The Guncle

by Steven Rowley

  “I don’t know. Five hours? Six? There are headwinds when you’re flying west.”

  “Was it six months?”

  “What? No, of course not.”

  “Then why is it Christmas in Patrickland?”

  Grant stepped forward to field this one. “We found hith tree in the garage!”

  “Kids, it was already past your bedtime when I took off from New York and so I can’t even imagine how tired you are now. Let me use the restroom and then I will help you brush your teeth. Have they even been brushed once since I saw you last?”

  Patrick held his tongue. She clearly did not realize what a commodity good teeth were in California. A perfect smile was practically a calling card. He’d rigorously overseen twice-daily teeth brushings for a month now, which, between the two of them—three if you counted Patrick—equaled one hundred and eighty brushings.

  “Where is your powder room?”

  “Powder room. There’s no powder in there.” Patrick bit his lip. “Unless you count cocaine.”

  “What?!”

  “It’s a joke. Relax. Just go.” Patrick pointed behind him and Clara turned sharply on one foot. He grimaced, and when she closed the bathroom door behind her, Maisie and Grant laughed nervously. They all knew they were in gobs of trouble, but there was at least some safety in numbers.

  “Do we have to clean this up, GUP?” Maisie surveyed the living room, which was dotted with half-empty glasses on colorful cocktail napkins and little plates with discarded nibbles that Marlene was dutifully tending to.

  “No. Tomorrow’s a new day. I asked Rosa to come and we can all clean up together.” He took in the chaos around them. “Remind me to pay her double.”

  “Do we have to take the Christmath tree down?” Grant asked, sadness dripping from the question. The evening had been a high point in their stay and it was sad to think it was over.

  Patrick took a knee so that he was eye-to-eye with Grant. “Is it Christmas yet?”

  “No. Not until December!”

  “Well, I’ve never heard of anyone taking their tree down before Christmas. Have you?”

  Grant grinned broadly. “No.”

  “Besides. You did such a marvelous job decorating, I should think your dad would like to see it when he joins us. Let’s leave it up to show him.”

  Both kids threw their arms around their uncle and squeezed him tight.

  “What on God’s green . . .” It was a muffled Clara from behind the bathroom door. “How do you flush this thing?”

  Patrick was drained—a kind of exhaustion that you felt in your bones, from the night, from the week, from the month. He exhaled, blowing his hair from his forehead before fishing the washlet’s remote from his back pocket, where he’d tucked it earlier for safekeeping (he didn’t want guests squirting water all over his powder room). He handed the remote to Maisie. “You want the honors?”

  A wicked smile formed on Maisie’s face. She took the remote with both hands like she was being trusted with the nuclear football, found the button for the bidet feature, clenched her teeth, and pressed hard.

  The delay was maybe three seconds. Clara’s scream pierced the silence and they could hear her leap up and scramble to safety. Grant laughed first, then Maisie, then Patrick, until they were reduced to a pile of yowling hyenas; it was, in that moment, the funniest thing they’d ever done.

  * * *

  Patrick sat at his patio table picking at the paper on a bottle of spring water. The kids were in bed, together, and Clara had passed out in Patrick’s other guest room; the worst of her ire would come tomorrow. Marlene lay at his feet, the patio stones finally cool and offering relief from the warm night air. When he shifted in his chair she raised an eyebrow, then closed her eyes tight, her rhythmic breathing melting into a gentle snore.

  Along the back wall, the solar lights were holding their charge; Patrick always wondered if they lasted all night or if they faded at some point in the predawn. He felt guilty for not inviting JED tonight, but he’d never been good at mixing friend groups—especially at parties. Some acquaintances overlapped well enough, but JED was a world apart. Or maybe he was just being a snob. What would his Hollywood friends have to say about a throuple who sometimes wore matching shirts? Fortunately, their house was dark. If they were stewing, they were doing so inconspicuously. If they asked about the party at some future date, Patrick would lie and say he thought they had already left for Burning Man.

  An unfamiliar light pierced the darkness above one of the pool lounge chairs, dancing a slow, intricate ballet like a single firefly. It startled him. Patrick squinted until the light sharpened into some sort of focus. It appeared to be the tip of a cigarette. “Hello?” He stood up and walked over to the light, cupping his hands against his brow as if that would help him see. At the edge of the house he stopped to flip on the pool light and the water shimmered a perfect summer blue.

  “Great party.” It took a second for the voice to register. It was Emory.

  “Is that you, Chunky Glasses?” What the hell was he still doing here? Patrick had assumed he was halfway back to LA. He approached his pool slowly, hoping he projected a certain nonchalance.

  “In the flesh.”

  Patrick sat on the edge of the lounge chair next to Emory’s, allowing himself a moment to imagine that flesh; he may be a family man now but he was still a man. “I sit here at night sometimes, to look at the stars. After a while your eyes adjust and you can make out the crest of the mountains.”

  “I was doing just that. Until you blinded me with the pool light.” He took a drag on his cigarette before ashing it over the deck.

  Patrick had forgotten that people still smoked. “Sorry. I thought for a minute there you might be some sort of bum.”

  “You get a lot of them out here—bums? Scaling your private wall?” His smoky voice rumbled from his throat like an old muscle car bearing down. It added to his James Dean charm.

  Patrick laughed. “I thought it sounded less conceited than ‘fans.’ You shouldn’t smoke.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Neither do I.” Patrick reached over, relieved Emory of the cigarette, and placed it to his lips. The paper crackled as he inhaled, or at least he imagined it did; it might have been the little fireworks in his head set off by the idea of his lips being where Emory’s had just been seconds ago. “It’s nice, the stars. They make me feel unimportant. In a good way. Like my problems don’t matter. They’re not problems. I’m not anything. Just insignificant bits of star dust.”

  “Is retirement that stressful?” Emory kicked Patrick’s chair playfully and it moved an inch on the concrete, making a lewd scratching sound. “Listen to yourself. Insignificant bits of star dust.” He blew air through his lips in playful disgust.

  Patrick smiled. “Did I say I was retired?” He handed the cigarette back to his guest. “I thought you left. How is it you’re the last one here?”

  Emory shrugged. “I love to shut a party down. To be there for the very end. Lots of people say it’s polite to leave early. To not overstay your welcome. But I’m amazing. Who would get tired of me? And what greater compliment can you give the host than not wanting his party to be over?”

  Patrick thought about this. He had always been a fan of the Irish goodbye; not leaving a party had never occurred to him.

  “Plus, I have terrible FOMO. After-parties are the best parties. All the interesting things happen at the end of the night, don’t you think?”

  Patrick hoped the bluish light from the pool masked the reddening of his cheeks as it rippled across his face. “Like what?”

  “Like getting to talk to some star dust.”

  Patrick’s heart raced, although it might have been the nicotine. Was this flirting, or a genuine dig at his age and faded celebrity?

  “Actually . . .” Emory waved his iPhone so Patrick co
uld see. “Phone’s dead. I was hoping you could call me a Lyft.” He held himself together for a three-count before bursting into ridiculous laughter, like he’d been baiting Patrick all along.

  Patrick laughed, too, if only to be a good sport. He waited for Emory to compose himself, then asked, “Did you have fun tonight?”

  Emory removed his glasses and set them on a cocktail table. He rolled his head toward Patrick so that he was looking earnestly his way. Strangely, he looked older without the glasses; there was a fervent zest in his eyes. “Did you?”

  Patrick watched as Emory stubbed the cigarette out on his pool deck. He’d have to remember to clean that up tomorrow before the kids asked about it. He picked Emory’s glasses up off the table and tried them on, then flopped his head back against the chair. It felt intimate. He thought the lenses would be fake, but it turned out they were a weak, but real, prescription. Patrick reached back to recline farther in the lounger. He closed his eyes and felt the weight of the frames push against his face. “I did.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Mmmmm.” His lips tickled as they vibrated.

  Emory adjusted his chair until it mimicked his host’s and they were equally recumbent. “We talk about you, you know.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Us.”

  Patrick laughed. He still didn’t know what Emory meant. His friends? New Hollywood? The next generation of TV’s second bananas? Magazine? “Okay.”

  “We do!”

  Patrick opened one eye and turned his head. “Emory, is it?”

  Now Emory laughed. “Yeah.” He held out his hand and Patrick took it, but instead of shaking, they just clasped hands.

  “Patrick. But I guess you knew that. Since you came to my house and talk about me and whatnot. What kind of name is Emory?”

  “Biblical. Old Testament. In Hebrew it means ‘happy.’”

  “Are you . . . ?” Patrick let go of Emory, the sudden intimacy of holding hands overwhelming.

  “Jewish? Want to go skinny-dipping and find out?” Emory winked, a second wink; it was both unbearably corny and undeniably sexy. Patrick laughed, this time genuinely. Oh, to be that confident again.

  “Are you happy. That’s the better question.”

  “Yeah,” Emory said, and then he leaned back in his chair to look up at the stars. “Pretty fucking happy.”

  Patrick studied the night sky. Except for one of the Dippers, he didn’t know the summer constellations as well as the winter ones: Orion and Taurus and Gemini. “Well. You’re young,” he said, as if Emory’s happiness would sort itself out to a general state of malaise. “But you’re on TV and that ain’t nothing.” Marlene appeared out of the darkness, hopped on Patrick’s chair, and curled up between his legs.

  “Yikes,” Emory said.

  “Don’t like dogs?”

  “Just scared me, is all. I thought for a second it was a big rat.”

  Patrick sat forward and undid Marlene’s bow tie; he waved it at Emory to enter it in evidence. Not a rat.

  “What are you doing out here? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  Talking to a cute boy, Patrick wanted to say. But he knew the question ran deeper than that. “Plotting my next move.” He did his best to take in the details of Emory’s face without looking directly at him. The thick blond hair that fell in his face when he wasn’t leaning back, his bold nose and strong chin—a profile that belonged on currency. He was clean-shaven, a look not exactly favored by most of young Hollywood these days. And yet his face was not baby-smooth; it seemed he could grow a beard in about an hour if he wanted. The makeup department on his show must have to work overtime to make him seem like a teen.

  “What is that, like a comeback?” Emory writhed in his chair to find a comfortable position, but the way he did it took on a sexual air.

  “Running for president, world domination, EGOT, Tupperware parties. Take your pick.”

  “Ah. The elusive EGOTT, with two T’s.”

  Patrick rolled his head to look at Emory, and Emory rolled his head to look at Patrick. They locked eyes. Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, Tupperware. Patrick wished he were that ambitious.

  “Now you just need someone to enjoy it with.” Emory smiled at him.

  “Who? You? I’m not calling you a car, so you’re moving in?”

  “You could do worse.”

  Patrick thought about it. “I could do better.”

  Emory laughed it off with a Nah.

  “I’m just going to focus on surviving the summer. Then world domination.”

  Emory stood up and stretched. His T-shirt rose above the rise of his jeans, exposing a flat, surprisingly hairy stomach. They really must have to shave him between takes. “Swim with me.”

  “It’s like three in the morning.”

  Emory pulled off his shirt. He was lean, toned, but not intimidatingly ripped. He probably spent all his time doing Bikram yoga instead of lifting weights in a gym. Patrick stared, but didn’t leer. He could either join this kid in his pool, something he wouldn’t have hesitated to do before he had a houseful of family, or call him a ride. He stood up and pulled off his own shirt in one fluid motion.

  “Yikes.”

  “What?” Patrick asked. This seemed to be his favorite exclamation.

  “That was sexy.”

  Without even thinking about what he was doing, Patrick reached out and undid the top button of Emory’s button-fly jeans.

  “Wow,” Emory said, further impressed. He then looked down at Patrick’s pants as if to say, Your turn. Instead he observed, “Your pants have butterflies.”

  Not just my pants, Patrick thought. He turned and took a few steps toward the house, as if he were going inside. Emory stood back, confused. Was this over? Patrick paused for a moment; decision time. A swim would be nice. He was sweaty, after all, from the hard work of hosting (and then the stress of seeing his sister) and the night was still arid and hot. The water would be cleansing ahead of the drubbing he was certain to take from Clara. He was doing a good job; he had been a good uncle. He deserved this. So he turned off the pool light. Darkness. When he turned around, Emory was standing naked, bathed only in moonlight.

  Patrick crossed the lawn slowly, kicking off his shoes. He stood face-to-face with Emory before dropping his own pants, and then his underwear, without breaking eye contact. Only then did he deign to glance down.

  “So. Not Jewish, then.”

  Emory laughed.

  They stood very close without touching, not breaking eye contact. Their breathing slowed and fell into a parallel rhythm, yet Patrick’s heart beat faster. What strange and different paths led them to this moment? Emory’s involuntary enthusiasm grazed Patrick’s thigh. He inhaled sharply, then turned and dove into the deep end the way he had perfected, leaving hardly a ripple. The water was perfect, eighty-three, eighty-four degrees, the way it stayed in July without him ever having to turn on the heater. He swam most of the length of the pool, his arms at his side, his back arched slightly, water whooshing by his ears. He dolphin-kicked twice when he came close to losing steam, until the sounds of the world washed away and he was surrounded only by darkness—a calming, perfect still. He flipped over and opened his eyes, but there was only the night.

  He surfaced just in time to hear a second splash behind him.

  FIFTEEN

  Patrick, Clara, Maisie, and Grant wandered up Palm Canyon Drive sipping milkshakes, looking not unlike the ideal American family from a time when much of downtown Palm Springs was developed. Man, woman, son, daughter, a family outing for ice cream on a blistering summer day. The only thing missing? Matching buttons that declared their like for Ike. But the situation was mixed, at best. All morning they’d griped at one another, their fragile routine upset by an interloper. Clara was helpful in some regards, volunteering herself for mundane tasks: face
-washing, breakfast, laying out clothes, brushing Maisie’s hair. But everything came with commentary. Patrick’s toaster made toast too dark, his coffee was too bitter, the kids used outdoor voices inside. Patrick had his own mental commentary: Clara was too uptight, not helpful with things that actually needed doing, forgot to pack her sense of humor; however, he had the good sense to keep his observations to himself. They worked as a family to tackle the house, getting it back in presentable shape, but by early afternoon Rosa had chased them out so she could finish cleaning in peace.

  Patrick suggested Great Shakes, a milkshake place whose straws came festooned with a small cake donut. The extra confection was no more than two bites, but Clara opined it seemed opulent when slurping twelve hundred calories of ice cream from a cup (a cup, in Patrick’s case, lined with homemade butterscotch). Grant gnawed on the straw of his Oreo milkshake, while Maisie nursed a date shake—a dessert Palm Springs was famous for. Clara ordered something particularly Clara, honey lavender vanilla or some such nonsense (a combination more suited for soap than dessert), and made an increasingly sour face with each sip. She seemed horrified by the whole experience, but found employment for her milkshake by pressing it against her neck in a vain effort to stay cool.

  “How do you live like this?”

  “It’s cleansing, the heat.” The kids ran ahead undaunted, fueled by sugar, Grant’s little body in particular vibrating pure cookies-and-cream energy. The arrival of family, if anything, made it seem more like Christmas, not less, and Patrick insisted no Christmas was complete without gifts. They arrived downtown with a mission: to find presents to open with the roast turkey dinners Patrick planned to have delivered from Billy Reed’s.

  “Cleansing?”

  “Like seasoning a cast-iron pan. It bakes off the hardened layers of grime.” Clara didn’t look like she was buying it, so Patrick added, “You get used to it.”