Object of Desire

by William J. Mann

  I turned back to Randall. “I can’t let Kelly know until I’m sure. It might only drive him away if he has an idea of what I’m thinking.”

  “Danny, why do you want this so much?”

  “I just want the truth.”

  “I would think you’d recoil from the idea.” Randall was studying me, his eyes narrowing. “Danny, you said you were in love with this boy—this boy who you now think might be your nephew.”

  “I know.” I looked around for the hummingbird, but it was gone. “But it just feels right somehow. As if it explains everything. As if it explains…” My voice trailed off before I came back to finishing the thought. “As if it explains my entire life.”

  “You had sex with him,” Randall said, dropping his voice to a whisper. “If what you believe is true, then aren’t you a little freaked out?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  He made a face. “Danny, surely if this is true, you wouldn’t still want to be…”

  “If this is true, then Kelly has a place in my life. We’ll be connected forever.”

  Randall stared at me. “So that’s why you want it to be true.”

  “Yes. Is that so wrong?”

  He looked away.

  “Is that so wrong?” I asked again, more urgently now.

  “I don’t know,” Randall said impatiently, looking back at me. “I just think you can’t go planning Kelly’s place in your life, planning on being connected to him forever, while the man with whom you’ve spent the past twenty years of your life is still sleeping in the casita.”

  My headache pulsed against my eyes, and I sat down, pressing my thumbs to my temples. “I know,” I said. “I know.”

  “Before you resolve anything with Kelly,” Randall said, “you need to resolve what’s going on with Frank.”

  I just rubbed my temples, not wanting to think.

  The past couple of days had been lived entirely in my head. No doubt that was why it ached so much. I had plotted out, over and over again, every scenario that could possibly link Becky to Kelly. I’d written down everything I could remember, everything Detective Peter Guthrie had said about Becky’s disappearance. All those trips with my mother to see the Rubberman and all those visits to New York’s seedy underworld now seemed even more pathetic. Becky had never been there, had never known those people. She’d been three thousand miles away all that time, living in some flophouse in San Francisco, where she gave birth to Chipper’s baby.

  At my computer, I’d purchased access to various public records sites, scrolling through hundreds and hundreds of California vital records, looking for the name Rebecca Fortunato or Ann Fortunato. I knew it was highly unlikely that Becky would have used her real name, but I had to check to be sure. There was nothing. Next, I’d searched the Social Security Death Index. No one fit under that name. Of course, Becky had probably given up Fortunato as soon as she boarded the bus for the West Coast. So I’d looked for a Rebecca Paguni, reasoning she might have used Chipper’s name, and then a Rebecca Cronin, thinking she might have used Mom’s maiden name. I’d even checked under Horgan, Nana’s maiden name. Nothing fit positively. But maybe my futile quest suggested something else. Maybe Becky was still alive.

  The thought made the hair on my arms stand up. I’d long ago accepted the fact that my sister was dead. But maybe, in fact, she was still out there. And maybe I could reunite her with her son, and Kelly with his mother. Together, Kelly and I could uncover the secrets of our shared past, of the heritage that bound us. We’d petition the court for access to his birth records. We’d take a DNA test. We’d find the answers. Together.

  But before all that, there was one test I could take myself. Before we could track down Kelly’s mother, I planned to track down his father.

  Online, I’d found an address for Chipper, under his real name, Charles. He was still living in East Hartford.

  There was a phone number, too. But I wouldn’t call him. He’d hang up the phone the moment he realized who was on the line. Or if he chose to listen to me for a moment, he’d never admit over the phone what I suspected.

  That he’d made Becky pregnant, and then told her he wouldn’t support her and her baby. Their baby. Maybe he really had felt like drowning her in the pond.

  What else could I believe? Becky had been in love with Chipper. She wouldn’t have left if he had promised to stand beside her. I suspected she’d gone to the pond that day to tell him the news. Probably soon after I’d left, she’d revealed to Chipper that she was carrying his child. No doubt he’d exploded, telling her it would ruin him, destroy his great dreams of being the senior-class football hero. For a couple of kids in Catholic high schools, the situation was untenable. They would’ve had to drop out of school and get married. Or—as Chipper had no doubt urged—Becky would need to slip away for an abortion. That way, no one would ever have to learn about their little mistake—a “mistake” I now knew as Kelly. But my sister, no doubt, had balked at the idea. She had been determined to have her baby. And so there had been no choice left but to say good-bye to all of us.

  I used to think sometimes that I had ruined Chipper’s life. But in fact, he had ruined Becky’s by refusing to support her, and by extension, he’d ruined the lives of my parents and come damn close to ruining mine. Not to mention what he had done to the son he’d left adrift by his lack of responsibility.

  And now here I was, positioned to take care of Chipper’s son.

  Randall and I were walking out to his car.

  “Call me later if you need to talk,” he said. “You need to really take the time to think all this through, Danny. You are too emotional right now to think clearly.”

  “I’m thinking more clearly than I have in twenty-five years,” I told him.

  Randall hugged me. “I love you, Danny. You’re my oldest friend in the world.”

  I hugged him back.

  “Please don’t act rashly,” he said. “And please talk to Frank.”

  After he was gone, I went back and sat by the pool. My laptop was in front of me on the table, and I heard the little click indicating a new e-mail. Confirmation of my travel itinerary. I sat back in my chair and sighed. I would need to tell Frank about my plans when he got home tonight. I’d need to open up a dialogue with him after a week of mostly silence. I didn’t look forward to it. I imagined it would only lead to more hurt. But it had to be done.

  He came home earlier than usual. He was carrying a bouquet of daisies, dyed green. He’d obviously decided on a thaw.

  “You gave me a green daisy once,” he said, handing me the flowers. “Thought I’d return the gesture.”

  “They’re very pretty, Frank. Thank you.”

  He gave a small, awkward laugh. “The florist couldn’t understand why I wanted them green. She said that St. Patrick’s Day was months away.”

  “They’re very pretty,” I said again, cutting the stems and placing them, one at a time, in a vase filled with water.

  “Danny, I’m sorry I pulled away,” Frank said.

  Hearing him apologize only made me feel guiltier. “Frank, it’s okay. I’m the one who should apologize. I wish I hadn’t chosen to express my feelings when I was drunk. The conversation might have gone very differently.”

  Frank was leaning against the counter, watching me arrange the flowers. His eyes looked old and tired. “Danny,” he said, “I’ve missed you. Every morning and every night.”

  “I’ve missed you, too, Frank.”

  “Really?” He looked at me with genuine puzzlement. “Have you really?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Of course, I’d missed him. It was no fun sleeping alone. It was sad and lonely, especially after twenty years. The bed was cold, and the room disconcertingly silent without Frank’s snoring to keep me awake. Of course, I missed him.

  He took a long breath. “I need to know what you want to do, Danny.”

  “About what?”

  “About us.”

  I closed my eyes
. My headache still throbbed. “I don’t know, Frank,” I admitted.

  “Do you want to be with him?” he asked. “With Kelly?”

  I opened my eyes. I had no answer for that. Not now.

  “Because if you do, I can’t stand in your way. I’m fifty-five years old, almost fifty-six. Sure, I’m running these days. Jogging. I’m trying to get back in shape. But I’m not ever going to be able to turn back time to the kind of springtime beauty that Kelly possesses. In less than five years, I’ll be sixty. And you’ll still be a young forty-something, looking as good as you do, looking even younger than you are, able to attract beautiful young men, like Ollie or Kelly or anybody else.” He paused. “I can’t keep up with you, Danny. That’s just a cold, hard fact.”

  “Frank,” I said, but then I couldn’t find the words to continue. I just sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. He joined me, taking a chair opposite.

  “Danny,” he told me, “I look back across our twenty years, and I cherish every moment. We’ve been through so much. So much happiness, so much heartache, but always together. From the days on Venice Beach, running with Pixie, to our walks in Griffith Park and our trips up the coast to Big Sur…” His voice trailed off. “I miss those days. I miss how athletic I was. I’m trying to get back some of that—”

  “Frank, don’t do it for me,” I said. “If you want to jog, if you want to run—do it for yourself.”

  “I want to do it for you.”

  Our eyes met. His were bloodshot and moist. I felt that mine were hard and brittle. I tried to smile at him, but I was afraid I would cry. Maybe it would have been all right if I cried. But I didn’t want to. I looked away.

  “Danny, when we took our vows, I told you I would be there forever—”

  I stood up abruptly. “I knew you’d bring up our vows. Frank! I’m not trying to back out on our vows! I’m just being honest with you about how I feel. I can’t pretend that I don’t have these feelings.”

  “Of course not, Danny. Of course, you can’t pretend.”

  “And let’s face it, Frank. When you took that vow, you did so knowing if things had been different, if you’d had your choice—”

  Now Frank stood up as well. “Don’t say it, Danny! I am so tired of you saying that!”

  “Well, it’s true.”

  “It is not!” His face was red. “Why have you always believed that my heart was elsewhere? Why have you never been able to believe that you are worth loving?”

  “Frank, you don’t need to justify your love to me.” I took a moment to compose myself, then continued. “You have more than lived up to your end of our bargain. You were there for me when I was a scared young kid, making no money, struggling with my career. You paid my bills and gave me the confidence I needed to change careers. You have been my rock, Frank, and I will be eternally grateful to you for that.” I took a deep breath. “Just don’t feel you need to pretend that I was your first and only love, Frank. Because there’s no cause for that. None at all.”

  He was quiet. I moved across the room, smelling the daisies he had given me.

  “I’m going on a short trip,” I said.

  Frank looked at me strangely. “Where?”

  “Home.”

  He seemed bewildered. “Home?”

  “Connecticut.”

  “But your father isn’t there anymore.”

  “No.” I paused. “But someone else is.”

  I told him the story. The whole crazy story, a story that seemed even crazier as I relayed it to him. But that didn’t make me doubt it. Frank listened calmly as I spoke, making no response, offering no reaction. Not a nod, not a question, not a single lift of his eyebrows.

  “The only way I can know for sure,” I finished, “is to confront Chipper.”

  Still, Frank said nothing. He just sat down at the table.

  “I leave tomorrow,” I told him. “I fly from here to Dallas, then Dallas to Hartford. I’ve rented a car.”

  “What if Chipper’s not there?” Frank finally asked.

  “Then I wait until he gets back.”

  “Danny, the odds are—”

  “I know.” I ran my hands through my hair. “Randall has already drilled into my head that the odds are stacked against me. That millions of people with unwed mothers from the East Coast might have birthmarks like crescent moons on their upper arms.”

  “But millions of people don’t also have eyes like Chipper Paguni,” Frank said.

  I looked over at him. “That’s right. They don’t.”

  “At least, eyes like you remember Chipper Paguni’s.” He paused. “That was a long time ago, Danny.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  Frank stood and walked into the living room. I watched him from the kitchen.

  “And what if Chipper won’t see you? What if you go all that way and he—”

  “He will see me,” I said, my voice set.

  “Danny,” Frank said, turning around to look at me. “You’re aware of what’s happened here, aren’t you?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You’ve become your mother.”

  I didn’t have a response to that.

  “All these years you’ve believed you failed her,” Frank said. “Now you can finally make it up to her. You can pick up her quest where she left off. Maybe she could never find Becky, but you will.” He smiled compassionately. “You know, I don’t think you want Kelly as much for yourself as you want him for your mother. If you can turn him into Becky’s son, then you can finally say to your mother, wherever she is, ‘Look, Mom. I did what you asked. I found Becky! Now you can love me again!’”

  I laughed. “You’re an English professor, Frank. Not a psychologist.”

  “Danny, it’s just plainly obvious.”

  “Okay, fine. You’ve made your point. You think I shouldn’t go.”

  “Oh, no, not all. I think you should go. By all means. It’s the only way for you to get any kind of resolution with this.”

  I sighed. “Thank you, Frank.”

  I came into the living room and sat down on the couch.

  “Danny,” Frank said, looking down at me kindly. “I’ve never been good at telling you how much I love you. I suppose that’s been my fault. I’m just not all that good at showing how I feel.”

  “You show it fine, Frank.”

  He sat down beside me. “I need to say this. I need you to hear it.”

  I looked at him.

  “At night,” he said, “when you crawl in next to me in bed, I feel as if my whole world is complete. As if there’s no need ever to get up again. I have felt that way for twenty years, and I feel that way just as strongly now.”

  I looked over at him. “Frank…”

  “You were never second to me, Danny. How could you believe that for so long? What can I do to prove to you that you’re wrong to think that way?”

  “Frank, there’s no need…”

  “Yes, there is a need, Danny!” His face was red again, as if he’d just come in from running. “You have always been first in my heart! Always! Since that day I picked you up on Mulholland Drive and you broke down in tears in my car. I fell in love with you in that moment, and for every day since, every hour, it’s always been you, Danny, always you!”

  I looked at him. I couldn’t respond. Couldn’t even think.

  He gently pulled me into his embrace. “Always you, baby,” he said in my ear. “Always you.”

  The words seemed wrong to me. Unreal. To absorb them, to believe them, was impossible, foolish to attempt. I hadn’t gotten through my life believing words such as those. I’d survived by letting words like that bounce off me, ricochet away, never breaking the skin. I’d survived by being too smart to fall for them. I knew Frank didn’t love me first. How was such a thing possible? No one had ever loved me first.

  Still, I let him take me to bed and undress me and kiss me and hold me close, my head on his warm, furry chest, listening to his heart beating all night l
ong.

  WEST HOLLYWOOD

  We sat holding hands as we waited for the results. Opposite us, a young, straight Latino couple sat stiff-backed in their chairs, watching us. We didn’t care what they thought. Frank and I just sat there, with our eyes looking straight ahead. We didn’t speak; we didn’t read a magazine. We just sat there, holding hands.

  Finally, a nurse approached us and told us we should follow her.

  “I’m terrified,” I said in a little voice as we stood.

  “It’ll be all right, baby,” Frank whispered, his lips on my ear.

  Two weeks ago, Randall had tested HIV-positive. Suddenly we knew dozens of people whose test results had been the same. Three guys in our neighborhood were sick. I’d seen the sarcomas on their necks and arms. Edgar, my old boss, had died of AIDS. I’d seen him a few weeks before he died, a skeleton walking on the street, all the bones in his face visible. Once I had kissed that man, even had sex with him. And now he was dead.

  “I’m terrified,” I said again as the nurse closed the door on us in the small inner office. The room was entirely white, from walls to curtains to plastic chairs to the crinkly paper that covered the examining table. Frank and I gripped each other’s hands even tighter, still not saying a word to each other.

  I thought about Randall. I prayed that he wouldn’t get sick. I couldn’t imagine my handsome young friend with sunken cheeks and protruding teeth. He’d started immediately on some antiviral drugs, none of which had proven all that effective in other people. I’d seen people with AIDS around town, their beepers going off in the middle of movies. I’d seen them at sidewalk cafés, swallowing their pills. I’d seen them crossing La Cienega at Santa Monica, looking like the cast of Night of the Living Dead. Was that going to be our future, too? Taking those horrible pills every day, pills that made you sick, that gave you diarrhea, that caused your body to waste away? I didn’t understand the good of them if, even after all that, they didn’t stop you from dying.