“Henry’s trying,” I insist.
Jeff just shrugs. “God, I miss Javitz,” he says.
This is the place we always find ourselves when things get complicated: with our backs up against the wall, unsure of how to move, wishing Javitz were here to tell us what to do. Suddenly it feels so old, so tired, and I want nothing more than to get away from that wall.
“You know what, Jeff?” I ask suddenly. “As much as we miss Javitz, we’ve got to stop thinking we can’t do it without him. We’ve got to start trying to figure things out on our own.”
He sighs. “As if we could. We aren’t any further along than we were four months ago in understanding where we—you and I—are going.”
I look at him. “Maybe we’ll only know when we look back. That’s the only time anything ever seems to make sense.” I take his hand. “I think you need to figure out how you really feel about Anthony before you and I can proceed any further.”
He seems to take that in, but then looks back at me. “And what about you, Lloyd? What do you need to figure out?”
Just then, as if on cue, we hear her. The heaving, gasping attempts to catch her breath, and the hiccuping little sobs that keep interrupting her struggle. We look up. Standing above us is Eva, her face blotchy with tears.
“Oh, Lloyd,” she says, “I thought I’d find you here.”
“What is it?” I ask, looking up at her with alarm.
“She’s broken up with me,” Eva sobs.
“What?”
Eva struggles to find her words but can’t speak. Both Jeff and I watch her, the way her face makes odd twists and contortions, the unconscious movements of her hands in the air. Neither of us budges from our place on the rock. Neither of us says a word. She just stands over us, crying like a frustrated infant in its crib. Finally, in a pique, she throws whatever it is she’s got clenched in her hand. Just before it splashes down into the indigo water, I can see it’s Steven’s ring. Lost for good.
Understand that I do not want to stand and take her into my arms. That’s the absolute last thing I want to do. This is old and familiar: her scheme of trying to win attention from me. And now, after weeks of distance—after weeks of smug passive-aggressive hostility, after all she’s done—does she really expect me to jump to my feet and wrap her to my bosom?
Yet neither can I just continue to sit here. Her tears, growing louder and more desperate, would put the most hardened soul on edge. I look over at Jeff. He seems clearly embarrassed by this display on her part. With a long sigh, I stand, every muscle in my legs resisting me. I walk over to her and place my hands on her shoulders.
“Eva,” I say, my voice even. “Please try to calm down.”
She wheezes, gasping for breath.
Jeff’s behind me. “I’ll see you back at the house,” he whispers. I nod.
As he’s passing, he places his hand on Eva’s arm. Just that. A tiny little gesture that makes me respect him. Makes me remember why I love him. I watch as he moves off toward shore, his hands pushed down deep into his pockets.
“Eva,” I urge her again, “try to get a grip.”
Her red, swollen eyes find mine. “She won’t see me anymore until I’m in therapy.”
I don’t say anything. She knows how I feel about that.
“She said she didn’t think I was really a lesbian. Just because I didn’t want to do—that.”
“That?”
“Oh, Lloyd!” she sobs. “I love her! I really love her! How can I go on without her?”
“Eva, you need to try to get a hold of yourself.”
“I thought you’d understand,” she stammers.
I try to smile, careful about setting her off. “How can I understand, Eva, when you’ve given me the cold shoulder for weeks?”
She looks up at me with the saddest eyes you can possibly imagine, and despite myself, my heart breaks for her. Whether pity or compassion, I can’t tell.
“I only gave you the cold shoulder,” she sniffles, “because you gave it to me.”
“Eva, you’re a bright woman.” I try to sound as gentle as I can. “You were a lost soul when I met you. You latched on to me and defined yourself in relation to me. Everything you did, everything you thought, was somehow determined by your connection to me.”
She makes a little sob. “I loved you,” she whimpers.
Standing here, I realize something for the first time. It wasn’t about Steven. It was about me, all along. I don’t want you to be Steven. I want you to be you—the wonderful man who’s given me so much.
And yet, not about me, either. Not really. I look down at her splotchy face. “At first, I thought it was far simpler than it really was,” I say to her, the words coming from my lips as quickly as the revelations enter my mind. “I thought you were just trying to re-create Steven in me. Giving me his clothes. That ring. But that wasn’t quite it, was it, Eva? Steven’s almost irrelevant, isn’t he?”
She looks away. She’s stopped crying.
“Tell me the truth finally, Eva. Did you ever really grieve Steven, or was it something else? Were your tears really for yourself, for how lonely you were?”
She puts her hands in her hair. “Oh, Lloyd,” she rasps.
I feel as if I might start crying too. “It wasn’t so much Steven you wanted to create, but anyone—anyone who might fill up that loneliness in the center of your soul. What is it that causes that loneliness, Eva? Where does it come from?”
She says nothing, but her tears have stopped. Might she possibly, at long last, admit the truth?
When she remains silent, I let out a long sigh. “Your heart wasn’t so much in what we tried to do together, but in simply having someone to do it—anything—with.”
“Is that so bad?” she asks in a small, unfamilar voice.
“Eva, we can’t go on like this anymore,” I tell her plainly.
Her eyes flicker up at me in sudden alarm. “Are you saying—you want to sell the guest house?”
“We need to look at all our options,” I tell her.
“Oh, Lloyd, don’t leave me!” Her face twists. “I’ll—I’ll kill myself if you do!”
Suddenly I know how Steven must have felt. But I will not be trapped the way he was. Never.
“No, you won’t, Eva.”
“I swear I will!”
“Eva, please don’t talk this way. Find that woman I first met. Find her down deep inside yourself, the woman who was strong and wise. That’s who you are. That’s who you really—”
“I’ll kill myself, Lloyd!” She’s wide-eyed and frantic. “I’ll kill myself!”
“Let’s go back to Nirvana,” I say.
“I swear I will! With you gone, with Candi gone, I’ll kill myself! I have no reason to live!”
I feel exhausted. “How about for yourself, Eva? How about living for yourself?”
“I’ll kill myself, Lloyd!”
“You’ll do what you have to do,” I tell her.
She just stands there, defying me to walk away from her. There’s nothing more that can be accomplished here, so I do. I turn and make my way back across the breakwater. It’s not until I get to the end that I turn back around. She’s nowhere in sight. My first thought is that she’s thrown herself into the water. But I’d have heard a splash.
Wouldn’t I?
The Last Weekend of November, Miami, the White Party
Henry
“Who are you calling now?” Shane asks, all annoyed.
I punch the quick-dial digits into my cell phone. “Lloyd,” I tell him.
Shane rolls his eyes. “Again?”
I give him a face. “He’s worried about something, Shane. I want to be there for him.”
But I get his voice mail. “Hey, it’s me,” I say. “I’m just checking in. Just wanted to let you know that I’m thinking about you. Hope everything’s okay. Call me if anything happens. I don’t care what time it is. If you need me, call.”
Shane and I are out on the beac
h, heading back into the party. I’m wearing baggy jeans and no shirt; Shane, some white Lycra wrestling singlet he’d bought from International Male. He’s done a couple of bumps of X but I’m completely straight, wanting to be clearheaded if Lloyd needs me.
I don’t even really want to be here at all, despite the fact that I had a good time last year. But a year ago I was a far different person than I am now. All I really want to be doing is sitting with Lloyd in the living room of Nirvana, sharing a bottle of wine and talking about our souls’ journeys.
Okay. So I’m coming across rather pompous and a bit too earnest. I don’t mean to be. But in truth, Shane’s just aggravating me no end, pawing me and kissing me and constantly dragging me out to the dance floor. The only reason I’m here at all is because he coerced me, having bought the passes and secured the airfare ages ago. “If you don’t come, I’m out a lot of money,” he bitched when I suggested that maybe I’d stay home. “The White Party is the Crown Jewel of the circuit. Passes aren’t easily obtained.”
“So you can make a profit scalping them.”
“Henry, come on. Please? It’s been so long since we’ve been out dancing. I miss you.”
My heart melted. “Okay, buddy,” I promised him. But ever since we arrived, he’s been so manic, chattering away nonstop at every single party we attended: “This is what we’ll do tonight,” and “Here’s our agenda for tomorrow,” and “Look over there, it’s Oscar and Eliot and—hey, boys! Yoo-hoo! Over here!”
“Shane,” I scolded. “No talking on the dance floor.”
I have to admit, however, the Miami White Party deserves its fabulous reputation. Sunday’s big bash, pulsing to the sweeping trance and vocal anthems courtesy of the amazing David Knapp, was held amid lush Victorian gardens with a spectacular view of Biscayne Bay. No other circuit party can match this one for sheer beauty. And the men certainly complement their surroundings, as much wonders of nature themselves as the flowers and the sea.
I look around at all of them as Shane and I slide back onto the dance floor. How many of them are like Brent? I wonder. How many of those fabulous shells mask what’s really going on inside their bodies? How many even know they’re carrying the virus? And how many of those muscles are actually the result of the steroids they take to fight their HIV?
And why does no one talk about it? Lloyd compared the silence to the experience of Holocaust survivors, who for many of the years following the concentration camps never spoke of what had happened. To speak it, they somehow felt, could bring it back. I think of my grandfather, who’d lost an uncle and three cousins in Auschwitz. I never remember hearing him talk about it. I’d never have even known it had happened at all if it weren’t for my mother. I was a generation removed from the Holocaust, just as I felt removed from AIDS.
Except the analogy stops there. The camps can’t reach across the intervening years and grab me by the throat the way the plague still has the power to do. Even though I’d only been tested three months before, I went again for another test just last week. Maybe I’m being overly cautious, as I’ve been relatively risk-free: handjobs and massages weren’t exactly high on the list of unsafe behavior. But I did it anyway. For Brent in some ways as much as myself.
“Was that my cell phone?” I suddenly ask, yanking it from my pocket.
“Calm down, sweetheart.” Shane makes a face. “It’s just the DJ.”
I check just to be sure. No call. I slip the phone back into my pocket.
“What’s got you such a nervous Nell?” Shane asks. “What’s Lloyd so worried about that you have to call him every hour on the hour?”
“I shouldn’t say.”
Shane licks my face. “I’ll keep doing that until you do.”
I grimace. “It’s Eva. She—she hasn’t shown up since threatening to kill herself a week ago. Apparently, her girlfriend dumped her and she was very distraught. He’s planning on reporting her missing today.”
“Such drama.” Shane shivers. “Look, I adore Eva. But she’s no dyke. Fag hags often go through such stages, thinking they’re lesbians because they just want so much to be queer. They don’t realize they already are.”
“Well, regardless, Lloyd’s worried about her. She didn’t even show up for Thanksgiving this week, and they had a whole house full of guests.”
Shane smirks. “Poor li’l Lloyd must’ve run his li’l self ragged.”
“Well,” I concede, wishing it had been me, “Jeff went down to help.”
“Ohoho!” Shane loves that, I can tell, and he milks it for all it’s worth. “So our happy twosome spent the holiday together while you were down here with fifteen thousand men under the Florida sun. Maybe they built a fire and gave thanks in front of it.”
“You’re a brat, Shane. A total brat.” I put my shoulder to him, my eyes suddenly meeting those of a hunky, sweaty guy with Mark McGrath highlights in his hair. “I’m sure they were far too busy with all their guests to be giving any thanks.”
Okay, so I admit I’m a little jealous that Jeff and Lloyd spent Thanksgiving together. But I’m not going to let Lloyd know that. And I sure as hell am not going to admit it to Shane.
“Hey,” Mark McGrath says. “Sup?”
“Sup with you?” I ask.
“Uh, Henry.” Shane taps me on the shoulder. “I wasn’t aware we had finished our conversation.”
I turn back to face him. “Why don’t you try dancing instead of talking, Shane? This is called the dance floor, after all.”
“I just thought you might be interested in knowing who’s staying at my apartment while I’m here.”
I look up at him. “Who?”
“Eva,” he tells me. “Sweetie, she’s fine. She called me and said she needed to get away. I figured since I was coming here and my apartment would be empty …”
I’m stunned. “I can’t believe you!”
He makes a face as if he doesn’t get my outrage. “What?”
I stalk off the dance floor.
Shane follows. “Henry! Why are you so pissed?”
We’re outside on the deck, where clusters of boys have gathered to talk and cruise each other. I spin on Shane. “I’m pissed because here’s Lloyd all tied up in knots worrying about her—just as she wants him to be—and you’re complicit in her scheme!”
“She just needed a place to get away! To clear her head!”
“Your head’s the one that needs clearing.” I’m pressing numbers again on my phone.
Damn. Lloyd’s voice mail again. Maybe he and Jeff are off giving thanks.
“Hey, it’s me again. Eva’s fine. Shane just told me she’s at his place. Appears she just needed to get away and think. Call me.”
I glare up at him.
Shane raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms over his chest. “So you’ve gone and changed your opinion of her, too. You used to think she was great. Everybody’s against her. First Jeff, who turned Lloyd against her. Now Lloyd’s turned you against her, too.”
“Shut up, Shane.”
He grabs my arm. It hurts. “Hey!” I protest.
“Don’t you ever tell me to shut up!” he shouts. “Take it back.”
“You are acting so childishly.”
He pouts. “I don’t know you anymore, Henry.”
I sigh. I pull a deck chair over and sit down, patting the seat beside me for Shane to follow.
He reluctantly obliges.
“I’m sorry, Shane,” I tell him.
He looks as if he might cry. “I was really hoping this would be a fun trip.”
“It is,” I assure him. “I think I’m just getting a little tired of all this crisscrossing the country. You can’t sustain it forever. Everybody drops out eventually.”
Shane just shrugs.
“Don’t you want something more, Shane? Ever since Brent’s death, I’ve become very focused on what I want in my life. Next year I’ll be thirty. I want a relationship, Shane. I want to love someone who loves me back. Brent died want
ing that. I don’t want to end up that way, too.”
Shane looks at me evenly. “You don’t think I understand, Henry? You don’t think it’s what I want, too?”
“Of course you want it. Everyone does. All these guys here with their drugs and their parties and their I-don’t-care attitudes …” I try to smile genuinely. “You say you don’t know me anymore, Shane. And do you know why you don’t? Because I’ve changed. Changed for the better. You’re the one who got me started escorting, but I was going about it all wrong. At first all I did was take. Now I’m getting very good at giving, and it’s just as fulfilling. Even more so.”
“Good for you,” Shane says.
“It is good. Because I’m learning about connection. I never got the concept before. Which I’m sure is why I never found a lasting relationship. I’m only now learning how relationships work. The give and the take.”
He looks a little perturbed. “I think you already knew how relationships worked, Henry.”
“No, I didn’t. You were right about Jeff and me, Shane. I was trapped in a one-way situation. It was all about me giving to him. So when you came along and showed me how I could get paid for actually taking from other people, being on the receiving end for a change, naturally I jumped right for it. But now I’m trying to integrate those two experiences, Shane. And it was Lloyd who helped me see how to do that.”
“Uh-huh.”
I smile, wanting to trust him, to take Shane into my confidence. I need a good friend, someone with whom I can talk about all this, who will really listen to what I have to say. I need a … sister.
“Shane,” I say, taking his hands, “I think Lloyd and I are falling in love with each other. I think … we’re going to make a relationship together.”
“I think you’re fucked,” Shane says, shaking off my hands and standing up.
I follow him to my feet. “What?”
He lowers his face right into mine. “You’d really do that to Jeff, wouldn’t you? Without the slightest qualm?” He snorts. “And you say he was the one insensitive to you!”
Where the Boys Are Page 44
