Lonely Hearts

by Heidi Cullinan

  “Yes, well. Maybe. Hopefully.” When Elijah turned on him, ready to melt down, Baz put a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be fine. Sometimes they move people around, break up couples or try to have even men and women. I’ll talk to Stephan, ask to make sure we’re next to each other.”

  Elijah wanted to press this issue, to make it absolutely clear this was the only acceptable possibility, but he swallowed his neurosis and nodded at the place setting. “Do it again, please.”

  Baz went over the layout three more times. He also taught Elijah how to hold his glasses, took him to the bar and showed him how to hold a cocktail glass. Gave him pointers on how to survive a boring or rude conversation. Taught him how to mingle.

  “If you don’t like a conversation you’re having, wait for a beat and apologize because you see me or somebody gesturing to you from the other side of the room. Or simply excuse yourself and say you’ll be right back, and then never return. Pace your drinks too. If you get nervous, linger with the bartender. The waitstaff won’t want to be chatty, but the bartenders have to be. And once you know where the designated smoking area is, you have another escape.”

  “You act as if you won’t be with me.”

  “I’ll be with you. But it’s easy to get drawn away for a moment or two, and I don’t want you to feel like you’re floundering. If you panic, ask where I am. Remember, we’re supposed to be dating. They’ll think it’s cute if we can’t be parted for more than a few heartbeats.”

  “What about my past?”

  “Half-truths and brevity. You don’t get along with your parents. Yes, it’s the gay thing. So tragic when people are shortsighted. And if they did hear about the shooting, it’s a gauche subject, and they can’t address it too much directly. Nasty business and so on, you pulling a sober face and nodding agreement, nothing more. The truth is, they don’t want what you’re afraid of. If you start weeping and talking about how it felt to watch me bleed on the snow, they’ll be seeing someone on the other side of the room.”

  Nausea swelled with the memory Baz conjured. “Don’t even talk about that.”

  “Exactly my point. Nobody wants to go there. It’s small talk. Stupid, inane small talk. Look, see us all being semi-human. Oh, the drink tray. Moving on.” When Elijah sighed and sagged in his chair, Baz ruffled his hair. “Come on. One more cigarette, a bubble bath and bed. We have a big day tomorrow.”

  Elijah almost fell asleep in the bathtub, and though he meant to stay awake long enough to give Baz a thanks-for-the-nice-day blow job, somehow it was morning, Baz emerging from the bathroom wearing only a towel and a wry smile. And sunglasses.

  He hoped for a little morning loving, but they had breakfast in the kitchen and a morning at…well, the spa. Elijah got a haircut he didn’t want to know the price of, as well as a manicure and a massage. At the house they had a light lunch, a few cigarettes on the patio, a dry hump in the bedroom, and then it was time to get ready for the main event.

  They looked good together in their custom suits. Elijah didn’t feel like a kid playing dress-up for once, and Baz was basically a walking boner machine. They drove the Tesla, which had been magically packed with all their bags. Moonroof open, RuPaul crooning, they cruised through the winding roads to the estate where the party would be held.

  “I have a hotel booked I think you’ll like.” Baz stole Elijah’s cigarette for a hit. “Just over the Wisconsin border. Moose features heavily in the theme.”

  Elijah could give a shit about moose. He wanted to ask what would happen when they got to the White House, but he couldn’t figure out how, so he smoked and tapped his finger against the wheel to the music.

  As he turned down the driveway Baz indicated, he steeled himself for more opulence. He wasn’t disappointed: the house was bigger than Baz’s place, a gleaming diamond with another circular driveway. A tiny turret on the top of the main wing made the place almost look like a church. It had no clock, no urns of flowers. Didn’t need them. It said money with simplicity and stately lines.

  Young men in tailcoats and white gloves greeted them at the apex of the circle, opening their doors and handing Elijah a valet ticket before whisking the Tesla away. They didn’t need to be told how to start or stop it, either. Elijah clung to Baz’s arm as they drifted up the sidewalk to the front door, where another man in tails and white gloves admitted them with obeisance and ushered them toward a middle-aged woman with upswept hair and a silvery suit dress, and a man who had to be her husband beside her. They greeted Baz and Elijah warmly, graciously, and urged them to move through to the patio to join the rest of the guests.

  Basically it was Baz’s house dialed up a few notches. Grander foyer. Bigger patio, larger grounds. A service bar had been set up on either end of the building, but no shortage of waitstaff drifted past with trays of champagne. Clusters of guests littered the estate, most of them older, though some of them were distinctly youthful. Everyone had on plastic smiles and custom suits.

  Gloria appeared, making a great show of welcoming Baz and Elijah before dragging them to pods of guests, introducing them, hinting at their backstory. It quickly became clear queer was their greatest selling point. All the guests were liberal to the bone, falling over themselves to show gay was okay. Everyone seemed enchanted by the idea of “little Sebastian” finally falling in love. A few women said they wanted to be invited to the wedding. Elijah worried this would flip Baz out, but he only winked and assured them naturally they’d be on the list.

  Basically, that’s all it was. Elijah didn’t have to say much of anything at all. He clung to Baz’s arm, looked embarrassed when people made a fuss and parroted all the small-talk stuff Baz had coached him through. It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t awful. The only bad moment was when he’d let go of Baz to steady a glass of champagne he’d tried to place on a tray, and in the half second he was distracted, Gloria dragged Baz off, leaving Elijah alone with the large-eyed tipsy woman who wanted his advice on how to redecorate her library. The game of so sorry, I’ll be right back worked like a charm, and after that he simply never let go of his faux-boyfriend for anything at all.

  “You’re doing great,” Baz assured him when they were alone in the bathroom. “We only have the dinner left, and the speeches. Then we can do one circuit around the room and beat it out of here.”

  “You told the guy, right? To make sure we sit together?”

  “Yes. It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

  Elijah didn’t, much. He trusted his fancy clothes and Baz’s warm arm and easy social grace, and he almost enjoyed the party. He pretended he actually belonged. That Baz truly was his boyfriend and the silly women would in fact be coming to their wedding. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to be the kind of person who shopped in hidden suit shops, but once in a while? Maybe okay.

  They were herded toward the dining room, where the hostess stood like a shepherd. Telling Baz he was seated three chairs down from his mother on the east end of the table—

  —and Elijah was on the other end, twenty people away.

  “Thank you,” Baz said when Elijah’s mouth opened in automatic protest. He herded them toward Elijah’s end of the monstrous table, pulling out his chair, bending to whisper in his ear as he eased a rigid Elijah into his seat.

  “Baz,” Elijah whimpered, clutching at his arm as discreetly as he could.

  “You’ll be fine.” Baz twined their fingers together, gripping his shoulder as he spoke quietly into his ear. “I don’t know what happened, but I swear to you, I had this fixed.”

  “Can’t you move over here?” He was whining, he knew, but he couldn’t help it.

  “I’ll try. But if I can’t, you can do this. You hear me, Elijah? Fuck the forks. You’re amazing and brilliant and strong as steel. You could do a dinner party in your sleep.”

  They were such pretty lies, but that’s all they were: lies. Because Elijah knew he couldn’t do this.
When Baz moved away, disappearing into the sea of other guests taking their seats, the fragile soap bubble of confidence that had buoyed Elijah through the evening popped. The eccentric, puffed-up people shifted from humorous to horrible. Their smiles stopped being silly, lacquered instead with judgment and censure. The mountain of silverware and china were things to knock over, to drop, to break.

  He would fuck this up, and they would laugh, or worse, stare. He would reveal himself unworthy, awkward and wrong. It wasn’t a matter of if. It was simply a question of when.

  Maybe Baz will be back. The last dregs of his stupid happiness made one more rally, scrambling to make everything be okay again, to allow him a way to belong. Maybe he’ll get it sorted out and sit beside you, and you can laugh later about what a hot mess you were when left on your own.

  The worst part was he fell for it. He really thought Baz would rescue him. That somehow all the other times Baz had swept in, bedazzled his life and then vanished had been the aberrations, and now, magically, things would be different. For ten full, painful minutes he got himself through by believing everything would be okay because Baz promised it would be.

  The waitstaff began pouring the water, asking him to please remove his napkin so they could set the soup course. Elijah realized the horrible, hollow truth about himself. No matter how many times this happened, he’d keep following Baz into the deep water, a dumb puppy eager to show off his dog paddle.

  Every goddamned time, Baz would vanish, leaving Elijah to flounder and ache alone.

  Baz couldn’t find his mother. She wasn’t anywhere in the dining room, or the foyer, or the patio. It didn’t help that with his vision he was the worst one to hunt someone down across a crowded room. She’d worn the same color blue as three other blondes, and he’d approached two of them accidentally before conceding he’d missed her entrance to the dining room while he searched elsewhere. By the time he re-entered, nearly everyone was seated and the waitstaff had begun clearing the place plates for the first course. Heart sinking, he started for Elijah to apologize and give him one more pep talk, but he didn’t get three steps before his mother appeared, capturing his arm and leading him away.

  “Darling, where have you been? This is the part where I need you—I asked Helen to seat us next to Moira Arend.”

  Baz swallowed a groan. Moira Arend, the eccentric heiress. Eccentric lesbian heiress. This was the desperate reason she’d dragged him to Chicago? “Mom, she’s not going to give two shits about me. I need to solve the seating arrangement. Didn’t Stephan tell you I needed to be by Elijah? This whole thing is freaking him out, and now I’m on the other end of the earth.”

  “Helen was insistent couples be broken up. Besides, I called in all my favors getting you next to me.”

  Baz stuttered to a stop and stared at her, incredulous. “Mom. He’s upset. He’s not built for this bullshit.”

  “Then you should have let me find you a date.”

  “You finding me a date wasn’t an option. I told you. He’s my boyfriend.”

  It wasn’t until the words were out of his mouth that he realized they weren’t a line anymore. Or rather, he didn’t want them to be a line. He’d loved this weekend with Elijah. He hadn’t felt restless or lonely. He’d woke both mornings eager to spend the day with Elijah. The realization was a thin ray of sun breaching an otherwise dim and dusty room. A ray of sun which wouldn’t blind him.

  Gloria pursed her lips. “I’m sorry this has been hard for him, and I wish I could help. But perhaps it’s best he receive this trial by fire. If he can’t handle a simple dinner party, he’d never last long-term anyway.”

  Baz blinked at her, no idea where to begin objecting to that callous line of garbage, but before he could so much as sputter, the hostess appeared at their side, urging them with polite firmness to take their seats so the meal could begin. Baz didn’t have a chance to deliver so much as an apology to Elijah before he was escorted to his seat.

  He could see Elijah from his end of the table, but only barely, and the setting sun streaming in through the picture window was enough to keep him from too many overt checks. He kept trying to think of an excuse to go there, but there wasn’t one. At best in a few courses he could excuse himself for the restroom, but that would piss off his mother. Which, part of him thought, would be only appropriate, since he wanted to throttle her.

  Moira Arend was indeed seated across from them, and Gloria bent herself into a pretzel trying to capture her in conversation. As promised, Baz featured heavily in her effort, as did Elijah. She turned their separation into a lure. “You must forgive Sebastian. He’s distracted because his date is at the other end of the table, and they’re in that stage where they can’t fathom parting for more than a sigh.”

  Moira set down her wineglass, her polite mask melting away as she gave Baz a look of utter empathy. “You be distracted all you want. I feel the same way, and Deirdre and I have been together six years.” She fixed her gaze on Elijah’s end of the table, her gaze softening further. “Hopefully our partners have each other. What’s your boyfriend’s name?”

  “Elijah Prince.”

  Moira smiled. “Yes, that’s right. Deirdre and I were talking about how besotted you were. I’m afraid we were ogling the two of you a bit. How long have you been dating?”

  They looked besotted? Baz surprised himself by blushing and made it worse by averting his gaze. “Not…not long.”

  “You poor dears. A new relationship, and you have to parade through this circus. Take him somewhere nice afterward.”

  Baz rubbed his cheek, flustered by his own shyness. “I…have this hotel. On the way out of town. He wanted to go home tonight, so I dug up this quirky place decked out like a cabin in southern Wisconsin.”

  Moira nodded in approval. “Wonderful. Give him my best, and tell him Deirdre still hates these things. She gets three days at a spa every time she attends. You’ll have to ask him what penance he requires.”

  Baz nodded, still abashed, and his mother took the moment to swoop in and collect the networking bounty she’d dragged Baz into this for. It was clear whenever Moira met Gloria Barnett Acker, she’d largely see her sweet gay besotted son.

  In the end he didn’t use the restroom ruse to check on Elijah. He worried a check-in would make things worse and focused instead on locating the earliest point of extrication. Though his mother had wanted him to stay through the cocktail hour and the speeches, Baz decided he’d more than done his part. When they were dismissed to retire to the lower-level lounge, Baz beelined to Elijah, ready to get on his knees to apologize and whisk him away.

  He didn’t find a fragile Elijah, however, or even a furious one. The date he collected was wooden, dismissive. He largely brushed aside Baz’s mea culpa, and flatly rejected the suggestion of immediate departure.

  “I need another hour to make sure I’m sober enough to drive,” was all he would say. When Baz offered to go with him outside to the smoking area, Elijah refused, saying he could go by himself. “I could use a moment alone.”

  A moment alone from the guy who’d refused to so much as go to the toilet by himself was not a good sign. “Elijah, I swear to God, I did everything I could to get down there. Did something happen? How can I fix this?”

  “I won’t be gone long. I’ll be right back, in fact.”

  “Elijah,” Baz protested, but his date slipped away, and the only way to re-engage him was to create a scene.

  Baz seriously considered it, would have if he’d thought that wouldn’t have pissed Elijah off more. Instead he followed quietly to the smoking area, keeping a reasonable distance. As they returned to the party, Elijah didn’t speak except to give a polite thank you when Baz procured him a tall glass of sparkling water.

  “I’m sorry,” he said over and over. They wove through the lounge, or rather Elijah kept walking away from Baz and he kept following. When Elijah spoke again
, it was to tell Baz he was ready to leave.

  “Great. I’ll give the ticket to the valet, and we’ll bust out of here.”

  “We have to say thank you to the hostess first.” Elijah’s lips quirked into a nasty grimace. “Even I know that much.”

  Baz could give two shits about the hostess right now, but he followed Elijah anyway, made pretty with the Helen who had fucked up his evening. When they emerged to the main level and gave their ticket to the valet, he felt as if he were taking his first breath of air.

  The second they were inside the Tesla, Baz began to babble, trying to explain how his mom didn’t move them because there was a donor, and he would have pressed for it anyway but he found her too late. He tried to explain about Moira, how that had been the one good part because she understood, but Elijah turned on the radio and jacked up the volume to drown him out.

  Heart sinking, Baz stopped mid-sentence. After a mile or so, Elijah fumbled with the map, swearing when his efforts made him swerve over the line and get honked at.

  Baz took over. “Let me put in the coordinates for the hotel.”

  “Put in Saint Timothy.”

  Fuck. Baz didn’t argue, didn’t point out driving that far would take them until five in the morning when they factored in a stop to charge. He figured his job was to put up and shut up. And pray to God he hadn’t fucked up so much they were ruined.

  The music sucked. It was some random local station playing canned crap, but Elijah didn’t change it, and Baz wasn’t touching the dashboard for any money right now. He didn’t light Elijah’s cigarettes for him, didn’t take one for himself. He checked his phone as they got close to the border, thinking probably he should cancel the hotel, then decided to eat the charge.

  He considered answering one of Marius’s or Damien’s zillion how’s it going? texts, but he couldn’t work out how to ask for help on this. He wasn’t sure he should. Maybe his mom was right. Maybe this was too fucked up. Not like he wanted the Barnett-Acker circus, but he couldn’t exactly ditch it. Maybe this had been a dumb lark. Maybe better to get out now.