Bitch Slap

by Michael Craft

  Putting these on the drinks tray, he asked, “Well, what’d you think?”

  “Todd? Seems like a nice guy—certainly pleasant enough.”

  “Not too hard on the eyes, either.” Neil twitched his brows.

  “No,” I agreed vaguely, “I suppose not.” Changing the topic, I wondered, “Isn’t it a little unusual for Todd to come so far to install a project? Did he drive all the way up here as a favor to you?”

  “Not at all. His Chicago workroom produces orders for designers all over the country. Whenever possible, Todd and his own crew take care of the installation, often returning after the first ‘fitting’—not unlike tailoring a custom-made suit. He’s done work in California.”

  “There’s a crew coming as well?”

  “Tomorrow. They’ll drive up in a truck, delivering the finished curtains. But Todd wanted to spend the night and get a fresh start in the morning.”

  Todd breezed in from the hall. “Talking about me?” He flashed a big, perfect smile. I couldn’t imagine what he’d done in the bathroom, but he did indeed look refreshed. Was it my imagination, or had his pants lost their wrinkles?

  “Yes,” Neil told him, “we were talking about you.”

  “Secrets from your past,” I kidded.

  “Oh, dear,” he said, raising his fingers to his lips. “Nothing too tawdry, I hope.”

  “Just tawdry enough,” I told him.

  “Ice?” asked Neil.

  “Two cubes,” Todd answered. “No twist, no water.”

  Neil poured the Scotch. “You’re too easy.”

  “That’s what you think.” Todd took the glass with a nod of thanks.

  Neil and I lifted our snifters from the tray, touched them to Todd’s glass, and joined in a toast. “Welcome to Dumont,” Neil told him.

  “To friendship,” I added.

  “Why, Mark,” Todd said demurely, “I hardly know you.” He winked.

  I laughed as he and Neil took the first sips from their glasses; then I joined them, downing a bracing swig of my brandy.

  I was instantly comfortable having Todd in our home, and this feeling had nothing to do with his good looks. (In fact, handsome men sometimes leave me ill at ease, as I’m ready to assume an air of superiority on their part.) No, my comfort with Todd was unrelated to physical attraction. Rather, it stemmed from his affable nature, his quick wit, and, yes, his easy, flirtatious manner, which came across as unremarkable and unthreatening. In short, the man had a certain sophistication about him, a self-confidence he wore well. He struck me as … urban, a quality rarely encountered here in Dumont. With a measure of surprise, I realized that I now missed people like Todd, who were an everyday aspect of my former life in Chicago. I told him, “Now that you’re here, I’m sure friendship will follow.”

  “It already has,” he said over the rim of his glass. Then he swallowed more Scotch.

  Neil suggested, “Let’s get comfortable.”

  Todd asked, “Are you trying to get my clothes off—already?”

  I choked on my drink.

  Feigning a stern voice and hard features, Neil answered, “Hardly, Mr. Draper. I was merely inviting you to sit down.”

  “Too kind of you. I’ve had my ass strapped to that autobahn cruiser for hours on end, but sure, I’d be happy to set a spell with you boys.”

  So we settled on the furniture in front of the fireplace. Neil resumed his previous position at one end of the love seat, moving the book he had left there. I waited, allowing our guest to choose the spot he would find most comfortable; he chose to sit next to Neil on the love seat. Two chairs remained, situated on either side of the coffee table, at right angles to the small sofa. I chose the one nearer Todd, as it seemed friendlier for Neil and me to flank our guest than to “gang up” beside him. Easing into the armchair, I cupped the snifter in one palm and blinked at the image of Neil and Todd sitting together. I hadn’t previously noted Todd’s sandy hair, but it now picked up the fire’s glow with the same intensity as did Neil’s.

  Neil asked him, “So what do you think of sleepy little Dumont?”

  “Seems nice enough.” Grandly, he expostulated, “It’s not where one lives, but how.” Then he laughed. “No, seriously. You’ve got a wonderful place here. As for the town, I haven’t really seen it yet; I arrived in the dark.”

  I asked, “Have you seen the Reece house?”

  “Just Neil’s plans, which look fabulous. I’m eager to see the real thing.”

  “You won’t be disappointed.” I shifted my glance to Neil. “Seriously, kiddo, you really outdid yourself this time.”

  “Shucks,” he drawled, “jest doin’ m’job.”

  I told Todd, “The features editor of our paper, Glee Savage, is planning a big photo spread for this Sunday.”

  Neil elbowed Todd. “So we’d better get those curtains up.”

  “Yes, massa.” Todd squinted. “Glee Savage? What a handle.”

  I agreed, “It is, isn’t it?” I was tempted to explain how the name had come about, but refrained, deciding that Glee’s story had not been shared with me so I might lob it about as cocktail chat. Besides, Todd’s comment about Glee’s name brought something else to mind.

  “Todd Draper … ,” I said. “Speaking of handles, that one’s not bad for someone in your line of work.”

  He nodded wearily. “Everyone asks about the name, but I didn’t make it up. I was born Todd Draper.”

  “Really? I just assumed—since you’re in the drapery business—”

  “Mark, Mark, Mark,” said Neil, shaking his head pitiably, exchanging a sigh with Todd, “one never says ‘drapery.’”

  Todd explained, “In the trade, anything hanging at a window is ‘curtains,’ not ‘drapes.’”

  “Ah.” There are areas of knowledge that should be the birthright of all gay men, but I was still learning.

  “Ergo, the name Draper is almost inappropriate to my work. Even so, it has that heritage—a pedigree, if you will.”

  My look of blank ignorance prompted Neil to remind me, “Dorothy Draper was one of the great interior designers of the last century. I’m sure you’ve heard of her, Mark.”

  Actually, I had. Neil often spoke of her as the doyenne of American decorators. With arched brows, I asked Todd, “You’re related to Dorothy Draper? I’m impressed.”

  “Distantly. Well, supposedly. My father, who founded Draper Studios in Chicago, always claimed there was common blood, so you’ll have to take his word for it, not mine.”

  “Is your dad still in the business?”

  “No, he’s long gone. Up until two years ago, Geoff and I ran it, but now that he’s gone, I run the whole show.”

  Tentatively, I asked, “Geoff … ?” Was he an uncle of Todd’s? A brother?

  “Mark,” said Neil quietly, “Geoff was Todd’s lover. He died in an auto accident.”

  “Oh, gosh,” I said, leaning forward to place my palm on Todd’s knee, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thanks, Mark.” He placed his hand over mine. “It was rough—especially the suddenness—but I’m coming out of it. Friends make all the difference.” He squeezed my hand, then drained the Scotch in his glass.

  A log popped and collapsed in the grate, spraying sparks against the screen.

  “More?” I asked.

  “Please.” He handed me the glass. Without getting up, I poured his refill from the tray on the coffee table.

  Neil asked him, “Are you back in the dating game yet?”

  Todd grinned. “Oh, not actively, but yeah, I’ve been looking.”

  “You won’t have a bit of trouble,” I said offhandedly, then wished I hadn’t been so quick with the comment.

  Neil seconded, “Trust me—anyone would jump at the chance.”

  “Thanks,” said Todd. Then he added coyly, “Because I’m more than ready.”

  I handed him his drink.

  The three of us gabbed for another half hour or so, covering topics ranging from business t
o politics. We discovered a few mutual friends from my days in Chicago, and Neil compared notes with Todd on some of their shared clients. Throughout this banter, Todd’s manner was uniformly lighthearted, with laughter punctuating his words—until the name of a particular client was mentioned.

  “First thing tomorrow,” said Neil, “I need to introduce you to Gillian Reece. She—”

  “Ughhh, what a bitch,” Todd interrupted.

  “She can be difficult,” I allowed.

  “I mean, even on the phone, you can just tell that this woman is one nasty piece of work. She’s pretentious, opinionated, overbearing—and she has no taste. Zero. None.”

  I mentioned, “But she’s awfully good with numbers,” knowing this would do little to sway Todd’s open-and-shut opinion of her.

  Neil shrugged. “At least she had sense enough to hire us.”

  Todd put his arm around Neil’s shoulder. “She hired you, my friend. And you had sense enough to hire me. But now that I have a sense of the woman, I can’t imagine how you work with her.”

  “Somehow, we seem to get along. There have been no major battles, and our few minor skirmishes, I’ve won. Don’t worry, Todd. If anything comes up, I’ll play referee.”

  “It has come up—and it’s bugle fringe. She wants it!”

  Neil flumped back in the love seat. “You’re kidding.”

  “Would I make light of something so heinous as bugle fringe?” At last Todd cracked a smile.

  “So tell me,” said Neil, “as long as we’re being brutally honest, what do you think of the sheers in this room?”

  Though out of my element, I quipped, “I thought they were curtains.”

  Todd explained, “Sheers are always curtains, Mark, and curtains are sometimes sheers, but neither sheers nor curtains are ever drapes.”

  “Ah.” Still learning.

  Todd turned to Neil. “They’re, uh … adequate. Perfectly adequate.”

  “You liar.” Neil cuffed Todd’s shoulder. “They’re god-awful, and you know it.”

  Todd smirked. “Well, at least I didn’t say it.”

  “They’re cheesy. And I’m man enough to admit I need help. Think you could draw something up for us?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Your budget, of course!” Todd yelped a loud laugh.

  He and Neil continued in this vein, debating possibilities for redecorating my den. I had sense enough to stay out of it.

  Besides, I enjoyed just watching them, sitting there together on the sofa, engaging in their bout of manic creativity. Taking a long look at them, I realized that Roxanne had been right. Todd Draper was indeed “quite the dish.”

  What’s more, he looked a lot like Neil.

  More to the point, he reminded me of the third party in my dream that morning.

  PART TWO

  Joint Venture

  THE ‘AH’ FACTOR

  Workers reaching completion on

  stunning new local residence

  by GLEE SAVAGE

  Trends Editor, Dumont Daily Register

  OCT. 22, DUMONT, WI—A magnificent new home being built on Dumont’s east side has been the talk of the town since ground was broken for construction late last year. Decorating crews are now rushing to complete the project, and soon its owners, Mr. and Mrs. Esmond Reece, will move into their lavish new residence.

  The Register was recently treated to a preview tour, conducted by the architect, Neil Waite of Dumont. “My clients wanted a big, comfortable house,” he said, “and they also wanted to make a ‘statement.’ The danger would be in allowing the house to become a mere status symbol.”

  Mr. Waite has clearly succeeded in avoiding any such pitfall, producing a home that is both visually arresting and meant to be lived in. What’s more, the structure blends seamlessly with its setting. The architect explained, “The stone was quarried in the northern part of the state, and the timbers, though not local, are a reflection of the wooded landscape.”

  In the hands of a less skilled designer, these materials might have come across as “rustic,” but not here. Mr. Waite also included in his materials palette the sensitive use of glass, which lightens the whole structure and offers just the right counterpoint of sophistication.

  Remarkably, the inside of the house is even more jaw-dropping than its exterior. Centerpiece of the interior space is a sumptuous two-story elliptical living room that also serves as a functioning library.

  Without a doubt, Neil Waite has now established himself as one of the finest residential architects in the Midwest. See for yourself in Sunday’s Trends section, which will carry a full-color photo features.

  Chapter Nine

  Wednesday dawned later than we had intended. Our conversation with Todd Draper the night before had kept us up beyond our normal hours, and I had failed to heed a lesson learned from previous experience—that one brandy before retiring is more than sufficient. So I lingered in the shower that morning while Neil traipsed down to the kitchen, started the coffee, and admitted our friend Doug Pierce, the sheriff, who paid a routine breakfast visit, delivering pastry fetched on the way from his early workout at the gym.

  When I arrived downstairs, Doug had just set a copy of the Register on the kitchen table, folded open to Glee’s column. “Congratulations,” he was telling Neil. “That’s quite a valentine—and a well-deserved one at that.”

  Skimming the story, Neil shook his head with a soft laugh. “Glee barely mentions Gillian, referring to her as Mrs. Reece.”

  Strolling over to the table and into their conversation, I said, “I admire Glee’s restraint, considering what she probably wanted to call Gillian.”

  “Trouble?” asked Doug, looking over the rim of his coffee mug. He always dressed in business clothes, rather than a uniform, and that morning he was wearing a jacket I particularly liked on him, a tweedy green blazer.

  “Long story,” I said, dismissing Doug’s question, tired of the topic. At dinner the night before, I had confided to Neil the history of Glee’s college romance, wrenched by Gillian.

  Doug couldn’t stay long, needing to go downtown for an early meeting of the public-safety commission, so we weren’t able to introduce him to our houseguest that morning. Todd, exhausted from his long drive on Tuesday evening (and doubtless no less groggy than I from too many nightcaps), slept through breakfast and, when he finally did come downstairs to meet us in the kitchen, asked if he could take some coffee in the car with him.

  “Don’t you want to try some kringle first?” asked Neil, referring to the large horseshoe-shaped Danish that Doug had brought. “It’s a specialty up here.”

  “Maybe tomorrow, thanks. I need to get over to the Reece house; my crew may already be there. Besides”—he eyed the pastry and patted his stomach—“need to watch my figure.”

  He looked just fine to me. In fact, fresh from the shower, he looked even better than the night before.

  Even though Todd was last to rise that day, he was first out of the house. Leaving through the back door with his go-cup, he gave a cheery wave, telling us, “See you there!”

  “Okay, Todd,” said Neil, “we won’t be long. Sorry—I’d wanted to introduce you to Gillian.”

  Todd rolled his eyes. “I’m sure I’ll find her.” And he was gone.

  Both Neil and I planned to join him at the Reece house, Neil because he was on the job and needed to oversee the completion of various projects, and I because I was curious. Lying in bed after our long conversation with Todd the previous night, Neil had told me, “Don’t spread this around, but the curtains for Gillian’s living room alone cost nearly fifty thousand dollars.” This I had to see.

  Though we were all headed to the Reeces’, each drove his own car, as Todd and Neil had unpredictable schedules, and I didn’t plan to stay long, needing to spend the rest of the morning at my office. After sprucing up the kitchen, Neil and I left the house. I followed him to the outskirts of town, to the magnificent ne
w home that had been written up in that morning’s paper.

  Perhaps because of the publicity, there seemed to be more traffic than usual in the secluded, woodsy neighborhood where the Reeces would soon reign as homeowners nonpareil. As publisher of the local paper, I liked to think that our modest daily journal held that sort of power, though in truth, the extra vehicles might simply have signaled an intensified rush to finish the job.

  Neil and I cruised along a line of parked cars and trucks that included Gillian’s conspicuous Bentley, Todd’s sleek Mercedes, and a large van with Illinois plates. Elegant gold lettering on the side of the truck trumpeted DRAPER STUDIOS. Neil parked in front of the truck, and I pulled in beyond Neil.

  Getting out of our cars, we noted that the back doors of the truck were wide open. Inside were several large corrugated cartons, marked REECE. It was apparent from their arrangement that these were merely the last of the boxes; many others had already been unloaded. At the moment, none of the Draper’s crew were present at the curb, though we saw two men with a dolly carting a similar corrugated box into the house through the garage.

  “Let’s find Todd,” said Neil, leading me along the sidewalk toward the front door. A landscaping crew was trimming rolls of sod to fit the front lawn like a moist, loamy carpet. Precise rows of boxwood, not present yesterday, now lined both sides of the stone walkway. Workers ducked in and out of the house, some of them pausing to take notes as they gabbed on cell phones.

  As we stepped through the front door, Neil encountered several contractors who immediately nabbed him, asking questions while scribbling on clipboards. The foyer rug had been laid, dampening the previous day’s din. Painters in white overalls were touching up the room’s heavy wooden trim. Cartons from Draper Studios were placed beneath each window; a stack of them stood near the double doors leading to the living room.

  Above it all, drifting through the house at random intervals, was the warble and chime of cell phones, sounding like birds in an electronic aviary, one of which kept attempting an anemic rendition of the William Tell Overture (specifically, a measure or two of the section cribbed by The Lone Ranger). Who, I wondered, could possibly be addled enough to program a phone with such an insipid ring? Had he no sense of dignity, self-respect, or at the very least, shame?