“Look, look, look!” Ashley pointed to a small, wilted bird right at their feet. If the glass hadn’t been there, Yale might have walked right over the thing. The girls ran back and forth, trying to get the bird to follow.
Fiona said, “So, the intern. You like him?”
He knew she was trying to start on the least stressful part of what he’d just told her, but the thought of Roman made him feel as nervous as the rest of it.
“Oh God, not really. He’s so young. Not literally, he’s an adult, he’s just young. I’d say it was only sex, but it wasn’t even sex. And even if it were—like, sex is never going to be just sex again.”
Fiona laughed. “Welcome to the club.”
“I don’t mean emotional stuff.”
“Good God, Yale, I don’t either. This is what women have lived with since the dawn of time. Babies can kill you or ruin your life. And all kinds of shit gives you cancer if you’re a woman. A guy, you get some jock itch, they give you a powder. A woman, you get cancer. Or you get something that means you can never conceive, or if you can conceive, your baby goes blind because of something some jackass gave you at senior prom. And it’s not like we can’t get AIDS. It’s not like that’s not an issue. Oh, Yale. What. I’m sorry.”
He realized he had a horrible look on his face. He said, “No, I just—I was thinking how—”
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not clueless, okay? I’m not some asshole who doesn’t get it.”
He knew that was true.
The girls were ready to move on, and Fiona stopped to re-Velcro Ashley’s boots. “It’s a long way to the polar bears,” she said. “Are you sure?”
Brooke said, “Come on, Fiona!” and pulled her by the hand as if she were a disobedient dog.
“You guys run to that garbage can,” Fiona said, “right up there, and we’ll meet you.”
She never took her eyes off the girls, even when she talked to Yale. It must have been exhausting, all that vigilance.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“A few months ago, someone was saying to me how we used to be fun.” His hands were deep in his pockets. “And it’s true, there was this tiny window where we were safer, and happier. I thought it was the beginning of something. When really it was the end. Julian had the same—I used to think Julian was so naive. And I just realized we’re the same.”
“You’re a lot smarter than Julian,” she said.
“He only plays dumb. I don’t know. I keep thinking that maybe they’ll start over, you know? The next generation of baby gays, when we’re all gone. But maybe they won’t, because they’ll be starting from scratch. And they’ll know what happened to us, and Pat Robertson will convince them it was our fault. I was living in the golden age, Fiona, and I didn’t know it. I was walking around six years ago, living my life, working my ass off, and I didn’t know it was the golden age.”
“What would you have done, if you’d known?”
He had no idea. He wouldn’t have run around having more sex. In 1980 he’d been perfectly free to do that, and promiscuity hadn’t appealed to him much. He laughed. “I’d have made up a song about it or something.”
They trekked slowly north, following the girls, and every time they caught up, Fiona would send the girls a few yards farther on, to wait by a bench or a tree.
“You’ll make a great mom,” Yale said.
“Ha! Sure. Maybe that’s my next move.” There was something horribly bitter in her voice. He shouldn’t have brought up family. Nico’s death hadn’t made her any closer to her parents, and now even Terrence was gone. She had these girls, but only until they started school. A husband and a baby—those were the only ways Fiona would ever really have a family again. Not that Yale was better off himself. Who the hell did he have? But there was something so alone about her, her gloved hands tucked into her armpits, the wind batting her hair into her face. He’d felt guilty about calling her, about leaning on her, but maybe it was a good thing. Maybe he was doing her a favor.
Yale had never been up at the north end of the zoo, hadn’t seen the polar bears. You could look into their space from above, but you could also go down below, which is what the four of them did, to peer through the glass into the water. It was dark and warm down there, no wind, and Fiona plucked the hats off the girls’ heads.
“There’s Thor!” Brooke shouted. “That’s Thor!”
“How do you know?” Fiona asked. Another bear was lying on a rock up out of the water.
“He’s the friendly one! He’s the one that always swims!”
The bear in question zoomed past the glass, a furry torpedo.
“I want to say something,” Fiona said. Behind and above the girls, it felt as if they could have a completely private conversation. “I have never liked Charlie.”
Yale burst out laughing at the absurdity of it. Everyone loved Charlie. Everyone told him, constantly, how much they loved Charlie.
She said, “He was really good to Nico, and he does all this great work, and he’s, you know, he’s important. I think he’s one of these people where—he’s just so there, and people respond to that. But I never feel like he’s listening to me. He’s always just waiting to talk again.”
A month ago, Yale would have had to pretend to be deeply hurt by this, even as he recognized the truth. But now he was able to nod. “How do you know that when other people don’t?”
“Maybe they do know. Maybe it’s how everyone feels. He reminds me of one of those girls in junior high, the ones who are so popular just because everyone’s scared of them.”
“You’re saying he’s an eighth-grade girl.”
“I’m saying he’s a bully. I mean—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that. But listen, I never liked the way he treated you. He was always asking weird questions about where I’d seen you, who you were with. It seemed a little controlling.”
“That’s fair.”
“I thought about it, and I wonder if that’s why I told him you were with Teddy, at the memorial. Like, it felt good to finally throw something in his face. But I don’t know. I was drunk. I don’t mean—”
“It’s okay.” He didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t handle being mad at her.
“I hate that he’s wearing Nico’s scarf. I saw him out with it, he was way down the street, and there was this second where I—”
“You saw Nico.”
“Yeah. And if it had been you, someone I wanted to see, that would’ve been different. I want to get it back.”
Thor swam straight up to the glass, pressed his nose and one huge, scraggly paw flat against it, just inches from Brooke and Ashley’s faces. The girls squealed, and Fiona stopped Ashley from beating the glass with her little fist.
“He’s such a ham,” Fiona said. “You’re right, Brooke, that’s definitely Thor.”
“The other one is his wife!” Brooke said.
Yale said, “I didn’t know polar bears could get married. It’s good to hear you say that, about Charlie. I was feeling like the only person in the world who could see through him.”
“Yale.” She turned and put her hands on his biceps, gave him a mock-serious stare that maybe was actually serious after all. “You deserve someone who adores you. Charlie only ever wants an audience.”
“But,” Yale said. “But. What if that’s the last boyfriend I ever get?”
“No way. You’ll outlive Thor here. You’ll outlive the elephants. Don’t elephants live forever? Turtles. You’ll outlive the turtles.”
“Cockatoos live for sixty years!” Brooke chimed in.
“Hey,” Fiona said, “were you eavesdropping?” Although what had they said, really, that a kid would understand?
Yale said, “I won’t be getting a cockatoo.”
“You’ll feel better after the test. I tell you what, after you get your results, I’ll
take you out and buy you a goldfish. One of the big ones that lives for decades and you eventually have to buy it a swimming pool.”
Yale said, “You’re the one who has Roscoe, right?”
Fiona didn’t say anything, just stared at Thor through the glass. She looked strangely frozen.
“Your brother’s cat. Roscoe.”
She jerked her head to stare at him, lips parted.
He said, “What.”
“Holy crap. Holy crap.”
“I mean, Terrence had him, and then—”
“Holy crap.”
“Wouldn’t his family—”
“No. They haven’t set foot. They haven’t— Oh my God. Yale.”
“But the landlord, right? Wouldn’t they have moved his stuff out?”
“People don’t just run in there and get their hands all over someone’s stuff. They wait and get it, like, fumigated. And they might not even know he’s gone. Who even told them he was dead? I didn’t. Teddy was the one who went in there to get his suit, for the—”
The girls were looking up at them now, ignoring the polar bears. Fiona unwound her scarf like it was strangling her.
It was Monday the third. Terrence had died on January 17. More than two weeks. Yale might not have remembered it so precisely if he hadn’t been staring so much at his calendar lately.
Yale said, “Well, let’s—shit, can we go up there? We can go right now. Let’s go.”
They ran back through the zoo, past the animals, past the yellow placards that told their scientific names, the girls crying that they hadn’t even seen the gorillas yet.
Fiona had a key to Terrence’s apartment, but it was back at her place. She had to drop the girls off anyway—their mother was home and knew what Fiona had been going through and wouldn’t mind sparing her for an hour or two. Yale waited on the street while Fiona ran the girls inside. By the time she was back with her keys, he’d flagged down a cab.
“I’ll go in first,” Yale said on the way. “You should wait in the hall.”
“Nope, no, no, no. We’re going in together.” She asked the cabbie if he could rush. He gestured at the red light and muttered in Polish.
Yale admitted to himself, as they finally got out, as they mounted the front steps, as they climbed to the second floor, that this was a welcome distraction. It had been so long since he’d had a clear course of action, an easy decision with an obvious answer. They were going to go up there and find the cat. Or better yet, they wouldn’t find the cat.
Fiona puffed out her cheeks and stuck the key in Terrence’s lock. She stopped suddenly and knocked, put her ear to the wood. Yale held his breath, hoping she’d hear new tenants, a cleaning crew, frantic meowing. But she shook her head, turned the key.
The living room smelled horrible. Yale couldn’t remember if it was the same horrible—medicine, vomit, cat litter, sweat—as two weeks ago, or if it was something new. Terrence’s furniture was still all in place. A neatly folded sheet still lay on the couch where Yale had left it two weeks ago.
Fiona called, “Roscoe!” Quietly, like she was afraid of the answer.
Yale went to the kitchen and checked the litter box, which had indeed been used, but not as much as you’d hope. Roscoe had a double plastic bowl—food on one side, water on the other—and both halves were empty. Yale had refilled it himself the morning he left—intentionally overfilled the food side, a mountain of Meow Mix, enough to last a while. The water was the bigger issue. Yale said, “Roscoe?” He ran the faucet to see if the sound might attract him. He looked behind the garbage can, in the cupboards, beside the refrigerator. Fiona was calling still, moving through the apartment. “The toilet’s open,” she called, and Yale understood she meant the cat had a water source if it was smart enough, if it had good balance.
There were bottles of pills lined up along the kitchen windows. Painkillers, vitamins, more vitamins, old antibiotics. All half full (he shook a few), all useless. He could grab them for Julian maybe. Or himself. A spider plant wilted on the counter in a little blue pot, and Yale held it under the tap, soaked the soil. Why not.
He looked behind the garbage again. In the garbage. Out on the fire escape.
Fiona was in the doorway, her face red and wet.
In her arms she held what looked like a deflated stuffed animal. A fur pelt. Roadkill.
“He’s still breathing,” she said. “I think.”
* * *
—
In the waiting room at the vet, Yale paged through an old Life magazine with a feature on the Mafia. Fiona held a ball of Kleenex in her lap, and although she’d stopped crying she still had the hiccups, and every few minutes she heaved a single sob, leaned forward into the tissues. They’d given Roscoe a kitty IV, and the vet had promised he’d update them soon. He had so clearly considered them a couple, Yale and Fiona. He’d directed every question at both of them, even after Fiona made it clear that Roscoe was her brother’s cat. She’d told a short version of the story, said her brother had died and the cat had been neglected. “You did the right thing,” he said to both of them.
Around them in the waiting room, dogs strained against leashes and the slickness of the tile floor. A cat paced circles in its carrier. Fiona said, “So last week, I went to get a massage. And the woman goes, ‘Were you in a car accident?’” She did a Russian accent for the woman. “And I’m like, ‘No, I’m just really stressed right now.’ So like five minutes later she goes, ‘But maybe a long time ago? A car accident?’ Feel.” She put Yale’s hand on the back of her neck, and he pressed into what he’d already guessed to be muscle as hard as marble.
He said, “That’s not good.”
“And I’m like, I have honestly never even been in a fender bender. And she goes, ‘Yes, but sometimes we forget.’”
Something about her delivery, the Russian baba wisdom of it, cracked Yale up. Or maybe it was the fact that he’d felt like this himself all month, like someone had injected cement into his deltoids and locked him in a meat freezer.
An assistant came out and told them Roscoe was doing well, and they exhaled as if he were their child.
Yale would take the cat, if it survived. Obviously. How could he ask Fiona, of all people, to worry about one more thing? He told her he’d figure it out, and she nodded slowly, already somewhere else, her head framed by an informational poster about feline leukemia. Her skin was dry and tight; she was too thin. He was about to ask if she was taking care of herself, if she was thinking about going back to school next year, if it wasn’t maybe time for a break—but then she looked at him and said, “What if you went to Dr. Cheng?” Dr. Cheng had been Nico’s doctor, and during the couple of weeks last summer when Nico was allowed to be at home, he’d visited every day to check in. He’d shown up once when Yale and Charlie were there, and ordered and paid for a pizza—not for himself or for Nico, who couldn’t hold down food, but for Yale and Charlie, who’d been there all afternoon. “Just to get his advice,” she said. “It’d be better than some helpline. I can call him. He loves me, I don’t know why. I could get you in today. I really could.”
Yale had the instinct to stop her, to tell her she wasn’t allowed to take care of him, too, that she couldn’t do that to herself. If she called Dr. Cheng, was it the start of something? Would she be the one changing his bedpans in the end? But he was already agreeing, because the thought of Dr. Cheng, of his slow voice, was so overwhelmingly comforting.
* * *
—
Fiona called right from the vet reception desk, and when they left an hour later—Roscoe would need to remain on the IV at least overnight—it was to walk to Dr. Cheng’s office on George Street. Yale chastised himself for letting Fiona escort him there, for letting her get further embroiled in everything. She should be home, taking a nap. Eating something. But she must have felt she’d failed Nico today, failed Terrence. She’d c
ried into the cat’s fur the whole way to the vet. Was it so bad to let her do right by him?
Dr. Cheng’s office was in what used to be a house. Incense in the waiting room, a nurse who came around the desk to give Fiona an enormous hug. There was no one else there, thank God, no hollow-eyed stranger sitting like the ghost of Yale’s own future, no acquaintance with whom he’d have to make small talk.
“It’s a day for waiting rooms,” Yale said.
Fiona said, “Better magazines here.” On the coffee table sat a stack of old Esquires. He had forms to fill out, though: family history, medications, surgeries.
He said, “You don’t have to wait.”
“I want to say hi to Dr. Cheng. If I go back home, I have to watch the kids. Trust me, this is vacation.” She must have been lying. She’d probably passed some of the worst moments of her life in the same worn green armchair she was sinking into right now.
Yale said, “I’ll let you stay if you promise something.”
Fiona’s look was a cross between wary and indulgent.
“What are you doing for yourself these days? What’s your plan for next year? You’re twenty-one. You’re smart. Don’t you think that now—don’t you want to go to college?”
“You mean now that Nico’s gone.”
“Well—yeah. And Terrence. Here’s what I don’t want. I don’t want you to adopt me next, and then whoever else gets sick, and then the next guy, and before you know it you’re fifty and you’re living in a ghost town surrounded by all our old clothes and books.”
“I won’t adopt the next person. Just you. Nico loved you, and you were so nice to me when I was a kid. Do you remember when you walked me through the Art Institute?”
“Yeah, you set off the alarm.”
“I’m just saying: We could both use a friend right now.”
“We’re friends, Fiona, I just—”
“Well let’s be best friends. Don’t laugh, I don’t mean like ten-year-olds! I mean like family. Let’s just say we’re family now. Let’s say we call each other when we’re sad. And I’ll get you a birthday present, and everything.”
The Great Believers Page 33
