by M. E. Kerr
His note was paper clipped to a blue folder.
Horoscope for Lang Penner, prepared by Madam Rattray.
“What’s that?” Mom asked.
I held it up.
“What a great gift. See what it says for today.”
I had to get past pages of interpretation on the position of the planets and houses when I was born.
The forecast came at the very end.
“It’s monthly, not daily,” I said.
“Read what it says for July.”
I read it:
Your bent to embroider on reality, though done in all good faith, may make you distrusted. You may find yourself “out on a limb.” You are competent, however, and your fast reflexes may allow you to extricate yourself from embarrassing situations.
My mother chuckled. “Your fast reflexes? You’ve been dragging yourself around like an old turtle this morning.”
“Maybe I stuck my neck out when I shouldn’t have,” I said.
She went back to the kitchen, and I sat there trying to remember how that conversation with Huguette had ended…before Nevada called down.
I could hear her saying, “From the very first hello you’ve lied.”
I got up and looked out the window at the kind of perfect summer day there always seems to be after a heavy rain.
Through branches of green leaves under an early-morning sun, I saw the Porsche come back down from Roundelay. Huguette was beside him in the front seat.
Then the phone rang, and Kevin McCaffery told me he didn’t expect me to report to work that night.
“You don’t want help with the party?”
“Nevada says you’re invited to be a guest at the party.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said.
“Suit yourself. Just show up as usual tomorrow when The Failures open. It’s going to be a madhouse here. You got that?”
“I got it,” I said. “I’ll be there.” But I didn’t mean at the party.
TWENTY-FIVE
I SPENT THAT SUNDAY chopping wood and stacking it while Mom went to church and then off to the Fourth of July celebration in Montauk with Franklin.
I napped and woke up at nine P.M., made myself a sandwich, and tried to watch The Agony and the Ecstasy on Bravo. Alex and I would have cracked up at Rex Harrison asking Charlton Heston, “You dare to dicker with your pontiff?” But the line wasn’t funny without Alex around. Funny movies weren’t funny without him beside me to watch them.
I decided to do the unpardonable: take a walk along the beach, in front of Roundelay. The party for The Failures would be just beginning. Only the chows were home up there.
I wanted to think about what had happened between Huguette and me; mainly, what had gotten into me?
I took a flashlight, although I didn’t need it. The moon was full. The sky was lit up with fireworks from Main Beach.
When I reached the sand, I left my loafers behind and headed down toward the hard edge by the water.
What I thought I felt mostly was embarrassment. I walked along imagining what I would say to Huguette next time I was with her. I planned to use my mother’s old remark: that coming out was like spilling a glass of wine at a dinner party. But I could almost hear Huguette telling me off: yelling that I’d owed it to her to be as honest with her as she’d been with me.
I was inventing things to say and crossing them out as soon as I thought of them, when I saw someone coming toward me.
Then I saw the chows romping up on the soft sand…and then he saw me. His flashlight hit my face.
“Penner?”
“Yeah.”
I waited for him to order me off “his” beach.
He turned the flashlight off and stood facing me.
“Why aren’t you at Sob Story?”
“Why aren’t you, sir? It’s your party.”
“I don’t like those parties in public.”
“I don’t either.”
We began walking back toward Roundelay.
I thanked him for the birthday party, and he grunted something about it being Huguette’s idea, not his.
“She’s grown very attached to you,” he said.
I didn’t know if they’d talked since he’d told me to go home; I didn’t know what he knew.
I said, “I like her, too. A lot.”
“Have you told her about yourself yet?”
“I didn’t have to, thanks to you.”
“I don’t think you ever intended to tell her.”
“I did. I was waiting for the right time.”
“Bullshit, Penner!”
“Well, she knows now. What’s the difference?” I knew what the difference was, but I didn’t feel like arguing the point.
“I didn’t want her wondering why you weren’t champing at the bit to date her,” he said. “Thanks to Cog Wheeler, there’s someone who is. He’s been with her all day.”
“I wouldn’t call him the ideal someone.”
“Maybe he doesn’t appeal to you, but he does to her.”
“I don’t mean that. He might be appealing but he might not be a good choice.”
“Why? He’s a nice boy!”
“Maybe…maybe not. She hasn’t had much experience with a fast-track type like that.”
“She hasn’t had any experience. I like Cog.”
“I remember you growled at me one morning, ‘What kind of a name is Lang?’ So what kind of a name is Cog?”
Nevada snorted. “He made that up. The cog in the wheel. That’s what his father always made him feel like! Oh, I know that feeling. Cog and I have a lot in common.”
“I didn’t realize you knew him.”
“I don’t know him, but I know we’re alike. I read an interview with him in Rolling Stone. It could have been me talking, twenty years ago!”
“So that makes him a good choice for Huguette?”
“What does that mean?” he growled.
“Nothing,” I said. I could see the lights of Roundelay. Firecrackers exploded like machine guns.
We walked along without talking for a while, Plato dancing ahead of us, the other chows running scared with their tails between their legs.
“Things are different today,” Nevada said. “When we went on the road, all we needed was some penicillin and a little black book. The young fellows today pack laptops, mobile phones, modems; they’re real little businessmen.”
“Yeah,” I said sarcastically.
“You want to argue the point with me, is that it?”
“I wasn’t thinking about the difference in equipment on the road,” I said. But I wondered what the hell I was trying to prove, why I didn’t just shut up and let him think what he wanted to about Wheeler.
Nevada said, “You do want to argue it with me. All right, come up to Roundelay and we’ll discuss it.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“Stand up for your opinions!” he said. “You throw some out and then back away! You have trouble standing up for yourself, don’t you?”
“Maybe sometimes,” I said. “But that isn’t why I can’t come to Roundelay.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because Alex is going to call at eleven thirty,” I said. “It’s eleven ten.”
“Just as well, Penner,” he said, as we took the path leading up to the house. “I never should have started calling you Penner. You name something, and the next thing you know, you’ve invited it into your house.”
I laughed. “Maybe you should just call me F. I could be the sixth rottweiler.”
“You’re not fierce enough!” he said. “Plato? Aristotle? Socrates! Come!”
I found my shoes where I’d left them, then headed away while he dealt with the chows.
TWENTY-SIX
“YOU’RE NOT GOING TO believe who’s playing Cherie,” Alex said. “Nola Leary!”
“Who’s she?”
“Remember the one in Picnic who said she couldn’t get excited about kissing an actor who’d rath
er kiss another male than a female?”
“Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes…and she’s the director’s pet.”
“But didn’t she know they were casting you?”
“When I got there, she did.”
“How’s she reacting?”
“We all went off to see the fireworks. So far so good. They were so relieved to get anyone at the last minute, I guess she’s resigned to having me play Bo. For now, anyway.”
We talked about my birthday party, the horoscope, his room, others in the cast, everything but Huguette. He didn’t mention her and I didn’t.
The moment I heard his voice, any leftover confusion I had from the night before went. I just wanted to be with him. Feel him close, and smell the patchouli.
“Alex? Listen. I’m working some extra hours for McCaffery tomorrow. I think I could get next weekend off. I could fly up Friday.”
“That’ll cost you plenty, Lang!”
“I’ve been working for Nevada, too. I have money saved. It’ll be worth it if I can just spend a little time with you.”
“I’m dying to see you, Lang, but not yet.”
“Why?”
“I just explained why. This is a very small town. It’d be hard to get off by ourselves. We’re all in the same boardinghouse, one room right next to the other, and no place to go after the show but one beer joint…. I don’t have a car, either.”
“I see.”
“Do you see? I’m going to look around and maybe find another place. I don’t know what’s available.”
“Damn! I was hoping we could be together, Alex!”
“Don’t,” he said. “How do you think I feel? Everyone up here is straight as a ruler!”
“That never bothered you before.”
“How come it doesn’t bother you? You wouldn’t even come backstage in New York. What’s happened to you suddenly?”
“I miss you.”
“I know. I’ll think of something. Call you tomorrow.”
“I love you,” I said.
He said, “You usually don’t say that before I do. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, hmmm?”
“Yes,” I said, and I hoped it was true.
TWENTY-SEVEN
EXCEPT FOR GLIMPSES OF her in the distance, I didn’t see Huguette for a week.
Then one morning, when I was repairing the fence around the pool, she called me up to the porch.
“Have lunch with us,” she said.
“Okay. Thanks.”
I didn’t have to ask what band was playing over the speakers. I’d been hearing nothing but The Failures coming from Roundelay all week, whenever Huguette was there.
They’d broken records at Sob Story, sold out every night, six hundred dinners in three days, never mind what the bar took in.
Days I’d see the white Porsche coming and going from Roundelay, often with her beside him. On The Failures’ opening night she sat in front at his table. From the kitchen I watched him dedicate his first song to her: Sting’s old one, “Every Breath You Take.”
Now they were gone, playing a gig in New Jersey.
Huguette had on a long, yellow Failures T-shirt, a version of the one I’d seen on Lenny Allen, with the white circle and the single word zero, THE FAILURES stamped across the back. Her black shorts barely showed. She was barefoot and tan.
I sat down and pulled my trouser pants out of my socks, which I kept up to protect myself from ticks when I worked around the fields.
I couldn’t look at her too closely. All the feelings I’d been pushing away for seven days came flooding back.
She said, “Look what he gave me, Lang!”
It was a small, gold identification bracelet.
“He had something engraved on the back,” she said. She undid it and handed it to me.
If you say my name Cog, you get Cog.
I gave it back to her.
“The engraver’s getting rich this summer,” I said.
I never carried the key chain. Nobody had ever given me jewelry with something printed on it before. I was afraid I’d lose it.
“Nobody ever gave me something engraved before,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll lose it.”
“I know what you mean.”
“You know how I always say if you say my name Eugette, you get—”
I cut her off. “I got it,” I said.
“He said he might even write a song about it.”
“What about Martin?” I said.
“I love Martin.” She was fastening the bracelet to her wrist. “This is different. It’s just an innocent flip.”
“A fling,” I said.
“Cog’s a big star! What would he want with me? He keeps saying he wishes I’d go someplace with him, far away from Roundelay.”
“I bet he would,” I said.
“Don’t sound so cynical. How’s Alex?”
“Busy.”
“When will you see him again?”
I shrugged. “Who knows?” Early that morning he’d called me to say he thought he might have a room a few miles from where he was. He might be able to rent a bicycle. There was a possibility that Scotty Lund and Maggie would drive up from New York, the first weekend in August. Maybe I could hitch a ride with them.
“Remember Scotty?”
“Won’t that nellie queen ruin your scene?” I’d said.
Alex had said, “You just don’t get it, do you? Nobody cares about what kind of friends I have. Everybody knows Scotty. That’s different!”
“What would you do with me around? Find me a beard, too?”
“You’d look like a friend of theirs…. Lang, Nola Leary is a real bitch! This is an unusual situation!”
Then he’d asked about Huguette. I told him she was busy with Cog Wheeler.
Alex had laughed. “You’re traveling in powerful circles, love. Don’t let it go to your head.”
I’d said, “I’m not traveling at all. I’d like to, if you could figure out some way for me to do it!”
“I hear you,” Alex had ended the conversation. “And I love you! Just hang in there awhile longer, okay?”
Nevada strolled out on the deck, nodded at me, and said, “Penner,” then stood a second or so listening to the music.
“That’s a bizarre percussion jam tacked on at the end of this,” he said. “I’m surprised at Cog.”
“Why did he want to talk to you this morning, Uncle Ben?”
“Maybe after an hour he got tired of talking to you,” said Nevada. He sat down at the table, across from me. “I think I’ll buy some telephone stock if this keeps up.”
“What did he want?” Huguette persisted.
“He wants me to come out of retirement.” Plato had followed him from the house with a chew stick in his mouth. He sat by Nevada’s chair gnawing on it.
“Well? What about it?” Huguette said.
“I have to think about it. It wouldn’t be anything permanent. They’re doing a gig at The House of Stars in Boston this August. I opened there twenty-three years ago in August. I got my start there.” He lit a cigarette while we waited for the rest. Blew a smoke ring. Shook his head. “Cog wants me to walk out and do a number with him. Surprise, surprise sort of thing…for sentimental reasons. No advance publicity, no big deal.”
“Oh, Uncle Ben—do it!”
“I don’t know.”
I was watching her. I was thinking how easy she’d made it for me to get back with her: no mention of anything that had happened on my birthday night. No need to talk it into the ground, explain, apologize.
What I’d feared most—her asking me what I’d meant when I’d said that maybe we were more than friends—was just passed over. All of it was.
All of it except that strange pull I felt taking me closer to her: not just in my head, but running up and down my arms when I looked at her, as though the blood in my veins was jumping in time with the fast thumping of my heart.
While she talked with Nevada about Cog Wheeler’s pr
oposition, I scratched Plato’s head and made myself stop watching her. I looked out at the ocean. I thought of Alex’s idea to have me go up to the Cape with Scotty Lund and Maggie. I thought of the day on Roosevelt Island when I’d met them, when I’d said there was no such thing as a bisexual.
“Where the hell is our lunch?” Nevada yelled suddenly.
“I’ll see what Franklin’s up to,” Huguette said, and she left me there with him.
“What do you think, Penner? You think I should come out of my closet?”
“I’m all for that,” I said.
“Out of retirement and back into the fray, just for one night?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“It’d be a change,” said Nevada. “I miss changing. About all I’ve changed lately is my clothes. You, at your age, have all your changes ahead of you. Once they’re behind you, you’re as stuck as a mouse on one of those glue pads we’ve got down in the cellar.”
Aristotle and Socrates came out and joined the party, while Plato trotted off to the other end of the deck, guarding his chew stick.
Nevada leaned forward and spoke in a low, confidential tone. “I think Huguette is beginning to forget her grape picker. Now she knows she can do a lot better than that…. And Cog is a good kid. He doesn’t drink. He’s not on dope.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve made some inquiries. Everyone says he’s clean, a real businessman. He makes the deals, the decisions. He went to Bush, this very fine school in Seattle.” Nevada was in awe of anyone who attended prep school or college, or even someone who took a home-study course in embalming.
He said, “I like his writing. His songs mean something. They remind me of the good writers, the old ones: Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel.” He laughed and added, “Ben Nevada…Of course, I suspect he’s more interested in Huguette than he is in getting me up to Boston with him.”
“Probably both,” I said.
“Before the Rochans changed her name, she was called Phoenix…after the bird that rises from the ashes. Cali must have felt that everything she did before the baby was destructive. I couldn’t help Cali. Her sister said as much; no one could help Cali…but now I can do something for this child, and it’s my only agenda. The Boston thing is just icing on the cake.”