Monroe laughed and leaned back in the chair, nestling the baby closer to his shoulder.
“So tell me what’s going on in my little brother’s life, Monroe. He couldn’t be stingier lately when it comes to sharing the details with his darling family. We used to be so close when he was living at home, but since he fled to the city, he is like a safe deposit box. We need to mine for precious details every chance we get. And now you are here. B-I-N-G-O! So dish the dirt please. You’ve got my undivided attention.”
Monroe glanced at Liam helplessly.
“Ooooh, there must be some interesting gossip to spread around if you’re looking to him for clearance!”
“Monroe.” Liam stood and picked up the baby and rocked her in his arms. “Don’t let the wicked Walker sense of humor derail you. My sister is just trying to goad you for fun. Is life so dull here in the sticks that you’re resorting to these games, sis?”
Rachel raised her eyebrow and took back another gulp from Monroe’s bottle.
“Here you go, Rachel.” Monroe handed Rachel a fresh wine cooler from the ice chest. “I don’t want you to have to suffer through my backwash.”
“You’ve landed yourself quite the catch here, Liam.” Rachel eyed her brother as she finished the statement.
“I didn’t land anything, Rach,” Liam sniped back. “We’re friends.”
“Sor—ry! You see, he leaves a girl to draw her own conclusions, Monroe—being so mysterious and all.”
“Oh, shut up already, Rachel! There isn’t anything to tell. Sad but true.”
“I doubt that, a strapping buck like you living in the big city. Right, Monroe?”
“Sorry not to have any good dirt on him, Rachel. All his time has been spent with the running club these past few months.”
“Running club?”
“You know, Fast Trackers—the famous lesbian and gay running club.”
“I had no idea! Is that how you’re staying so lean and mean, Liam?”
Liam turned bright red and swiftly slugged the rest of his beer.
“Why, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, little brother. I should join you guys to help shed some of this baby lard. Do you guys accept straight people?”
“Monroe, we should get some more food while it’s still hot. Rachel, I am sure you have to make the rounds. You’ve given us more than enough of your time.”
Rachel collected her little girl and moved along to the next table. Liam skipped the buffet table and went for another bottle of lager, his third within the hour. He knew that drinking on an empty stomach would make the alcohol hit his system harder and faster, which he felt would be essential over the next two hours at the party. All he wanted was to numb himself to the experience.
Monroe flitted around from table to table as though he were a long-lost member of the Walker clan while Liam talked to his parents about the status of his job at Entertainment Weekly. They still had not wrapped their brains around the fact that he could be well respected among the top editors and on an upward career trajectory in journalism while only earning $37,500 a year. The discussions—and today’s would prove no exception—invariably led to them slipping him a hundred dollar bill, which he pocketed guiltily.
After Monroe finished his second piece of yellow cake with chocolate frosting, Liam told his friend that they would need to grab a ride over to the bus stop to make the five o’clock back to Manhattan. The family insisted on some quick snapshots in various combinations around Elyse before Patrick drove Liam and Monroe over to the bus kiosk on Main Street. The fog of inebriation helped shield Liam from the babble of the car ride. To his credit, Patrick tried to further convince Monroe and Liam of the merits of suburban life. Maybe they could even go in together on a down payment? True to form, Patrick answered any suggestion that he put forth, so Liam just let his head rest against the cold glass of the front passenger window.
The bus was directly behind them as Patrick pulled onto Main Street so their good-byes were very rushed. Patrick said something about hoping to make it into the city soon, perhaps for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and Liam patted his brother on the shoulder as he climbed out of the front seat and motioned for the bus to wait.
“Your family was very gracious, Liam,” Monroe shared as they found a seat together near the back of the bus. Liam looked out the window and noticed the magenta of the winter sunset through a long procession of split-level homes. He could already sense the days getting longer and felt hopeful about the spring.
“Are we not speaking to each other on this bus ride home, Liam? Please let me know now, and I’ll recline this seat and nap.”
“Family time always exhausts me. Thanks for coming.”
“They clearly love and adore you. But you must know all that.”
Liam turned toward Monroe to gauge the seriousness with which his friend offered this observation. There did not appear to be any irony in Monroe’s tone or expression.
“Of course, I know my family loves me. They just don’t have the ability to understand me. They don’t have the capacity to listen.”
“You don’t know how lucky you have it, my friend.” Monroe appeared to be on the verge of tears. “They stretch themselves as far as they can to try to reach inside your world. Take your sister Evelyn. She may not be well versed in beer and wine, but she went out of her way to think about what we might want to drink. And you certainly didn’t have any problems drinking it. I’ll take you home to a Fields’ family gathering sometime if you want to see dysfunction and disinterest on parade.”
“I wasn’t trying to have a pity party for myself, Monroe. Do you really need to make me feel privileged? I do the best I can.”
“Forget I said anything.” Monroe rested his head on Liam’s shoulder. “I appreciate your letting me get a little closer.”
Before he had an opportunity to respond, Liam heard the soft tone of Monroe snoring lightly beside him.
The bus flew along through the back roads of the country and before Liam knew it, the skyline of Manhattan popped up across the icy expanse of the Hudson River. Liam took in the long, lean view of the city, which for his whole suburban childhood had lured him with the promise of something unattainable. As a teenager, Liam had sought out the vibe and the energy of the city to jolt him out of his ho-hum existence. The verticality of the city, the lights of the buildings, it all held such allure and was all so tantalizingly near. But as a kid in the suburbs, Liam knew the fifteen miles to the city may as well have been 1,500. It was all too distant and impenetrable. Now Liam watched the lights glitter in the black water and wished the city would not go by so fast. But in just a few minutes they would be through the Lincoln Tunnel and into the thick of Manhattan. Liam thought about how heartbreaking it must be for the residents in these Fort Lee high-rises to look at that lovely sight every night and then have to face their New Jersey lives.
Monroe awoke as the bus turned down the ramp into the tunnel.
“Hey, it’s only six o’clock,” Liam said. “Let’s head down to Chelsea for some cocktails to eke all we can out of the weekend.”
“I’m too old to start my workweek with a hangover, young fella.”
“C’mon,” Liam insisted. “Just one more—it will be my treat. You have to give a guy the chance to pay you back.”
MILE 8
Liam hadn’t been to the Upper East Side since his first year out of college, when he roomed with a high school friend in one of the nondescript high-rises on First Avenue that functioned as a dormitory for recent graduates. After coming out, he despised the expensive cab rides to the hot gay bars downtown and cajoled his way into a teeny railroad apartment in a sixth-floor walk-up on Grove Street. This gorgeous stretch of town houses at the western edge of the Village provided Liam with a literary oasis. By living the life of an artist in a little room by himself, Liam felt removed from the commerce and the pace of the city. But now here he was again at the Eighty-sixth Street subway terminal, looking up at the big box stores of Le
xington Avenue. Only today he was headed toward, not away from, the park.
Liam had heard of the specific building address before. His parents were Kennedy family devotees, and his mother, in particular, was enamored of Jackie O. (She transformed the White House. We did our Christmas tree in the tasteful gingerbread and white lights the First Lady brought to vogue.) Yes, Liam thought, his mother’s eyes would fill with longing to think of her son walking into 1040 Fifth Avenue, the building in which the former First Lady had spent her final years.
As he turned onto Fifth Avenue, Liam marveled at how he could not see another pedestrian for the entire stretch of road downtown from Eighty-sixth Street. It was as though the top-hat men standing guard outside the limestone buildings had scared away any potential passersby. The façades of most of the regal, old apartment buildings were dark, with only a few lamplights spotting a window here and there. The canopy of 1040 flapped suggestively in the wind.
Having forgotten Gary’s last name as soon as the attendant opened the heavy glass door, Liam mumbled the embarrassing sobriquet “G-Lo,” before quickly correcting himself and asking for Gary.
“I know.” The doorman smiled dismissively. “He’s the only one in the building right now. And he’s expecting guests so please go right up. It’s the penthouse.”
A small paisley settee graced the dark wood cabin of the elevator. Liam wondered if anyone ever sat on it during the thirty or forty seconds it would take to reach their apartment. The heavy formality of the space made him feel claustrophobic, and sweat began to bead along his forehead. How on earth would he explain the sequins of perspiration on an evening at the end of January? Just then as his heart raced, the doors of the elevator opened into a vestibule with a little square rug on the floor, a thick brass mirror with fish-eye convexity in the middle of the wall, and a porcelain column overstuffed with umbrellas in the corner. A chandelier of frosted glass hung overhead, casting just enough ambient light to bestow a level of adult seriousness on the small waiting area. Two doors presented themselves, one to Liam’s right and one to his left. No number or name adorned either entrance. More sweat trickled down his temples. After knocking unsuccessfully on both doors, Liam decided to be bold and simply open the one on his left.
“Hello! It’s Liam. Gary, are you home?” Liam tried to scream but he had never mastered the ability to raise his voice above conversational tone.
Liam could hear the distant garble of heated discussion as he stood in a long hallway with a procession of doors to his right. He turned around and noticed another set of doorways behind him. Walking slowly, he saw the noble expanse of Central Park through each room that he walked by. The voices grew louder as Liam turned and saw all the Fast Trackers—five assembled so far—gathered in a library wallpapered in the rose and silver stripe of expensive gift wrap. The room was a square on the corner of the building, with one window looking out across the blackness of the reservoir and the skein of naked trees toward the shiny spires and towers of Central Park West and the other affording a long view of the glass and concrete of midtown Manhattan. The room was easily twice the size of Liam’s apartment.
“Sit, sit, sit,” Gary pleaded, putting his whiskey glass down on the ledge between the two armchairs in the corner of the room. “I didn’t even hear Harold ring from downstairs. I had no idea you had arrived.”
“You really need to prepare people for this, Gary. With a nickname like G-Lo, I fully expected you would work in an inner-city high school or for the Department of Sanitation or … well, anything other than a titan of industry.”
“Please.” Ben stood up from a curious ottoman of tan and white pony skin that completely clashed with the Louis XV motif of the overstylized room. “G-Lo, a titan? I’ve heard him called a lot of things before, but never a titan. A titan of trash talk, maybe. Is that what you had in mind?”
Ben shot a penetrating glance at Liam as he spoke, and Liam gazed out the window again to avoid his scrutiny. There had only been two unreturned voice mails in the past few weeks, but Liam knew that Ben was smart enough to read the writing on the wall. In moments like this, Liam wished he was a bigger person, the type of guy who broke awkward silences with truthful confessions, a man who would risk being hated to embrace the opportunity to be honest, someone who would simply return a phone call from someone he had just slept with.
As soon as they had had sex, Liam knew that he would disappoint Ben. Every time the thought of Ben popped into his head, Liam knocked the images further down the recesses of his mind. On paper, Liam could only come up with positives—Ben had a sharp wit, was well educated, held down a stable job, owned a lovely home, and treated Liam as though he were the sun, moon, and every brightest constellation in his solar system. Maybe that was the problem. Liam had gotten so accustomed to the chase, to the games of decoys and deception. Lately, he could only truly feel that he desired someone else if they withdrew their affection or suddenly became unavailable, unattainable. Or maybe New York City had made him jaded—lulling him into the belief that there would always be some shinier object just around the corner, waiting for him like a quarter on the sidewalk. Liam did not want to string Ben along if he knew that, in the end, he would only discard him for some hotter asshole who would likely treat him badly and cause a whole cycle of overindulgent self-analysis, guilt, and despair. For now Liam would simply have to suffer Ben’s accusatory stares.
But strangely, Ben’s posture and body language did not exude the self-consciousness of someone who had been ignored and disregarded. In fact, as he stood in the magnificent sitting room, Ben spoke with the bravado of one trying to hold court. Liam couldn’t help but think that each pair of eyes in the room was sizing him up and imagining him having sex with Ben. If he had felt scorned or jilted, would Ben have possibly told someone? He had explicitly promised not to, but then again, how much could that promise be worth now? The paranoia caused Liam’s stomach to clench.
“Here, sit in this armchair, love.” Gary took Liam by the shoulders and placed him into the chair. “Now, don’t you listen to that bitter bottom, Liam. Ben’s talking nonsense. We’re not going to bore you with stories of me tonight. Let me get you a whiskey. Everyone is drinking from this bottle that I got in Scotland over the holidays.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, G.” Ben stood with his hands apart, ready to dole out the details of wealth accumulation that Gary seemed determined to shelve.
“Gary has an agenda for the evening, Ben. All this nonsense isn’t on it. You’re old enough to know that money talk is gauche and uncomfortable.” Zane spoke definitively so that Ben would not feel emboldened to challenge him. Gary paced back and forth with his back to the group.
Ben turned his head away from Zane and rolled his eyes. The situation had deflated Gary of his youthful buoyancy, and he looked hard and tired when he turned back around. He walked over and picked up his drink, holding it at eye level for a minute and turning it into the light the way that a young fiancé might inspect a diamond, straining his vision to find a flaw.
“You’d think it would look different at $400 a bottle,” he said cryptically. “But it’s all the same. Just a higher price tag.”
“Good job, Ben. You’ve really livened up this party. Are you trying to push Gary to the brink here?” Zane straightened up in his seat as he commandeered the room in an effort to set matters right. “Now, Gary, how many more are we expecting? I hope we’re having at least twelve members tonight?”
“Ten aside from myself. It’s just Ferdinand, Mitch, Marvin, Riser, and Matthew who are still to arrive. We should give everyone a few minutes, though. People inevitably think this address is closer to the subway than it actually is.”
“Do you have anything to eat other than these nuts, G?” Gene winced as he fingered the mix of filberts and cashews.
“Gene, this isn’t a dinner party. It’s nine o’clock. Didn’t you eat before you came?”
“But, G! Come on, G-Lo, you always have the yummiest of y
ummies here. Maybe just some goat cheese and crackers?”
Reluctant footsteps once again tested the hallway outside, and Gary threw his hands up in the air, exclaiming the worthlessness of the fancy building’s doormen.
“It doesn’t matter if you pay $10,000 a month in maintenance or $500. Just like the fucking whiskey, it’s the same damn thing.”
The last five guests to arrive now creaked in concert, walking toward the library as though they might trip some elaborate alarm system. The men were definitely familiar from the Armory and each one looked distinct from the others, but Liam would have had to blindly guess at their names.
Given the intimate size of the gathering, Liam did not imagine a roll call would be in the cards, so he made the bold move of announcing his embarrassment at not knowing everyone’s name and requesting a round of introductions. Even as he heard the names, Liam realized that he was failing to put them all into his permanent memory. He could not focus. The names just floated out of mouths interchangeably. He knew the main cast of characters—Gary’s bitchy style was inimitable; he had had sex with Ben; Gene had creepily hit on him; Zane had been solicitous but friendly; and Marvin had those beautiful calves and oversized feet. It would take some effort to place the others in context. For the time being, Liam decided to refrain from using first names in addressing anyone. Eye contact would have to do.
After pouring the new arrivals each a whiskey on the rocks, Gary topped off everyone else’s glasses and then declared that it was time to get down to business—before the party, or at least before he got blotto. Gary assigned everyone a proper seat, but Liam decided to abandon his armchair for the perch of the windowsill overlooking midtown Manhattan. It looked like winter outside even though the holiday decorations had long left all the buildings in the city and there was no snow or ice on the ground. The light just looked different. The air had created a frosty halo around the buildings as though its glow could keep the tall structures warm.
The Miles Page 7
