How Town

by Michael Nava

  “I didn’t realize we were that loud.”

  “Anything serious?”

  “No, nothing serious.”

  She smiled uncertainly, revealing the small gap between her two front teeth. “You looked kind of pale out there in the hall.”

  “The last thing you want to hear about now is what happens after happily ever after.”

  “Try me.”

  I tried to form a complicated explanation of what I was feeling, but what finally came out was, “What if he dies?”

  “If you’re living in the ‘what ifs,’ you’ve lost him already,” she replied briskly, being as unsparing of her friends as she was of herself.

  “He said something like that, too.”

  In a gentler voice she said, “His ‘what ifs’ must be even scarier than yours.”

  “He’s brave.”

  “So are you. A gay public figure, a criminal defense lawyer and a Chicano—you didn’t choose the easy road, either.”

  “I didn’t have any choice, Terry.”

  “Of course you did,” she said, decisively. “You could have stayed closeted and gone for the big money on Montgomery Street as some huge firm’s token minority partner.”

  “And drunk myself to death before I was forty. See, no choice.”

  Impatiently, she said, “Stop belittling yourself, Henry. Josh doesn’t have a thing on you when it comes to courage. Now eat something. You’ll feel better.”

  I ate a roll while she told me about how she and Kevin had spent the morning trying to figure out seating arrangements to avoid combustion between the cops and the lawyers.

  “What did you do?”

  “We decided to hell with it,” she said, laughing. “Let them fight. Thank God we wrote our own service. Can you imagine what would happen if the judge asked whether anyone objected to us being married?”

  “Fifty lawyers would rise as one.”

  “And the cops, too. Where’ve you been today?”

  “Visiting my sister in Oakland. She has a job for me.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sister. Is she in trouble?”

  I shook my head and explained why I’d gone to see Elena.

  “How does she know these people?”

  “Childhood friends,” I replied, and told her about my conversation with Sara Windsor.

  “When was the last time you were home?” she asked.

  “For my mother’s funeral, ten years ago. All I ever wanted from Los Robles was to get out as fast and as far away as possible.”

  She refilled my cup and placed another roll on my plate. “Was it so terrible?”

  “Stultifying,” I replied. “You know there’s a poem by E. E. Cummings called ‘anyone lived in a pretty how town.’ It’s about two lovers in a little town populated by narrow-minded people so oblivious to passion they’re not even aware of this love story unfolding around them.”

  I shut my eyes and tried to remember stanzas that I’d committed to memory as an undergrad.

  “women and men (both little and small)

  cared for anyone not at all

  they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same

  sun moon stars rain …”

  “That’s lovely,” she said, “is there more?”

  “Yes, something about … ‘someones married their everyones,’ what’s the rest—

  “laughed their cryings and did their dance

  (sleep wake hope and then) they

  said their nevers they slept their dream.”

  “What does that have to do with you, Henry? Were you in love?”

  I thought about Mark Windsor. “I thought so at the time, but it was one-sided. No, it wasn’t because I was in love that I hated the place; it was because I was filled with so much—” I paused and wondered, what had I been filled with? “So much feeling that never got expressed.” I smiled, shrugged. “I was burning up from the inside and no one ever noticed.”

  “Well,” she said, “if you never bothered to tell anyone, you can’t blame them for not noticing.”

  I smiled at her. “You’re pitiless.”

  There was a knock at the door. “Maid,” a woman called.

  “I was going for a walk,” I said, “do you want to come?”

  “You bet,” she said. “It’s my last morning as a free woman. Maybe we can make Kevin jealous.”

  3

  THE WEDDING WAS SET for eight o’clock that night. While the other guests had drinks in the dining room before the ceremony, Josh and I, at peace again, inspected the parlor. All the chairs in the inn had been pressed into service: straight-backed wooden kitchen chairs, Art Deco armchairs, leather library chairs with brass studs, even an ottoman and a piano bench. They were arranged into a half-dozen rows, the wide aisle between covered with a white silk runner leading out of the parlor to a small antechamber, which was dominated by a triptych of tall leaded glass windows. In front of the center window was an antique wooden music stand, on either side of it two tall vases filled with white gladioluses. The windows caught the flicker of reflected light from candles burning on every available surface in both rooms as well as the light from antique brass and porcelain lamps. On the mantel over the fireplace, pink roses in a crystal bowl spilled a dry, sweet scent through the parlor.

  “This is like a waiting room to heaven,” I said.

  Josh settled into a high-backed plush thronelike chair and announced, “This is where God sits.”

  In his tuxedo, tie slightly askew, he looked less like God than like an errant seraph. I reached down and straightened his tie.

  “I haven’t been to a wedding since the last time my sister got married,” he said. “Was your sister ever married?”

  I sat down. “No,” I said, “we Rioses are not the marrying kind.”

  He elbowed me. “So what am I, chopped livah?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Other people trickled into the room. The guest list seemed about equally divided between cops and lawyers, animosities temporarily suspended. A burly white-haired gentleman and his diminutive wife—part of the cop contingent—took the chairs beside us, all smiles and eau de Cologne. Soon, everyone was seated and, like a theater audience waiting for the house lights to dim, we readied ourselves, hands folded into well-dressed laps, handkerchiefs tucked into sleeves, and all eyes fixed on the front of the room. From somewhere a tape played music—classical, but lively rather than solemn—and Kevin slipped into place with his best man, both dressed in thirties-style double-breasted tuxedos, handsome as movie stars. The judge whom Kevin and Terry had chosen to conduct the service also took her place. A small, white-haired woman, she wore an ivory-colored gown and a strand of pinkish pearls around her neck. She smiled warmly at Kevin as he fiddled with the music stand to adjust it to her height but her eyes had the rather reptilian cast not uncommon among judges—the stigmata of power.

  The music changed to the traditional bridal processional and there was the rustle of silk behind us. We all turned round oohing and aahing as Terry made her way up the aisle, attended by her only living parent, her mother. Terry’s gown, which I’d got a preview of when we’d returned from our walk that morning, was a pale sea-green, with an Empire waist and lace at the neckline and sleeves. Her red hair, normally tied back, fell loosely at her shoulders, gleaming in the candlelight. She rejected a veil, insisting on entering her marriage open-eyed. As the two tall women passed, I saw that her hand trembled in her mother’s hand. Her odd, small smile was directed, as far as I could tell, at Kevin and Kevin alone. He, in a change from his habitual expression of slightly rancid good humor, was dumbstruck.

  The woman beside me murmured, “Beautiful, beautiful,” like someone awakening from a dream.

  I glanced at Josh, whose eyes were getting rather moist, and put my arm around him.

  The actual ceremony was brief. The judge welcomed us and then Kevin recited a poem by Donne. She answered him with one of the Sonnets from the Portuguese, reciting it with a
schoolgirl gravity that made me briefly but intensely jealous of Kevin. They exchanged vows and there was a small comic moment as the best man dug through his pockets for the ring and then the judge invoked her civil authority and declared them married.

  The music started up again as they walked down the aisle. It wasn’t until they were almost out of the room that I recognized it as a Mantovani version of “Respect,” and had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

  That night, Josh and I lay in the tumble of our bed watching sheer white curtains flutter in the breeze like a ghost. It was late and we would doze for a few minutes, awaken and talk for a bit, sip water, kiss, lie still.

  “I’m glad I came with you,” Josh said, laying his hand on my chest. A moment later he added, “I want to marry you.”

  “Honey, I thought you’d never ask,” I joked through a yawn.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know.” I stroked his hair. “But in the end it’s all the same, you know. The two of them, the two of us.”

  He propped himself up on an elbow and looked gravely down on me. “But if something happens to me—”

  I pressed my hand over his mouth. “Let’s put aside the ‘what ifs’ for now.”

  He kissed the palm of my hand and I moved my fingers across his mouth and down to the hollow of his neck.

  He said, “I think about what might happen and I get scared.”

  “I’ll take care of you.”

  He lowered his face to mine. His breath filled me as his tongue slid into my mouth. My hand slipped to the small of his back and I felt his cock lengthening against my thigh. I closed my eyes.

  A little later, his beeper went off and I woke him to take his dose of AZT, which he did, complaining of the cold and that he was sleepy.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” I said, drawing the comforter over us.

  “Baby, baby,” he muttered pulling me against him, and then we both slept.

  The next morning, after putting Josh on a plane for Los Angeles, I drove back into the city. Parking beneath Union Square I positioned myself in front of the St. Francis to await Sara Windsor. After two unusually clear days, summer had returned to San Francisco, overcast and cold. Tourists coming out of the hotel in shorts and thin shirts took one look at the sky and went back in or scurried across the square to Macy’s to stock up on sweaters. I was glad I’d packed my blue wool suit—it not only had a calming effect on my clients but was warm, too. As twelve-thirty approached, and the crowd thickened, it occurred to me that not having seen Sara Windsor in twenty years, I had no idea of what she looked like now, so I made myself as conspicuous as one can in a blue suit.

  “Henry?”

  The voice came from across my shoulder and belonged to a tall red-faced woman. Her dress had been made for someone smaller and her bulk pressed against the seams. Two deep lines enclosed her mouth in parentheses and similar lines were stitched across her forehead, making her appear annoyed—accurately, it seemed. She complained, “The traffic was unbelievable.”

  “Hello, Sara.” I put out my hand. She glanced at it uncertainly, then shook it, damply.

  “I could use a glass of wine.”

  “The place I had in mind for lunch is just across the square,” I said, surreptitiously wiping my palm on my pants.”

  “Maiden Lane?”

  “Yes, that okay?”

  “Any place,” she replied.

  Lips pursed, Sara moved swiftly and rudely through the crowd of midday shoppers as we crossed the square. Sara’d been thin as a girl, but no more. Not quite fat, but the extra weight she carried blurred her features. Pouches of flesh had gathered beneath her eyes and her chin. Damp circles stained her armpits and the seat of her dress was deeply wrinkled. Her makeup was hit-and-miss and she had the look of someone who no longer cared much about her appearance.

  We reached Maiden Lane, a small pedestrian alleyway lined with expensive shops, and went into an Italian delicatessen. When we were settled with food and drink, she appraised me.

  “You’ve become handsome,” she said, disbelievingly.

  “Thank you.”

  “You were so skinny as a boy that it was hard to tell what you would look like.” She took a deep swallow from her wine.

  “I’m surprised you gave it any thought.”

  Through a mouthful of spinach salad she said, “I didn’t until I saw a picture of you in the paper last year. I hardly recognized you.” She studied me. “Your eyes haven’t changed. They still keep your secrets.”

  I shook my head. “I got rid of all my secrets when I left Los Robles. Did you know Paul was a pedophile when you married him?”

  “You just launch into it, don’t you?”

  I said nothing. The direct approach often startled people into telling the truth.

  She buttered a roll, slowly, buying time. “Paul,” she said, as if announcing the title of a book. “I knew Paul was rich, younger and desperate to get married, but, no, I did not know that Paul was a pedophile.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “The day the police came to arrest him.” She put a piece of bread into her mouth. “The first time, I mean. Why are you asking me about this?”

  “I understand the police think Paul was being blackmailed by the man who was killed.”

  She lifted her wineglass and tipped it back and forth, watching the wine wash against the sides of the glass. “The police are idiots,” she said, quietly, stilling the glass. “Everyone knew about Paul. There was nothing to blackmail him with.”

  “Then why do they think it?”

  She finished the wine. “He had a lot of money with him the night he went to see—McKay’s the man’s name—the victim,” she said scornfully. “Naturally the police assumed it was to pay him off.”

  “What was it for?”

  She flagged the waiter down. “Another glass,” she said. “It was the Chardonnay.” She looked at me. “I can’t be called to testify against him, can I?”

  “No, the marital privilege applies.”

  “And if I tell you?”

  “Another privilege, lawyer-client.”

  “The money was to make a purchase,” she said, after a moment’s silence. “There was a little girl.” She stopped, looked at me. Her eyes were empty. “Does that shock you?”

  The waiter delivered her wine, setting it down so hard that it sloshed onto the table. We both looked up at him, but he was at the next table, his face frantic, reeling off the specials.

  “I don’t quite understand.”

  “I’m not able to have children,” she said, “that’s one reason I didn’t marry sooner. There didn’t seem to be any point. Early on, we considered adoption, but after Paul’s arrest that was out of the question, of course. Some time ago Paul told me that he’d read about a black market in babies. He said he’d done some investigating and that it was possible to buy children who’d been abandoned or just sold by their parents. Of course, I thought it was crazy.” She sipped her wine hurriedly. “I put it out of my mind, but Paul would bring it up every now and then.”

  “In what context?”

  “Oh, when there were children around, he would start talking about how much he had hoped to have a family.”

  “That seems rather tactless.”

  “I tried not to pay attention.” She smiled bitterly. “Not paying attention is my basic marital skill. Anyway, after he was arrested, he told me that this man, McKay, had offered to sell him a child. That’s why he’d gone to the motel that night, and why he had so much money on him.”

  “You believed him?”

  “If it will help him,” she replied coolly.

  Frowning, I asked, “Why did he go there, really?”

  “I told you, Henry, I tried not to pay attention.”

  “Why didn’t you just leave him?”

  The question seemed familiar to her. “And do what?”

  “You said you married late. You must have had a life before then.”

>   “I taught high school,” she replied, wearily. “I couldn’t go back to that after all the publicity. You forget how small Los Robles is.”

  “There are other places.”

  “There are other places if you’re a man,” she replied, “or have money. I’m not and I don’t.” She gripped the stem of her glass with long, pale fingers. “Don’t presume to judge me.”

  “I’m only trying to understand.” I said.

  “Is that absolutely necessary?” Her tone was corrosive.

  “Let’s get back to the murder. Tell me what happened.”

  She loosened her grip on the glass. “He went to meet McKay at a motel at the edge of town the night McKay was killed,” she said. “A few days later the police came with a warrant to search the house and Paul’s car. They found the money and arrested him. Then I got the story from him about where he’d gone and why.”

  “How did they find him?”

  “Bob Clayton said they found Paul’s fingerprints in the room.”

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  She looked at me, surprised. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “To place him in the room, maybe,” I said, “but that’s hardly enough to indict him for murder. Was a weapon recovered? Did he make any statements to the police?”

  She shook her head. “No. He asked to call Bob and Bob told him not to say anything. I don’t know anything about a weapon.”

  I thought for a moment. “In other words, as far as you know, the only evidence the police have connecting Paul to McKay’s murder is that he went to see him that night with some money and they had a common interest in—children.”

  “Yes,” she said doubtfully.

  “And they would have had even less than that for a search warrant,” I said, more to myself than her. “They wouldn’t have known about the money.”

  We were both still. I didn’t know what Sara was thinking but what went through my mind was to wonder what kind of judge would issue a search warrant on such a faint showing of probable cause.

  “Bob Clayton is the lawyer who represented Paul at the arraignment?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Who is he, again?”