“Look, if I let him do me, he gives me access to his mother’s stash and sometimes his grandmother’s.”
“His grandmother’s?” I didn’t know Mikey had one. Sounded like another winner. I made a mental note for Evan to have a sit-down with Mikey on the gay birds-and-the-bees.
“His grandmother has this really cool gas you sniff that makes you all light-headed and shit.” He smirked.
“Gas? You sniff gas? That shit’s not good for you.”
“She uses it to sleep and for her dogs, sometimes, to keep them—”
“Wait, who is she?”
“Mrs. Jonas. You don’t know her? You ought to, because you were part of that queer movie.”
“Darlene? Darlene Jonas?”
“Duh.” He picked up his iPhone from the floor.
“Darlene Jonas is Mikey’s grandmother?” I rose.
“You didn’t know?” He plugged his headset back into his phone.
“It doesn’t matter.” I pointed at him. “Just lay off Mikey. Sexually. Emotionally. And otherwise.” I tucked his chair back under the desk. “Unless of course, you love Mikey, but I’m not sensing….”
He shook his head.
“I didn’t think so.” I progressed to the door. Before opening it, I turned and leaned against it with my hand on the knob. “With love, everything is different. It’s not letting someone suck your cock to get off or fuck them to dump your—”
“Geez.” He looked away. “I don’t need a sex-ed lecture, mister.”
“Maybe not. But you may need to learn a thing or two about hurting someone.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Tony, believe it or not, at some point you’ll love somebody, and they may not love you back. It sucks. It hurts. Right now, you’re probably thinking you’re too much of a punk to fall in love or even care that way about a girl…or a guy.”
“I told you. I’m not gay.”
“One day, you will care about someone. And I hope for your sake you let it in.”
“Love?”
I opened the door. “No, the hurt.” I stepped into the hall and turned back to him. “Pain is what makes you stronger. Mikey’s going to be okay. Leave him alone.”
Chapter 59
Evan
Despite the calendar reading early June, winter bypassed spring, as so often happens in New England, and the sun scorched hotter than an August afternoon. Dillon had spent most of May brokering deals in Los Angeles. This month had him scheduled in New York.
Mikey and I kayaked down the Ipswich River north of Conant. The kid had been abandoned in Boston by Tony Christmas and his posse, after Tony borrowed Elayn’s car and drove it to Massachusetts. I didn’t ask too many questions. I wanted Mikey to open up to me. It felt important to create that trust.
“You having a good time?” I asked, paddling the kayak. We ducked under the low branch of a maple.
“I’ve never been in a canoe before.”
I dropped correcting him about the vessel. “No? It’s fun. I haven’t been out in a long time. Dillon and I used to kayak in Maine a lot.”
“You don’t anymore?”
“We don’t make the time. We don’t have the time. Life has a way of getting ahead of you. The important, simple things fall to the wayside.”
Behind me, Mikey’s oar splashed as he rowed. “It’s nice here. You guys should make more time.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
He laughed. “You’re the captain.”
“I am?” I rowed us closer to the shore.
“Thank you for picking me up,” he offered.
“I’m glad you thought to call me.” He hadn’t said much about it.
“I didn’t know who else to call. My mother—”
I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. Something didn’t seem right, but the fact she didn’t know Mikey had wandered to Boston didn’t surprise me. My paddle touched ground. I rose and pulled the boat onto the shore.
Mikey got out and helped me drag it farther. We sat by a rock watching the bubbling brook pass us by.
“Tony and I had an argument,” he said.
“Tell me.”
“He wanted me to steal some pills from a drugstore in Boston. I refused.”
“You’re smart.”
“He left me on the street corner. He and Jimmy Murphy sped off. ’Course they wouldn’t pick up their phones.”
“They just left you like that?” What assholes. “Mikey, why did you go in the first place?”
He shrugged.
I finished lacing my boot and hugged my knees. “I told you I had a crush on a biker boy when I was growing up. I did stupid things to try and impress him.”
“Like what?”
“Well…” I didn’t want to reveal too much. “Silly things like…” I cleared my throat. “Having sex when I didn’t want to. Doing things I would otherwise not have.”
“Was this because of your birthmark?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you had a birthmark on your chest, and as a kid you were ashamed of it.”
I scratched my chest. “Well David, the boy I liked, protected me from all that but made me feel cheap in the process. Of course, I didn’t realize this at first. At first, I thought I was special and all. The high-school bully liked me. Turns out he didn’t like me. He wanted something else.”
“Sex?”
“Yeah.” I scrunched my nose, embarrassed for confessing. “I felt awful because of it.” If I shared the fact I enjoyed a lot of it, the lesson would be lost.
“He made fun of your birthmark?”
“How’d you know?”
“He sounds like Tony.”
“David would promise to protect me from the other kids if I did certain things to him. Does Tony make fun of you?”
He nodded, then inhaled briskly. “But I can handle it.”
“Well, you know I’m always there for you. Dill too.”
Mikey smiled. “I always wanted fathers like you and Dillon. Two dads. I always thought that would be great.”
“Two dads. One wouldn’t be good enough?”
“Tony and others make me feel like shit…I’m sorry.” He straightened. “I mean, they make me feel bad for being…for liking boys. It shouldn’t be that way.”
“No, it shouldn’t. Believe it or not, we’ve come a long way. When I was your age, you wouldn’t even think of being out.”
“I read about Stonewall in school. Were you in Stonewall?”
“I’m not that old.” I chuckled.
“Oh. Well, I heard people were arrested for being themselves at bars and stuff.”
“They were.”
“It’s nice to see normal people, like Dillon and you, married and having a life together. It gives me hope. I’ve never seen that. Someday I want a family, but I don’t want to have to have a wife.”
“And you don’t have to.” I tapped his knee. “What say we get some lunch, and I’ll drive you back to New Hampshire.”
Mikey sighed. “Well, the lunch part sounds good. Officer Christmas threatened to call Child Protection Services on my mom again. But her threats never materialize. I think she’s afraid they’ll take Tony away from her if they find out about his drug usage.”
The officer had struck me as the guilty type, covering up her own faults in parenting by finding issues with others.
We carried the kayak back to the car. He helped me hoist it to the roof, holding up the bottom half.
While I slung a tie through the luggage rack, Mikey stared. “Sometimes,” he said, “you meet up with someone who brings out the best in you, and you don’t want it to end.”
I froze. “Aw, Mikey.”
“You. You and Dillon. When I’m around you, I feel okay. I feel normal.”
Chapter 60
Dillon
The preparation and planning generated by Vilhelm Strom’s security team, all for me to hold a two-hour discussion with him at the Omni Parker House
in Boston, amazed me. And the hubbub over one Dillon Deiss bolstered my ego.
I left my car at a North Station lot, where a woman in a black van picked me up. Paparazzi tailed us as we drove through the Financial District. With a sharp and hair-raising U-turn on Cambridge, she ditched them. We barreled through the tiny streets of Beacon Hill and popped out by the Common where we sped through a stoplight and into the underground garage. There her colleagues switched me into a Mercedes.
“I feel like somebody important,” I joked, but they didn’t crack a smile.
Later than intended, I met Vilhelm in a cordoned-off lounge in the hotel. Gaunt and pale, he sat in a red-and-gold-striped chair that accentuated his wispy, white appearance. Ice cubes clinked from a cocktail glass in his hand.
We hugged with a platonic tap to our backs, his done without rising from the chair and a little sloppy while holding onto his drink.
“Sorry I’m late. The paparazzi.”
“What else is new.” His recent weight loss made him look more vampire-like than usual. “I’m trimming down for a role,” he said, noting my lingering stare.
He had no upcoming roles, according to his agent, whom I spoke with on the way over.
“I see.” I felt bad for Vilhelm. Practically a billionaire, or already one, he had very few he confided in—except for Darlene Jonas. After the information from Tony Christmas, I needed facts.
I ordered a soda water and lime from a perky cocktail waitress. After having seen pictures of myself at a recent fundraiser hobnobbing with thin-as-a-stop-sign celebrities, I monitored my caloric intake. The camera really does add ten pounds. I sat and removed a folder from my briefcase.
Over drinks, we reviewed plans for Vilhelm’s pet project—a semiautobiographical script about a childhood star gone wrong. I listened to his drunken slur: for me to secure a New England location on Summerwind Island, Maine to film and use Carolyn Sohier to clench the deal. Evan would be excited. I jotted her personal cell in the margin of the screenplay.
Chapter 61
Evan
With their baby’s release from the hospital weeks back and the weather cooperating enough for New Englanders to spend a few months in the sun, Pike and Madeline held their housewarming. I’d gladly accepted the Facebook invite for both Dillon and me. However, business prevailed. Dillon’s meeting with Vilhelm Strom, at some swanky hotel in Boston, had him out late. Alone at a picnic table on the edge of Madeline and Pike’s backyard, I texted Dill.
Are you on your way?
Introversion and parties don’t mix well. Dillon brought out my less reserved side, and I’d hover near him whenever we socialized.
Instead of mingling, like I knew I should, I observed the crowd from a distance. By the grill, Pike watched over a slew of hot dogs and burgers with a beer in one hand and a metal spatula in the other. He laughed boisterously alongside a bunch of straight men, whom I didn’t know. Their red-white-and-blue beer cans matched Pike’s. Most of the thirty-plus guests wore polo shirts, sandals, and shorts—Marblehead’s requisite summer attire, which I, too, replicated by borrowing one of Dillon’s Ralph Laurens. Pike—always true to himself—sported cutoff jeans and a Patriots T-shirt. He cooked barefoot.
Madeline, radiant in a blousy yellow-and-orange sundress, handed the child to her mother. The glow of maternity fit Madeline well, and her laughter challenged Pike’s for the happiest on earth. Madeline’s mom carried the baby into the house for his nap, and Mad’s gaze followed them until the back door closed. She then hooked a thumb into Pike’s back pocket and chatted with his buddies.
For the thousandth time, I checked my iPhone. Nothing. What did we introverts do at parties before the advent of cell phones? Books at a cookout broke etiquette. I’d thought about it. I’d completed the Donna Tartt tome and had moved on to a nonfiction piece on Obama. Bringing it would have been rude. At least with my phone, I could look busy.
Since I hadn’t checked my brokerage account in a while, I launched the ScotchTrade app and swiped through to my VeriPay investment. Holy shit! My five dollars per share, bought months ago in Settlement, now pushed fifty. I paged through the company’s news feed: a rumored buyout sent the stock to a record close on Friday. While our financial troubles had dissipated, not having Dillon around enough to enjoy it wasn’t worth the cost. “Four hundred twenty-three percent increase year-to-date. Unbelievable.”
“Talking to yourself?” a voice mumbled beside me. An older man parked his walker in the grass by the table. “You’re too young for that.”
“Oh…I’m just checking on work things.” One thing about a phone and owning a business, people assumed I had important emails to review.
He set his red-white-and-blue can next to my plastic tumbler of Pinot Grigio and worked his way between the bench and table. “Mind if I join you?”
“By all means, do.”
His arm shook some, and the picnic table hitched when he plopped down. “Ah. Nice day for a cookout, huh?”
“Lovely afternoon.” I smiled and peered over the rims of my sunglasses.
He introduced himself as Madeline’s grandfather.
“I’m Evan.”
“The gay fella?” He sipped beer.
I chuckled nervously. “Um, yeah. I guess you could say that.”
“Say that? I did! Either you are or you aren’t.” He stifled a burp.
“I am.”
He nodded. “Madeline told me. Never bothered me…homa-sexiles, that is. An old navy buddy of mine turned out to be a queer. You’d never know it.” He cleared his throat vigorously. “Buck Smothers could arm-wrestle with the best of them.”
I drank wine.
He adjusted the arm of his eyeglasses. “Shocked as shit when I heard he was a gay. Back then, we didn’t have many around. Now it’s like there’s something in the water, making ’em grow.” He laughed, and I did too.
Once our snickering quieted, we sipped more.
“You live in Marblehead?” I asked after swallowing.
“Nah! Only rich people live in Marblehead. I was born and raised in Peabody. I still live in the same house that my parents bought in the ’30s.” Peabody bordered Salem. While now a bedroom community known for its shopping malls and office parks, in the first half of the twentieth century, Peabody was famous for processing leather. “My parents came over from the Azores and worked in the tanneries.”
“Really.” I feared my affect came across insincere. “Did you work in them too?” I leaned in.
“Sure, we all did. As a kid. ’Til I took a custodian job with the school department in ’58.”
Madeline came over with a plate of food—a hot dog, baked beans, and coleslaw—and set it before him. “Here you go, Vovô.” She turned my way. “Evan, can I get you anything?”
“Oh, I’ll get something in a bit.” I sipped my wine. Even traipsing up with an empty paper plate and asking for a cheeseburger pushed the boundaries of my shyness. Typically, Dillon handled this.
“No Dill yet?”
I held up my phone. “He’s still in that business meeting with Vilhelm.”
“He’s a regular celebrity hotshot.”
I sighed. “That he is.”
“My daughter says I need one of those.” Vovô bit his hot dog.
I furrowed my brow at him. “What’s that?”
“An e-Phone.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone with large keys I’d seen in the Sunday circular. “But this works fine! All I need is to say hello. I don’t need to Tex-Mexican anyone.”
“Tex-Mexican?” I caught Madeline’s eye.
She placed a hand on my shoulder. “Text messaging.”
Vovô spooned coleslaw.
My phone chimed with a message.
You’ll never believe whose cell phone number I have.
Chapter 62
Dillon
Around six p.m., we completed the screenplay overview and waited for the all clear from Vilhelm’s security team, who peered through binocul
ars by the windows. He ordered “another Scotch for the road” while I agreed to another round of soda water.
“Heard you were in Settlement again.” Vilhelm sucked an ice cube into his mouth.
“Oh, word travels fast.”
“Darlene told me.” He watched the bartender pour his drink. “A little more,” he said to her, motioning a stronger pour with his hand.
I turned to his security team, hoping they’d noted his alcohol consumption, but they were too busy monitoring the street.
“You bailed out her daughter Dina.”
“I did. Perhaps her mother should give her a little more money now and again, seeing she’s so rich. What do you know about the kid, Mikey?”
He shrugged. “Only met him once or twice.” He took the drink from the waitress. “She doesn’t mention him.”
The waitress set mine down.
“Is Darlene embarrassed by Dina? I had no idea they were related. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know you knew the child.” Vilhelm stirred his cocktail. “Darlene Jonas doesn’t like to admit she’s a mother, let alone a grandmother. Her daughter being a drug-head like her…it’s the classic pot calling the kettle black.”
“I see.”
“Speaking of drugs…” He took out a prescription bottle, plopped a pill out, and downed it with the booze. “Backache.”
“You probably shouldn’t be chasing those with—”
He waved me off. “So how do you know Michael Westmore?”
“We met him on the set. Deet took a liking to him and we did too. We feel bad for him.”
“Darlene’s not very fond of him nor very proud of her fast-food-clerk daughter.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Darlene had Dina out of wedlock, and then abandoned her for the nanny job raising me. Go figure. She did it for the money. Turns out she was banging my dad. He left her a fortune.”
I squeezed my lime and stirred the drink. “Whoa, that’s some heavy shit. And you remain close to Darlene.”
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