I look down at myself. My tie is gone, but I’m still wearing my blue suit with the red rose Lloyd pinned on the lapel.
“Needed some time to yourself, eh?” Martin asks.
“I suppose I did. Just some quiet time to reflect.” I turn around and give him a smile. “And then when I found myself passing your place, I thought…why not?”
“Why not indeed?” Martin returns my smile. I see he has dimples in his cheeks, something I’d never noticed before. “Sit down, Henry,” he tells me. “Make yourself comfortable. The coffee will be ready in a minute.”
I take a seat on his sofa. Peggy jumps up with me, eager for more face time. I oblige, rubbing noses. She immediately settles down into my lap, almost like a cat.
The sofa squeaks and smells a bit musty. My hunch is that the apartment came furnished, though the many boxes stacked around the place bearing Pittsburgh postmarks suggest Martin is making it his own. Box by box, he’s begun putting his books and CDs on the shelves, and on his walls he’s hung photographs of himself with friends.
I turn my eyes to watch Martin as he goes about making the coffee. Unshaven, he’s the very image of a carpenter, of a man who makes his living with his hands. His shoulders are strong and wide, his forearms thick and hairy. His jeans are scuffed, with a hole in one knee, encasing strong thighs.
He seems to feel me looking at him, and lifts his eyes to meet mine. “The wedding was nice, you say?”
I smile. “It couldn’t have been better. It was far more affirming than I could possibly have ever imagined. I just feel so happy—so really happy—for my friends.”
Martin looks at me through slightly hooded eyes. “No envy at all? No wistful wishing that you were in their place?”
I consider the question. “No envy,” I tell him. “But yes, maybe some wistfulness.”
“Wistfulness isn’t bad,” Martin says. “It’s actually quite a lovely emotion.” He smiles at me. “And only lovely people are ever wistful.”
I laugh. “It helps that I’ve concluded I’m not yet ready for a relationship. I’ve realized I’ve got to devote more time to Henry before I can consider someone else in my life.” I look out at the harbor again, the light fading rapidly. “It’s quite the liberating idea. Takes the pressure off. Gets rid of the longing.”
Martin nods. Behind us I can smell the coffee brewing. “I know the feeling,” he tells me as he opens a cabinet looking for cups. “Being here by myself has been a wonderful, eye-opening experience. I’d forgotten things that I used to like to do, like cook for myself.”
“I thought you said you couldn’t cook,” I say over my shoulder.
He laughs. “That’s what I always thought. But I’d forgotten I knew some of the basics—like how to grill a hamburger or flip an omelette.”
He returns with two mugs of steaming coffee. He’s remembered I take mine black; there’s no sugar or cream. I notice his hands as he sets the coffee down in front of me. They’re large, with rough skin and several scars.
“Thank you,” I say.
We let the coffee cool for a moment before drinking. Martin sits opposite me in a chair. “Peggy likes you,” he observes.
I smile. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was Clara.” I stroke her fur. The dog makes a rumble of contentment.
The light is nearly gone now outside the window, but the moon is making itself apparent, a tiny fingernail of white sliced into the violet sky. I decide to give Martin my news.
“So,” I tell him, “you know how the wedding couple traditionally gives their best man a gift?”
Martin nods. “What did you get? Jewelry? A pewter cup?”
“No.” I take in a long breath. “They gave me a partnership in Nirvana.”
“No way! Wow!”
I smile wanly. “I never thought I’d want to be a partner in the guesthouse. But they made the offer. I’m stunned.”
“Will you accept?”
“I think I will,” I say, taking a sip of the coffee. “I’ll finally own the place where I live. My apartment will really be mine.”
“It’s a sign of their high esteem for you,” Martin says.
I laugh. “Yes, absolutely, but it isn’t completely altruistic on their parts. Lloyd and Jeff have decided they want to spend their winters in Palm Springs. They’re buying a house there.”
“Oh, I see.” Martin sits back in his chair, his hands behind his head. “So that means you’ll have to run the guesthouse on your own during the off-season.”
I nod. “Which means I need to make a real commitment to being here.”
“I thought you already had,” Martin says, sitting forward now and snapping on a lamp as the darkness creeps into the room. “You speak of this place with such love.”
I smile. “True. But every once in a while I’ve imagined leaving…going some place where the pool of available men is deeper and wider.” I take another sip of my coffee. Damn, Martin makes a good cup. “But I guess that’s not on the forefront of my agenda anymore.”
“Well,” Martin says, “I’m glad you’ll be sticking around.”
“I am, too.” I look over at him. “It will be difficult without Jeff and Lloyd here for the winter. They’re my family. But I think maybe it’s time I learned to spend a few months of the year without them.”
“You mean, learn to stand on your own?”
I nod. “And to expand my family to new people.” I look over at Martin and we exchange a small smile.
“Expanding one’s family is always a good thing,” Martin says. “It keeps the lifeblood alive. It’s why I moved here myself.”
I think about the idea of expanding my family, of making room for new friends and new love. Is that why all these new people have come into my life?
We sit silently for a few minutes. I look over at Martin as I continue to stroke Peggy the Pug.
“So you know about Gale,” Martin says finally.
I’m surprised by his comment. It’s not where I was expecting the conversation to go.
Martin observes my surprise and smiles. “He told me about himself very soon after we met. It’s hard to work beside someone all day and not learn some things about them.” He raises his eyebrows. “He also told me about the conversation he had with you.”
I look at him over the rim of my coffee cup. “He trusted you far more quickly than he did me.”
Martin smiles again. “He was looking at you very differently than he was me, Henry. For you, he had romantic feelings. I, on the other hand, was father confessor.” He sighs. “Of course, that’s how most of the boys see me here in Provincetown.”
“You don’t like the role?” I ask.
“Oh, I don’t mind. But sometimes…well, it would be nice occasionally if someone actually thought of me in a different sort of way.”
I look over at him. In the amber light cast from the lamp, Martin looks softer, not so much the tough-skinned craftsman or the wise older man with all the answers. He looks like a very young man, in fact. How unfair I had been in characterizing him as the older gay uncle I’d always wanted. How limiting are such roles, the narrow viewpoints we persist in seeing each other and ourselves.
“And yet,” I say, trying to understand, “I thought you weren’t looking for a relationship.”
“Not looking is one thing.” Martin smiles. “But it would be nice to think the possibility still existed, someday, out there.”
I don’t say anything. I return my gaze to the window, where the moonlight is now upon the water. In the distance the lighthouse keeps up its steady wail.
“Well,” I finally offer, “Gale isn’t ready for a relationship. You were right about that. I think when we both owned up to that fact about ourselves, we saw the way clear to being friends.”
Martin smiles. “More of that new family you talk about.”
“Hopefully.”
“But I’ll tell you one thing, Henry,” Martin says. “Gale might have a ways to go before being ready f
or a relationship, but it seems to me you’re getting closer all the time.”
“Do you think so?” I ask, looking intently over at him.
“I do.”
We smile at each other. Peggy seems to detect some energy in the room. She raises her head, gives a little yip, and jumps off my lap, scampering over to Martin.
“Who’s my good girl?” he asks, rubbing noses with her as she jumps onto his lap.
I stand, walking around the room, examining Martin’s things. You can learn so much about someone just from looking at his books or his music.
“Hey.” I’m running my finger along Martin’s CDs, stacked neatly on a shelf. “Quite an eclectic collection.”
“Yeah, I love all kinds of music.”
“Everything from disco to rock to—” My finger stops on one particular CD. I smile. “Alice in Chains.”
“The best grunge band, I think, ever,” he tells me.
I look over at him. But before I can say anything else—think anything else—one of the photographs on the wall behind him catches my eye. I approach. It’s Martin, several years younger, but still recognizably him. Handsome, solid, with those amazing blue eyes. He’s posing with another man on the edge of some rocks.
Martin has come up behind me. “That’s Paul and me at the Grand Canyon,” he says.
“But the inscription says…” I look closer. “Paul and Jack.”
Martin smiles. “Yeah. That’s what my really good friends call me. You know, from my last name, Jackman.”
I move my eyes from the picture to his face.
“Your good friends call you…Jack?”
“Yes.” He smiles again. “Would you like to call me that, too, Henry?”
I look up into his eyes.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I’d like to call you Jack.”
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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New York, NY 10022
Copyright © 2007 by William J. Mann
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2006939871
ISBN: 0-7582-3726-X
William J. Mann Page 38
