Now and Yesterday

by Stephen Greco

  Most of the staff were unaffected by the changes, but Will was hugely disappointed, as he gathered up his pen, water bottle, and issue plan, to know that his Assetou story had been shortened. For weeks there had been a “2” next to it in the lineup, and now there was a “1.” Initially, when he first brought the idea to the editorial table, weeks before that, he and the editor had talked about doing four pages. Of course, Will was sorry to lose the real estate—the extra page, the extra visibility for a story of his own. He was also at a loss at how to squeeze his hours of research into Senegalese music, his two-hour interview with Assetou, and his thoughts on her upcoming album, which he’d been listening to, into half the space he needed, a quarter of the space he wanted.

  As he left the conference room Will overheard the magazine’s editor at large, a slender Parisian dandy named Olivier, speaking on the phone in a soft, liquid-sounding voice about a party the magazine was giving that night at a contemporary art museum.

  “The First Lady has checked into her hotel, yes,” susurrated Olivier. “She is planning to arrive around nine, I believe. . . .”

  It was a benefit for an organization that distributed art supplies to South African children, and several celebrities were scheduled to attend. Will had been looking forward to going, but now he’d have to revise his piece, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to accomplish that without major rethinking.

  Damn, thought Will.

  The door to Colin’s office was closed as Will walked past, but Herman’s door was open, so Will gave a knock. Herman was standing at his desk, preparing to leave for lunch, and waved Will in.

  “Ow-ooch,” said Will, in two recognizably interrogative syllables.

  “Assetou? C’mon, Will, this stuff happens all the time. It’ll be great. You’ll make it great.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “A page is better.”

  “Well . . .”

  “The intro was way too long anyway.”

  “I need to set up all the stuff she says about secrets, and her sculpture.”

  “Sure, but it’s too dense. We need to get right into her words, her voice.”

  “What I’m afraid of is that we won’t see how smart she is. . . .”

  “The story is actually too smart, Will. It needs to be lighter.”

  “Too smart?”

  “Light can be another kind of smart.”

  “Sure, but . . .”

  “The art stuff—a lot of that can go.”

  “But she’s very serious about her sculpting.”

  “Of course, but all the shabazz about hidden colors . . .”

  “That’s the depth of the piece.”

  “I don’t know what a hidden color is, and you don’t have the space to explain it. Besides, the label wants to keep the focus on the music.”

  “She talks about all these hidden forces in her songs. . . .”

  Herman, known for being fierce, was being surprisingly even-tempered.

  “May I make a suggestion?” he said. “Flirt with it.”

  “What do you mean?” said Will.

  “Do what I see you doing when you talk to people. You’re so smart, but it’s light and fun.”

  “I . . . what?”

  “Give it a shot. Four hundred words.”

  Later, in the hallway, Will ran into Stefan and explained why he was looking depressed. Stefan didn’t seem to take the situation too seriously. He talked and talked about the party they were throwing that night—the stars who would be there, the unadvertised, “secret” performance by a young pop star, the appearance, “maybe,” of the First Lady.

  “Will you be there?” said Stefan.

  “I don’t see how I can,” said Will. “I have to rewrite the piece.”

  “Can’t you do that in your sleep?”

  “Not really.”

  “Ah. Then you’re not an editor yet, my friend.” Stefan meant the remark playfully, but it stung.

  “I certainly don’t feel like one,” said Will.

  “Come late, if you can. Afterwards, we’re all going to the new place André just opened. I’ll text you the details.”

  Will stayed late at the office. To rewrite, he completely recast the piece, after walking around his office and chattering about Assetou with an imagined other at a cocktail party, and taking notes. The revised piece would probably work, he decided—basically, it was a “deep caption” to go with the picture they were running. But it was nothing like the gem of cultural journalism that he had been aiming for, with the hidden colors idea he had borrowed from Peter.

  Around seven-thirty, as he was leaving the office and thinking about dinner, he decided, on a whim, to call Peter, whom he caught just leaving his office, too. Peter said he had no plans, and Will suggested they meet for a quick dinner. With conspiratorial thrill, they decided to jump into town cars and meet in Chelsea, for a burger at Elmo.

  Peter, who had had plans with an old friend but cancelled guiltily, pleading a deadline, was sitting at the bar when Will arrived. Before they had time, even, for the token kiss and ritual exchange of delight in both being available, the friendly young manager appeared and asked if they were ready to be seated. They were shown to one of the best tables in the place, at the end of a serpentine banquette where they could see everything and be seen, yet have a bit of privacy.

  As usual for that hour, Elmo was packed and bouncy with attractive gay men and their friends. Peter was surprised that they’d been given a table so quickly, but didn’t mention it, except indirectly.

  “My friend is the owner of this place,” he said. “I don’t see him around tonight.”

  “I like Elmo,” said Will. “Good value, good spirit.”

  They ordered drinks and talked about movies, advertising, and magazines. Will told Peter about the new version of his Assetou piece that he’d written, which was basically done but now “cooking” in his brain before he’d allow himself to commit to it. They flirted with the server, who promised that the sautéed onions and mushrooms, in addition to gruyère, would render the burgers “fantastic.” Over dinner they discussed the possibility of Will’s going to Fire Island that summer, where Peter often rented a house. As they talked and laughed, Peter saw more of Will’s personality in a rainbow of refractions: the sharp-tongued pragmatist, the noble dreamer, the diffident gentleman; and Peter felt happy to be in a crowded restaurant with the man he’d been dreaming about for months, even if he couldn’t describe what was happening between them. It could be the start of something big—yet the bouncy atmosphere, light conversation, and stiff drinks were short-circuiting any deep thoughts about eternity or whatever.

  When they were done, Peter asked their server for the check.

  “The least I can do is buy you a burger,” he said, “after hijacking your evening.”

  “Oh, no you don’t,” said Will, reaching for his wallet. “First of all, we hijacked each other’s evening, buddy, and that’s a good thing. Secondly, we’re splitting this or it will get weird. And we don’t want it to get weird, do we?”

  Peter assumed the look of a tranquil Buddha.

  “You are indeed wise,” he said.

  “Besides, I’m making a real living now,” said Will. “Even if I have to supplement here and there. You’d be surprised what a boy has to do to get by in this town.”

  “Uh, no, I wouldn’t,” said Peter. “But that’s one of the reasons why God gave us comps. And you’re at a magazine—that should be comp-arama.”

  So far, Will had been offered a pair of jeans, a suit, a pair of sneakers, a watch, and a trip to St. Bart’s, he said. But he hadn’t accepted anything.

  “Why not?” asked Peter.

  “Mmm, not sure I wanna go there.”

  “The deal is that you say thank you and wear the jeans or take the trip, and do so in view of the right people. It’s not just free shit. It’s an exchange of value. The assumption is that you, yourself, are valuable, by the very fact of whom you move with.”
r />   “Not my actual thoughts about the jeans.”

  “Those too—maybe. But that exists apart from the value.”

  “And you’re a fan of this system?”

  “I certainly don’t think it’s evil. It’s like anything, money—it can be made evil by evil people.”

  Just then, the manager appeared at the table.

  “I hope you gentlemen enjoyed your dinner,” he said. “We enjoyed having you with us and would like you to be our guests tonight.”

  Peter’s instinct, since this sort of thing was not unknown to him, was to rise and thank the man, shaking his hand. But he realized the manager was speaking primarily to Will, and that Will was already rising. For Peter, this was a shock but also somehow exhilarating.

  “Score!” said Will, after the manager had left.

  “Why did he do that?” said Peter.

  Will gave a kiss to his fingertips, then patted his face with them, while feigning modesty.

  “The cute-boy factor? No.”

  “No,” laughed Will. “We shot a story here a few weeks ago and we’re giving them credit in the issue.”

  “Christ, and here I am going on about comps and the owner, and you’ve got it all hooked up.”

  Will said nothing. Outside, on the sidewalk, they agreed that it was still early, as dinner had been so short.

  “Drink at G?” said Peter.

  Will looked at his phone.

  “One drink,” he said, with a sly smile.

  G was packed but navigable. The place was pounding with a sequence of generically energetic tracks. They plowed through the front room into the oval bar area.

  “Vodka club, twist of lime?” asked Will.

  Peter nodded, clearing a spot for their drinks on the little niched ledge lining the curved wall, while Will squeezed over to the bar.

  Wow, this feels normal, thought Peter, until he spotted Will speaking intimately with another guy his own age—a friend?—and felt a pang of jealousy. Do they know each other, or is it just cute-boy camaraderie? Peter also saw Will flirting with the monumentally muscular, tattooed bartender, shirtless, in a pair of jeans hanging so low around his waist that they exposed a good bit of butt crack. The bartender was not just moving around the bar mixing and serving drinks, but somehow making the performance into some kind of muscle-disco-samba.

  “I so wanna jump that guy’s bones,” said Will, returning with the drinks.

  “The bartender?” said Peter with as much cheer as he could muster.

  “Marcelo.”

  “Hot.”

  Will led them in a little toast, then looked out over the bar, sipping his drink and nominally beginning to sway with the music.

  OK, he thinks we’re buddies, thought Peter. Well, why not? So I’m the cool, older guy. I can be a wingman. Forget that I am a star in my own world, and an advanced soul. This is his world. Peter supposed the cool buddy thing was better than the alternative, the old auntie of gay lore. “Uncle Peter.” Maybe that’s all I get, at this age, unless I pay. Of course, then I’m only buying a simulacrum. . . .

  Cute guys often came right up to Peter in bars like G—the speed and enthusiasm of their approach revealing what was sometimes their true purpose: hustling—and he’d always blown them off. Though right about now, thought Peter, as the music pounded away, I am very susceptible to theories about simulacra being real things of a sort.

  Will had moved very close to Peter, so they could hear each other speak, and his buoyant chatter was filled with giggles and winks, and little touches to Peter’s arm, when making a point.

  His eyes really do sparkle—so blue. Can brown eyes sparkle like that?

  As they chatted about living in Astoria and the epic N train, which runs from Astoria to Coney Island, Will’s face came alive with a range of lambent microexpressions that Peter hadn’t taken full stock of before. Little smirks, frowns, and squints, delicious pretend scowls and ironic smiles—all animated Will’s sharp observations about his life in New York. And as Peter hung on the conversation as a stream of fresh blessings, he didn’t quite know how to accept the new, higher level of intimacy that accompanied it, especially since he hadn’t initiated it.

  Would I really be content to be just a wingman? wondered Peter. And what if that’s not even the deal? What if I am being summoned into the inner sanctum?

  The only path, he decided, was simply to be good company, as Will was clearly trying to do. He was being charming, affable, and as focused on the conversation as possible in a place like G. Peter could be the same. And if people were looking at them, projecting envious boyfriend scenarios, or judgmental hustler scenarios, or ridiculous father-son scenarios, well, what did it matter what they thought? Though the boyfriend scenario, every time it occurred to Peter, shot him through with a bolt of warmth.

  They were talking about careers and hopes and intentions, a conversation that began in the restaurant.

  “My dad is always talking about how this builds toward the next thing, how it builds on the last thing,” Will was saying. “He was always talking about vectors, efforts that, quote-unquote, added up. ‘If you know exactly what direction you’re heading in, you don’t waste any time going this way or that way.’ I mean, will my next job be at this magazine, or any magazine? Who knows? I kinda feel like I have to go in a few different directions right now.”

  “My dad used to talk the same way,” said Peter. “There was so much good sense he tried to jam into my skull—life experience from growing up in a small town, stuff he learned in World War Two, in fucking North Africa. All good stuff. But I had to do my own thing, and luckily the seventies were a time when everyone was doing their own thing.”

  “Some things, you have to learn yourself.”

  “Amen.”

  Will shook the ice cubes in his glass, which was otherwise empty. He looked up from them and into Peter’s face, tilting his head appealingly, for emphasis.

  “I think you would have become what you are, even without the seventies,” he said.

  Peter felt another bolt.

  “I’ve often wondered that, Will,” he said expansively. “And you know what? I don’t think so. I think if I had grown up a decade or two before, I would have become a lawyer or something, and probably married a woman—and maybe I would have found out a way to get sumpin’ on the side, and maybe not. I don’t know that I would have expected my whole life to be integrated and the whole world to follow suit.”

  Will nodded.

  “And that’s how Jonathan’s generation started out,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I gather he’s somewhat older than you.”

  “Jonathan is only two or three years older than I am.”

  “Get out.”

  “Yeah.”

  Will looked genuinely shocked.

  “I would have guessed that he’s ten years older, at least,” he said.

  “Well, bless you, I guess,” said Peter, followed by a pause during which neither of them said anything about cancer.

  They left G and walked along Nineteenth Street toward Seventh Avenue. A glittering fantasy of dressed-up mannequins with big, big hair occupied the windows of Rootstein’s, as usual.

  “Barbie, Queen of Outer Space?” commented Will.

  “I guess,” said Peter. “Window display as glimpse into a magical walled garden.”

  Stationed outside of McManus’s, as usual, was a shabby quorum of desperate smokers.

  “Where are you off to?” asked Peter, at the corner.

  “I think I’ll head back to the office,” said Will.

  “Another draft?”

  “I guess. You?”

  “I’m heading home. Check e-mail. Wash face. Go to bed. So glad we were able to do this tonight.”

  “Me too,” said Will. And the two shared a little embrace. “You’ll have to come to dinner at my place sometime. We’re almost ready for guests.”

  “I would love that.”

 
As Peter hailed a cab, he realized he’d be going in roughly the same direction as Will.

  “Can I . . . drop you?” Peter asked.

  “No, thanks,” said Will. “I’ll just jump in the subway.”

  “See ya soon, then.”

  “Definitely.”

  And the cab sped away.

  At first, Will thought he might meet up with Stefan. Several texts had arrived from him, one with a picture of the First Lady waving from a little balcony that overlooked the party space. The after-party sounded like fun, but Will decided to just head home—in a town car, which was an option he’d reserved for himself by taking the subway earlier, to meet Peter. And he’d go via the office, since the pretense of having stayed there all evening, officially after hours, felt like a necessary extra step for someone so low on the editorial totem pole.

  As the car emerged from the Midtown Tunnel in Queens and made its way onto Vernon Boulevard, Will was ready for the money shot. There was the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, magnificent if for no other reason than its having four towers, spiky with finials, instead of the two of most other New York bridges. That allowed the structure’s architectural rhythm of drop-and-swag to build up some momentum, as it sprinted leisurely on the air from shore to shore. Will had always loved this bridge, ever since seeing it for the first time in a movie that dated from a few years before he was born, Woody Allen’s Manhattan. The sheer futuro-Gothic romance of the thing, which emerges, inexplicably, from the naked sobriety of its engineering; its profusion of non-orthogonal lines, speaking of a possible reality unbound by gravity or economy—all made it a monument underestimated, Will thought, by those who lived and worked in its shadow every day. New York, for a California boy, was the place to go and become fabulous in a quirky-sophisticated, Diane-and-Woody kind of way. It’s where the individualists were. As he saw Manhattan again and again—as a teenager, as a college student, as a young professional in Century City—Will continued to be reminded that New York beckoned, as did a life very different from anything in front of him in California, where people felt processed, preformulated, and—was this too cliché to say?—plastic.