Object of Desire

by William J. Mann

  The cop just smiled, taking none of the information down. He assured Mom and Dad that it was too early to file a missing person report, that Becky was certain to be home soon, that she was probably just acting like a typical teenager, staying out late and getting her parents all upset. “I’m going to throttle her when she gets home,” Mom kept saying over and over, and I was beginning to understand that she repeated it so often because it allowed her to cling to the belief that Becky was, indeed, coming home.

  For the first time, I wondered where she was.

  Becky and I weren’t exactly friendly. Oh, we had been, as kids, when we’d play house in the backyard with her dolls, or climb the giant maple tree to build a fort out of cardboard. We’d used a green Magic Marker to write BECKY’S AND DANNY’S FORT—DO NOT ENTER on the outside. But ever since she’d started getting breasts and having her period, I’d rarely spoken to her. She was Chipper Paguni’s girlfriend. I was just a kid at St. John’s School.

  Yet it was definitely creepy wondering where she was out there in the night.

  Sitting on my bed, my back against the wall, I clamped on my earphones and listened to my new tape. “Now don’t be sad, ’cause two out of three ain’t bad…”

  Juniors aren’t friends with freshmen.

  “Danny.” Dad had poked his head in through the door. I slipped off my earphones. “Look,” he said, “your mother’s too upset to make supper right now….”

  “It’s okay. I’m not hungry.”

  Dad seemed at a loss for words. “Well, you should eat something…There’s some bologna and cheese in the refrigerator.”

  “I’m really not hungry.”

  He closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again. “Danny, did Becky say anything to you? Do you have any idea where your sister might have gone?”

  Juniors aren’t friends with freshmen.

  “No,” I said.

  “None at all?”

  “No.”

  Dad sighed. “Well, make yourself a sandwich if you want.” I just nodded as my father closed the door.

  Juniors aren’t friends with freshmen.

  I stared out the window into the darkness, where a light now burned from Chipper’s room across the street.

  I didn’t want to think about Chipper’s underpants. I still didn’t know why I’d stolen them. What was I going to do with them? What had I been thinking?

  The night went on. I turned off my boom box, put on my pajamas, switched off the light, and got into bed. I doubted I would sleep much. Downstairs, I heard the clock on the mantel chime nine times. Mom let out a long wail of anger, terror, despair. It was among the worst things I had ever heard in my life.

  I got up to pee. Man, was Becky ever going to be in deep, deep shit when she got home.

  After peeing, I stepped out into the hallway and peered down the stairs into the living room. My father was sitting in a chair, with a cigarette lighter in his hands. He kept flicking it on and off, a little flame popping to life in the darkness. He did this over and over, staring straight ahead, the little flame darting in and out like an animal’s tongue. I couldn’t see my mother, but I could hear her, her voice rising shrilly, then dropping to a whisper, not forming words, just making sounds. Her footsteps came in a steady rhythm—three thumps, then silence; three thumps, then silence—as she paced across the wooden floor.

  I turned, heading back to bed, but paused at my dresser. Pulling open my drawer, I lifted out the stolen underpants, setting them down on my dresser and turning on the light to get a closer look. Clean. Probably taken from the dryer and put on for the first time this morning. But that was still enough time for one tiny pubic hair to have found its way into the fabric of the crotch. I stared at that hair lodged there. I dared not touch it, fearful that it might become loose and disappear into the air. Instead, I gently smoothed out the creases of the soft cotton, finding the material curiously exciting against my fingers. In my pajamas, my cock stiffened. My hands trembled, and my throat felt tight. I didn’t understand the floaty feeling rising from my belly up to my ears. My cheeks burned as I touched the fly of the underwear, knowing that right there, that very morning, Chipper’s boner had grown hard, straining against the cotton, as he and Becky had headed to the pond.

  Danny, do you have any idea where your sister might have gone?

  Why hadn’t I told my father that I’d seen Becky and Chipper at the pond? Because she wasn’t supposed to go there. Because she wasn’t supposed to be doing what she was doing with Chipper. Because Chipper obviously wasn’t telling, and if I did tell, then Chipper wouldn’t be my friend.

  Suddenly all I wanted to do was to lift Chipper’s underpants and press them to my face. But I steeled myself, fighting off the urge, and instead thrust them back into my drawer, hiding them among my own underwear and socks.

  Then I got back into bed. I willed the morning not to come too quickly. Maybe the gods still had time to take pity on me, and I’d wake up to find the high school had burned to the ground, after all.

  But sleep would not come easily. I had to cover my head with my pillow to block out the sound of my mother’s sobs.

  PALM SPRINGS

  The second time I saw him, he was again behind a bar, focused on his work, withholding his eyes from the crowd. For a moment, I could neither speak nor move.

  The night was golden, an appropriate hue for this house of affluence set into the mountains, its moveable glass walls obscuring distinctions between interior and exterior. The soft golden glow came from carefully concealed floor lights and artfully recessed ceiling lamps and a crystal chandelier that hung grandly in the marble foyer. From the terraces came the illumination of torches. Everywhere, the night was gold.

  And as my beautiful bartender moved behind the bar, the light accentuated the goldness of his skin and left me transfixed.

  “Danny?”

  Frank was looking around at me, clearly wondering why I had paused in our walk across the room.

  “Are you coming?”

  “Yes,” I managed to say and, with a soft exhalation, resumed my stroll across Thad Urquhart’s parlor.

  “Danny!” Our host had spotted us and was grabbing my hand with both of his. “Danny Fortunato! And to think I didn’t recognize you the other night.”

  I smiled. Why would he? Who recognized artists? But, then again, I had a name—a name that people were talking about in this town, a name that was supposed to be new and hip and happening, a name that Disney had thought good enough to hire, that Palm Springs Life had placed on its cover—and in Palm Springs, names meant something. Palm Springs needed people with names to prove it was more than just a weekend getaway for Angelenos or a nude resort town for flaming queens. And so the people with pull in Palm Springs put me on their local radio shows and the local cable access station, and started inviting me to their parties. In the city’s gay rag, my face showed up as a “local artist.” The gallery downtown reported people were making inquiries about my prints, even if no one had bought one yet.

  Still, I had a name, however meager, and people with names came to Thad Urquhart’s house.

  People with names—and their spouses.

  “This is my partner,” I said, gesturing to my side. “Frank Wilson.”

  Thad gave Frank a warm, pleasant smile, shook his hand briefly, then immediately returned his eyes to me.

  “Is it true,” he asked in a stagy, conspiratorial whisper, “that Bette Midler has commissioned a piece from you?”

  “I don’t reveal who’s commissioned my work,” I said, with a smile.

  His eyes danced. Of course, he took my reply as confirmation and giggled. Thad looked the same as he had the other night—short, maybe five-five, with immaculately combed white hair, so white and so even, it was obviously dyed and transplanted. His face was pudgy but smooth, laser blasted, I was sure, at regular intervals in the cosmetic surgeon’s chair. He sported a pin-striped, double-breasted charcoal gray blazer and a white shirt without a tie
. His large pocket silk was gold, to match the lighting, no doubt. His small hand sported gold and amethyst rings on three fingers.

  But I liked him. There was something about Thad Urquhart that seemed comical, ironical, as if he knew all of this was merely a show, and for the night, he was the ringmaster—so why the hell not just have a good time?

  Thad was leaning into me, his arm around my shoulder. “Funny,” he said, “for a guy with such an Italian last name, you don’t look very Italian. You’re very fair.”

  “Only my father’s father was Italian,” I explained. “His mother was Irish, and so was my mother. A hundred percent.”

  “But you don’t look Irish, either.” Thad made a face as he studied my features. “Are you sure you weren’t left on your parents’ doorstep, in a basket?”

  We laughed. But the comment touched a nerve somehow.

  Thad took my arm and led me out onto the terrace. Frank followed half a step behind. “Let me get you boys something to drink,” our host said.

  Of course, it was sheer delight to be called boys at our ages, but in Palm Springs, even for Frank, it wasn’t really so far off the mark. Up ahead of us the crowd was mostly gray haired and over sixty, though among the sea of blazers, a handful of buff boys stood out in their tight white T-shirts. And, as always, there were a few stars from the old days—de rigueur for Palm Springs parties, especially gay Palm Springs parties. Not the really big stars, of course—they were mostly all gone now—but people with names who added a little gloss to the festivities, who cast a little glow of nostalgic recognition. In the last few weeks, I’d seen Anne Jeffreys and Howard Keel and Kaye Ballard. Tonight I noticed Ruta Lee in a red boa. And Wesley Eure, the former star of one of my favorite shows when I was a kid, Land of the Lost, as handsome at fifty as he’d been at twenty.

  “What would you like, Danny?” Thad asked me as we approached the bar.

  “Vodka martini,” I said, drawing my eyes away from the crowd. “Grey Goose if you have it.”

  Thad nodded. “Of course, we have it. With olives?”

  “No,” I said. “With a twist.”

  “And you?” he asked Frank.

  “Just a glass of pinot noir, please.”

  The three of us pressed up against the bar. The bartender turned to face us.

  Was I hoping he’d remember me? Was there some crazy notion in my head that our fleeting encounter the previous weekend at happy hour might have stayed in his brain? If I was, I was being silly. Schoolgirlish. Our interaction had lasted only a few seconds. I’d ordered, he had gotten my drink wrong, giving me olives instead of a twist, and that had been it. There’d been nothing memorable about the moment. Absolutely nothing.

  For him, anyway.

  I watched as he approached us. The soft hint of a smile was playing across his full lips. But he smiled because he was looking at our host, the man who had hired him, who no doubt was paying him a pretty penny to bartend this private party. He was not smiling at me. I was under no delusions that he might be.

  Thad gave him our order. The bartender listened attentively, nodding, then went swiftly about his work. I noticed the head of his eagle tattoo peeking out from below the neckline of his T-shirt. I had to force myself to look away.

  “Now, tell me,” Thad was saying, leaning against the bar and turning to face Frank and me, “where do you live? How long have you been out here in the desert?”

  “We live in Deepwell,” I replied. Thad raised his eyebrows and smiled. Deepwell might have been modest compared to the mansions in this part of town, but it was an architecturally rich neighborhood, and Thad seemed to approve. “I’ve been out here now about four years,” I continued, “while Frank’s been here for ten.”

  “Ten?” Thad looked wide eyed at my partner. “And we’ve never met before this?”

  “Well, we poor college professors don’t often get invited to swanky parties,” Frank said.

  I had to smile. Frank always called rich people and rich events “swanky.” It was a great word. He said his mother had always used swanky to describe the movie-star parts of Palm Springs when they’d go sightseeing through the town. “Over there is where Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner live,” Mrs. Wilson used to say, pointing out the house on Alejo. “They give the swankiest parties. I’ve read all about them in Photoplay.”

  “Well, it’s about time that changed,” Thad said, giving Frank a warm smile and a clap on the back. “I hope you and Danny visit us often.”

  I felt he was being genuine. I glanced up and imagined one of my prints hanging over his bar.

  The bartender had returned with our drinks. He placed them on the bar in front of us, and I noticed his hands, the thin line of fine dark hair that crept along the outer edges. I had an overwhelming desire to bend over and lick that line of hair. I actually felt my body moving into position to do so, and I had to stop myself. My heart was suddenly thumping in my chest. As I looked up from his hands, I came into contact with his eyes—those dark mirrors that suggested a kind of glassy madness. But already he was looking away, indifferent to me, if he had even seen me at all.

  For a moment, I couldn’t lift my drink. Frank and Thad went on talking, but I just stood there, unable to move or think. My palms were actually wet. What was it about this young man that so compelled me? Of course, I had always loved beauty, been partial to it, easily susceptible to its charms. I had worshipped Scott Wood. And as a teenager, I had clipped photographs of beautiful men from magazines and pasted them in a spiral scrapbook on which, in black Magic Marker, I’d written “Beautiful Men.” That scrapbook had been kept hidden in my drawer so my mother wouldn’t find it—even though I really hadn’t needed to worry, since she’d rarely come into my room after Becky disappeared. My bed had never got made; my floors had never been dusted. So, in fact, my Beautiful Men had been safe in their drawer: Robert Redford and Burt Reynolds and David Cassidy had had little chance of being discovered. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I’d page through that scrapbook, looking at the beautiful men, studying their faces. Then I’d stand in front of my mirror, sometimes for hours at a time on a Sunday afternoon, and compare my features to theirs—because, after all, there was nothing else to do except go downstairs and get dragged into one of Mom’s schemes to find Becky. So I’d stay in my room, in front of my mirror, looking at myself, wondering if I was handsome. I was never sure.

  I managed to lift my martini and take a sip. The potency of the alcohol seemed to steady me. I looked around at the men placing their orders. I was sure they found the bartender beautiful, too, yet they were not struck dumb. They went on laughing and talking to their friends. They thanked the bartender and seemed to have no particular urge to connect with his eyes. I couldn’t understand it. Could they not see the classic structure of his face? The way the golden light caught the dimples in his cheeks? The way the muscles of his back moved under his T-shirt? Why weren’t they standing in place, as I was, staring, mouths agape, mute?

  “Danny.”

  I turned abruptly.

  “Thad just thanked you for introducing him to Randall,” Frank said.

  “Oh,” I said and managed a smile. “I gather you all had a good time last weekend.”

  “We did indeed.” Thad grinned. “It’s not often a couple of sixty-somethings score a young man on a Friday night.”

  “I’m sure Randall will appreciate the description.” I glanced around the terrace. “Where is he, anyway?”

  “I introduced him to a friend of mine,” Thad said. “I felt it wasn’t fair to keep him just for ourselves.”

  I laughed. “How generous of you.”

  Thad smiled, then turned his eye to Frank. “So, Professor, I’d like to know where you teach, what you teach, and who you teach.”

  Frank took a sip of his wine. “College of the Desert, English literature and composition, and my students are a pretty good mix of college-age kids and older people returning to school.”

  “A rewarding vocation, no?”
asked Thad.

  Frank nodded. “Yes. Usually.”

  “My mother was a teacher,” Thad said. “My father died in World War II, and she supported four of us kids on her teacher’s salary. Wasn’t easy.”

  I looked around at all the spun glass and marble. So Thad Urquhart hadn’t come from money. Maybe Jimmy had. But I suspected Thad had worked hard for all this, and I respected him more for that.

  “Was it a hard adjustment moving out here, Danny?” Thad asked. “Leaving L.A., coming to Palm Springs?”

  “Hard?” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t say it was hard. Excruciating, maybe. Horrendous and horrible. That gets closer to it than hard.”

  “Oh, Danny,” Frank said, shaking his head.

  Thad was laughing. “And why was it so excruciating?”

  “Well, I was thirty-six. Practically everybody else out here was retired. All my friends were in L.A., and I missed the social life I had there.” I smiled. “But it was important that Frank and I be together full time again.”

  We exchanged a look. Frank gave me a small smile in return.

  “But now you love it?” Thad asked. “Tell me you love it now.”

  “I love parts of it.” I took a sip of the vodka. It felt good going down, its magic spreading through my body, from my throat to my chest to my shoulders and down my arms to my fingertips. “I love the mountains. I love the feeling I get looking at them, being surrounded by them. I love hiking up to the peaks, exploring the canyons. And I love our house and our yard. I create really well out here. I’ve been far more productive out here than I ever was in L.A. And you sure can’t beat the weather—except maybe now, in the summer.”

  “But at night…” Thad gestured around him. “These cool desert nights…”

  I laughed. “It’s still ninety degrees at nine o’clock. That hardly counts as cool.”

  “But it’s dry. Dry heat. Muggy summer nights back East are far worse,” Thad noted.