Against the Wall

by Alexa Land

  “He just needed someone to take care of him this week. I liked doing it.”

  My friends took off soon after so Shea and I could get some rest. They left behind the garlands and twinkle lights. Chance was the last to leave. He said as he lingered in the doorway, “Talk to you soon, okay?”

  “For sure. I’m off from school until well after New Year’s. Maybe you can come with me and help scout a location for a new mural.”

  “I saw what happened to the girl in the field of daisies,” he said. “It broke my heart.”

  “Mine too actually, even though I know better than to get too attached.”

  “Are you going to repaint her?”

  “No. Seeing what was done to her just kind of killed it for me.”

  When he hugged me goodbye, I was once again struck by how fragile his thin body felt. I planted a kiss on the side of his head and said, “You take care of yourself, Chance. I hope you have a great Christmas with your friends. I have a present for you, by the way, but since I got sick I haven’t had a chance to pull it all together.”

  “I have one for you too, but I’m still finishing it up. I don’t have a good excuse like being sick, it’s just taking longer than I expected.”

  After Chance left, I curled up on the couch with my boyfriend and watched him as he slept. Dare was absolutely right. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment I’d fallen in love with Shea Nolan. I’d been wildly attracted to him right from the start, but somewhere along the line, that had deepened, strengthened. I loved him so much. He was exactly the right guy, at exactly the wrong time.

  Well, then again, our timing could have been even worse. What if I’d met him in June, right before I took off? Hell, what if I’d never met him at all? I was trying to look on the bright side. At least we had six months together. I should be so grateful for that.

  Shea stirred, then opened his eyes and sat up, blinking at his surroundings. “Oh,” he murmured, “the party’s over.”

  I got up and took his hand, helping him to his feet. “Yup. It was fun while it lasted, though. Come on, baby. Let’s go to bed.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Shea felt quite a bit better on Christmas morning, so he showered and put on his uniform. I thought he should still be resting, but he was adamant about going to work so no one would have to cover his shifts. We held each other for a long time, standing at the front door to my apartment. Then I said, “Oh, wait.” I jogged to my bedroom closet and came back with a coat that I thought might fit him. “It’s cold out and you forgot yours at work.”

  “Thanks,” he said with a smile as he pulled it on. “Taking care of me right to the end.”

  I kissed him and said, “Please try to take it easy today.”

  “I’ll do my best, and I’ll call you when I get off work. Maybe we can do a late holiday celebration.”

  “You’ll probably be way too tired after working a double shift,” I said, caressing his cheek.

  “No I won’t. I’ll see you later.”

  “Okay. Merry Christmas, baby.”

  He kissed and hugged me again, holding me for another long moment. “Merry Christmas, sweetheart. I’ll talk to you in a few hours.” I nodded and made myself let go of him. He looked back at me as he left the apartment, and I offered him a little wave.

  After I closed the door behind him, I sighed and trudged to the shower. In the spirit of Christmas, I’d decided to accept the olive branch and was going to have brunch with my mom and stepdad. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I knew it was time to let go of that anger.

  Once I was cleaned up and dressed, I picked up a stack of boxes that was just inside my front door and carried them to my dining table. I tore them open and sorted the presents into groups based on recipient. I’d managed to do some online shopping early in the week, right before I got sick, and thought I’d done pretty well, all things considered. I pulled out the fancy Belgian chocolates for my mom and some snobby imported cigars for my stepdad and set them aside.

  Next I checked out the present I’d gotten Shea on eBay. It was a vintage Captain America comic book. I knew nothing about comics, but this one had come with an insane sticker price, so I assumed it was probably a good one.

  My Dad’s gifts had come in two boxes from Amazon, so I combined them into one. Not exactly festive holiday wrapping, but he wouldn’t care. Skye and Dare’s present was in a thin envelope among the boxes. It was a gift certificate for a romantic night on the bay in a private, chartered sailboat, complete with catered dinner and an on-board couples massage. I’d been so stupid about their relationship at first, so now I was trying to make amends.

  Lastly, I sorted out Chance’s gift and packed it into its new, cushioned case. I knew he’d balk at the extravagance of this gift, but I didn’t care because I really wanted him to have it. I’d bought him a new camera and equipment from an online specialty shop. I didn’t know if I’d selected the right things, even though the shop owner had been really helpful in advising me, but I was assured Chance could exchange it if he needed to. I’d gotten him a top-of-the-line DSLR camera and several lenses, along with the aforementioned case, extra rechargeable batteries, and a few miscellaneous odds and ends that the shop owner recommended.

  Yeah, it was a bit much. But the fact was, I could afford it. I was uniquely lucky as the kid of a pop star in that I’d never had to worry about money. I didn’t feel right about abusing my father’s generosity, so I usually kept my spending in check. But I did have a healthy bank account that was automatically replenished every month regardless of whether or not I spent any of it, so this gift was well within my means.

  Knowing Chance, he was probably going to try to turn it down and say it was too much, but I was determined that he have this. I hoped it would help him transition to a better life. I also just hoped it made him happy, because he needed that.

  *****

  I didn’t stay long at my mom and stepdad’s. They tried too hard and were way too nice to me, and it really freaked me out. I picked at my breakfast, then snuck a look at them over my glass of orange juice. Whenever they noticed me looking at them, I got these huge, ridiculous smiles, so it was kind of like a solar eclipse. You could watch it as long as you didn’t look directly at it.

  My mom was carefully made up and nicely dressed, just like always, her long blonde hair framing her face. She was still a beautiful woman. If anything, she’d become even more attractive as she aged, not that she felt that way. My stepdad wasn’t aging nearly as well. His boyish good looks, the thing that had probably drawn my mother to him in the first place, were now an odd fit on a man of fifty.

  They’d both color-coordinated to their surroundings. I wondered if that had been intentional. We were in the formal dining room of the upper-middle-class home they’d purchased a couple years ago in Burlingame, just a few minutes south of the city. It was professionally decorated in shades of pale blue, white, and yellow, and both of them were dressed accordingly. The house, like everything else they owned, was paid for by Zan. He’d given my mom a huge child support check every month when I was growing up, and hadn’t cut her off to this day.

  “So, Christian,” my stepfather said, making yet another attempt at conversation. I looked up at him and was blinded by a way too enthusiastic smile. “How’s your spray painting going?”

  “Now Hal,” my mother chimed in. “He doesn’t do spray painting. He’s a graffiti artist, just like that handsome black man in that movie we watched, remember?” I fought back an eye roll. They’d rented the film ‘Basquiat’ at some point and were forever trying to draw on it to show they were ‘hip’ to my lifestyle.

  “It’s going like it always does. I paint, the police chase me away, and other people come along and fuck up what I’ve done.” Okay, that had come out a bit surly. I needed to try harder. I flailed around for something to say to him, but all I came up with was, “So, how’s that whole sobriety thing working out?”

  That had sounded pretty insincere,
despite my best efforts at playing nice. They didn’t seem to notice. They both went on for about fifteen minutes, enthusiastically praising Harold’s sponsor and the program, and my mom gushed about how well her husband was doing.

  Finally, the meal was over and I pushed back from the table. “Thanks for brunch. I’d better get going, Zan is expecting me.”

  “How’s he doing?” My mom tried to keep her tone light as we headed for the front door, but I suspected she’d never really gotten over Zan Tillane. I glanced at Harold. His expression was the same every time my father’s name came up: slightly pained. It had to be a bit hard on him, forever living in the shadow of a man as handsome, rich and successful as Zan, not to mention emasculating to realize everything he had was paid for by his wife’s former, famous lover. Then again, Harold had certainly never made the slightest effort to earn his own income and turn down the fat checks that appeared in his mailbox each month.

  “He’s doing fine. Same as ever,” I said. They knew what had been happening with Zan these past few years and kept his secret, even though they probably could have made a mint selling my dad out to the paparazzi, or hell, publishing a pretty scandalous tell-all biography. They might be freeloaders, but these two did have some scruples.

  “Oh,” my mom exclaimed, “your gift!” She rushed off, then returned a few moments later and handed me a slim, beautifully wrapped package. I’d given them their gifts as soon as I’d arrived.

  Under the thick, embossed wrapping paper was a copy of what had been my favorite book as a kid, A Wrinkle in Time. “It’s a first edition, signed by the author,” she told me. “I remembered how much you loved that book.”

  The prickle of tears behind my eyes startled me. “It’s really great, mom. Thanks.” I gave her a quick hug. “Merry Christmas, both of you.”

  As I opened the heavy front door, she said, “Merry Christmas sweetie, thanks for coming by. We’d really love to see more of you. Maybe we can get together in the new year.”

  I turned to look at her. There was so much hope in her eyes, and I felt bad for the way I’d been keeping her at a distance. “Sure. Maybe we can all go out to dinner. I’ll bring my boyfriend.”

  “Oh, you have a boyfriend! Well, we’d love to meet him!” My sexual orientation had never been an issue with my mom. My stepdad had been a little uncomfortable with it when I first came out to them, but I didn’t really care.

  “Alright. Well, see you soon,” I said as I stepped outside.

  As I left Burlingame and made the drive to Marin, I decided that the visit had gone pretty well, all things considered. It was awkward being around my stepdad, but I hadn’t felt as much anger as I usually did. Maybe he really had changed and this sobriety thing was going to stick. I really hoped so, for my mom’s sake.

  I glanced at the book on my passenger seat and ran a fingertip over the cover. That had been quite thoughtful. The gift said a lot, too. My mom and I hadn’t been close these last few years so she had little concept of who I was now. The book was for the Christian she remembered, the boy I used to be. That made me sad somehow, but I pushed it down and tried to concentrate on the road.

  Zan was kind of middling when I got to his house, not real happy, but not particularly depressed, either. He did seem pleased to see me though, and greeted me with a hug. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Better, and so is Shea. Mostly. He went to work today, which I didn’t approve of. He’s going to get so tired. But the guy’s a saint, he didn’t want his coworkers to miss Christmas with their families.”

  “So, things are going well with the irresistible Irishman, I take it.” My dad grinned at me as we settled onto the couch.

  “Yeah, they really are.” I’d already told him about running into Shea on the cruise, followed by a week of nursing him back to health in my apartment.

  “I’m glad you took my advice and decided to give yourself and him those six months,” he said.

  “I wonder if there’s enough alcohol in all the world to deaden the pain of leaving him in June, though.” I ran my thumbnail along the edge of the cardboard box in my lap, studying the crease it made.

  “Shite. You’ve fallen hard for him, haven’t you? I expected you to just keep it light, have some fun. But that’s not what’s happening here, is it?”

  “I love him, Zan. I had every intention of just keeping this casual, but that fell apart so damn fast.”

  “Aw, boyo,” he said, giving my shoulders a squeeze. “I suppose we don’t get to choose when that happens, ay?”

  A thought occurred to me, and I asked, “Have you ever been in love?”

  He considered the question for a few moments, then said, “I thought I was, many a time. Looking back now though, maybe that wasn’t love at all. Maybe it was all these other things, like lust, or attraction, or infatuation. The only person I’ve ever really, truly loved is you, but have I ever been in love? Nah, I don’t think so. I came close with your mother. That was so passionate and intense, but it burned out like a meteor entering the atmosphere. I don’t think love just burns out like that.” My dad glanced at me with a wry smile. “A bit ironic, isn’t it? I got famous singing songs about love, but I guess your old man’s a bit of a fraud. It was stuff I knew nothing about.”

  “Well, you faked it really well,” I told him with a grin.

  He chuckled at that. “I suppose I did. Had ‘em all fooled pretty good.” Zan changed the subject by knocking on the box I was holding. “So, what did you bring for your old dad?”

  “Well, I’d been thinking about what to get you for months. What does one get an internationally renowned superstar recluse, who also happens to be your father?” He smiled at me and I said, “You know what? I still have no clue. But it did occur to me that you missed out on something pretty special over the last few years, so I’m helping you catch up on it.” I pried open the flaps of the box and handed him one of the seven books it contained.

  “Ah, Harry Potter,” he said, flipping the book over to read the back. “You mentioned this. It was quite the phenomenon, yes?”

  “Still is.”

  “Isn’t it meant for children?”

  “Don’t question, just enjoy it. And once you finish reading the books, I’ll join you for the movie marathon.” I handed him the 8-DVD box set I’d bought him.

  “I look forward to this. Thanks, Christian.”

  “I really hope you like it.”

  “I’m sure I will.” He turned to the first page of the book he was holding and started reading, but I plucked it out of his hand.

  “That’s number six. You have to read them in order, it’s important.”

  “Alright, if you insist.”

  “I do.” I swapped out the book with the first in the series. Then I ventured as I put the box on the floor and he read the back cover, “So, when we do our movie marathon, how would you feel about Shea joining us?”

  That earned me a huge smile. He put the book on the top of his to-be-read pile beside the couch and said, “Really? You want your boyfriend to meet your old man? Even if I am a daft bugger? I’d love the opportunity to meet him, of course.”

  “I’d like him to meet you, too. I wasn’t going to tell him about you, at least not right away. I don’t exactly talk about you, for obvious reasons. But I trust him to keep this quiet.”

  “I know you’ve always been really concerned about my privacy, and I thank you for that, son. But you don’t think anyone still cares about old Zan Tillane, do you?”

  I shook my head at that as I pulled out my phone, then searched his name and showed him the screen. Google claimed there were over sixty-five million entries, not that that was accurate, but still. The top three listed a recent TV special about his disappearance, yet another best-of album being released by his former label, and an article about casting a big-screen film of his life. “They’ve been talking about making that movie for a few years now,” I told him. “I assume your lawyer mentioned it to you.”


  “Yeah. I don’t care about it one way or another, though. Whether or not I tried to have any say in it, they’d just go ahead and make the movie they wanted. Whatever salacious drivel sells the most tickets, no doubt.”

  I put the phone away and said, “So, no. No one’s forgotten you, Zan, not by a long shot. In fact, the longer you stay hidden, the more myths and rumors spring up.”

  “Well, then it’s a damn good thing I’m completely cracked,” he said lightly. “Sounds like I couldn’t venture back out into the world even if I wanted to, not with a media circus out there waiting for me.”

  “Do you ever think about that? Leaving here, I mean? I guess I’ve never really been clear on how much staying here is a conscious decision.”

  “Honestly? I don’t know anymore, either. It was definitely intentional at first. I was done with the world and everything in it, present company being the one and only exception. But then a year went by, and another, and another...and now, I don’t know. I can’t imagine a life other than this, honestly. I like it here. I have my books and my movies and my piano. And you, of course.” The unspoken part of that was, for now. Before we both became melancholy, Zan exclaimed, “Let’s have you open your present!”

  “You got me a present? How? Did you make it out of stuff you found in the backyard?”

  He grinned at that. “Wish I’d thought of that! I could have fashioned you a bunch of little Blair Witch dolls from the twigs that blow up onto the deck.” He’d seen that movie for the first time last month. “That would have been a lot easier to complete by Christmas. But instead, I got you this.” He reached under the couch and pulled out a thick manila envelope, which he handed to me.

  I flashed him a big smile. “You got me paperwork! Bless your heart!”

  “Just open it, smartass.” He looked at me with the same eager expression that my mom had when she’d given me the book.

  I unwound the little string holding the envelope shut and pulled out a thick legal document. “What am I looking at here?”