Where the Boys Are

by William J. Mann

  “But he’s a gay man, for God’s sake!”

  “I know, I know,” she said, tears dripping off her chin. “He said I was the first woman he’d slept with in fifteen years!”

  “Are you planning on seeing him again?” I asked.

  She was trembling. “No. Not if you think I shouldn’t.”

  I sighed. “You can’t be seducing guests, Eva.”

  She burst into a new torrent of tears. I found myself consoling her. “Did you at least use a condom?” I asked.

  “No,” she whimpered, and that set off a round of paranoia and a long discussion of safer sex. She hadn’t had sex since Steven, she said. She should have known better.

  “It will never happen again,” she promised shamefacedly. “Even though I think Ira has feelings for me …”

  Even though he’s a gay man.

  I needed to talk with someone, so I described the situation to a friend, a therapist practicing here on the Cape. Without naming any names, I asked her what diagnosis she might make in this case.

  “From what you’re telling me, I’d say this person is a little delusional,” my friend told me. “There’s definitely a personality disorder. She might even be borderline.”

  I shuddered. No, that much isn’t possible. I’m a trained psychologist. I’d have recognized a borderline personality. There’s no way I could have missed that.

  No way? None at all? I force myself to remember what my own frame of mind had been like when I met Eva. I was depressed myself, drowning in my own confusion and grief. I was looking for a lifesaver, and it seemed that Eva tossed one in the water for me to grab on to. When you’re this close to drowning, you don’t take the time to inspect the thing to see if it has any holes.

  What makes this even more troubling is the fact that I’m starting to think Eva lies to me. I don’t think she’s in therapy. She said she was, but I don’t think she went for even one session. In the past couple of months, she’s rarely been far from my side: if she’s been seeing somebody regularly, I can’t imagine when. She’s never talked about her therapy, either, and for someone who discloses as easily and as often as she does, I tend to think that’s significant. No, I don’t think she’s in therapy, and that troubles me a great deal.

  But if she is personality disordered, then so much of what I’ve been observing makes sense. Every male guest—gay or straight, young or old—has been practically smothered with attention from Eva. Some love it, singing her praises and promising they’ll return for more. Others seem puzzled by it, often finding themselves trapped for hours looking at her scrapbooks and listening to her stories. One night I came downstairs to find her on the couch with a very handsome guest in his forties, and she was crying. The man was consoling her about something. I just bit my lip and walked back upstairs.

  It’s as if she’s this black hole of emotion, sucking into her void every male who happens to cross her path. I ponder my evolving diagnosis. Just suppose those bedtimes with Daddy weren’t as innocent as she makes out. Sexual abuse would help to explain a good deal of her behavior. I’m beginning to feel Eva’s dependence on me isn’t just about her grief over Steven’s death. It goes back much farther than that.

  I don’t know what to do, how much more I can take. Every time I turn around these days, there she is. Forget the solitary walks along the breakwater I once so treasured. Now a quiet half hour alone in my room is hard enough to achieve.

  Can I talk to you just a minute, Lloyd?

  I’m sorry to bother you, Lloyd.

  I don’t know how to fix the toaster, Lloyd.

  Lloyd, can you take a look at this, please?

  I am so frazzled, Lloyd. I need a shoulder to cry on. Please???

  Her clever little machinations to coerce what she needs from me have only increased. Like that day of the opening, when she’d supposedly twisted her ankle. I wonder about that now. Then there was the fainting spell at the Unitarian Meeting House, where I carried her downstairs and tenderly placed a cold cloth on her head. A few nights later there was an episode of sleepwalking. I found her staring out from the front door in her nightgown and gently escorted her back to her room. “Thank you, Lloyd,” she said as I tucked her in. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

  Another evening she sat on my bed, talking dreamily and playing with her hair, eventually falling asleep, apparently hoping I’d simply crawl in next to her. No, thanks. I’m not Ira. This gay man does not sleep with women. I took my pillow and headed down to the couch.

  It’s you she wants. Not a guest house in Provincetown. You could be opening up a laundromat together and she’d be just as into it.

  “Lloyd?”

  I blink. She’s looking up at me with those big round eyes.

  “Lloyd, what do you want to do about Drake? I’ll do whatever you say.”

  I give in. She wins. She convinces me that we simply can’t turn him away; he does indeed take her room. But I can’t bear the thought of her sleeping up in the attic with three randy houseboys. I give her my bed, and instead, it’s me who climbs the ladder up to the attic and takes the cot beside Ian, Justin, and José. Queer, isn’t it? I trust myself with them more than I do her.

  The next day I barricade myself in the office, not wanting to run into anyone. But forget that: there’s always somebody knocking at the door.

  Around noon I hear a voice. “Lloyd?”

  I look up. It’s Ty. I give him a small smile.

  “I had dinner with your friend Drake last night,” he says. “What a charmer.”

  I shrug. “If you say so.”

  Ty smirks. “I tried to show him some charm myself, but all he wanted to talk about was you.” He stares down at me. “Not that I blame him.”

  I run a hand over my buzzed head. “Ty, I’m kind of swamped with work right now.…”

  He moves around behind me and begins giving me a shoulder massage. “You’re missing a fabulous day. Can I entice you into a walk?”

  “Really, I can’t—”

  “Just to clear your head. Get out of this place for a while.” He pauses. “Before Eva gets back from the grocery store.”

  I look up at him. He raises his eyebrows.

  “Yeah,” I say. “A walk might do me good.”

  We’re on our way out the door when we run into Shane coming up the front steps. He’s dressed in a pair of leopard-print Lycra shorts and a Bundeswehr tanktop. I like Shane. He’s not filled with attitude the way so many of Jeff’s circuit friends are.

  “Hey,” I greet him. “In town for the weekend?”

  “Sure am,” he says, snapping his fingers like a drag queen. “Kickin’ off the season!”

  “And in style,” I say. He pirouettes for us. “We’re going for a walk,” I tell him. “Care to join us?”

  Shane looks a little awkward. “Oh. I’d love to. But actually … I’m here to see Eva. We’re having lunch.”

  I just nod. But of course. He didn’t come to see me; he came to see Eva. I smolder as Ty and I walk down Commercial Street. I don’t say anything, but I sense he understands exactly what’s on my mind.

  A drag queen dressed as Cher, complete with ass-revealing fishnet stockings, motors past us on her scooter. Straight tourists gasp and snap photographs as she passes. The town is alive with rainbow flags and the smell of cotton candy. A trio of lesbians in leather are listening to a woman play a gigantic harp in front of Town Hall. The summer has begun.

  “You want to talk?” Ty asks finally.

  I laugh. “I’m not sure what I’d say.”

  “Maybe that she’s driving you a little crazy. Maybe that everywhere you turn, there she is.”

  I look at him. “Let’s get a burrito.”

  We each order the Saucy Tofu at Big Daddy’s, then head out to the picnic tables on the pier. Gulls alight immediately at our side, hoping for a handout.

  I tell Ty a little of what’s been going on, but still I try to be respectful. I want to be appropriate. I want to respect bou
ndaries. I want to be all the things Eva isn’t. Ty is her friend first, after all.

  “I guess the stress of the past few months has just made me cynical,” I say. “I know viewing her every move with suspicion is unfair. Maybe I ought to give her the benefit of the doubt more often.”

  “Maybe you should,” Ty responds noncommittally.

  I wipe peanut sauce off my chin with a napkin. “Maybe she really did innocently fall asleep on my bed. She works hard. I have to give her credit. She’s up at the crack of dawn, making fabulous breakfasts for the guests. She keeps a spotless house, and pays all the bills on time. Do you know we’re already exceeding expectations and the summer has just started?”

  “You’ve both worked very hard,” Ty says.

  I laugh. “Maybe I’m just cranky because I miss male companionship.”

  Ty makes a palms-up gesture with his hands. “I’m all yours, handsome.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think we should, Ty. She was very upset about the last time. I think it wounded her ego. She thought you were in love with her.”

  “Lloyd, I’m a gay man. She knows that and always has known that.”

  I sigh. “Well, it’s not the only delusion she’s had. But I need to respect that you’re her friend first, before me.”

  “Actually, I was Steven’s friend. To be honest, I’ve never fully trusted Eva enough to call her a friend.”

  Okay, so that nearly knocks me off my seat. I just sit there staring at him.

  “I could tell you things,” Ty is saying, throwing bread to the gulls, “that would make your hair stand on end.”

  I recoil. “No, Ty. I can’t talk about her anymore. This just isn’t right.”

  He shrugs. “You’re a man of great principle, Lloyd. But this isn’t just about you. You have a business to run. Guests you’re responsible for. Guests who might not come back if Eva pushes too hard.”

  I look off at the bay. How peaceful it is out there. The way the boats rock lazily back and forth, the sparkle of the sunlight against the surface of the water. I can’t deny wanting to talk about all this with Ty, but neither can I ignore my discomfort. In my work with patients, I’ve always respected confidentiality to a fault. Talking about someone to a third party without speaking to them first is wrong. Just wrong.

  But Ty’s right: I need to talk to someone or I’ll go crazy myself.

  “I just think that sometimes,” I begin, weighing my words carefully, “Eva has a little trouble with boundaries.”

  “A little trouble?” Ty grins. “Dr. Griffith, you are discreet.”

  I grow impatient. “You were there the night of the opening, Ty. Didn’t you see her with Ira?”

  He sighs. “Oh, I saw her all right. Heard her, too. I imagine she wanted me to hear. After hearing us together several weeks earlier.”

  “You think she slept with him simply to get back at us?”

  Ty shrugs. “That was only part of it. She has all sorts of motivations and needs. They’re all tumbled together, bouncing off each other and working overtime—as you’ve learned.”

  I feel as if I might cry all of a sudden. “But she seemed so strong when I met her. I saw her in action, Ty! I saw her with Alex—”

  “Who died a few weeks ago.”

  My jaw drops.

  Ty nods. “Yes, he died. I called Eva to tell her.” He pauses dramatically. “She never came for the funeral.”

  “Maybe … maybe it was just too hard for her. I mean, after Steven …”

  “And maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she had stopped caring. Because there was a new man in her life to care about.”

  I remember Eva telling me how she might have fallen in love with Alex. I had seen her devotion to him, seen the concern and the care on her face. And she never told me he died. She hasn’t seemed in the least affected by it. The realization hits me: she had written him off. She never saw him again after she left New York. She probably never even thought of him.

  Because there was a new man in her life to care about.

  “It’s all or nothing with Eva,” Ty says. “That’s what’s so disturbing.”

  “Maybe,” I say, still searching for a way out of this, “maybe in her grief, she’s shut down parts of herself. Compartmentalized things … I mean, I know there’s something good and strong and wise about Eva. The talks we’ve had, the things we’ve shared …”

  Ty looks at me gently. “I remember when she started volunteering. I saw that side of her, too.” He pauses, seeming to consider something. “Did you know that, as part of her volunteer efforts, Eva worked as a tutor for the New York school system?”

  “No.”

  I feel a chilly hand settle on my shoulder.

  “She did it for about six months. Then she was asked to leave.”

  I lean toward him. “Maybe I shouldn’t—”

  But he won’t allow me to cut him off. “She had grown a bit, shall we say, too attached to one particular boy. A sixteen-year-old recovering addict. His mother put in a complaint.”

  “I’m sure Eva was just—”

  He levels his eyes at me. “The mother found them in bed together.”

  I haven’t had sex with anyone since Steven.

  “Nothing ever came of it,” Ty tells me. “She was just asked to leave.”

  I know I shouldn’t have heard that. I have no right to learn of this incident without Eva’s consent. It’s in the past and I shouldn’t hold it against her. Everybody makes mistakes. There are two sides to every story.

  But it sure as hell fits the pattern.

  “Do you want to talk more?” Ty asks.

  “No,” I say definitively. “That’s more than enough.”

  He sighs. “I worry about you sometimes, Lloyd. She can be—”

  “Please, Ty. No more.”

  “It’s just that Steven—”

  “No more!” I hold my hands up at him. “I’ll talk with her myself. Anything else that I need to know, let her tell me on her own.” I pause. “But you’re right. I do need to talk to her.”

  That’s the only way. The only way this venture of ours can succeed. The only way I can stay with this and not go crazy. If she gets into therapy, really works at things, then we can still make it work.

  “Speaking of talking,” Ty says, “have you had any communication with Jeff?”

  I frown, puzzled at the change in topic. “No,” I tell him. “Not in a while.”

  In fact, since Jeff hasn’t answered any of my E-mails in weeks, I’ve stopped trying to contact him. He must be so busy with Anthony that he can’t be bothered. I heard through the grapevine that he’s down in Pensacola, Florida, for yet another party this weekend.

  “Well, I think your funk may have other causes than Eva alone,” Ty says sagely. “Maybe you’d rather we talk about that.”

  He raises his eyebrows at me again, hoping I’ll say more. But I don’t. I just can’t. Talking about Eva is upsetting enough; I can’t start thinking about Jeff, too.

  “Well,” Ty says, giving up, “if you ever do want to talk more, please call me.” He places his hand over mine. “Remember that, okay?”

  Our conversation ends there, because suddenly—speak of the devil—Eva and Shane are behind us, laughing like two schoolgirls. He’s taking her to Tea Dance, he explains, and Drake is meeting them later for dinner. Eva’s wearing zebra-print spandex to complement Shane’s leotard; her fleshy thighs are exposed for all to see. Needless to say, I decline their invitation to join them. I turn down Ty’s offer for dinner, too. I just rent All About Eve, watching it alone in my room. I miss Javitz more than I’ve ever missed him before.

  A Few Days Later, Mike’s Gym, Boston

  Henry

  There’s no place to hide. Jeff has spotted me. I finish the last of my curls and set the barbell back on the rack.

  “I returned your call,” I say, a preemptive strike, even before Jeff has reached me.

  He just smirks. “Yeah. A day later.”


  I try to smile. “The flowers were beautiful, Jeff. Thanks. I appreciated them.”

  “So you said in your message.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Jeff, don’t give me attitude. I called you back. The ball’s been in your court, and I haven’t heard back from you.”

  Jeff sits down on the bench. “I’ve been in a weird space.”

  I try not to react. No, my first reaction is not what you’re thinking. I don’t want to put my arms around him and cajole him into telling me what’s wrong. That was the old Henry. The new Henry takes one look at Jeff’s woebegone face and begins thinking up excuses to rush off. I’m through letting Jeff O’Brien drag me down. I’m finished being his wailing wall, his punching bag. I don’t want to hear any more details about how much he misses Lloyd or how confused he is about Anthony. Jeff and his men is a topic that has ceased to hold any interest for me.

  But I find I can’t rush off. Maybe the flowers he sent have softened me up a little. I sit down beside him and look into his eyes. God, I hate to see that look there. Every now and again, Jeff gets that look, all lost and ragged-looking, with dark circles under his eyes. Usually it’s when he’s blue about Lloyd, or near the anniversary of their friend Javitz’s death. It makes me weak to look at it. God, I hate feeling weak around Jeff.

  “What’s up?” I ask despite myself. “What’s going on?”

  He sighs, looking over at me. “I found out some stuff about Anthony.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  He shakes his head. “I found out on my own.”

  Just then some muscle queen taps me on the shoulder, wanting the bench, so I suggest to Jeff we move over to the corner to talk. The gym is packed, as it usually is this time of evening, pulsing with the aroma of perspiration and lubricating oils. It’s a smell I’ve come to find strangely comforting—strange because that very same odor had so oppressed me in high school. I smile at familiar faces as we walk across the gym, but Jeff barely seems to notice them. He just leans against the wall, folding his arms across his chest.

  I lean in beside him. “What is it, Jeff? What did you find out?”

  He looks me straight in the eyes. “The guy in the photo, remember? Robert Riley? He was killed. Murdered. A gay-bashing. And Anthony lived with him.”