Okay,” Austin said quietly, “I just wanted to know.”

  “How about you?” Rory asked softly. “Are you good with it?”

  “Other than still wanting you very much, I’m fine,” Austin admitted. “This isn’t how I planned to spend time with you today, before I go back to work. I want you to know that,” he added sadly.

  “I’m not saying it’ll never happen again,” Rory offered, “But we’re closer now… good friends. Maybe we should accept that and move forward. My conscience won’t let me…”

  “But, you’re good for me,” Austin began before launching into a coughing fit once more.

  Rory stood and walked across the pavers to him. Firmly, but gently, he tugged on his arm and got Austin to stand. “Enough of this for now, Austin; you need to get back inside and lie down.”

  Austin allowed himself to be led back into the house. Sullenly he watched as Rory replaced the lid on the container of leftover soup and placed it in the refrigerator. Then, wordlessly, Rory crumpled his napkin, deposited it in the trash, and put his spoon in the dishwasher before washing his hands methodically with the soap he found on the sink’s back rim. Finished, he looked around for something to dry his hands on. Seeing nothing, he simply dried his hands on his shirt. He gave Austin a smile and said, “I’d better go.”

  Austin looked away regretfully. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the jar of Vicks VapoRub on the counter. He reached for it and held it out to Rory. “Would you rub some of this on me before you go,” he asked pitifully. “Please?”

  Rory looked at the jar in his hand and then into Austin’s pleading eyes. He sighed and shook his head. “Austin, I don’t…”

  “My chest and back hurt so bad,” Austin pleaded. “Could you please just be a buddy and do this for me? Then you can go home. I swear.”

  Reluctantly, Rory took the jar from his hand.

  “C’mon,” Austin said with an air of gruff urgency and headed toward the stairs.

  “Wait a minute…” Rory began.

  “We’re just going to my office,” Austin said over his shoulder. “I want to take a nap up there. Besides, Meg would kill me if I got any of that stuff on her furniture in the family room.”

  Rory had no choice but to see the logic in what he said. Wordlessly, he followed him up the stairs and into his office. He watched as Austin pulled his T-shirt over his head and lay down on his stomach with an anticipatory sigh.

  Rory shook his head against the sigh. He quickly walked to the edge of the sofa and knelt opposite Austin’s broad back. As he uncapped the jar and spread the cold, unyielding unguent on his back, a flood of other, older memories came back to him. It was as if he was back in high school. Back rubs were the earliest methods of seduction in his long repertoire. He suddenly felt guilty and aroused simultaneously. As his slick hands heated the cold stuff and kneaded it into the depths of Austin’s muscled back, he thought of other times, other bodies, and other places far from that still, bright room, which was now deepening in tone as the sun made its way overhead.

  “Do my chest,” Austin said and turned onto his back. He laid an arm over his eyes with feigned helplessness and said, “It feels so good.”

  Rory’s nurselike intentions turned slower and instinctively attuned to elicit other responses. It could have been a completely different time, a completely different boy, but the touch of another’s smooth flesh traced the same dangerous route in him. He knew this territory of touch and aching need well. He had been there before. And he had returned unwillingly and compulsively to what he thought he had left behind. It was child’s play, and he knew he was no longer that skinny, hungry boy he had been. Even as he touched Austin, he wanted to just get up and leave, but he was held to the spot and to the act by an old need. Filled with both disgust and longing, he wanted to cry.

  Austin moved his arm from his eyes and looked at Rory hungrily. It was a familiar place for Austin as well, but his place held none of the fear and shame of Rory’s memories. For him, it was the return of an explorer to a long-abandoned landscape he had once traveled and moved on from. His return to this touch was a fond and guarded secret. He had found the place again, and he wanted all it offered with the simple eagerness he’d forgotten he owned. Gently, he took hold of Rory’s wrist and guided his hand to the tented arch in his sweat pants. “Help me out, buddy,” he whispered gruffly. “I really want you to.”

  Rory rested his palm over Austin’s hard demand. His eyes traveled up over the long length of Austin’s offered body until he found his pleading eyes. Rory saw the superior glint there lurking under the mocking plea. He was humiliated by his own hunger to respond, yet the proof of his own power and Austin’s desire for him throbbed hot under his hand. So, sad but resigned, Rory turned and bent to the unchangingly familiar task, knowing all the while he never wanted to return there again.

  5150 ST. MARK’S COURT

  WHEN HE GOT home, Bruno found Rory sitting and dreaming in his chair by the kitchen window. The house stank of cigarette smoke, and a full ashtray sat in front of Rory along with a half-finished glass of orange juice. “Oh boy,” Bruno said, “here’s a cat who’s been in the cream. You’ve gotten into your stash of pills, haven’t you?”

  Rory nodded and tipped his head up to receive a kiss from his partner.

  “Any particular reason, or did you just decide to take the afternoon off?” Bruno asked as he loosened his tie and pulled it free from his collar.

  Rory grinned and found the well-considered lie slid easily from his mouth. “I dropped off that big job today and picked up two small ones. I had them finished by four, so I decided to celebrate the return of being a legitimate income earner.” In truth, he had returned from Austin’s house on a wave of self-hatred and regret. When he found he couldn’t scrub off the sense of shame he felt in the shower, he found his bottle of painkillers waiting and measured out half a precious dose to lift him up and over his funk. By the time Bruno had returned home, he’d firmly resolved never to sleep with Austin again and had forgiven himself his sin in the process. He’d decided never to waste another pill on thoughts of Austin. Gratefully, he stood and walked over to Bruno and nestled his head against his chest.

  Bruno put his arms around him and laughed. “You’re pill horny.”

  “No I’m not,” Rory said and hugged him tightly once more. “I’m just really, really aware of how lucky I am.”

  Bruno returned his hug, then pushed him gently away. “I hope you still feel that way after I tell you what I have to tell you.”

  For a moment, blind panic swept through Rory with the certainty of divine retribution. With a kind of Catholic certitude, he was profoundly aware that God’s punishment was swift and sure. Considering how he had behaved of late, he was utterly convinced that his time had come. Involuntarily he flinched as though Bruno had made a move to hit him.

  Bruno saw the stark fear in his face and said gently, “It’s nothing like what you’re thinking, baby. Please don’t think that, okay?”

  Rory took a defensive step backwards. “What do you have to tell me?” he demanded.

  “I’m not leaving you, Rory. Settle down,” Bruno said and stripped off his shirt. “Goddamn, I’m never going to stop paying for that, am I?” He laid it over his tie on the barstool closest to him and stepped out of his shoes. “I know I have no excuse lately to make you believe I’m not going anywhere, but you don’t have to act like I’ve got my bags at th
e door every time I make an offhand remark. Jesus, Rory.”

  Rory made his way back to his seat and nervously lit a cigarette. He watched Bruno tiredly shuck down to his boxer shorts before he said, “I had a long talk with Shimon Saperstein today,” he began. “Aw fuck it, let’s go outside. I need a buzz myself.”

  Somewhat relieved, Rory gathered his drink and cigarettes and followed Bruno outside. From the bend of Bruno’s heavy shoulders and exhausted, resigned looks, Rory could tell something was wrong with him. As Bruno carefully loaded his bong and took a deep hit, Rory hesitated at the door, watching him. When Bruno let go of a deep lungful of smoke and stared out over the canal, Rory said, “Something’s wrong at work, isn’t it? I’ve never seen you looking so…”

  “Disappointed?” Bruno asked as he turned his head to look at him.

  “I guess. I can’t really tell,” Rory admitted cautiously.

  Bruno shook his head and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Come sit down and I’ll give you the whole story.”

  Rory made his way to the wicker sofa along with Bridget, who had wandered out to share the evening with them. As Rory sat next to Bruno, he leaned forward and petted his dog until she clumsily allowed herself to sink on the pavers at their feet with a sigh of simple satisfaction. Bruno nudged her gently with his toes and let go of a sigh almost as deeply articulate as the dog’s. “Dumb dog,” Bruno said with a small smile.

  Rory stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray on the table by the sofa’s arm and settled his orange juice nearby. “What’s going on, Bruno? You didn’t get fired did you?”

  Bruno leaned into the sofa and stretched an arm over its back behind Rory. “Not hardly. I’ve been promoted.”

  “To the New York office?” Rory asked evenly.

  Bruno shook his head. “No. The consensus of opinion between Shimon and my new boss, Nan Bradfield, is that I’m better suited to field work in the southern region. They want me down here, essentially reporting directly to them.”

  “I know you’re disappointed Bruno,” Rory offered quietly. “I know how much you wanted to move up to the big show.”

  “You don’t know the half, Rory. A person I thought was my friend pushed ahead of me into the place Shimon was creating for me. Now I have to answer to her as well as Shimon,” Bruno said bitterly.

  “So, it’s personal then?”

  Bruno looked at him searchingly for a moment, then turned to stare once more out over the canal. “It’s never personal, Rory. It’s just about recognizing your main chance and screwing who you have to in order to take it. I got screwed, no hard feelings.”

  “But you said you got a promotion. What does that mean? More money?”

  Bruno snorted. “Yeah, there’s that. I look at it as a stud fee.”

  Rory felt himself draw inward, retracting from the inference. He put the pieces together in his mind and came up with the right conclusion. He looked at Bruno, who answered with a noncommittal shrug and a small nod. “It doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme, Will,” Rory offered gently.

  “Right, but…” Bruno said grudgingly. “It also means another move, Rory,” Bruno said and drew Rory close under the shelter of his arm. “That’s where they turned the knife.”

  Rory looked up at him with a careful smile and reached up to take his hand. “So. Where are we off to next?”

  “We have a choice. Either Charleston, South Carolina, or Lexington, Kentucky,” Bruno said grimly.

  “Those are odd choices,” Rory remarked honestly.

  “They want me untainted by the politics of the big offices in Charlotte and Houston. I’ll be independently auditing and reviewing their research before making a final recommendation to New York. In a sense, I’ll be close enough to them to fly there when necessary for meetings before moving on to present findings to New York. I’ll be on the road a little bit more, so I’m leaving the choice up to you. You have to be happy wherever we end up. At this point, I don’t really give a fuck. Nan’s made my place very clear. They think I’m good, just not good enough to play in their goddamn New York world.”

  With that, Bruno stood and stalked around the pool. “If I didn’t have a southern accent, or if I had gotten my MBA from Harvard, or hell, if I was Jewish, I would have been in the New York office for years now. They draw ranks and close the doors no matter how fucking good you might be.” Bruno stopped and stood staring out at the night sky. “I’ve jumped through every flaming hoop they’ve put up for me, and I’ve landed on my feet and took off running every goddamn time, Rory. But every time I open my mouth, I’m still a dumb-ass hick as far as they’re concerned, and that ain’t never… excuse me, that is never… gonna change.” Bruno turned and looked at him defeatedly, “I get so tired of it, Rory. Sometimes I just want to tell them to go fuck themselves… but I just keep on…”

  Rory had learned long ago when to talk and when to keep silent. This was not a time for him to either soothe or cajole. It was better to let Bruno talk himself through this funk alone. He simply lit a cigarette and briefly considered his options. He ruled out Lexington immediately. That was a city he couldn’t consider, being anything but hostile to the intimate life he and Bruno shared. Having never been to the place, he saw it only as a deeply religious fundamentalist stronghold with nothing but mint juleps and bluegrass to offer.

  Charleston, South Carolina, on the other hand, held a lot of appeal to him. It was a bright, warm southern city, close to the ocean, and it offered a certain tacit live-and-let-live ambience underneath its usual regional drawbacks. Also, there was a wealth of artsy activities that he’d frankly come to miss since their days in cities other than Fort Lauderdale and the Miami-Metro area. He hated driving down to Miami and neglected to attend any cultural activities there in the face of the hassles particular to the city itself.

  Bruno moved hesitantly around the pool and returned to a spot at its edge directly in front of Rory and Bridget. He smoothly sat on the pool coping and allowed his legs to hang over the side and sway in the cool water. “What do you think, Rory? Where would you like to go for awhile? I mean it could be for awhile or it could be forever. I never know.”

  Rory stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and moved to Bruno’s side. He positioned himself close next to him and let his legs dangle in the pool as well. He braced one arm against Bruno’s back and nudged his shoulder. “Do we have enough money to live out on the Isle of Palms or Sullivan Island?”

  Bruno looked over at him and nudged his shoulder in return before he grinned. “We have enough money to buy a place in the Charleston historic district, if that’s what you want. We’re going to make a killing on this place.”

  “I want to live at the beach,” Rory said firmly.

  “Remember how we used to dream about buying one of those shitty condos up in Kitty Hawk?” Bruno said sweetly.

  “Yeah,” Rory said. “We had so many big plans back then. Everything was so simple twenty years ago, before our world got so big.”

  “You mean before my head got so big,” Bruno snorted.

  “Well, there is that,” Rory said and laughed until Bruno snickered as well. “You’ve shared every big scheme with me, Will,” Rory replied tenderly. “And look at where we are. We’re pretty lucky, don’t you think?”

  Bruno put his arm around Rory’s shoulder and hugged him against his side. “I knew you would choose Charleston,” he teased.

  “Oh yeah,” Rory grinned. “Why’s that?”

  “Something you said a long time ago, don’t you remember?”

  Rory shook his head and gave him a quizzical look.

  “You said you were like Flipper; you’d die if you got too far away from the sea,” Bruno said and grinned. “Frankly, I’ve wondered how long I could keep you all the way out here in the damn Everglades for as long as I have.”

  Rory looked out over the canal and to the great sky hanging above it. The large clouds sailing on the forward horizon were streaked with Tiepolo hues from
the remnants of the sun as it set far across the flat Everglades into the welcoming Gulf of Mexico. “I’ve felt stranded here, Will,” Rory said honestly. “I’m ready to leave as soon as you can get us out of here.”

  “You won’t miss Venetian Vistas at all?” Bruno said gently.

  Rory snuck a glance up to Austin’s office window. Already there was a lamp lit inside and the place glowed like the memory of spent sin. Rory turned his head and met Bruno’s eyes. “How soon can we leave?”

  Bruno laughed and stood. “I’ll call Shimon and Nan tomorrow and give them the good word that the decision is Charleston. Meanwhile…” he reached down and took Rory’s hand to help him to his feet. “… let’s go get on Realtor.com and see what’s available on the beaches outside Charleston. I don’t think Shimon or Nan would have a problem with me taking a few days off to fly us up there to go house hunting.”

  Once Rory was on his feet, he once more wrapped his arms around Bruno’s waist and hugged him close.

  Bruno could smell his hair and he leaned down to kiss the top of Rory’s head. “Thanks for being so cool about this, Rory,” he whispered.

  Rory looked up and found his eyes. He tried to communicate in a long look how much he loved Bruno and was filled with an unexplainable joy when he found the same look returned to him without hesitation or reserve.

  5160 ST. MARK’S COURT

  AS SHE SETTLED into Austin’s chair in the loft, Meg was determined to keep up her defense against the boys’ flu, even though the worst of it appeared to be over. Though their return to school the day before was a decisive victory, she had no plans to lose any ground to a relapse, or worse, letting any lapse in vigilance result in a case of bronchitis as severe as Austin’s. She encountered no resistance from Josh when it came time to slather the newly purchased Vicks on his chest and back before bedtime, but Noah was resentful and sullen when his turn came.

  “Mom, I can do it myself,” he said in a new tone of boredom and contempt for her care that had started appearing out of nowhere.