by A. C. Katt
“I’m not sure what I want.”
“How would it make you feel to see him again?”
Liam fidgeted with the top of the Coke can. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want a relationship with Milo? Could you be in a relationship with Milo and not fall into the old patterns?”
“I’m not the same person I was six years ago.”
“Then again,” Patricia observed, “neither is he.”
“I realize that,” answered Liam as he took a gulp of Coke.
“Do you see this as an opportunity to test the waters?”
“I love him. I never stopped. But I don’t know if he will be able to accept me after all that’s happened.”
“Liam, you’ve grown up. It happens to all of us. If he wants the boy and not the man, then the relationship is not worth pursuing.”
“I need him to trust me. I can’t go back without his trust.”
“If he wants you, you get to set your conditions as well as hear his. You didn’t inherit Milo when your mother passed. You can choose to go another way.”
“I can only go where my heart takes me.” He sighed. “I guess that means I’m going to New Mexico.”
“Be sure to tell both Milo and Sam about the stalker. They have to know there is a possibility of danger.”
“I promise, I will. I told Sam that I would do this for Rick.”
“And?”
“I was only kidding myself.”
“Good luck, Liam.”
“Thanks. I’ll call.” Liam flipped the phone closed and sat down with his laptop to plot a circuitous route to New Mexico, so he didn’t lead trouble straight to Milo’s door.
* * * *
The New York Daily Reporter, February 2009
We got a tip that the former drummer of a defunct pop band, now the superstar agent to rock royalty, is burning up his frequent flyer miles between Newark and Albuquerque.
Fans know that the two principals of Shattered Glass live in those exact locations. Is an arrangement for a reunion tour in negotiation? Will someone who is both clean and sober for the first time in many years play the bass guitar?
Will the agent become a drummer, or is he dickering at the behest of one of his stable? Maybe the former child star, a huge award winner this season, wants to dial for bigger dollars, grabbing a larger cut of the take if he agrees to lower himself to share the spotlight with his has-been band mates. Stay tuned for Rock My Life!
* * * *
“What fucking bullshit!” Milo shouted. “He doesn’t need money, never did. Where the hell did they get this crap from?” Milo threw the paper across the room, picked up the phone, and called Sam.
“I was just about to call you,” Sam said. “He’s coming. He’ll be in around the fourth.”
“Don’t you know exactly when?”
“No, I don’t. He makes his own travel arrangements.”
“He arranges travel for a tour bus and roadies?”
“He travels alone.”
“What the fuck? How could you let him travel alone? You know what can happen. We even discussed it when Princess Diana died because of lax security.”
“Milo, he insists on it. He’s a complete hard-ass about it. You want to tackle the issue, go right ahead. In the meantime, get ready for his visit. Remember, he’s fragile. Don’t go near him if you don’t want him forever.”
“What the fuck aren’t you telling me?” Milo said through gritted teeth.
“I’m not telling you a lot of things. Sometimes it’s better to listen to someone tell their own story. It forces you to actually hear what they’re saying, as well as observe their body language to see what they might be holding back.”
“We’ll do it your way, even though I’m not happy with it. However, a new friend observed that I should be kinder and gentler to those around me. He’s probably right.”
“I have to meet this friend of yours,” Sam observed with a chuckle.
“Maybe you will. I’m going to have to tell Conchita so she can prepare the rooms. Shit, I only have three days!”
* * * *
Liam arrived exhausted at the Newark Liberty Airport. Newark was snowed in by a freakish March nor’easter. When they finally dug out, Liam’s flight arrived at Newark at four A.M., too early to get on the next plane, too damn late to go home and get fresh clothing. Patricia would not be very happy about his schedule. She constantly nagged him about a regular bedtime, claiming he needed structure in his life to combat both his depression and his nightmares.
He showered and shaved in the Frequent Flyer’s Club and put on his last clean underwear and jeans. He hoped his convoluted travel schedule would manage to elude his personal dark ghoul of the past six years.
I’m going to have to tell Sam about the stalker. It’s getting too intense.
His appearance didn’t concern him much anymore. He sat down in a lounge after politely asking one the attendants to wake him before his flight if he happened to fall asleep. It didn’t seem as if he slept long when the attendant shook his shoulder to wake him. A private messenger service had delivered a box that was waiting at the President’s Club desk.
With shaking fingers, Liam opened the package wrapped in plain brown paper. He found a dozen dead black roses. Jesus Christ, I hope I don’t lead this bastard to Milo’s door.
Liam, in a state of unnatural calm, politely thanked the attendant and asked that she dispose of the box. He nervously looked around as he headed toward the terminal.
I’ve got to stay calm, I can’t let him know I’m afraid. I won’t lead him to Milo. I’ll go to the reservations counter and ask the clerk to add another stop to my trip. I’ll be late but at least I won’t leave a trail.
It hadn’t taken Sam long to convince Liam to go.
I might have as easily said I’ll cut out my heart and entrails and feed them to the buzzards, because that is exactly what is going to happen.
Mentally, he shored up his sagging fortifications. I can’t be any worse off than I already am, can I?
The first leg of the convoluted route he booked to Albuquerque was Newark Liberty to Cleveland. He arrived at the gate just as they called the last rows in economy and he flashed his boarding passes. He’d booked himself two first class seats for every leg of the flight. He had enough on his plate without having to indulge a chatty fan.
Normally, he loved the fans, aware that they gave him his bread and butter. However, this trip would be both physically and mentally abusive, and he felt he could allow himself a little slack just this once. He took seats two, A and B. Not as comfortable as the bulkhead seats, but he felt a lot less conspicuous in the second row and hugging the window than he would be in the first with every passenger noting his demeanor, so they could send a Tweet to the world.
He fell asleep as soon as he hit the seat.
He managed the flight without a whisper. Of course, he couldn’t eat. Since all of the flights were of such short duration, they served snacks, not meals. Liam would arrive at Milo’s hungry and vulnerable. He hoped his flight arrangement, plus his lack of luggage and instruments, would throw the stalker off his trail.
The guys in the band used to worry they would all go like Princess Di, being chased by crazed paparazzi. He hadn’t given it a thought back then, but now he lived with the threat every day. He hoped he’d fooled the ghoul.
The last leg of the flight was a commuter jet, cramped and turbulent. He made it to the rental car counter, where the attendant handed him a gaily wrapped box as soon as he gave her his name. He opened it, collapsed into a nearby chair and valiantly controlled the urge to vomit. Two dead kittens had been carefully placed on red velvet, one white and one black. They looked about twelve weeks old. He barely contained his horror.
The horrified manager removed the box from his sight and promised to take care of them properly. He tipped the man for his trouble. He asked Liam if he wished to lodge a police complaint. This time he said yes and gave them Milo’s add
ress, took the car, and began the drive from the airport to the no longer loving arms that awaited his arrival. Now he knew he must tell both Milo and Sam about the stalker. He could no longer fight it alone since the stalker followed him to Milo. The pictures didn’t matter in lieu of Milo’s life.
In his heart, Liam still believed he made a mistake. He retained no illusions as to what awaited him at the end of his journey. The New Mexico scenery soothed him. Newark Liberty’s weather had been hellish this morning. Now he looked upon dramatic blue skies and sunshine. He felt like he channeled paradise.
His mind kept running on a single track. He remembered the last thing Patricia said before she hung up the phone.
“Liam, I know you still want him. Whether getting him back is a good or a bad thing, I cannot say. Even so, I can tell you this—you need to trust each other. Maybe he didn’t trust you because of his own past.”
I want to pound rocks, inflict pain on myself and Bart because I instinctively know he is part of all of this. I can’t think. The idea of watching Bart and Milo together shook the outer calm he’d spent six years attempting to cultivate. He sure as hell didn’t want to see Milo loving Bart Hedge, or Bart Hedge give him that snarky look that said, You could never play in my league, kid, so put up with me or go home to cry like the baby you are.
Liam sure as hell didn’t want to witness intimate moments between the two. He knew they would turn memories of what he and Milo shared into sessions on an Inquisitor’s rack, with Milo comparing his performance and lack of skill to Bart’s expertise.
His fist pounded into the steering wheel of the red Mini Cooper Sam leased for him. If this was to be the rest of his life, he might as well be dead or have Patricia order up a lobotomy so he couldn’t feel. It took everything in him not to try to crawl back to Milo and Shattered Glass initially. He couldn’t be near Milo and have to walk away again. His heart would not bear the pain.
Yet he traveled two thousand miles from the Jersey shore to do just that. He had to collaborate with Milo on one last set.
Milo lived about fifteen miles northeast of the Albuquerque airport, in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. Liam felt the trip up Interstate 25 almost too short, a high-speed road with no traffic congestion. The sky spread out as a bright blue canvas with a few puffy clouds, and the mountains to the east shone pink in the light. The landscape exploded in a riot of color. Trees, evergreen shrubs, purple sage, and even wildflowers bloomed on the side of the road.
He took an exit near what appeared to be a resort set atop a bluff, and the signage called it out as one of the Native American casinos. It looked like a Moorish castle guarding a pass against the backdrop of the mountains.
“In point-two miles, make a right.” The GPS voice startled Liam, knocking him from his reverie and reminding him how close he came to the end of his trip. Absently following the directions given by the squawking box, he found himself closer to Milo’s home than he anticipated. He thought he had more time to prepare himself.
“Turn right in three hundred feet,” the GPS screeched.
Liam turned right.
“Arriving at destination,” it said. Liam knew the voice he heard came from a computer, but in his addled state of mind it sounded like she knew his dilemma and mocked him.
He looked up through the windshield at the long drive. The house looked huge, all adobe and glass with carved pillars and lintels. Despite its size, it blended into the hillside of the mesa. A carved rock path lead to the entrance. The house sat on several levels with courtyards and porticos hung with lanterns and greenery following the lines of the natural terrain.
Liam had reached Milo’s aerie.
The hillside terrain spread out before him landscaped with native plants. He recognized Aspen and cottonwood trees, as well as varieties of cypress and juniper and many types of cacti and flowering plants for which he didn’t have a name. His ex-lover always wanted a garden to tend, whether confined to a dish or spread out over the palatial estate they once shared in Rumson. This garden was a statement; it screamed Milo’s name. It shone with care and concern for the environment as well as beauty and grace. To anyone who knew Milo intimately, Milo’s personality reflected back from the plantings.
Liam noted the garden looked different from any of the other gardens he watched Milo tend over the years. This garden looked to be designed and cultivated by a man who achieved some measure of peace with himself, as well as with who and what he was. Seeing it gave Liam the courage and strength he needed to get out of the car.
* * * *
Milo Stamis was not a man at peace. He never felt so nervous in his life. He spent most of the early evening before Liam’s scheduled arrival staring at the stars from beneath his portico. Handcrafted lanterns of hammered silver individually tooled with Native American designs lit the night with pooled reflections of the candles they held inside. The gurgling sounds of water cascading from a fountain designed with local rock attempted to soothe.
Tonight, however, the sound of the water did not temper his troubled soul. Milo wandered the garden, eventually landing on a hand-carved bench, local work, done by a master in a classic New Mexican sun motif.
Many New Mexicans adopted the stylized Native American sun as a fitting symbol for their Land of Enchantment. It nurtured them all, the original native peoples, the Spanish settlers, and the Johnny-come-lately Americans who, upon discovering the sheer magnificence of the landscape, never left. The bench was a one of a kind. Once he saw it, he had to have it. Eventually he’d sweet-talked the artisan into carving a complete bedroom suite for the house, along with the beams and columns. Milo surrounded himself with the sun motif.
Tomorrow, Liam would arrive and Milo would face the confrontation destined to settle his fate. It would be his last chance to get it right, to find out what happened six years ago that drove his Liam straight into the roadie’s arms.
Or not, said his inner voice, which became more insistent in the last year. Each time he imagined hearing the voice, tendrils of naked fear crept up his spine. He couldn’t have been wrong about Liam cheating. He saw it with his own eyes. Oh Christ, what if he had misconstrued the scene he witnessed?
Milo fidgeted, unable to settle. The sound of water always soothed his soul, but tonight it could not quiet the little voice that kept insisting Liam had always been innocent. It spoke circles around his head. The tinkling water did not make the voice go away, stop his erratic heartbeat, or prevent the sweat making his hands damp and clammy.
His discussions with Father Sanchez brought him to the point where what took place no longer mattered, but he still needed to know. How could he change the behavior that drove his Liam to someone else, if he didn’t know what he did?
I’m full of bullshit. I know what I did. I hid, I didn’t trust him out of fear for myself. I took the easy path and pretended indifference rather than to open up my soul to hurt. He gave me everything. I gave nothing.
Sometime in the next twenty-four hours he would see Liam again. As he gazed at the stars, he realized that he needed to stop dissecting the past. This meeting would determine the future, and the future wouldn’t be found in recriminations and ruminations. He needed to find something to occupy his mind. Milo had deliberated over Liam’s infidelity for six years. He’d waffled between rage at his oh-so-guilty lover, and gut-wrenching panic that he’d made a mistake.
Tomorrow, the time for deliberation ceased. He would have to ask the questions and face the answers he’d been too afraid to hear six years before. Milo flung himself off the wooden bench where he sat. He’d been angry and bitter when he arrived here in the high country six years ago, yet he still clung to the illusion of Liam.
Esteban told me that a man does not become a liar overnight. I’ve got to stop justifying my behavior. There is an explanation for the drugs and the roadie. I was too pigheaded to listen. I’ve overcome a lot of anger in this place, now I have to overcome the shame that made me hold on to that anger for so long.
He was so lost in his memories Milo hadn’t even heard the garage door open or Conchita’s footsteps on the stairs. “Mr. Milo, stop pacing the garden and go get some sleep. You will be no good to either yourself or the young man when he arrives. I went over to the Walmart to make sure I got everything on your list. Peaches are impossible this time of the year. I went all the way over to the Sunflower Market to get them. And you better get me the elevator you promised when we bought this house. I’m getting too old for all this climbing,” she grumbled.
“Conchita, stop. I’ll get the rest of the groceries.” Milo followed her down the stairs.
“You wouldn’t have to get any of the bags if we put in an elevator or hired some extra help.”
“Conchita, I love being honest and not having to hide who I am from you and your family. You are the first person I’ve trusted outside of the band to know I’m gay. I’m happy to employ your family, but I don’t need the extra people around right now.”
“Go, shoo. I’ll make some cocoa with the cinnamon stick and the dulce de leche. You can take it up to your lair while I make sure everything is ready for tomorrow.”
Milo put down the groceries. As he was about to leave the room, Conchita put her plump fingers on his arm. “You are a good man, Mr. Milo. Deep inside, he knows that too. He will forgive you if necessary, and you have already forgiven him a dozen times over for anything he may have done.”
Milo nodded and tried for the hundredth time that day not to lose control and cry.
He thought about what she said as he made it out of the kitchen. Conchita was a wise soul, he’d realized that when they first met. However, he didn’t head up the stairs. Instead, he wandered through the lounge area and out to the inner courtyard. It felt a bit chilly but he soon started a small blaze going in the chimera.
Milo reached into a chest located next to the brightly cushioned chaise and grabbed a few of the warm throws he stowed throughout the gardens. He settled back onto the lounge and gathered their softness around his legs and torso. Milo forgot about the cocoa, but Conchita hadn’t. She brought it out and set it on the small side table, which remained hidden until pulled out from under the lounge.
