Nana had been such a good cook, far better than Mom. When Becky and I would stay at Nana’s when we were little, we loved what she made for us. Orange-marmalade chicken and the mac and cheese. Cinnamon streusel cake and strawberry-rhubarb pie. We’d eat and eat, and then we’d head outside to run around the field behind Nana’s house, ignorant of, and indifferent toward, the world beyond those yellow hills. All that mattered back then was the full, happy, exhausted feeling I had at the end of the day, falling asleep in Dad’s old room, Nana tucking me in, saying, “Good night my sweet Danny off the pickle boat,” and kissing me on my forehead.
“Danny,” Frank was saying. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
I was crying. “Oh, nothing,” I said. “How stupid of me.” I shrugged my shoulder to wipe my tears as I placed the baking dish of macaroni and cheese into the oven.
“It’s not stupid, baby.”
“Yes, it is.” I noted the time on the oven. The macaroni and cheese needed to bake for at least an hour.
“Baby, I can only imagine what it was like to lose your sister like that, how it turned everything upside down.”
“Oh, no, that’s not the way it happened out here,” I told him. “See, that’s what’s great about L.A. Here the movie can end happily. I can imagine that Becky came home. It was all just a big misunderstanding, a big farce. She got a loving cup stuck on her head. So she couldn’t see and got on the wrong bus. But then Ricky and Fred found her and brought her home in time for the fade-out. You know, big laugh track, the end.” I tried to smile. “Really, Frank, I’m fine.”
“You were thinking about her,” he said.
“No, actually I was thinking about my grandmother. She’s the one I feel the worst about. I used to dream that I’d make a lot of money, and I’d bring Nana out here to live. She must be dead by now, and Dad wouldn’t have had any way of letting me know.” I let out a long breath. “But in a way, if she’s still alive, that would be even worse. To live so long in that state. In that half-light of existence. In that netherworld. Oh, poor Nana.”
“Come here, baby.”
“No, I’m done crying. Come on. We’ve got to toast our new home. Where’s the champagne?”
Frank held the bottle over the sink and popped the cork. It hit the ceiling. The bubbly flowed into our two plastic glasses.
“Let’s take a picture,” Frank said and dug out his camera from his bag, placing it on one of our unpacked boxes of clothes. I squatted on the floor with Pixie as he set the timer. “Okay!” he called, hurrying over to squat beside me. We both held up our glasses and grinned. The camera flashed.
And the macaroni and cheese exploded in the oven.
Thirty minutes of wiping down cheese and picking up shards of broken glass later, ripping the blaring smoke alarms down from the ceilings, we called out for Chinese. Frank and I were laughing so hard when our sweet-and-sour chicken arrived that we could barely pay the delivery boy.
“Well,” I said, “I should just accept there are some things I can’t do.”
“Cooking is an overrated talent,” Frank said, shoveling some rice onto his plate.
I smiled.
But in fact I felt horrible. My laughter was a ruse. It wasn’t just cooking that I couldn’t do. I couldn’t act, either. If I could, I’d have landed a job by now. I couldn’t cook; I couldn’t act; I couldn’t find my sister.
I was such a failure any way you looked at it. I had come all the way out here to get away from everything I had done wrong. Three thousand miles! And if the only way to escape my failure was to live in a dream, in a half-lit netherworld not unlike Nana’s, where nothing was what it seemed, then I was content to do that.
But perhaps even that wasn’t attainable. Frank had no idea how miserable I was for the rest of the night, how devastated I felt at being unable to make a simple dinner for him, to turn our little apartment into a home. Such a foolish dream.
Everything’s artificial here. We go along and invent scenarios for ourselves, and we try to live them out. Our scenarios might not be any more real than the ones in the movies, but they’re better than nothing.
My own words. Yet even as I had spoken them, I had secretly hoped I might somehow, someday be proven wrong. I had allowed myself to hope that maybe, just maybe, I could expect a little bit more.
But now, with the stink of burned cheese permeating the house, that hope was gone. Even as I lay back in Frank’s arms against the wall, buzzy with champagne, Pixie nosing the empty bottle around the floor, I knew that none of this was real. It was all an illusion. If Frank could have instantly transposed me with Gregory Montague, he would have. That he cared for me was obvious; that he would make good his pledge of support and devotion was unquestioned. I’d landed a fantastic deal, better than any Gregory could have gotten for me, and more than I had a right to expect. I’d never told Frank about Gregory’s perfidy, the way he’d tried to buy me right out from under his nose, and I never would. That would have been cruel, and I could never be cruel to Frank. Likewise, I knew Frank would never be unkind or disloyal to me. But still, I knew that his love—his true love—would never be fully mine. Of this, I was not in doubt.
“Shall we go to bed?” I asked in his ear.
“Mmm,” he said.
I helped him stand. As I did so, he caught me, and he placed his hands on either side of my face and kissed me. We made love passionately on the mattress in the bedroom. He filled me up, brought me to the top, left me breathless and panting, hanging over the side.
Yes, indeed. Much more than I had a right to expect.
PALM SPRINGS
The text messages had started early the next day. IM SORRY. DONT HATE ME. DONT GIVE UP ON ME. Not until the sixth or seventh one did I finally respond.
I COULD NEVER HATE U.
But still I resisted seeing him. The texts continued, becoming increasingly vulnerable.
I MISS U TERRIBLY.
I NEED U TO HOLD ME.
I CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT U.
They were texts I might have sent myself, and with each one, my spirit soared a little higher. Was it happening at last? Was Kelly finally starting to admit that he felt for me the same as I did for him?
We met for coffee. The day was gorgeous. It was the kind of day that reminded people why they had come to Palm Springs, where the air was warm and dry and soothing, where a simple walk outside could feel as good as a full-body massage. The mountains were changing from the dull, flat grays of summer to soft amber browns, with even the occasional hint of green. But not even their majesty could eclipse the stunning beauty of the young man who walked through the courtyard toward me, his dark eyes shining even from a distance of several feet. As usual, he was dressed simply, in a black shirt and olive corduroys. He smiled when he saw me, melting me once again with his dimples. We embraced. He smelled like blue sky.
“I never told you,” he was saying, his voice choking. “Maybe it will explain some things for you.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“All this time,” he said, “I’ve been in therapy.”
I looked him deep in the eyes. “You have?”
He nodded. “I’ve been trying to work out all my issues, all the reasons why I do the terrible things I do.”
“They’re not terrible, Kelly,” I said. “They’re just—”
“No, they’re terrible. And I’ve been trying so hard to figure out why I am the way I am. For five long years now, I’ve been seeing this therapist, and I’ve been spilling out my guts to him, telling him everything. And he always just sat there, taking notes, nodding his head. He never said a word to me until finally the other night. And what he said crushed me.”
I looked at him. “What did he say?”
“No hablo inglés.”
It took me several seconds to realize it was a joke.
“You will pay for that,” I said, a smile blooming on my face despite myself.
Kelly laughed. We sat down on the grass. We picked up as
if the other night had never happened. We laughed and joked all afternoon. I spied a couple of guys I recognized from around town, guys my age, sitting with their friends or lovers at the little tables, sipping their lattes, watching Kelly and me giggling, sprawled out on the grass. I was glad they could see me. I knew they envied me. I liked the feeling.
“So I got fired,” Kelly told me.
“Fired?”
“Yeah, I went into work last night, and they told me I had to take the back bar. They are always giving me the back bar and giving somebody else the front. The front bar makes at least fifty percent more a night. And I was like, ‘I will not take the back bar again.’ And they said to me, ‘If you don’t, you’re fired.’ And so I said, ‘Fire me.’ They said to get out, and on my way I picked up a pitcher of water and threw it in the asshole’s face. He said he’s going to charge me with assault. For throwing water!”
“Oh, Kelly.”
“I mean, have you ever heard of anything so stupid? Charged with assault for throwing water?”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t.”
He stretched out on his back, his hands behind his head. “I don’t care. I’ve already got a line on another job. Thad Urquhart said he’d put in a word for me at this new restaurant they’re opening over near the post office. It’s going to be really fabulous.”
“So you plan on sticking around,” I said. “Aren’t you and Damian moving to New York?”
“Oh, no way.” He sat back up, his eyes level with mine. “Let me tell you about Damian. He’s a massage therapist.” He said the words with hand quotes. “You know, which really means escort. That’s right. He advertises in the back of Frontiers as a massage therapist, but he’s really just a whore.”
“I see.”
“I mean, I don’t care if people are whores. But the thing is, he is so used up. He’s going to be thirty next year. Thirty. And he’s been doing this for like twelve years. He used to be the most beautiful guy in West Hollywood, or so I’m told.”
“Really now?”
“Yeah. But now just look at him, and you can see he’s been around the track a few too many times. Let me tell you, he is not getting the clients he used to get. In a couple more years, he will be really tragic.”
“I thought you considered him hot.”
He shrugged. “There’s nothing sadder than an old whore.”
He lay back down on the grass. I just sat there, staring up at the mountains, which were turning a golden pink from the sun. I would have thought that learning that Kelly and Damian were not, in fact, boyfriends would have made me happy. But somehow it didn’t. Somehow the course of our conversation had taken me from feeling giddy to feeling uncertain and uneasy.
What was I doing? Why was I sitting in the grass with this confused young man, as pretty as he might be? In my mind the clouds were retreating as if after a rainstorm. I felt as if I were sitting with someone I knew from long ago, though I couldn’t place quite who—but someone who didn’t understand what was happening. It was my job to explain it to him as best as I could.
We sat there in silence, however, beause I didn’t know what to say. The sun began edging behind the mountains. The courtyard filled up with purple shadows. One by one everyone else left, and we were alone.
“Want to go back to my place and do a line?” Kelly asked, suddenly standing up.
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“Look, Kelly, I shouldn’t have done coke with you. See, I had a little bit of a problem with it once. When I first came out here to the West Coast, I was doing way too much of it. I shouldn’t have started up again with you. And I don’t want it becoming a problem for you like it did with me.”
“It’s not a problem,” he said. “I just do it once in a while.”
I remained seated on the grass. “I think you do it more often than that.”
He frowned. “Well, what do you want to do then?”
Finally, I got to my feet. I took his hands in mine. “Kelly, I don’t fully understand my feelings for you. All I know is I care about you very much.”
His body stiffened.
“Kelly, those texts you sent me…” My words trailed off. “They made me very happy. You said you wanted me to hold you…”
“Danny,” he said. “I’ve told you before. I don’t want to ruin a good thing.”
“Why would it have to ruin it?”
“You have a husband!” he suddenly shouted at me.
“You are using that as a cop-out. You know it’s an open relationship—”
His black eyes were flashing. “You just don’t get it! You have a husband! Why can’t you understand that? What that means?”
“I love you, Kelly. Maybe I shouldn’t. But I do.”
“You can’t say that to me.”
“I love you.”
“Shut up!”
His temper was quick. I imagined it was just as quick—or even quicker—on the job. No wonder he had lost so many of them.
“I will not allow myself,” he said, “to fall in love with you.”
“Well, bully for you,” I replied. “I guess I don’t quite have that much self-control.”
“You have a husband,” he said to me, one more time.
“Yes. I do. And for the first time in twenty years, for some crazy notion, I have actually allowed myself to imagine what it might be like to—”
“Don’t say it.”
I was damned if he was going to silence me. “What it might be like to fall in love again, while there still was a little time. To consider the idea that maybe, maybe, I could finally find someone who loved me the way I loved him. And if that meant leaving Frank, then—”
“Stop it! All my life I’ve gone from place to place. Nothing ever permanent. But seeing you and Frank made me think something permanent was possible. Don’t ruin that for me!”
“It’s just that you’ve made me feel things I haven’t felt in so long—”
“Stop talking this way!” Kelly actually put his hands over his ears. “You’re old enough to be my father!”
That stopped me. That shut me right up. I stood there, reeling.
When I found the words to respond, they were pitiful. “No, I’m not,” I said. “Not unless I knocked up my girlfriend in high school.”
Kelly had fallen into silence, too, and kept his gaze away from me. “I’m sorry if I misled you with my texts,” he said quietly. “I just missed you, that’s all.”
I realized that a couple of guys had wandered out of the coffee shop and had overheard parts of our conversation. I wanted to get out of there. I suddenly wanted a lot of distance between Kelly and myself. I told him I had to go.
“Fine,” he said. “Walk off again, like you did the other night.”
I didn’t respond, didn’t take the bait. I just headed to my Jeep and drove as fast out of town as I could. Before I knew it, I was on Interstate 10, heading toward Los Angeles. I passed the gigantic windmill farm, those mammoth, oddly birdlike structures that generated millions of watts of electricity for communities far beyond our little valley. I kept driving, not thinking about where I was going, just heading west, as if pursuing the setting sun. When I saw a sign that read LOS ANGELES 60 MILES, I realized that I was actually traveling back into time, driving through a time warp, and if I kept going, I’d end up in West Hollywood circa 1985. I’d be a kid again, not much younger than Kelly. I’d report to work at the bar, snapping on my yellow thong and climbing up on my box and shaking my ass to the hoots and squeals of the crowd. The most beautiful guy in West Hollywood. That gorilla Damian had no claim to the title.
But before I could make it there, I turned around and drove back to Palm Springs. It was dark now, but I had no desire to go home. Frank was at the college; I was free to do whatever I wanted. And there was only one thing on my mind.
Some called the bars on one side of Arenas Road the Lairs of the Living Dead. In those places, men in their fifties were considered fresh
meat. Inside, the lights always bewildered me with their brightness. Maybe, I thought, stepping through the door, with all illusions gone, shadows were finally dispensable, and the light was actually liberating. I sat at the bar and ordered my vodka straight. No olives, no twist. Just pure alcohol. I drank it fast, avoiding eye contact with anyone. I ordered a second, and a third, all the while watching out the window as young men filed into Hunters across the street, the one place in town where young men might find others of their own kind. After my third vodka, I felt fortified enough to cross the street and follow them inside.
There was a stripper, naturally, a boy buffer than I’d been at his age, but still not nearly as buff as I was now. It didn’t matter, of course: he was pretty and lithe and barely twenty-one, oblivious to anyone but himself. Or maybe he just seemed oblivious. After all, I had experience to draw on. When I’d been up there, I’d been very aware of all those who walked past me, those who gawked and those who pretended not to see me. Sometimes I’d felt very silly swishing around up on a box, nearly naked, while others, fully clothed, engaged in conversations with friends. Sometimes I’d seen someone come in who I thought was cute, and I’d hoped he might look up at me; other times I’d seen someone horrendous and prayed he wouldn’t come by for a feel. So maybe this boy on this box was just as aware of his surroundings as I had once been. Maybe he spotted me the moment I walked in. Or maybe, in fact, times really had changed beyond my recognition of them, and he really was as oblivious as he seemed, and I was really as invisible as I felt.
I ordered another drink. A hand came to rest on my shoulder.
“Well, hello, Ishmael.”
I turned. “Jake Jones,” I said, and as soon as I heard my slurry voice, I knew how drunk I was.
“Let me get that for you,” he said, gesturing to the bartender that my drink was on him. “So have I finally found you out alone?”
“You have,” I said, sipping my vodka as if I were parched. “Indeed, you have found me out alone.”
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