He thought, as Roman walked out the door with his backpack hanging by one strap, of calling after him to ask if he had a spare futon. But that was just sad. He couldn’t handle his intern looking at him with pity.
He tried calling home two more times, and no one picked up. Maybe Teresa had taken Charlie to the doctor, or maybe he was lying in bed listening to the phone ring.
Time passed strangely. Five minutes spent staring at his empty bookshelves took around five years of psychic time, while the twenty minutes he spent talking to Donna the docent out in the gallery flew by too fast, and then he was at his desk again, staring at infinity.
Richard poked his head in after he’d finished. He grinned and whispered: “He doesn’t remember me.”
“Who?”
“That old queen. Your boss. He used to skulk around the Snake Pit, eight, ten years ago. Just sat there at the bar watching everyone.”
“Are you serious?” Yale was simultaneously entertained by this and aware of—grateful for—the distraction. Which is to say, he wasn’t fully distracted. “Why would he remember you?”
Richard cocked a shoulder, batted his eyes. “Ten years ago, I was the belle of the ball!”
Yale waved him further into his office and whispered. “Listen, is there any chance I could crash at your house tonight? Charlie’s mother’s in town, and she snores.”
“Well, I have a date. We’ll be making a lot more noise than Charlie’s mother.”
Yale laughed, as if he’d only asked on a lark.
Richard said, “Are you alright? You look like hell.”
He tried to make a humorous face. “She’s a very loud snorer.”
* * *
—
The sun was setting and Bill had gone home. Yale pulled out both his scotch bottle and the Yellow Pages. There were hotels right near campus. He had about eight hundred dollars in his checking account. A hotel would eat that up quickly, but he couldn’t think about it right now.
Someone rapped on his door, and he remembered Cecily, that certainly she’d be coming today to light into him. Didn’t she always save him for the end of the day? This was the thing he’d been dreading most two days ago. And now, it was nothing.
He said, “Come in,” and he pulled two coffee mugs down from his bookshelf, and without even looking at her, he poured scotch into both.
She stared for a long time at the mug he held out to her, and then she took it and sat down. She looked more drained than furious, and he felt, suddenly, terrible for her. He’d originally planned to call her in the morning, or better yet to send a memo over, some kind of apology or heads-up or both, but whatever his plans had been yesterday, they were dust under the freight train now. Cecily wore a yellow pantsuit that washed her out. Her hair had gone limp.
She said, “I suppose you know what I’ve been doing all day.”
“How’s Chuck?”
“Furious. Yale, it’s not the money. Maybe your art is really worth two million dollars, but the point is, there’s fallout for me. He’s got the new president’s ear, and he’s giving me a list of all the trustees he’s going to complain to. They won’t pull their bequests or anything, but it makes things very bad for me, for my job.”
He said, “I really am sorry it turned out this way.”
“I thought we were friends.”
Yale could think of nothing to say, and so he held out his own cup to click against hers. He assumed his face was ravaged enough that she couldn’t mistake this for celebration. She sipped her scotch and sank back.
“Plus I’m sorry,” she said, “but most of the trustees, they don’t care about the art. They can’t build a new fitness center with art. They can’t give scholarships with art.”
Yale said, “The media will be all over this. Tell them we just made this gallery. In five years, they won’t care.”
He felt dizzy, glad to be sitting. Food. He’d forgotten food again.
“Am I correct,” Cecily said, and now she sounded sharper, less self-pitying, “in my understanding that you still don’t even know if these pieces are authentic?”
Yale put his forehead on his desk, softly, because it was the only place his forehead could go. He said, “If they’re not real, I’m the one who’s getting fired, not you. Not Bill. If they’re mad right now, just tell them to fire me. Blame it on me.”
“Are you being passive-aggressive? What is this?”
“I’ll quit if I have to, alright? I’ll sign a thing. I’ll tell them.”
She said, “You don’t seem okay, Yale.”
“I’m about to pass out, Cecily. And I don’t care about my job anymore. I want to go to sleep now. Can you leave?”
There was a long pause and then she said, “No.”
Later, he didn’t quite remember them leaving his office, but he must have explained that yes, he meant that he wanted to sleep in his office, and no, he couldn’t go home. He remembered walking down Davis Street, an arm around Cecily for support. She was telling him about her couch—that it pulled out but might be more comfortable folded.
The cold air had revived him enough by then that he was able to wonder if this was a terrible idea, if she’d again offer him cocaine and rub his thigh. But she was saying something about her son, how he’d already be home. The Door County behavior must have been the freak-out of a stressed single mother with the rare chance to misbehave. And if she hadn’t gotten the message that he really was gay when he sat outside the Howard Brown party snotting up Fiona’s shoulder, something was wrong with her.
She said, “Your feet must be freezing. Don’t you have boots?”
“These were my lucky Door County shoes. They worked at first. My luck has turned.”
He was glad Cecily didn’t press for details. Maybe she’d gotten the impression he was prone to tears and didn’t want him melting down. She said, “How do you feel about Chinese?”
His stomach responded before his head could, a tidal wave of hunger. He said, “It’s on me. For putting you out.”
Cecily lived on the second floor, in a two-bedroom place with a living room half the size of Yale’s office. Her son, Kurt (“He’s a latchkey kid,” she’d said on the walk), was sprawled on the couch when they arrived, homework spread on the coffee table. He looked straight through Yale—maybe Cecily brought a lot of men home—and said, “Mom, I finished my math for the whole weekend, can I watch Miami Vice?”
“This is Yale,” she said. “He works with me.”
“But can I? I’ll go to bed at nine.”
“We have a guest,” she said.
Yale said, “I don’t mind. I like that show.”
So after they ate—Yale scarfed down helping after helping of mu shu and lo mein, glad he’d paid for it—and after Yale had mindlessly asked Kurt about his classes and sports and friends, they sat and watched Don Johnson and his five o’clock shadow chase a smuggler around an eerily blue swimming pool. Kurt cheered as if it were a live sports match. This was how Yale needed to spend his days, if the next three months were going to pass with any speed. He needed to watch TV and go to movies, mindless entertainment that would keep coming at him. No neurons left for hating Charlie, missing Charlie, obsessing over his own health.
After Kurt went to bed, Yale pulled out the scotch again and Cecily brought two glasses from the kitchen, little red ones with white silhouettes of Greek athletes around the sides. He told her, in detail, what had happened. Because he needed to tell someone, and because she wasn’t part of Charlie’s circle, and because, maybe, it was an offering of sorts. Having ruined Cecily’s life, he could at least lay his own ruined life on the table in front of her.
She sat there nodding, nicely horrified at the worst parts. She was a good person. She showed no sign that she was thinking anymore about her own job, her anger, her terrible day. He was developing a theory about Cec
ily: The hardness of her outer shell was only to protect a very soft core.
Yale said, “I can leave, if you want.”
“Why would I want that?”
“I mean, you have a kid and everything. If I’ve been exposed to— You know.”
Cecily looked affronted. “I don’t imagine you’re going to have sex with my son.” Then, quickly, “That was a joke!”
“I know.”
“I don’t see how else it could be a problem. I’m fairly educated on the matter. I’m not worried about you sharing the orange juice.”
Yale said, “Thank you. I can’t believe you’re being this good to me.”
“Look, I know how I can come off. To get by in my job, as a woman, I have to be a certain way. But I genuinely like you.” She refilled his scotch, and he was glad.
He said, “It’s been a long time since I had a day that just cuts your life in two. Like, this hangnail on my thumb, I had it yesterday. It’s the same hangnail, and I’m a completely different person.”
The scotch was helping him talk. He wasn’t sure why he trusted Cecily, but he did. They’d done nothing but embarrass themselves in front of each other. Well, wasn’t that how fraternities made kids bond? If they puked enough beer on each other, they were tethered for life.
Cecily said, “I’ve had days like that. Nothing this bad, but before-and-after days.” Yale didn’t know what path Cecily’s divorce had taken, but he imagined it was true. “A change of scene is probably good. You’re not around everything that reminds you. You know, if he’d walked out—”
“Right.”
“Then you’re left with all his things.”
Charlie was the one surrounded by Yale’s things. Charlie was sitting on the bed they’d shared, and beside him was Yale’s pillow, and in the closet were Yale’s clothes. But Yale didn’t feel pity, just gratification. Let him be miserable. Let him hate himself as he publishes hypocritical articles about condom distribution. He couldn’t quite get to Let him be sick. Of course he didn’t want that. Maybe he wanted Charlie to suffer before the doctors came back and said it was a false positive. He wanted him to worry for six months until the researchers suddenly announced a cure.
He said to Cecily, “This disease has magnified all our mistakes. Some stupid thing you did when you were nineteen, the one time you weren’t careful. And it turns out that was the most important day of your life. Like, Charlie and I could get past it, if he’d just cheated. I’d probably never find out. Or we’d fight and make up. But instead, an atom bomb went off. There’s no undoing it.”
She said, quietly, “Doesn’t he need you? I mean, when he gets sick, don’t you think that might change things?”
“I could get sick before he does. This thing doesn’t follow a predictable timeline. And if I do, I don’t know that he’s the one I want holding my hand.”
“Fair enough.”
It was something he hadn’t known for sure until he said it aloud.
Cecily said, “You can stay as long as you need. A few days, a few weeks. Kurt could use a male figure around. Lord knows his father isn’t much of one.”
* * *
—
Before bed, he called home. The first five times, there was no answer. The sixth, Teresa picked up. She said, “I’m sure you have much to say, Yale, but unless you’re calling to smooth things over, this isn’t the day.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it is.” But he was slurring his words.
“Today was hard enough already, and he’s asleep.”
He worried that if he waited, his anger wouldn’t be at its peak. He needed to yell at Charlie now, not when he’d calmed down, had time to think. Except he wasn’t calming down. Every few minutes, it would hit him fresh. Every few minutes, his blood pressure rose.
* * *
—
The next day, Saturday, Yale went to the movies. He saw Spies Like Us and Out of Africa, but they weren’t as distracting as he’d hoped. He was more absorbed with the people around him, the couples and teenagers and solo film buffs having perfectly normal days. He’d had thousands of normal days himself. It seemed such an alien concept now, to have a normal day. To walk around oblivious, just participating in the world. It seemed unreasonable for anyone to be allowed a normal day.
That night he played Battleship with Kurt and insisted on doing the dishes. As he scrubbed, Cecily said, “Do you want me to call my friend Andrew? He and his boyfriend were the ones I went to the Howard Brown thing with. He lost a lover, and he’s a counselor now.”
“Thanks. I’m not ready.” Yale could think of two Andrews, and wondered if this was one of them. Hadn’t Andrew Parr lost someone? The out population of Chicago had always been small enough as it was, and now they’d lost more than a hundred men. And who knew how many they’d lose this year. Soon there would only be one gay Andrew left in the whole city. No last names needed. Even now, the odds that Cecily’s Andrew knew Charlie were high.
Yale said, “I can’t get my thoughts straight. I feel like—like my head is full of oil and vinegar, and someone’s shaken it all up.”
Kurt, painting a model airplane at the table, said, “Your head is salad dressing.”
“Sure.”
“Salad head.”
2015
Fiona met Arnaud outside the Saint-Paul Métro. He had the key to the building’s front door already, and right around now, he hoped, the landlady would be unlocking Kurt’s apartment. She’d call Arnaud to let him know it was done.
He checked his messages. “Nothing yet, but we have to walk anyway.” Fiona had imagined them breaking into Kurt’s in the middle of the night, or at least in the dark, but that made no sense. They had to do it when he and his wife were at work. And she had assumed this landlady would want to be present, to make sure they weren’t stealing anything, but no—it was more important that she wasn’t around to be implicated.
Fiona looked at every face they passed, and it wasn’t, this time, to find Claire—it was to check for Kurt, make sure she didn’t have to duck behind Arnaud, pull her hair across her face.
“You need to calm down,” Arnaud said.
“Ha. Well. I’ll try.”
The neighborhood was relatively swank at first, but slowly, as they walked, the streets—which were indeed full of both falafel places and rainbow flags—grew dingier. This side street in particular had what looked like either a sex club or peep show. She couldn’t quite decipher the signs, but that was the gist. Arnaud stopped at a newsstand and bought Le Monde. He said, “It’s around the corner. While we wait I’ll buy you a whiskey.”
“It’s not even two o’clock!”
“You need a whiskey to calm you down.”
“It’s one fifty-four!” she said, but she followed him. Her painkiller was wearing off, and she was fighting this cold, and wasn’t whiskey basically medicine? They found a café that was really more of a bar.
Arnaud sat Fiona with a whiskey at a tiny round table in the corner. He read his paper and drank a beer, the foam sticking to his lip.
This wasn’t the worst thing. She’d be less likely, now, to jump if the floorboards creaked, to shriek if she saw a spider. She held the glass with her left hand, kept her bandaged right hand in her lap. She still couldn’t uncurl her fingers without sending white-hot pain up her arm.
She was the one facing the windows, and she watched the sidewalk the whole time.
At the only other occupied table, a couple argued quietly in French over their espressos. The man looked a good deal older than the woman, although what French woman between fifteen and fifty didn’t look twenty-six? This is how she and Damian must first have appeared to the outside world: the young student and her professor, the fifteen-year gap just small enough that no one took them for father and daughter. And how could they, the way she used to hang on him? They’d been eating once on
the top floor of the Edgewater Hotel in Madison, a place with windows looking out over Lake Mendota. Bobbing docks and angry gulls. When Damian got up for the restroom, a white-haired man approached the table and in a thick, slobbery accent said, “You are the mistress, no?” Fiona had the presence of mind not to engage, not even to deny this; she just signaled the waiter, who came right over, and the man left. But she’d laughed about it with Damian for weeks. When she answered the phone he’d say, “You are the mistress, no?” She wasn’t. Damian had never been married, never even planned to get married until suddenly, that next fall, Fiona found herself pregnant. It was the start of her fourth year at Wisconsin, and she was twenty-seven.
She said to Arnaud, “Can you just call the landlady?”
“I tell you what, I’ll call in ten minutes. But we’ll hear before then.”
She appreciated his confidence as much as she resented it.
The couple at the other table, she realized, had switched to English. Odd, because they didn’t speak it well.
“I pay for the flat,” the man was saying. “I pay, and this is how you do!” He glanced at Fiona and she pretended to read the front of Arnaud’s newspaper, just inches from her face. She imagined the man assumed they were French—Le Monde probably helped—and thought English would be the safer language for communicating his anger.
The woman said, “What I’m supposed to spend my day? I should sit there?” She looked frustrated, but defiant too. Was she a kept woman? Something worse?
“Yes,” he said, “you sit, you read a book, I don’t care. You watch a film.” He had wild, thick eyebrows. He was furious.
Arnaud had gone still, moved his paper to the side to get a better look.
Fiona wanted to write the woman a note (“Leave him now!”) but there was no way to get it to her without the man noticing. Had someone seen Claire and Kurt like this in Boulder and done nothing? Had anyone seen Claire and the other Hosanna women walking together on a rare trip to town, arms covered, faces down? Did anyone ask if they were alright? If they needed a ride to the airport and three hundred dollars?
The Great Believers Page 24
