Lonely Hearts

by Heidi Cullinan

  In short, he got on with his life.

  Elijah tried to withdraw from his circle of friends, still feeling awkward about his meltdown, but they ignored all his barbs and attempts to dissuade them and carried on herding him through his day anyway. They babysat his ass all damn day long.

  To be honest, he was grateful for it. It wasn’t because they dodged stray clumps of press every now and again either. It was because panic this intense took more than a night’s sleep to recede, and he felt it clamoring to reclaim him all day. When he admitted as much in the spare hour before choir, Mina dragged him practically by the ear over to student services, where the doctor said he’d give Elijah some chill pills, but only if he added an antidepressant.

  “It might well be a short-term thing,” the doctor said when Elijah balked. “But given the chaos of your year, and the admission you’re managing it with substance abuse, I can’t in good conscience add any more fuel to the fire. All these pills and drugs you’re using are surface fixes. An antidepressant works from the chemical base up. And while some take work to get on and off, they don’t require rehab.”

  There was no way in hell Elijah was taking an antidepressant. They’d tried after the attack with no real luck, and when he’d read about what they could do to creativity, he’d sworn them off for life. “There has to be some other way to get a handle on myself.”

  “Of course there is. Limit stress. Remove all illegal and harmful substances from your diet. Switch to a whole-foods regimen of largely fruit and vegetables, and consider going either vegan or paleo. Practice mindful meditation and deep breathing. Take up yoga. And I’m talking the Hindu, Vedic style, about your mind and spirituality, not the gym-bunny, trendy stuff.”

  Elijah was about as far from gym bunny as you could get. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  The doctor raised an eyebrow. “You understand these are lifestyle changes. Big ones. Making expensive fruit smoothies in a high-powered blender every morning. No substance abuse. Not even caffeine. You should consider limiting refined sugar too.”

  There’d be no blenders, but Elijah didn’t figure he needed to get into that story with the doctor. “I get it, yes. It sounds like a bitch on wheels, but of course, this has been the story of my life.”

  “It’s more than simply a diet. Don’t expect to eat healthy for a week and your panic attacks will vanish. This is basically purifying your body so you can focus on strengthening your mind. It’s possible most of the benefit comes from you deciding to do this. Sending the signal to your anxious thoughts that you’re actively addressing them. Also know this will take work. Years. You have to sit with the pain. Process it. Though I’ll tell you, even on antidepressants the greatest success rates come with this mindset.”

  “You’re saying if I make these changes, I might be able to handle the bullshit. So, yeah. Give me the pamphlet, the web address, the hipster hat, and I’m in.”

  The doctor ended up handing Elijah a stack of books from his own library.

  Out of the office, Elijah lost a little of his verve, especially when he reached for a cigarette before grudgingly handing them over to Mina to dispose of instead. The bustle of his circle of friends was more noise than comfort. But choir practice worked its usual magic. This time when he sang “What Wondrous Love Is This?” he didn’t feel bittersweet. He felt hopeful. Like he could see the first fingers of a new dawn.

  Baz arrived in time for choir, and on the way to the house afterward they held hands and shared the experiences of their day. Baz was all for Elijah’s proposed lifestyle changes and promised to join him as much as possible.

  “I don’t know if I can cut out all the drugs—definitely not most of them—but I can cut the weed to medicinal, not recreational, for sure. They’ve been after me to try this kind of a diet for years, but it always seemed like a kick in the teeth. If it works the way they say it should, though, if I can feel better and be nicer to my liver, yeah. I’m down for health-nut shit.”

  I love you, Elijah thought. And then told him so.

  The Twin Cities gang joined them for dinner—it had been meant to be pizza, but when word got out about Elijah and Baz’s health quest, it got rerouted to a burgeoning salad bar. Kelly directed that ship, showing them how they could have a satisfying meal without dairy and processed junk, promising to bring his mom up some weekend for a crash course in cooking healthy.

  The salad was good, even if Elijah was pretty sure he’d be hungry in an hour. When he’d said as much, Mina suggested he make another one if that’s what happened.

  It was three hours before he got peckish, but by then he was neck-deep in a homework assignment from Walter. His almost-lawyer had parked him in front of his laptop and an open document and told him it was time to tell his story.

  “Maybe you publish this somewhere, on a personal blog or someone else’s—or you don’t show anyone at all. I think you need to write it, though. What happened to you. How you got through it. How it hurt, how you healed yourself.”

  Elijah’s stomach curdled thinking about it. “I’m not healed. Not by a long shot.”

  Walter sat on the edge of the desk. “You’re a writer. You process the world through story. I’m not saying this needs to be some kind of soul-baring confessional. I’m saying choose your narrative. It’s not about countering the right-wing bloggers or throwing down with Baz’s family. It’s about telling yourself you’re okay. Not perfect. Okay. That you’re managing. That you have your life under control. Maybe getting a better visual on where your missing pieces are.”

  It all sounded so fucking Oprah Elijah wanted to gag, but after his vow to the student health doctor, he couldn’t see how he could get out of it. Because this was pretty Zen, or something spiritual and centering.

  Processing my pain. “I’ll try it.”

  “Good.” Walter hopped off the desk and nudged the laptop. “Go ahead and start right now.”

  Elijah did. The first hour was nothing but crap, and he kept deleting, but by the time Mina brought him coffee, he was starting to get into it. He decided to embrace the Disney and let it go. Wrote everything, no matter how pulpy or cute or gag-worthy emotive, and after awhile, he didn’t judge it anymore. He lost himself to the flow, pausing only long enough to piss and inhale the second helping of salad somebody brought him. By the time he staggered to bed at three in the morning, he had eight thousand words of complete and utter garbage.

  It felt good though. Really good.

  He let it sit for a day, but by Sunday night he had it open again. For a week he rewrote it obsessively. Unpacked the schmaltz and honed it into…something.

  He understood, slowly, what Walter meant. Because the more he worked on the essay, the more he realized he could spin it any way he wanted. He could paint himself as the victim. The devil. The hero. The noble martyr. A regular college-aged adult struggling to find his place in the world amidst some unusual odds.

  He steered the piece into that last option, because it felt the most comfortable. Hero seemed weird. Victim and martyr weren’t great places to hang out and involved the kind of gaggy stuff that drove Elijah nuts. But average guy—he’d never known he could be one of those. The more he wrote, the more he believed that’s exactly who he was.

  The end of the first week in October, he showed the essay to Baz. By then it was twenty thousand words. Elijah had ideas on how he could tone it down to something a little more sane, but he wanted Baz to see the whole thing. Unadulterated and raw. Elijah Prince, no filter.

  When Elijah began to fidget as he read, Baz plunked him in front of Howl’s Moving Castle and disappeared into the practice room to digest it properly, as he put it. Lejla drifted in almost immediately to watch with him, snuggling into the other end of the sofa.

  “He really is your Howl, you know,” she said as they finished the scene where Howl rescued Sophie by teaching her how to walk on air. “He’s better with
you, and you’ve found your true strengths by being with him. You bloom together.”

  Elijah squirmed under Lejla’s microscope. “My parents are the Witch of the Waste, I suppose?”

  “Maybe. Except we’re always our own villains in the end. Which makes them easy to defeat, once we’re ready to admit we were the only ones in our own way.”

  There was nothing to say to that, so they enjoyed the movie in companionable silence. It distracted Elijah from the fact that Baz was taking forever, that they were all the way to the moving spell part of the movie before he emerged from the practice room. It was one of Elijah’s favorite parts because he loved watching the castle transform, how Sophie briefly lost her spell as Howl showed him her room and the flower fields. Baz perched on the edge of the couch through that part, his fingers sneaking into Elijah’s hair as Sophie transformed at the water’s edge and confessed she felt at home. When she stopped believing in herself and reverted to an old woman as the warships passed overhead, Baz tugged Elijah’s hand and led him up the stairs to their room. Once the door was closed, he switched the lights, took off his glasses and held Elijah’s face in his hands.

  “I love your story. It made me cry twice. I read it three times and then sat with my eyes closed, swimming in it, before I could come out and tell you.”

  Elijah wanted to fidget under this attention too, but he couldn’t get away from Baz, with or without his glasses. “It’s too long. I have to cut it down.”

  “Why? I think you should keep going. I think you should make it a whole book.”

  Now Elijah did try to draw back. “Are you nuts? I can’t write a memoir at twenty.”

  “Why not? You’ve lived more life than most sixty-year-olds. Your story will mean more to most people too.” He led Elijah to the bed and sat beside him, still holding his hand. “The other day I was at lunch with Kelly, and the busboy asked for my autograph. Because he knew about our story, about the shooting, and followed the stuff that dribbled out about us during Mom’s campaign. I felt weird about it, but Kelly pointed out it wasn’t about me. It was about the kid feeling my story—our story—helped him find his way. That was him responding to some sound bites. Can you imagine if he had a story like yours to find? I know it’s not your fantasy story, and I’m not dismissing it. But this is important too. I know Walter said you could make it whatever you want, but I know my Elijah. You want to clean up. And this is one hell of a mop and bucket.”

  It was true. The thought of writing something which could make a difference for other kids with shitty parents, or in any kind of crap circumstance, really, was a heady prospect. The idea that he, Elijah Prince, was good enough to be such spokesperson, though, gave him serious pause. “It’s not good enough for that yet.”

  “It’s an excellent start, and there’s no rush.” He kissed Elijah sweetly on the mouth, nuzzled his nose. “Just remember Sophie has more powerful magic than Howl. She breaks her spell by using it. She breaks everybody’s spell. And lives happily ever after.”

  It was a mushy, sappy, Disney moment. And God help him, Elijah waded right in. “Sophie has Howl with her, though. In her ever after.”

  “So do you, baby. So do you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  As October rolled on, Baz’s relationship with his mother was chilly. Money still rolled anywhere he wanted it just for asking, but the cozy feeling of being united with his mother against the world had ended. This state of affairs only further served to draw attention to the people he did feel connected to, and that number had somehow become legion. His posse formed an honor guard around him whenever he felt vulnerable. They made the switch to healthy living with him and Elijah, and now it was pretty standard for them to start the mornings with yoga in the living room, some private prayer or meditation, and then a breakfast of oatmeal, fruit and veggie smoothies, and green tea.

  They ran the blender while Baz took his shower.

  He couldn’t stop hoping for a reconciliation with his mother, but as absorbed in her campaign as she was, there was no way this could happen unless he dove back into her crazy—an invitation she kept extending, subtly, then overtly.

  When these efforts failed, she politicked him.

  In mid-October when he was on the way to rehearsal, the choir director pulled Baz aside. “We’ve had a request come in to the department.” Nussy put his hands in his pockets and gave Baz a solemn look. “A local gala event wants Salvo and the Ambassadors to perform for a function mid-November. They’re offering a rather handsome fee to the department, and the request is coming in from one of our biggest patrons. But it’s my understanding this situation might be awkward for you, and I want you to know, if you ask me to decline, I’ll do it.”

  Baz sighed. “Let me guess. It’s my mother.”

  Nussy nodded. “Technically it’s not a campaign event, or we’d have to say no because of college policy. It’s a charity function.”

  But it was probably the result of some kind of focus group, something to improve her image. “It’s here in the Cities, not in Illinois?”

  “Yes, at a community center in Burnsville. The money raised will go to local efforts to combat LGBT youth homelessness.”

  Baz set his teeth. Well played, Mom. “Hard to say no, isn’t it?”

  Nussy held up his hands. “I leave it entirely up to you.”

  Yes, because who wants to be the one who says we can’t sing and dance to keep kids off the streets? Baz forced a smile. “Sounds great.”

  Smiling, Nussy clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Excellent. I trust you’ll come up with something special to dazzle them. Maybe a joint number, I thought.”

  Baz passed the news on to the others as they returned to the White House, and everyone was pretty much as pissed as he expected, which in a weird way was comforting. Elijah surprised him, however, by saying he should have declined.

  “But how?” They were lying in bed together, red lights on, staring at the ceiling. “How could I look him in the eye and say, Sure, fuck the homeless gay kids anyway?”

  “First of all, let’s get one thing straight. While it’s true Halcyon Center and other local organizations might get some funding, this event is largely to make your mom and local politicians look good. If they really wanted to help homeless kids, they’d skip the place plates and expensive napkins and maximize the money donated, not the quality of attendees. God, I hope they leave the actual recipients out of it. If a ragged set of L and G and B and T stand on the stage like sad sacks holding up a giant check, I’ll punch somebody in the face.”

  Well now Baz felt worse. “You think I should tell Nussy to cancel?”

  Elijah sighed. “No. But God, I wish you could find a way to sandbag her with this.”

  “Sabotage it? How will that help anything?”

  “Not it. Sabotage her.” Elijah smiled evilly in the red glow. “Make her sorry. Show her she can’t fuck with you.”

  Baz had no idea how to do this, though, and Elijah admitted he didn’t either. So Aaron and Giles started drafting options for joint numbers, and Baz did his best not to think about it.

  Then one day as Baz crossed the U of M campus, leaving coffee with Walter to have lunch with Marius before cabbing over to Halcyon, he ran into Susan Meeks.

  She didn’t have on a power suit today, but she wore it on the inside because when she approached Baz and shook his hand, asking him how he was doing, he could practically see the metaphorical camera and microphone. Which meant he was honest in his reply, but careful.

  “I’m okay. Getting crazy close to graduating, something I was starting to think I’d never do. I’m in love with my boyfriend. Surrounded by friends. So all in all, pretty good.”

  Susan tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know you said you’re not interested in a full interview right now, but if you ever change your mind, I’d love to do a feature on you for the paper. I me
an, I’ll be honest, I’d love to do a full-on documentary for my senior project, but mostly I want to get your story out there. Not your mom’s. Yours. You’re an incredible inspiration.”

  “If you’re looking for inspiration, you need to catch my boyfriend’s act.” He was saying boyfriend too much, but he kind of wanted to tattoo the word across his shoulders right now. “I might be the flashy one, but he’s the meat and potatoes. Plus he’s writing a book, so he’ll need the publicity.”

  “Okay, I’ll bear it in mind. I didn’t realize he was on the menu—he seemed so uninterested in the spotlight. But I’m down, totally. You’ll put him in touch with me when he’s ready?” She passed over a business card. “I’d do something on the two of you, you know. I’ve been tracking your story and his for most of this year, and it’s completely gripping. You really found out who you are, the two of you together. It’s more than overcoming. It’s that you’re real. Your compasses are on point. You don’t let people make you do anything you don’t want to do, and when you do something, you own it. That’s the article I want to write.” She smiled, and the internal power suit bloomed. “Unless I can talk you into a documentary.”

  Laughing, Baz held up his hands in surrender. “We’ll see.”

  Her comments rang with him all day. He realized she was right. When he wanted to reach for it, his compass was on point. But as it came time for him to leave the White House for the special Salvo-Ambassadors practice, getting ready for his mother’s event, he got annoyed. He hoped Susan didn’t see this because this wasn’t his compass driving him. He didn’t own it.

  “You’ll be fine,” Elijah assured him when he voiced this frustration out loud. “You’ll figure out how to own it. To make her squirm and the charity shine.” He picked up the remote and waved Baz gently at the door. “Now, not to be rude, but we can discuss this later. Lejla and I have a date with the queen.” He settled into the couch and his happy place as RuPaul’s Drag Race came on.