Strawberries for Dessert

by Marie Sexton

  “Julia,” I said cautiously, trying to tread carefully, “I’m not trying to be an asshole here, but I don’t think being a straight woman in our society is nearly as difficult as being a gay man.”

  She looked at me like I was a moron. “I never said it was, Jon.”

  Good point. “But I don’t think that justifies him being a bigoted asshole.”

  I wasn’t really sure what to say to that, and I was afraid that anything I did say would only get me in trouble again. I finally settled for saying a third time, “I’m sorry.”

  She smiled at me. “I’m sorry, too.”

  “Am I forgiven?”

  “Yes,” she said as she pulled a donut out of the bag. “But you’re still an idiot.”

  Three days later I had a dinner date with my dad. I had been avoiding him since Cole had left me. I knew he would ask about it, and

  I wasn’t sure I would be able to face it.

  “I thought Cole was coming,” he said as I sat down.

  It hurt more than I could believe, but I was ready to say the words. “He left me.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few moments. He just sat there looking at me. “I’m sorry,” he said at last.

  “I know you think he’s a fruitcake.”

  He shrugged. “He is. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t like him.”

  “Because he made Mom’s stroganoff? Or because he had a condo in Vail?”

  “Neither one, Jon,” he said gently. “I liked him because he made you happy.”

  I had to look down at the table. I didn’t want my father to see me cry. “Yes,” I whispered. “He did.”

  Date: August 2

  From: Cole

  To: Jared

  Sweets, I know you’re probably terribly upset with me. You’ve been emailing over and over and I haven’t replied. It’s dreadfully inappropriate, I know, and I hope you won’t hold it against me because the truth is, you’re the only person I can be honest with. Partly it’s because we’ve known each other so long. But mostly it’s because I don’t have to face you when I admit to you how terribly, terribly much I miss him.

  I’ve been in New York for the past several weeks. I keep telling myself that I’m leaving for Paris soon, but I can’t make myself do it.

  Somehow, having only a continent between us seems bearable. Having an ocean between us does not.

  He’s tried to call me many times, but I never answer. I had hoped to avoid him until… until when? I don’t know. Until I could think of him without my heart breaking all over again, I guess. But it’s not to be.

  Something has come up, and it seems I will have to face him sooner than I had hoped. I’m sick with fear, just thinking about it. I know he will be strong, and I will be weak like I always am. I hate myself for it.

  The thing is, Sweets, this could be the answer. It’s not contrived. It’s not my doing. It’s a happy coincidence, and it could fix everything. If only he will see.

  I FOUND a job. It was an entry-level position at a large accounting firm. My salary was half what I had been making before, and I found myself in a pool of hard workers who were ten years younger than me or more. I watched them jockey for position as they tried to decide which of the partners to ingratiate themselves to. They worked overtime, although being on salary, they never got paid for it. They were exactly as I had been, and I found them absurd.

  My position did have great potential for advancement, but I discovered quickly that I did not care. Being at the bottom of the ladder, there was very little expected of me, and I was happy to let the younger men fight and beg for the tiny advancements that were handed down. I no longer had to travel. I sold my condo in Vegas and was glad to be rid of it. My phone didn’t ring at all hours of the day. I never worked more than forty hours in a week, something I hadn’t been able to do in years, and at the end of each day, I went home. When I walked out of the office at five o’clock, I didn’t give my job another thought until I walked back in the next day at eight. It was somehow incredibly liberating.

  One Saturday, three weeks into my new job, my cell phone rang.

  It surprised me. Between Cole leaving and losing my job, it hardly ever rang anymore. I was even more surprised when I looked at the screen and saw who it was.

  I couldn’t even answer at first. My heart was pounding and my palms sweating. My head was spinning with all of the possible reasons he might be calling now. I prayed it was to fix things between us, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

  “Hello?” I answered, my heart in my throat.

  He was quiet for a second, but then he said, “It’s me.” His voice was off, like he wanted to use his normal, lilting cadence but couldn’t quite pull it off.

  “I know.” I stopped short, fighting back tears. There were a thousand things in my head I wanted to say to him: I miss you, I love you, are you home? Please come back to me. I had no idea where to start. “I’m so glad you called,” I finally said, my voice shaking. There was just silence. At first I thought he had hung up. I looked at my phone, saw that the call was still active. “Cole?” And then I heard his breath catch. He was either crying or trying very hard not to.

  “I don’t know,” he said in a soft, shaky whisper, “why this has to be so hard.”

  And at those words, I lost my own battle to keep my tears at bay.

  “It’s hard for me too, Cole. God, I miss you so much.”

  He took a ragged breath then, and I could almost see him putting his affectation back on, like armor, one piece at a time: the mocking look, the way he cocked his hip out, the way he let his hair fall into his eyes. I was not surprised, when he spoke again, to hear that the cadence of his speech was back. “Sweetie, I need to see you if you can spare a few moments for me.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Of course. Are you back in town?”

  Please let him say yes.

  “Very briefly.”

  “Do you want to come over?” Please let me hold him one more time.

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Cole, I can’t—” I can’t bear to live without you. That’s what I wanted to say, but he interrupted me.

  “Can you meet me at the coffee shop at two? The one near your house, down by the grocery store?”

  “Of course,” I said, feeling confused. Why were we meeting in a coffee shop?

  “Thanks, sweetie. I’ll see you then.”

  I got to the coffee shop before him. The place was empty except for the employees. I ordered for both of us. Cole arrived as they were handing me my drinks. Seeing him again was like a slap to the face.

  The two hot drinks in my hand were the only thing that kept me from grabbing him and holding him tight. That, and the healthy distance he was keeping between us. He kept his head down a little, his hair in his eyes so that I could not read his expression.

  “Chai?” I offered, holding it out to him, and he almost smiled.

  Almost.

  “Thank you.”

  We sat down at a table but neither of us tasted the drinks I had just bought. I was trying to look at every bit of him, like I could take him all in. As if that would somehow ease the pain I felt at the distance between us rather than making it worse. I was trying to get a sense of what he was feeling. Trying to determine if he was as heartbroken as I was. He did not look at me. He kept his eyes on the table.

  “Cole,” I finally said, “I miss you.” I started to reach across the table to where his hand was resting, but he pulled away.

  “Stop,” he said, and I froze, my heart aching in my chest. He took a deep breath. “This isn’t a personal visit, sweetie. It’s a professional one.”

  I could hardly even follow his words. All I could think about was how much it hurt to see him and have him push me away again. “I don’t understand.”

  Another deep breath. He still would not look at me, and his hands were clenched tight together on the table in front of him. I suspected it was to keep me from seeing how much he was shak
ing, but I could still hear it in his voice. “I want to offer you a job.”

  “A job?” I asked stupidly.

  “I have an accountant. Chester.” He stopped, and he glanced up at me for the first time. It wasn’t direct eye contact. It was only a glance through his hair, but I saw the humor there, along with the strain of trying to act casual. “Actually, his name is Warren Chesterfield, and he hates when I call him Chester.”

  “Which is why you do it.”

  He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “You know I have money, sweetie, and I’m sure it will not surprise you to learn that I pay no attention to it at all. I have multiple accounts. I don’t know how many. I have a stockbroker. Or maybe I have a few. I’m not clear on that either, to tell you the truth. I believe they make more money for me, although I could be wrong. I give money to certain charities on a regular basis.

  You know that I have several houses and at least one person on staff at each one. My other homes, all but the one here, are rented out as vacation properties at various times of the year, which results in a small amount of income I assume. And of course, I have my mother to support.” He stopped for a minute, and I waited, knowing he wasn’t done. “All of this has been managed for me by Chester since—well, since before the money was even mine, to tell you the truth. I live my life, I spend what I need, I do what I want, and Chester is there to tell me if anything goes wrong.”

  He stopped again, and this time I asked, “What does this have to do with me?”

  “Three weeks ago, Chester informed me that he is retiring. He’s been hounding me mercilessly to find a replacement ever since.” He stopped short again, and his voice was quieter when he started talking again. “It took me that long to get up enough nerve to call.”

  “You’re offering the job to me?”

  “Is that not what I’ve just been explaining, sweetie?”

  “What does this mean for us?” I asked.

  It took him a moment to answer, and he still wasn’t looking at me. “It has nothing to do with us at all,” he said quietly, and it was like being punched in the stomach. “It’s a job. Nothing more.”

  “Then why me?” I asked. “There are a million accountants out there for you to choose from.”

  And for the first time, he flipped his hair back out of his eyes, and he met my gaze evenly. “Because I trust you, Jon.” Hearing him say my name almost undid me. My eyes closed, and I had to concentrate on just breathing. “It would be very easy for somebody in this position to steal from me, and I know that you won’t. It’s that simple.”

  It made sense, and yet I didn’t care. I felt like my heart was breaking all over again. I only wanted him. “Cole,” I reached over and took his hand, and this time he let me. “I’ll do anything you want. Just come back.”

  His eyes closed, and I felt him trembling. And slowly, very slowly, he pulled his hand away from mine. “Please don’t, Jon,” he said in a shaky whisper. “Please don’t make me cry here.” And I realized that was why he had insisted on meeting in a public place: so that he would have to keep his distance, to keep his walls in place. I fought back my own tears, staring at the table in front of me.

  “I realize,” he finally said, and his voice was still strained from the effort of keeping his emotions in check, “that it may seem strange to think of me as your employer. But I assure you, it won’t feel that way. Chester and I probably spoke once or twice a year at best, and then only when he felt I needed to know something. You will be your own boss, really. I won’t be looking over your shoulder.” I had been so busy thinking about how much I missed him that I hadn’t managed to think that far ahead. But now that he said it, I realized it should have occurred to me, and it was good to know that we wouldn’t have these awkward meetings often, because this one was more painful that I could stand. “Will you do it?”

  I didn’t really even have to think about it. “I haven’t done any personal accounting in years. I’ll have to brush up on it.”

  “Does that mean yes?”

  “How much?” I asked. It felt cheap to ask him about salary, but a job was a job. My new one didn’t pay all that well, and my savings account was getting frighteningly low. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and slid it across the table to me. The number he had written on it surprised me enough that I looked up at him again. It was more than I had been making after nine years at my old job. “This is too much,” I said.

  And just barely, he smiled at me. “That’s thirty percent less than I was paying Chester. You see, love?” And I winced at that pet name.

  “You’re saving me money already. I’ll have Chester call you. He’ll want to meet with you at least once, I’m sure. He’s an arrogant, homophobic asshole, but he’s very thorough.”

  “I’ll be expecting his call.”

  “Thank you.”

  He stood up then and turned to leave, and without even thinking about it, I reached out and grabbed his hand. “Cole, please don’t go.”

  “I have to,” he said, but he didn’t pull away.

  I couldn’t even look at him. I felt my control slipping. I kept my eyes on his slender fingers, trapped in mine. “Cole,” I said, my voice shaking, “I can’t stand this. I lov—”

  But before I could finish, his fingers were against my lips, stopping my words. “Shhh,” he said. One of his hands was still in mine, but the other, the one he had used to quiet me moved slowly across my cheek, and I closed my eyes. His fingers went into my hair. I tightened my grip on his other hand, pulled him toward me—and he came. He let me wrap my arms around him. My face was against his stomach, and his hand was in my hair, holding me against him, and any control I had been trying to maintain was gone. I let myself cry, not caring where we were or who was around to see.

  “Please don’t leave me again. I can’t stand being apart. I miss you so much.”

  For some immeasurable amount of time, it may have been only seconds, or an hour—whatever it was, it was far too short—he held me.

  “I miss you too, Jon,” he whispered at last, “but nothing has changed.”

  And then he let me go. He walked away, out of the coffee shop and out of my life. Again. By the time I had composed myself enough to look up from the table, he was gone.

  Date: August 6

  From: Cole

  To: Jared

  He knows where I am. He knows how to find me. But he doesn’t. I love him, Jared, more than I can say. He says he loves me too, but still he let me go.

  I HAPPILY quit my job at the accounting firm and submerged myself in my new role as Cole’s accountant. It took several meetings with Chester—and Cole hadn’t lied. He really was an arrogant, homophobic asshole. But it was also obvious that he was thorough and incredibly honest, and I had to admire him for that.

  It took me a bit to brush up on personal accounting and to get a grasp on where all of his money was. There were multiple holding accounts, but only one account that he used actively. It had to have enough in it at any given moment to cover spontaneous purchases or traveling expenses, but not so much that it would be disastrous if his debit card was lost or stolen. There was an account for his mother. Her stipend was deposited into it at the first of each month, and she spent every cent. There were accounts set up for each of the housekeepers at his various homes. I realized then that they did much more than clean.

  They were more like property managers, and he paid them generously, although he probably didn’t even know it. They used their accounts to pay expenses on the properties as needed. One of my jobs was to make sure they had enough to cover those expenses but didn’t take advantage of the easy access to his funds.

  I realized something else. He really did have a lot of money. He was also right when he said that it would have been unbelievably easy for me to steal it and nobody ever would have known. Needless to say, I didn’t even consider it.

  The weeks went by. There were still days when I missed him like crazy—days when the tiniest things would m
ake me ache for him. I missed dinner together and having him laugh at me and just waking up next to him each and every morning. But there were other days when I could think of him and smile, and that pain in my chest would be almost bearable.

  I missed the sex too. The two were not necessarily connected. On multiple occasions I debated visiting the bathhouse, but in the end, I never did. Somehow I felt that finding a new partner, even an anonymous one in the glory hole of a bathhouse, would be the final straw. It would be admitting defeat, accepting the fact that I had lost him forever. I wasn’t ready to do that yet.

  I found that I could live vicariously through his accounts. He used his debit card for everything. Although it took a couple of days for the charges to come through, I could piece together a picture of what he was doing. I knew at all times which city he was in. I saw when he made a purchase for eight thousand dollars at a gallery in New York, and wondered what exactly he had bought. I saw when he ate at his favorite restaurant in Paris, and I wondered if he had been alone.

  I knew it wasn’t necessarily healthy, but it helped me cope. It gave me a connection to him, however tenuous.

  My days had no discernible rhythm. My time was my own. He had given me a freedom I hadn’t had since college, and I reveled in it. I slept late. I donated most of my suits to Goodwill, although I kept every single tie he had bought for me. I wore jeans or shorts, like a regular person. I didn’t shave every single day. Sometimes my house felt like a tomb, and I would take my laptop to the coffee shop to work.

  I still jogged almost every day, but rather than rising at five in the morning to beat the Arizona heat, I often waited until nine or ten at night, after the sun had set.

  And finally, nearly a year after he had given me the gift certificate, I went skydiving. It was at once the most frightening and the most exhilarating experience of my life. I wasn’t even surprised to discover that Cole was right. I longed to fly.

  Six weeks after taking the job, I decided I needed to get out of the house. I took my laptop to a café near my home that offered free wireless. I ordered a Cobb salad and a glass of wine. That was another small but somehow significant sign of my new life: I could have wine with lunch. There was no office to go back to, no client to impress, nobody who could frown on me for it. I smiled as I ordered the Sauvignon Blanc, because I could picture the look on his face if I were to order Chianti.