Now and Yesterday

by Stephen Greco

  Yet shit, thought Peter, isn’t it slightly disloyal to Jonathan, for one, to be thinking in this way—even if death were a fact of life and overbuilding a city futile?

  Suddenly, Peter was terrified. He wondered if he could possibly, really, be scoring with Will that night or any other night. Death, he thought with a chuckle, might be easier to deal with than all the work there’d be to do if love truly were in the offing—learning about each other, listening to each other, compromising with each other....

  Ugh.

  Then a train slid into the station. It was one of the new, smoother riding, silver trains, gleaming clean, of a type that would have been hard to imagine back in 1975, when the MTA’s rolling stock was uniformly ancient and broken down, and covered with graffiti. The train discharged its passengers and those who’d been waiting on the platform stepped in. Peter settled into a seat and noticed his harshly lit reflection making a ghastly portrait in the window opposite. Then, with a futuristic “bink-bonk,” the train signaled the closing of its doors and the little girl in purple uttered a gurgle of delight.

  CHAPTER 13

  Peter noticed the table was set for four, the minute he walked in. But the tumult of welcome, the introduction to Luz, a quick tour of the apartment, and the jollity triggered by Peter’s approving and unprompted description of the color of the living room walls as “paper bag,” all kept Will from mentioning that Enrico was the fourth guest—until he received a call from Enrico, whose driver was lost. They were standing in the kitchen, sipping limoncello, while Will finished the pasta and Luz saw to the fish, chatting about Astoria and picking at a meze platter, when Enrico finally walked in the door, twenty minutes late. Introductions and subsequent conversation were smooth—more, Peter thought, because he was making an effort to be a good guest than because Will put his mind at ease about this little surprise. Were those two still an item?

  “Ooh, pretty table,” said Peter, after Will invited them to sit.

  “Peter brought the flowers,” said Will.

  “Sensational presentation,” said Peter.

  “Nice,” said Enrico. He was overdressed in a fitted sport jacket and flashy striped shirt. Peter, like Will and Luz, was in jeans, with a crewneck sweater and T-shirt.

  The table was in a dining area off the kitchen, a nook wainscoted in garish panels of the same blond wood that the kitchen cabinets were made of, which was so highly lacquered in acrylic that it looked like plastic. The flip-flop centerpiece did lend an offbeat elegance to the table, an agreeably tropical spree of newly bought china and cloth napkins—charming, Peter thought, and just as entertaining as the tabletop drama his grander friends achieved with gaily mismatched Ceralene, grandmother’s Buccel-lati, and the carnival of glassware one picks up in Venice over the years. On a counter nearby sat a bowl of salad and a stack of salad plates. Will and Luz brought the rest of the food to the table on platters.

  “How long have you lived here?” asked Enrico, unfolding his napkin and draping it across his lap.

  “Six months now,” said Will. “We’re still moving in.”

  “Such big rooms,” said Enrico. “Do you have the whole house?”

  “Of course not,” said Will.

  “We have a very nice landlady who lives downstairs,” said Luz, serving the fish with the grace of a headwaiter, using a pair of forks. “It’s like having our own Greek mama.”

  “Ah,” said Enrico.

  “Not exactly like your place,” said Will, laughing, filling everyone’s glass with wine. “Enrico’s apartment is a little jewel box.”

  “No,” said Enrico. And then there was an empty moment during which a gracious remark about the host’s apartment could have been added.

  Nice guy, thought Peter. Not worthy of Will.

  After offering a toast to new friends, Will served the pasta. With pleasure, Peter noticed the ease with which Will managed the hosting of his inaugural dinner party. The guy was clearly organized and seemed to have a talent for amplifying the conviviality of a group—asking the right questions, drawing people out, adding to the conversation in ways that kept it going, kept it buoyant. Luz seemed cooler, more serene.

  “It’s nice to have at least one person in the family who knows how to give a party,” she said.

  “That always helps, right?” said Peter.

  “I can grill fish, but that’s about it,” said Luz.

  “If only life were that simple,” said Peter.

  “Give a man a fish . . . ,” spouted Will—and they all chortled, except Enrico, who didn’t seem to get it.

  Peter had been surprised to find Luz there when he arrived, but he immediately took a liking to her. She was smart, funny, open; she reminded him of Alanis Morrisette—not just because of the luxuriant, long black hair, which Luz had gathered up into an asymmetrical twist for the evening, but because she had a witchy directness that seemed shot through with something saucy, even girly.

  “. . . Then I told the guy, ‘No, I’m not a dyke, but I am nine times the man that you are,’ ” she said with a laugh, concluding a story.

  “I am a dyke,” purred Will, leaning over and giving Luz an affectionate hug. “That’s how much I love women.”

  “Oh, baby,” said Luz, “and you’re gonna turn me into one, aren’t you.”

  Talk over dinner ranged from aquaculture and ecology to hunting and firearms, and then to gun policy and politics. Except for a few two-on-two moments, resulting from Enrico’s subtle tendency to address remarks more to Will than to the group, the conversation flowed steadily a quatre. Twice, when talk touched on the subject of what Peter did for a living, the conversation sputtered—partly because Peter was trying not to be brilliant and outshine his host, but also because Enrico seemed remarkably uninterested in Peter’s work or his thoughts. Was Enrico jealous? Maybe those two were still an item!

  Enrico was a handsome guy, but Peter suspected it might be the kind of handsomeness that gives way, over time, to a caricature of itself, instead of a fruition. For years Peter had been in the habit of Photoshopping forward people’s looks; he always had clear ideas about how they would look, ten or more years on. Thus he had judged Harold, when they first met, as poised to age gracefully; and the changes that did occur in Harold’s appearance during the crunch of that awful, final year, even though they were too ungentle to foreshadow actual advanced age, did nothing to dim Harold’s beauty in Peter’s eyes. Will, too, would only improve with age, Peter knew; and he winced when Will referred to his approaching thirtieth birthday with queeny mock-dread—more because the dread was so obviously unwarranted, than because it was partly disingenuous. Peter knew that the noble proportions among Will’s strong nose, brow, and jaw would remain intact, that the classic facial architecture would only be enhanced if the hair went gray and laugh lines developed around the eyes.

  “I hear you’re going to be working for Henderson McCaw,” said Luz. She, unlike Enrico, was very curious about Peter’s work.

  “Well, I may be,” said Peter. “We’re thinking about it. It would be working with him, by the way—not for him.”

  “But only maybe, right?” said Will.

  “Right.”

  “He’s only a total monster,” said Will.

  “Monsters need slogans, too,” quipped Luz. “In fact, they kind of depend on them, don’t they, Peter? I’m thinking historically.”

  “Interesting,” said Peter, glad to have an idea on the table, along with the unpremeditated lie he instantly regretted. “The slogan itself can be kind of a monstrous thing, I suppose. Anyway, we’re thinking about it. I’m trying to determine whether or not I have the stomach for it. . . .”

  “Who is this?” asked Enrico, though an explanation did nothing to inspire him to join the exchange. Peter was relieved when the conversation moved on, because he realized he was so ambivalent about his new client, he wasn’t prepared to talk about him.

  After dinner, Peter helped Luz clear the table and followed her into the
kitchen, while Will and Enrico remained in the living room, talking. It made Peter jealous to see them chatting like that, by themselves, though he knew he wasn’t really authorized to feel jealousy, since he had never been promised anything and was really only nursing a fantasy.

  “Don’t worry about them,” said Luz, when she noticed Peter glancing back into the living room.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re not together.”

  “Oh, Luz . . . ,” said Peter, with a pretend shudder. He assumed she knew everything.

  “Man, you’ve got it bad,” she said. “I can see it all over you.”

  “Can you?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Can I be honest?” He spread his arms into as wide a “this much” gesture as possible.

  “So what are you doing about it?”

  “I’m doing it.”

  “You’re not seeing anybody?”

  “Anybody else? No. Not that I am exactly seeing Will. . . .”

  “You’re attractive and successful.”

  “Thanks. I haven’t dated in ten years, Luz. I think I’m in some kind of transition. I had two long-term relationships that ended . . . well, it’s a long story. For a long time I haven’t known what I wanted, or if I wanted anything.”

  “And now you do.”

  “I think I do, yeah.”

  “Why Will?”

  “His cooking, of course.”

  “Seriously.”

  “I dunno. The men of my generation bore me, and younger guys usually do, too. But Will . . . he’s something else, isn’t he?”

  “I think so.”

  “But it’s all so . . . confusing. Why am I telling you this? I’ve had too much to drink.”

  “It’s sweet. It’s like you’re seventeen.”

  “Yeah, except I’m in my eighties,” said Peter.

  “Aw, c’mon.”

  Then Peter wondered if it were possible that she could believe him.

  “Luz, I’m only fifty-nine.”

  “Whatever.”

  He had an instinct that she could be trusted.

  “So lemme ask you,” he said. “Do I have a chance?”

  “He tells me everything, of course,” said Luz.

  “Uh-huh . . .”

  “But in confidence.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “No, no—don’t worry. It’s not bad for you.”

  “Oh, good. I guess.” A pause.

  “I would just say: Step up,” said Luz.

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled enigmatically.

  “I’m not gonna say more than that,” she said.

  “Step up,” repeated Peter. “And you can’t say more than that because you’re supertrustworthy.”

  Enigmatic turned to angelic.

  “I try,” she squeaked.

  “Luz, I suspect you are a treasure,” said Peter.

  “Oh, I’m a good lawyer, too, baby.”

  “I’ll bet you are,” he said, laughing.

  “That, in there,” said Luz, indicating the living room, “if you ask me, it’s just a case of VGL, UB2, blah-blah-blah.”

  “Ecch—really?”

  “They’re programmed that way.”

  “He swallows all that crap?”

  “I go out with the guy, I see what’s out there—all those smiley boy-bots. I guess it’s fun—unless you happen to have a bigger idea about relationships.”

  “Jesus, Luz, what kind of law are you studying?”

  “Intellectual property,” she said.

  “Figures.”

  “But he’s more than that and he knows it.”

  “I hope so,” said Peter.

  “He knows you’re more than that.”

  Peter smiled.

  “You and I, counselor,” he said, “are gonna have a big fat drink, one of these days, just the two of us.”

  “I’m there, buddy,” said Luz. “Anyway, I wanna hear more about writing taglines and naming brand extensions.”

  “Everything I know is yours.”

  Dessert was figs and nuts, in the living room. No one wanted tea or coffee. Talk was about why people come to New York. Will told his story, which Peter already knew—that he had come more or less automatically, without a feeling of destiny about either the place or his career—whereas Luz said she had come to stake out territory, climb to the top of a heap—like himself and Jonathan and their crowd, Peter thought. They chewed over ambition and power, the good and the bad, and then it felt like the evening was over. When Peter came back from the bathroom, he said he should probably go.

  Almost too quickly Enrico was saying what a pleasure it was to have met him.

  “I had a great time,” Peter told Will moments later, in the doorway, after thanking Luz with a hug.

  “Thanks for the book,” said Will.

  “I was hoping we would have a chance to talk about it.”

  “Me too. Another time.”

  “OK.”

  “Soon.”

  “Of course.”

  “Know where you’re going? We can call a car.”

  “No, I’m good with the subway. You going out later?”

  “No—Peter! I have an early morning, tomorrow. The rest of the guests will be leaving very shortly.”

  They shared a genial chuckle and a peck on the cheek, which afforded Peter a waft of rosemary-lavender-scented hair gel—enough of an intimacy to make him feel, as he descended into the street, a little high.

  He chuckled again, at himself, on his walk to the subway. On the way out to Astoria he had given some thought to the possibility—a long shot, he knew—of being invited to stay the night. In all other ways, though, the evening was a success. Knowing that Enrico, who seemed so smooth at first, was actually dull, passive, or maybe even lazy, was comforting.

  Unworthy.

  But the thing that really stuck in Peter’s mind, as he rattled back to Manhattan and then to Brooklyn, was why he had denied saying a definite yes about McCaw. It was a done deal, yet he had answered Luz with a “maybe.” And the uncertainty seemed to matter to Will. The matter continued to perplex him all the way home.

  Soon after the turn of March there was a hint of spring in the air, though not necessarily a vegetal hint. Are the mineral smells released by warming city walls and sidewalks under strengthening sunlight not just as invigorating as reawakened greenery? A fresh breeze, sweetened by sun-kissed brick, was pushing in through a crack that Aldebar had opened in Jonathan’s kitchen window, as Peter, in a blue blazer and white shirt, stood there talking with him, leaning on the granite countertop, sipping coffee. It was just before eleven, on a weekday morning. There was little to see out the window—only the building’s inner courtyard, though even the difference between a clean, spacious courtyard like that one and the dark, choked airshaft that is more common in New York was another reason why Jonathan’s building counted as a prestige address.

  “Ted Uppman was the Met’s Billy Budd when I was growing up,” said Aldebar. “I think he created the part.”

  “I envy your having grown up in New York,” said Peter. “I was stuck in a small town upstate.”

  Except for their voices, the room was still—the calm of a well-ordered kitchen at rest amplifying the sadness of the occasion: a meeting to discuss Jonathan’s will. In attendance, in the library, were Jonathan’s lawyer, Mark; Mark’s assistant Judith; Jonathan’s brother, Ted, who was the chief executor of his will, responsible for Jonathan’s real property; and Peter, who was Jonathan’s artistic executor and thus responsible for protecting his artistic output. Peter had been asked to step out of the room while they discussed Jonathan’s personal bequests of property, artwork, and objects.

  “ ‘Theodor Uppman, the American baritone,’ ” said Aldebar. “That’s the way they always billed him. I guess they wanted to make sure people realized he was American, and not, I dunno, Swedish. They were very proud of the American singers they were turning out, back t
hen.”

  “What else did he do?” asked Peter.

  “Papageno! Pelléas! Sharpless! And contemporary stuff. He was pretty adventurous.”

  Aldebar was an interesting guy, thought Peter—a trained nurse, an amateur bodybuilder, and a connoisseur in a way that generations of young lower- and middle-class gay boys of various cultural backgrounds learned about, then claimed ownership of, the so-called finer things of life.

  “He went on playing Billy probably much longer than he should have,” continued Aldebar. “But he kept those athletic good looks that apparently Britten liked so much, and he was terrific in the part. He had all the innocence and trustfulness.”

  “Have you always been into opera?”

  “High school music teacher—Mr. Sternberg.”

  Judith appeared at the kitchen door.

  “Peter, will you rejoin us?”

  “To be continued,” said Peter, to Aldebar.

  In the library, the group was installed in the sofa and chairs that surrounded a pair of midcentury modernist, bentwood coffee tables. The tables were spread with legal papers, notepads, and Judith’s sleek laptop. Fingers of late morning sun poked in through the wooden blinds, angling down over Jonathan’s collection of antique Japanese pots, which he’d grouped on the built-in cabinet with decorative casualness. Opposite, on a table that was well out of the sunlight, was the Eliot manuscript—something that presumably would go to a museum or a library, sometime in the coming year. The manuscript had been on Peter’s mind ever since he decided to give Will a copy of Four Quartets. Maybe one day, Peter thought, Jonathan would let us remove the Plexiglas cover and examine the manuscript in detail. In a drawer was a supply of white cotton gloves, for just such occasions.