“Of course not. How much did you drink, Yamane?”
Yamane nervously began to braid his hair. He winced at the pain in his left hand, putting it on his lap impatiently. “What the hell are we doing here?”
“What?”
“I have no clue what’s happening here.” Yamane looked small and angry as he tried again to tug his hair into its braid. “I can’t use my damned hand!”
“Here,” said Rory gently, “turn around.”
Yamane did as he was told. “I don’t know what we’re doing, except trying to hide. As for what you were doing, you were getting roaring drunk. Could it be that you were a little put out to be left behind?”
“Well.” Yamane’s muscles relaxed as Rory stroked his hair.
“Well,” echoed Rory. “I didn’t go out with Avery -- we went to play poker.” Yamane turned around to look at him. “Hey, hold still. I asked her to stake me because I didn’t have enough cash for a buy-in at the level we needed, plus I didn’t want to get anted and blinded out before I had a chance to read the table, so I needed cash for a backup rebuy. I needed a much bigger bankroll than we had. Although I normally make money, I couldn’t bear it if I didn’t and you saw me as some kind of loser. As for the present, I wanted to do something for you because I know it’s making you sick to hide your manly beauty.”
Yamane yanked his hair out of Rory’s hands. “That is so not true.”
“Ha!” said Rory. “The second you saw Avery, out came the hair and that lovely, lovely face of yours.”
“Hm.” Yamane seemed marginally appeased.
Rory began to braid Yamane’s hair again. “Hold still; you’re worse than the kids.” “Where did you learn to braid hair?”
“One of the girls at the Red Cross shelter taught me when I helped with the children.”
“Is there no end to your heroic accomplishments?”
Rory’s hands stilled. “That didn’t sound very nice, Yamane.”
“I’m sorry,” Yamane said in a small voice. “It’s just that you’re everyone’s big hero.” “And that’s bad because…?”
“Because I wanted you to be just my hero. Stupid, huh?” Yamane wouldn’t meet Rory’s eyes.
“No more stupid than believing that something about an artist’s work is personally calling you to them.”
“Rory, I know you’ve been with only women, but I’m prepared to be anything, do anything you --”
Rory cut him off. “I’m sorry, Yamane.” He truly was. “I can’t.”
“If I were a woman --”
“If you were a woman, we’d be having wild monkey sex on that bed right now. But you’re not.”
Yamane took Rory’s face in his hands, kissed him delicately, and whispered, “Close your eyes, Rory. For you, I could be anything.”
“It’s not about that.” Rory gently disengaged him. “It’s not about what you could be for me.” Rory’s heart hurt. It’s about what I want to be for you. It’s about figuring out why I want to be with you. Why I can’t walk away. Why I set my heart on some nameless, faceless woman from another country in the first place instead of all the girls I’ve had in bed with me here. Rory wanted to tell him but found he couldn’t say the words. He didn’t understand it himself. “It’s about finding out what’s happening to me before I let the genie out of the bottle.”
“Rory.”
“I promise you, I’m not rejecting who you are; I’m trying not to use you for something you’re not.” He ran a hand through his own hair. He put a stack of hundreds on the table. “There’s about seven thousand dollars there. I was up nine, but I also spent some on clothes and things. Your present is this.” He slid over the black bracelet-sized box. “We’ll engrave anything you want on it, just let me know. I’m going out. I’ll come back with coffee and pastries from Avery’s place. I need to pay her back.”
Rory walked out the door without another word. He thought he heard Yamane say “My damn hero,” as the door snapped closed.
11
When Rory returned to the motel, Yamane was a little more relaxed. He wore his normal clothing, without the jacket, although he needed help with the buttons. He also needed help with Rory’s gift, a chunky gold identification bracelet that had, next to the place where the name goes, a sculptured heart charm dangling from it. He held it out for Rory to fasten onto his wrist the minute he returned. It was elegant, if a little large, on his arm. He greeted Rory shyly. “How are you feeling? Are you tired?”
“I’m fine. Avery let me take one of her carafes. I brought some pain au chocolat.”
Yamane got out one of his ubiquitous sketchbooks and began to draw some of the images he’d seen since leaving Long Beach.
“What are you drawing?” asked Rory between bites of pastry. “I love to watch you work. The other night in the restaurant was the best night of my life.”
Flustered by his candor, Yamane stopped briefly. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” Rory tilted his head to one side as if to consider the matter. “It’s not like I saw what you were drawing until later. But when I watch you, I imagine how it evolves. At first it’s just lines, and then -- voilà -- it takes form like magic. Like alchemy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve traced my fingers over your work, trying to capture some understanding, or even some glimpse of you in it.”
Yamane’s hand began to tremble as he took this in, then stilled. “High praise indeed.”
“Really, I get a little stupid about it sometimes, I guess.”
“All artists work pretty much the same way. They use the same pens, the same inks. The process is pretty standard. I sometimes wonder why someone like you, or especially someone like Amelia, picks one over the other.” Yamane tried to sound as though he weren’t desperate for the answer and at the same time terrified to hear it.
“For Amelia, I couldn’t tell you. I can’t even understand how a cruel person could be touched by your work. I feel like it should be invisible to evil people.” Rory smiled. He put his elbows on the small table and leaned his head in his hands. Yamane saw he was wearing down from his long night of gambling.
“I see. My work must only be seen by the pure of heart.”
Rory looked up. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not, Rory.” Yamane bit his lip.
“I’m sorry.” Rory sighed. “As for me, if I tell you why they speak to me, you have to promise not to call the police or something, okay?”
“That’s a little alarming.” Yamane suddenly realized that he was alone in a motel with someone who was, essentially, yet another stalker.
“I know. I know. But I promise you on my life that I will never willingly harm you. I hope you know that. Do you?”
Yamane looked at Rory. “Yes. If I could be wrong about that, I wouldn’t want to --”
“Sometimes you make me happy and sad at the same time.”
“Why?” Yamane asked again. “Really. Why me?”
“I’ve always loved your work. But when I saw the first Celendrianna, it was like a message in a bottle washing up from the ocean. If I didn’t answer it, I knew, I knew I’d always regret it. I was hoping for a miracle of recognition that didn’t happen. It felt like some part of myself was out there calling, and I could finally bring it home.” Rory got up then and stretched. He took off his shirt as he crawled into bed.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry I wasn’t what you thought.”
“I would say, rather, that I’m sorry I wasn’t worthy to receive such a message. You are certainly what I thought. More than I dreamed. I have to get some sleep.” Rory folded and punched his useless pillow. “This evening I’ve found someplace to go. I think it might be fun for us…” He was already half-asleep. “Do you like to look at fish?”
“Fish? Like in the ocean? Sure.”
Once Rory was sleeping soundly, Yamane walked over to the side of the bed where he could study Rory’s face. Bright sunlight filtered in through the tattered and dirty drapes. I
t was still cool enough in the room with the air conditioner going, but Yamane knew from his experience the day before that the little space would heat up by afternoon and make it unbearable.
He focused on Rory’s face. In repose, it was so childlike. He went back to the table for a chair and his sketch pad. He wanted to capture Rory in his sketch pad, in his heart, forever.
Yamane’s stylized manga characters, with their wide-set eyes, long bodies, and overly large hands, had a certain look. He always presented a hyperreality that made them lovely and fluid and perfectly impossible. But as a classically trained artist, he could create a portrait so real it could stride off the page, and he employed these skills now as he had for the family they’d helped on the road.
As he worked, he thought about what Rory had told him. Message in a bottle… Yamane felt sick. If ever there was classic stalker talk that was it. Even those harmlessly obsessed fans with their stuffed toys, their flowers, and their endless talk of devotion were convinced, utterly convinced, that he was sending a message only to them.
Poor Rory, thought Yamane. He was like the knight who fought through the very gates of hell for his princess only to find out that the long golden hair streaming from the arrow slits in her tower came from her armpit.
Hovering somewhere between maniacal laughter and bitter tears, Yamane drew several wonderful studies he called The Sleeping Boy.
Yamane made Rory a silent promise. Just as Rory had bitten back his disappointment with the Yamane he found at the end of his quest, somehow Yamane would protect Rory from further disappointment, from Amelia, and from Yamane’s own less-than-wholesome thoughts about him.
The realization penetrated his long-frozen heart that he loved Rory. Please, Rory, please, wherever you’re going, let me come too.
Rory’s first observation when he awoke was that Yamane was remarkably different from the man he’d talked to before he’d fallen asleep. Gone were the insecurity, the self-pity, and the pouting of the earlier Yamane, and in its place was the fastidious überelegance that had so intrigued and intimidated him when they first met.
“I always feel that I should say, ‘Good morning, and who are you today?’”
“What?” Yamane put the finishing touches on his hair.
“It’s like you’re a different person,” complained Rory as he rose from the bed. “If you’re happy, I’m delighted, but could you give a guy some warning?”
“I am happy. Amelia be damned. I’m going to be Ran Yamane and not slink around in drab hooded sweatshirts. And I’ve decided what I want on my bracelet, Rory.”
“What?” asked Rory, rummaging through shopping bags for the clothes he’d purchased. “I want it to say, ‘Not done yet,’” he announced. He walked to the bathroom muttering,
“Bitch thinks she can put a fork in me…”
“I see somebody found their fighting spirit.”
Yamane returned from the bathroom. “So. You said you had somewhere you wanted to go?”
Rory took a moment to take in the sight. Yamane was once again wearing his trademark jeans and a white linen shirt with a long Chinese-style coat over the top, this one in a charcoal gray print that looked to Rory like a cloudy sky with flocks of violet cranes flying in it. He wore his hair loose. Rory swallowed hard. “Pack, cher. You don’t belong in a dump like this. Let’s go find a real hotel, shall we?”
“You mean it?” Yamane was like a delighted child. “One with cleanliness?”
Rory sighed. “Sure, we’ve got cash. Do they let you use cash?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never booked a nice hotel with cash. We can try.” He said this so hopefully that Rory almost laughed.
“I tell you what. We’ll leave this room and the car, but we’ll keep it just in case we have to go to ground quick. Let’s take a cab to the strip with some of our stuff and see what we can find. I’m glad I went shopping yesterday. I could hardly have escorted you anywhere looking like this.”
Yamane packed up his things, and even though it didn’t take him long, it took longer than Rory, who had virtually nothing to pack. “I think I need a nicer bag,” Rory said, looking at his old pilot case. “I’ve been using this one since I went to school.”
“That’s not important. Clothes are important.”
“How shallow,” teased Rory, looking at himself in the mirror. “I’m going to shower and change; give me a minute.”
“I hope this is okay,” Rory said, emerging from the bathroom a while later. “I let the guy at the clothing store dress me.”
“Why didn’t you ask me? I could have gone shopping with you.”
“Well.” Rory wore a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a white linen shirt so fine it was almost see-through. “I didn’t want to look like a Chinese doll.”
“Very funny.” Yamane pointed to the shirt. “That’s nice.”
“It is, isn’t it? I like the fabric. It’s delicate and soft. I have a couple of other things.” He rummaged around in a large shopping bag and pulled out a summer-weight trench-type coat. “I have to admit this is an homage to the Ran Yamane school of jackets.” He put the coat on over his shirt; it hung loosely and moved with him in a fluid way. “I bought new Vans, but they’re still kid shoes. I like them.” He stood with his hands in his pockets after belting his trench in the back and struck a pose. “Me. Voilà!”
“This is like watching a child take its very first steps. I’m so moved.”
“Shut up. Grad students don’t need to be dressed well. Though, actually, next year I’ll be a teaching assistant, and I want all the coeds to be hot for me --” He stopped short, realizing what he’d said.
Yamane gave him a gentle shove. “Then we’ll have to do some more shopping while we’re here together. I promise I’ll only buy doll clothes for myself.”
“You’re awfully nice.”
“I am, am I not?” asked Yamane airily. “When this is over, I want you to get a bracelet that matches mine, for the adventure, you know? So we’ll never forget.” He looked away.
Rory felt sad just thinking about it. “I’d like that.” He swallowed hard. “What should mine say?”
“I’ll be thinking about that; maybe they should say the same thing. Okay, all packed, and unlike Lot’s wife, I will not be looking back.”
“Poor baby.” Rory laughed. “At least I’m taking you away from all this. Put out the ‘do not disturb’ sign, please.”
“Got it. Isn’t the human spirit the most amazing thing?” he asked as they walked. “One minute we’re all battered and before the bruises even heal we’re back for more. Amelia’s still out there, Rory, and she’ll probably kill us both.”
“I’m aware of that, but I don’t intend for it to spoil my fun. Besides, it absolutely cannot interfere with my concentration when I play cards, because Ran Yamane is no man’s cheap squeeze.”
Yamane grinned up at him. “You got that right. Indeed he is not.”
The two men walked into Hubbard’s Cupboard and Avery just stared at them. Rory handed her the carafe.
“You guys look like you’re advertising a strip show or some kind of hot man revue. I thought you were hiding.”
“We are,” said Rory. “But we’ve decided hiding should be done in plain sight with” -- he glanced at Yamane -- “better accommodations.”
“Ah,” she said. “Not what he’s used to, was it? Were you pining, sweetheart?”
“Yes, to be honest, I was,” Yamane replied. “You have no idea how galling it is to live like that because of some stranger’s sick attachment to the Snoggs, of all things. It’s not like I invented the nuclear bomb.”
“Yeah, well,” said Rory. “Tonight, we’ll only have to fight off those present.” He checked his watch. “Avery, chérie, could you call us a cab? We’re off to find new digs. And I have plans to take the princess out someplace before I meet you for poker.”
“Sure,” she said. “But Rory, I have to protest on behalf of all the marginally decent- looking men i
n the world. Hearts will be broken beyond any hope tonight. No eye will be on anything but you.”
“It’s only the brightness that is the star Yamane in this falsely glittering firmament of a cheesy town, darling. It is that star we cling to; that tiny beacon that gives us the hope to go on.”
Yamane rolled his eyes and made inelegant gagging noises.
Rory’s teasing must not have fooled Avery because she took his upper arms and held him away from her for a moment, studying him carefully.
“Rory,” she asked under her breath. “Are you… Could it possibly be that the biggest player at LSU has met his opposite and equally attractive force?”
“Quite probably, yes,” he admitted quietly. He let out a long-held breath. “It actually feels kind of good to admit it.”
“Ha!” said Avery. “It’s about time you stepped in something you couldn’t step away from easily.” She was still laughing when the cab drove up.
12
Somehow, when Yamane and Rory entered the taxi, they left their anxiety and problems behind. By tacit agreement, they simply ceased to discuss Amelia. They directed the driver to take them to the Venetian, where after a small amount of discussion and a visit with the manager, they got a hotel room for cash and a rather sizable deposit. Rory paid for three nights up front. Yamane thought he was going to break down completely when he saw the marble bathroom. They put their things away and set out again.
Rory closed the door behind them. “Yesterday I discovered that they have a big aquarium at Caesar’s Palace in the Forum Shops. I thought we might see the fish.”
“That sounds nice.”
“If you think it’s dumb,” began Rory, “we can --”
Yamane cut him off. “Not at all.”
They started out on the strip, the still-warm air blowing on their faces as they strolled past partygoers and gamblers just starting their evening. Yamane walked along with Rory, noting the looks of feminine appreciation aimed at him even with the now-fading bruises on his face.
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