by Greg Johnson
“Will and I were talking about that on the plane,” she said. “It’s such a consolation that he was among friends, instead of lying there alone. Of course, if we’d had any idea of his condition…”
“We didn’t know, either,” Thom said. “When they admitted him on Sunday, he wasn’t nearly as ill as the last time you were here. The other times, remember, he was in Intensive Care.”
Thom stopped, hoping this didn’t sound rude; of course Carter’s mother would remember.
“This time, he just had a regular room,” he added lamely.
Connie came forward as if on cue, voicing yet another time in a still-puzzled, petulant tone the complaint he’d expressed to the nurse and to each of Carter’s friends who visited that day.
“He just closed his eyes for a minute, that’s what we thought. Just for a minute!”
Even the gregarious, socially practiced Mrs. Dawes didn’t know how to reply. Thom broke the awkward silence by saying they should be going.
The goodbyes were polite but swift. Thom offered, for the third or fourth time, to take care of the condo, the packing, the shipping, and Mrs. Dawes thanked him with a fervent press of Thorn’s hand. She assured him she would call when they’d decided about “the arrangements,” and Thom thanked her for that.
Finally, there was a pause. There was nothing left to say.
In Thorn’s car there was an awkward silence, too, broken only by random words, observations.
“His parents seem nice,” Abby said. “Now I see where Carter got his good looks.”
Connie sighed. “This has been one exhausting afternoon. I don’t want any dinner, really. I just want a big, stiff drink.”
“I didn’t know what to say,” Warren said. “I’m not sure they remembered me…”
“I guess we could eat at Indigo,” Thom said. “This early, there shouldn’t be a wait.”
They were all talking to themselves, Thom thought, rather than to each other.
Once they’d been seated and ordered cocktails—even Abby, who usually sipped white wine, had requested a vodka martini—their mood began to lighten.
“It’s weird,” Warren observed. “It already seems like it happened a week ago.”
“A month ago,” Connie said. “Last year.”
Abby said, “It was a long day, but I think his parents appreciated our being there. Don’t you, Thom?”
Thom glanced at her, startled. She’d spoken as though trying to wake him.
“Sure,” he said.
He glanced around: this trendy, noisy restaurant with vaguely Cuban decor was one of his favorites, but it was fairly expensive and usually so crowded that he didn’t come here often. Tonight, they deserved a decent meal: that must have been his reasoning. He felt befuddled, a bit numbed, as though someone else had driven them here. Too much had happened; he’d had to chat with too many people; somewhere during the long afternoon, he’d lost himself. Normally he didn’t drink much, but now he reached for the Absolut and tonic he’d ordered and took a long, greedy swallow. From the corner of his eye, he saw Connie dig inside his pocket and then pop something into his mouth.
“Are you taking something?” Thom said.
Connie raised his eyebrows. “Just a Darvon, honey,” he said. “I’ve got a slight headache, and this Whiskey Sour isn’t helping.”
“You’re not supposed to mix those with alcohol,” Warren said. But he spoke wearily, as though he’d repeated this warning often and knew Connie wouldn’t listen.
“Darvon? Oh, piddle,” Connie said. He smiled impishly, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s just a light analgesic—you know, for daytime.”
“You don’t have a headache,” Warren said grumpily. “You take them for the high, why don’t you just admit it.”
“I take them for pain,” Connie said, shaking his finger at Warren. “Whether it’s headache or heartache, pain is pain. And the pills work, goddamn it.”
Warren looked away. “Whatever,” he said.
“Now, later tonight,” Connie said sweetly, turning to Abby, “when this whole day comes crashing on my head, I can haul out my cookie jar full of Percocet and get down to business.”
“Yeah, and why don’t we rent The Boys in the Band?” Warren said. “You can get hysterical and climb the draperies.”
Startled, Connie laughed. “Warren, doll, you actually said something mildly witty. I’m so impressed.”
Thom said, “Come on, Connie. Let’s just relax, OK?”
“Relax? I just lost my best friend, and I’m supposed to relax?”
Thom saw Warren’s jaw stiffen: of course, Warren was Connie’s best friend, not Carter. Thom didn’t think Connie had intended to be mean, this time. Not after a single cocktail.
The waiter approached to take their order.
“Not yet,” Connie said, waving him off. “But you can bring us another round.”
Abby, who looked confused and vaguely unhappy, made an awkward attempt at changing the subject. “Connie,” she said, “tell me more about your family—your father and his wife, I mean. Do they visit Atlanta often?”
Connie drew back in his chair. To anyone observing from another table, he must have looked formidable: this tall, imperious-looking blond man with his alert blue-green eyes and startling good looks. As usual, he was dressed impeccably. Black sleeveless sweater over a white-on-white silk shirt; crisply tailored black wool slacks. No matter how much he drank tonight, he wasn’t capable of rudeness to Abby, but nonetheless Thom, who knew Connie’s miserable family history, tensed at his sister’s naive, unexpected question. Occasionally Connie joked about his family life, but Thom and his other friends knew better than to bring up the subject themselves.
After a few seconds’ pause, Connie said, “Family, family—let’s see, I’m sure Oscar Wilde must have said something witty about the family, but I can’t recall what it was. Let’s just say that my family lives quietly among their own kind in Oklahoma City. That probably tells you all you need to know.”
“I knew that,” Abby said quickly, “I just—I just wondered if they would come to town. You know, to support you. To attend Connie’s funeral, maybe.”
Connie gave an abrupt laugh. “Is that a Freudian slip, honey? A buried longing?”
“Carter’s funeral, I meant,” Abby said, blushing.
“They don’t visit often,” Warren told Abby, gently. “Connie doesn’t—I mean, Connie and his father don’t have much in common.”
Abby looked contrite. “Sorry,” she said. She sipped her martini. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Connie said, patting her hand, “Don’t worry, doll. It’s just that my father is a temperamental man, and since the day my mother died we’ve never gotten along. During my teenage years I was something of a rebel, and a bit flamboyant—believe it or not! In no uncertain terms, I was told that my father didn’t approve of what he and his church members like to call my ‘lifestyle.’ All these years later, he feels the same way, of course. It’s such an old, stale story that I’m a bit embarrassed to tell it! But there it is.”
Thom knew there was more to the story he wasn’t telling and was pleased when Warren, craning his head to look past Thorn’s shoulder, waved to someone.
“Look, there’s Alex and Randy,” he said.
Connie reached for his drink and rolled his eyes. “Oh, goodie,” he muttered.
Thom glanced over his shoulder and saw Alex Fletcher approaching their table. He and Randy, his reserved and sometimes unfriendly lover, were internists who owned a busy Midtown clinic. Alex, a ruddy-faced man in his late thirties, was quite gregarious, though almost as widely disliked as his boyfriend. Tonight, as usual, Alex looked as though he’d stepped from a magazine ad: khaki slacks with a razor-sharp crease, a Tommy Hilfiger shirt so heavily starched it might have been sculpted onto him. Everyone Thom knew considered Alex and Randy the epitome of pretentious Atlanta queens—members of the so-called “A-list.” (Whispering about this at one of Alex and Randy�
��s parties, Connie had murmured, “Well, we may not be A-list queens, but we’re close, aren’t we? I give us a B, maybe a B+.”) The couple had spent two years redesigning and decorating their Buckhead mansion on West Paces Ferry Road—a house which, Thom knew, since he was friends with the listing agent, they’d barely been able to afford. Recently they’d thrown a huge costume party, using some lavish ball given in Newport in the 1890s as their model, and both Randy and Alex had sat on gilded antique chairs in their grand entrance foyer, like members of royalty deigning to greet their subjects. The party had been the source of bitchy gossip for months.
Now Alex greeted Thom, Connie, and Warren, and said a few polite words to Abby after Thom introduced them. Out of some collective tact, or mere apprehension, no one mentioned to Alex that Carter had died that morning.
“So what have you and Randy been up to, Alex?” Connie asked, in the innocently “sweet” tone Thom could interpret but Alex could not.
“Oh, we bought a summer place up in Highlands, did you know?” Alex glanced at each of them, as if to gauge how impressed they were. “I was asking Randy just last night, can we really stand another round of designers and architects? The pool alone is a huge headache—we’re razing that whole area and starting from scratch.”
“Sounds like another showplace in the making,” Thom said, with a grim smile.
Alex waved his hand as though fanning imaginary smoke. “Oh, no, it’s just a summer cottage,” he said. “But we want to do it right, of course.”
“Goodness, it’s a wonder you two find time to practice medicine,” Connie observed.
Alex laughed. “Sometimes, we wonder the same thing. We’re leaving for a week in Paris on Friday, and we’re stopping in Manhattan for a couple of days beforehand to catch a few plays.”
Alex was backing away: he’d seen someone else he knew at another table. “Well, great to see you guys. There’s Tim Taber over there, so I’d better go say hello. Nice to meet you, Abby.”
“You, too,” Abby said.
“Have fun on your trip!” Connie called out, sweetly. “Tell Randy hello for me, OK? And call me for lunch.”
“Will do,” Alex called over his shoulder, hurrying across the room.
Connie bent immediately toward the center of the table, glancing around at the other three. “Did you ever meet such a shit?” he said gleefully.
They laughed. After a pause Warren said, still smiling, “I can’t let you get away with that, Connie. You stole that line from Dorothy Parker.”
“Of course!” Connie cried. “I steal most of my good lines from Dorothy—I’m a friend of Dorothy’s, remember?”
Thom said, “Come on, Alex isn’t that bad. He does a lot of good in the community, you know.”
“Yeah?” Connie said. “Well, he’d feel a lot better if he’d pull that two-by-four out of his ass.”
Connie was getting drunk, Thom thought. This was the first crude remark he’d made in Abby’s presence. Now Connie turned toward her, and Thom expected that he would apologize, but he merely added, “You should see those two at the gym. They both wear designer gym clothes, including matching sweat suits—white with lavender piping, and I’m not making this up! They parade around for a while, chatting, while the rest of us are huffing and puffing on our favorite instruments of torture, and then they wander into the locker room. When they come out, of course, they’re in matching gym shorts and tops; I swear, their tank tops look starched. I think they take them to the cleaners.”
“Come on, Connie,” Warren said.
“They do,” Connie insisted. “And you should see them on the StairMaster, side by side, making a spectacle of keeping their arms up in the air, to show how fit they are. Randy actually folds his hands on top of his head! I swear, he ought to bring his crochet bag and knit a doily or something up there, if he’s so determined to show off. Of course, the rest of us are hanging onto the handles for dear life.”
“He isn’t exaggerating that part,” Warren said. “I’ve seen them. The rest of us are snickering, but Alex and Randy don’t even notice.”
“Of course not, their gaze is trained upon the mirrors!” Connie said. “Narcissus had nothing on those boys.”
Thom tried to change the subject, but as the salads arrived Connie said, “What about you, Thom? Haven’t seen you at the gym lately.”
“He doesn’t need to,” Warren said. (Warren was so sweet!)
“Sometimes I go in the early morning,” Thom said, “when you’re still getting your beauty sleep. But I’ve been slacking off, I confess.”
“Oh, you Catholics!” Connie said, chewing energetically. There was a dab of honey mustard on his cheek, but Thom decided not to tell him. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been two weeks since my last workout!”
Abby laughed. “Well, Connie,” she said, “I guess I’m going straight to hell. I haven’t set foot inside a gym since high school.”
“You don’t need to, either,” Warren said, smiling. He had caught Connie’s eye, dabbing at his own face with one corner of his napkin; Connie grabbed his napkin and swabbed his cheek vigorously.
“We’re both Sadlers,” Thom said. “We worry the fat away.”
Connie said, “It’s all such folly, anyhow. I don’t know why I go. I have the same little roll above my belt I had ten years ago, and I have it whether I work out every day for six months or don’t work out at all. What’s the point?”
“Have you ever worked out every day for six months?” Thom asked, smiling.
“Besides,” Connie said, “the music they play in those gyms is intolerable. The place is full of middle-aged white guys, and half the time they’re playing rap!”
Thorn’s last memory of the gym was Carter standing on a treadmill, his mouth sagged open with effort, his T-shirt drenched with sweat against his thin, heaving chest. Since then, Thom hadn’t had much interest in going back.
After their dinners arrived, the conversation became more boisterous, with Abby holding her own, taking the cue from Warren and teasing Connie for his more outlandish remarks. Again Thom was surprised at how well she looked, her cheeks flushed as she ate, her eyes shining with amusement. He didn’t quite understand. Though she’d seemed to shrug off the melancholy he’d sensed that day he met her flight, at the same time she’d become secretive, spending more time on the telephone in Thorn’s room, the door firmly closed. (There had been several hang-up calls, too, when Thom had answered. Was that Lucille? Hanging up on her son, after all these years?) Abby had seemed shy and remote at the small dinner party he’d given during her first week back in town, but now she seemed to enjoy his friends. She bantered with them tonight as though she’d known them for years. Thom had the morose thought that the other three had forgotten about Carter, but he knew it was the liquor and the need for a respite after their long, grueling day. He couldn’t blame them.
Somehow the conversation had wound back around to Connie’s childhood.
“I won’t say I was abused, exactly, though some hysterical counselor on Sally Jessy would probably disagree. But my father had a violent temper, and I guess you could say he bashed me a few times. Once, the year before my mother died—I would have been nine—I came in from school and for some reason he was home. I chatted with my mother in the kitchen for awhile, and he was sitting at the breakfast bar, just watching us. I have no idea what I said, or the tone of voice I’d used, but as I went back to my room he followed me, screaming that I was acting ‘prissy’ and ought to go put on a dress. Now I’m sure that I was acting prissy, but I certainly didn’t know it—not at the tender age of nine! So he gets out his belt and whacks me a few times around the shoulders, screaming something about wanting to ‘toughen me up’—some goofy dialogue he must have gotten out of a John Wayne movie. But the damn belt hurt, and I remember crying afterward. Then Mother came back to comfort me, after Daddy had left the house, and I felt—”
He stopped abruptly, an unexpected surge of emotion choking of
f his words. He cleared his throat and reached for his whiskey sour.
“But I wouldn’t say I was abused, exactly,” he repeated.
“That’s awful,” Abby said. “Our father was so gentle—he didn’t believe in corporal punishment.”
Thom looked at her, surprised. It was true that their father never raised his hand to them, but Thom hadn’t heard him speak about any “belief” on the matter.
“You’re lucky,” Connie said. He cocked his head slightly, glancing at Thom. “But Thom, you were ‘bashed’ once, weren’t you? In high school or something? Did you ever tell Abby about it?”
Thom gave a nervous grin; he didn’t want to talk about that. “In college,” he said. “And yes, Abby knows about it. In fact, she was there.”
Connie gave a theatrical gasp, turning to Abby. “You were there? That must have been awful for you!”
Thom and Abby exchanged a pained look; this was a memory they shared but didn’t talk about.
“Let’s change the subject, OK?” Thom said.
Connie looked confused, and a bit displeased. “But—”
Thom reached across the table and squeezed Connie’s forearm, hard. “I mean it,” he said. There was no other way of getting through to Connie.
And so Warren, dependable sweet Warren, chimed in with a long, rather tiresome story about his own childhood—something about his father chasing him up into a tree, Thom couldn’t quite pay attention—and that was that.
They continued eating and drinking, and for the rest of the evening they talked of harmless things.
It could be said that Thom had never told anyone about the time he’d been bashed, not even Abby. She’d been there, she’d witnessed it, but that was a different thing.
They’d never spoken about that night, and he imagined they never would.
Each was alone with what had happened.
