Now and Yesterday

by Stephen Greco

  By the time they arrived home it was dark. They’d texted ahead, so they were right on time to have a cocktail and sit down to dinner. Aldebar had made roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and apple pie that was served with a locally made ginger-basil ice cream.

  After dinner, they all spent a few minutes on the terrace, looking at the Milky Way and figuring out which stars were which, using an app called Planets that Peter had on his iPhone. Then they came in and watched Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer in the “family room”—the other end of the kitchen. Jonathan dozed off in the middle.

  “You realize, don’t you, that I have to completely reinterpret the stars, because of you,” said Peter, when they were back in their room, done with the bathroom and getting ready for bed.

  Will said nothing. He was stretched out on his bed, on top of the covers, in his boxers and a T-shirt, examining the seascape he’d purchased.

  “This is not a night sky I have ever seen before,” continued Peter. “Everything I have ever thought or felt or known about the stars is suddenly off, because of you.”

  “Yadda, yadda, yadda,” said Will. Then he looked up from the seascape and beamed Peter an angelic smile.

  “Joke if you want to,” said Peter, “but now when I look at the Milky Way, I hear celestial harmonies I’ve never heard before. And I’m not sure if this is part of a feeling or a memory or something else.”

  “Mister, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that one . . . ,” said Will, playfully. And then he turned the seascape around, so Peter could see it. “C’mon, seriously, come and look at my picture. It’s good, no?”

  “It’s gorgeous. You did well,” said Peter, sitting down on the bed next to Will and regarding the watercolor with him, though the picture most vivid in Peter’s mind at that moment was of his friend’s muscular legs, casually crossed, and bare feet—possibly the most beautifully formed feet, by the standards of Renaissance sculpture, Peter thought, that he had ever seen.

  “Oh, and by the way,” said Will, twisting around and reaching down to the floor to grab a paper bag from inside the green plastic one he’d been carrying all afternoon. “This is for you.” He handed Peter the bag.

  “Wow,” said Peter. “For me?” Inside was a handsome old volume whose title was floridly embossed in oxidized gilt on a brown cloth cover: Our Deportment.

  “Will, I . . . wow,” said Peter, beginning to look through the book, surprised and gratified.

  It had been published in 1882 and was dedicated, according to the title page, “to manners, conduct, and dress of the most refined society; including forms for letters, invitations, etc., etc. Also, valuable on home culture and training. Compiled from the latest reliable authorities by John H. Young.”

  “Couldn’t resist,” said Will. They had looked at the book briefly in one of the shops they visited, but put it down when Jonathan and Aldebar decided to press on.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Peter.

  “Look at the stamp inside the front cover,” said Will. “ ‘Number 79’ in the library of one E. A. Bacon. ‘Purchased in 1884, for 1.25.’ That’s dollars, I presume.”

  “Probably, yeah . . . !”

  “I went back and got it for you. I knew you had to have it.”

  “Will, I’m . . . overwhelmed. This is so thoughtful.”

  “Look,” said Will, drawing closer to Peter and flipping pages to a place he had marked with a postcard. “There’s a section on calling cards.”

  “Very helpful,” said Peter. With both his pulse and his thoughts racing, he wanted to embrace his friend in thanks, but thought better of it, in case he was too overwhelmed to control the impulse.

  “And look,” said Will, “ ‘Receptions, Parties, and Balls’!”

  As Peter gazed at the chapter heading, with its extravagant illustration of a silver ewer, and at Will’s chunky fingers, holding the book open to the right place, he tried to remember the last time there was so much going on in his mind and body.

  “Well, thank you,” said Peter. “The, uh, best I can do to express my gratitude is make a reflexively gracious, though hopefully not too embarrassing, gesture.” And with that, Peter slid over, took Will’s right foot into both hands, and kissed the instep with exaggerated courtliness.

  A charge went through both of them, even if both wanted to remain calm.

  “Charming, sir,” said Will, wiggling his toes.

  Peter straightened up.

  “Now look, we’re not going to make love tonight, are we?” he said, rising from the bed to place the book over on the table, with his laptop. “ ’Cause I’m pretty well bushed after all that antiquing.”

  “Me too,” said Will. “I guess we should turn in.”

  Peter flicked off the desk lamp, then gave Will’s hair a tousle and kissed the top of his head chastely.

  “You’re a sweetie, you know that?” he said.

  “So are you,” said Will.

  Peter went to his bed and sat down, and slowly pulled off his pants and socks.

  “But just to be serious for a second,” he said, “ ’cause we’re both so avid about truth—you do know that I’m head over heels about you, right?” He paused, then went on. “I guess maybe I don’t want to joke it all away. I mean, I know that what we have is special and we’re dealing with it in a special way. You’re putting aside the games you play and I’m trying to put aside mine. . . .”

  “Peter . . . ,” said Will, shaking his head in a mellow way.

  “OK, OK,” said Peter. “Just so you know. No pressure.” He slipped into his bed and pulled up the covers.

  “No, I do know, and it’s not pressure,” said Will. “I like you—I like you a lot. But honestly, Peter, I have no idea where I stand on love, on sex . . . with anybody. Maybe you could tell. I think I’m a little nuts that way.”

  “OK,” said Peter, carefully, “I guess I get that.”

  “No, I don’t know if you do get that,” said Will. “I don’t see how you could. I never talk about it. I just started therapy—big surprise, right?—and I think . . . I’m going as fast as I can. Maybe someday soon I’ll be able to talk about this with you. I want to.”

  “Well, that would be nice.”

  “I think so, too. Believe me.”

  Will tucked away the seascape and slipped under his own covers, drawing them up over his shoulders.

  “You’re an amazing man,” added Will.

  “Oh, I’m amazing, all right,” said Peter, with a big yawn. “And just so you know, I’m not so sure where I stand on love, either—which is, excuse me, a big thing for me to have to parse, since I invented love.”

  Will laughed.

  “You did—you invented it?” he said. “Your generation and the Summer of Love?”

  “No, me personally,” said Peter. “I, who have stood on the shoulders of giants and personally reinvented eros for the modern age. This was not a game for me. It was some kind of responsibility.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “And suddenly, all this revealed knowledge about eros and civilization and such, which used to be true for all eternity, hardly applies anymore.”

  “Don’t worry, you can adapt.”

  “Can I?” Peter snorted. “The dinosaur surviving the crunch? Will, you know: I’ve gone out a lot and fooled around a lot. But at last I can see how sex and love are this one, whole thing—at least they are for me—which makes dating in today’s modern, fast-and-loose social environment a little weird. People don’t necessarily go out at night looking for that one, whole thing.”

  “Funny,” said Will. “And I’ve only had sex with people I didn’t love, and am possibly afraid of the whole, real thing. Not that I’d even know it if I saw it.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “But c’mon, buddy,” continued Will. “You’re a little wounded, too, aren’t you? It’s not just the world that’s changed. It’s you.”

  “Precisely,” said Peter. “I’m the walking wounded. An
d I love you for knowing that.”

  “What can I say?” said Will. “I’m immense.”

  Peter smiled.

  “And I love that you remember I once called you that,” he said. “It’s true, you know—you are immense.”

  “I do remember.”

  And with that, Peter switched off the lamp on the night table and both of them made themselves comfortable in their beds.

  “Therapy?” whispered Peter, after a minute.

  “Oh, please, not now,” murmured Will.

  CHAPTER 18

  Sunday was rainy, which was exactly the kind of weather that allowed a more essential quality of Jonathan’s house than its beauty to emerge: solidity. In the kitchen that morning, despite the squalling outside, the loudest sound to be heard, besides talking, was the crackling of the fire that Aldebar had built in the old fireplace. Jonathan and Will were sitting nearby, at the big table, chatting quietly over coffee, while Peter was upstairs on his laptop and Aldebar was out looking for fresh tarragon.

  “So that’s why you’re hemming and hawing?” asked Jonathan. “He’s ‘almost too nice’?”

  “Sort of,” said Will.

  “Bullshit.”

  “He’s not nice?”

  “That’s not what’s going on. I’m too nice, too.”

  “But you never fell in love with me.”

  “Didn’t I?”

  “Oh, Jonathan. You never indicated that you did.”

  “I respected you and liked you. I still do.”

  “And that means a lot to me. Thank you.”

  “But now you know he’s in love with you,” said Jonathan.

  “I do,” said Will, “though I was the last person to find out. He’s always going on about all the models he’s dated and the golden age of gay sex. . . .”

  “That’s my boy.”

  “And I respect all that. But every time I was sure he was going to make a move, he didn’t. And then I felt relieved, even though I was disappointed, because I’m such a mess.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I grew up afraid of so-called ‘real’ sex, because of AIDS, and I guess I was afraid of finding out he could be just another handjob guy.”

  “Ucch.”

  “Or that I was just working myself.”

  “Speaking of which, I gather he doesn’t know yet.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “You gonna tell him?”

  “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Which is why you asked me not to say anything.”

  “I want to tell him myself.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re still at it?”

  “Jonathan! I’m a classy magazine editor now!”

  “I’ve known editors to hook—editors at your magazine, in fact.”

  “It’s over, and I will tell him. My therapist says that being honest is part of taking care of myself.”

  “So what’s the big play now that you’re an honest man, Will? A career, a relationship? A family?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know! I never had to know these things. I don’t know how to know them.”

  “Which is pretty much where we were last fall, puppy.”

  “Even this thing at the magazine, which I was lucky to get—it isn’t aligned with any great vector I was aiming for. I just like talking to people. My dad’s always talking about vectors—the ones that point in the direction you’ve chosen to go in, the ones that don’t.”

  Jonathan sighed.

  “Forgive me for saying so, but your generation is fucked,” he said. “And I don’t mean in a good way.”

  “I know,” said Will.

  “Completely overprotected and underchallenged.”

  “I know.”

  “And you’ve amused yourselves to death. No wonder all of you sit around watching vampire and zombie stories.”

  Will snickered.

  “I hate that stuff,” he said.

  “Parodies of life.”

  “True.”

  “The hustling wasn’t even work. It was a parody of work.”

  “Fair enough. Though . . . it did feel like work, sometimes, with some people. Not you.”

  “Oh, man,” said Jonathan, “I hope I didn’t contribute to your becoming a zombie.”

  “How so?” said Will.

  “By hiring you that way! You know, I’ve developed some guilt around this, as I’ve come to know you better.”

  “Why? What about Aldebar?”

  “Aldebar’s different. He’s full-time. Besides, he has a very special talent for helping people. It’s like a calling.”

  “Anyway, no worries. It’s not like you were the first and you turned me.”

  “Well, I did recommend you to Randy and Eric. . . .”

  “Helped me pay the rent while I stayed in New York and looked for a real job.”

  “Still. I should be enriching your mind, seeing to your special talent. Maybe I can make it up to you.”

  Conversation over lunch was spotty. Few topics found any traction. More than once, the four of them agreed that Aldebar’s chicken salad, made with leftover roast chicken, was superb. They’d used up all their ebullient small talk about matters past and present during the previous forty-eight hours, and in view of the imminent departure of Peter and Will, exchanges about the future felt forced and sad. Nevertheless, and despite the gray day, they worked up some cheer after lunch, when Peter and Will were leaving, as they all stood on the terrace, the van already loaded, promising to see each other the following month, at a screening Jonathan was planning of footage from the movie.

  “Is this the sort of thing you want me to bring people to?” said Peter.

  “No, that will come later,” said Jonathan decisively. “This is more for family and friends.”

  Peter understood. By plan, the movie would not be finished until after Jonathan’s death. It was to include scenes of him and Connor Frankel talking, presumably, until the point at which Jonathan could no longer endure the process of filming. This screening was only to give Jonathan the pleasure of seeing some part of his work with people who mattered to him most. Attending would be a sort of memorial service in advance of the fact. As they stood there, with Jonathan leaning on a cane, Peter caught himself surprised to hear intention still so strong in his friend’s voice. Without knowing it, he had allowed thoughts of Jonathan’s frailty to undermine the premise that his friend was still an autonomous adult and artist—which he reckoned was like thinking paper money worthless unless backed by gold.

  “Until soon then,” said Peter.

  “Right-o,” said Jonathan.

  It took Peter a few minutes to compose himself, as he and Will descended Jonathan’s road to the main highway. He had to breathe deeply in order to stave off a bout of weeping.

  “He seems in a good place right now,” said Will.

  “I know,” said Peter. “I’ll be fine.”

  The drive to Catskill was quick—a zip down the highway and over the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, a graceless contraption built in the 1930s that is conspicuously unworthy of the verdant hills surrounding it. Clouds hung low in the sky, and it continued to rain off and on—another reason why Peter was glad they would be driving home later on the Thruway, which was wider and straighter than the Taconic. And he was glad, too, to have the van, which in all the blowy wetness felt as safe as a space capsule. The seats were indeed that much higher above the road, the wipers that much more powerful, as they swept away sheet after sheet of rain.

  Yet finding Arnie’s place was not easy. They had Google Mapped the route, but the house was located up in the hills, where the roads were sparsely marked and the road signs few, and the signs they did see were hard to make out in the pounding rain.

  It was the land of many dominions. Mile after mile, they passed homes whose streetside décorismo announced all manner of upstate working-class scenarios: the bland little ranchburger belonging to The Guy Who Knows What’s Best For Everyone; the gussied-up bungalow of The
Couple Who Seem Friendly Enough But Clearly Don’t Want To Get Close To Anyone; the grandiloquent McMansion of The Family Who Seem To Excel At Everything In Public But Argue Violently Among Themselves Every Night In Private. Driveways lined in beds of pansies; property lines staked with painted brick stanchions; yards anchored by exactly symmetrical groupings of neatly groomed shrubbery; chimneys emblazoned with initials of family surnames; shutters pierced with cut-outs in the shape of little pine trees—all of which reflected, Peter knew, strains of Americana that needed to be addressed, and perhaps even cherished, if one was to sell the owners of such places cars and energy drinks and political leaders.

  They missed the turnoff to Arnie’s road because it was no wider than a driveway, then they missed the driveway itself because the mailbox was obscured by a mass of rain-sagged laurel. When they finally pulled up to the house, in back of a beat-up blue Corolla, Arnie was waiting on the screened-in porch.

  “Sort of a shack,” said Peter, switching off the ignition and unbuckling his seat belt.