by James Gregor
Was that all it took?
“Considering where we are, the numbers aren’t that bad,” Blake said.
“Not bad at all, I guess,” Richard said, his teeth clicking together.
They each paid for their coffee and walked down to Fort Greene Park. Clouds drifted across the steep sky. There was an empty spot in the grass overlooking an open expanse, where a game of soccer was being played. Richard sat down, closed his eyes, and let the sun warm his face.
“Can I ask you something?” Blake said.
Richard inhaled.
“Go ahead.”
“Did you actually like that place? I sensed some hesitation. I want to make sure we’re on the same page.”
Richard had to make it work. Moving out and getting away from Leslie and Courtney, and not just that, but living with Blake, was what he wanted. He had to make it work.
“Yes, Counselor. I did like it.”
“Good,” Blake said. “I wanted to make sure. I’m relieved. I know this is maybe a little fast, but I think we’re ready.”
“Me too.”
Blake grabbed his hand and squeezed.
The next day Richard went to see Antonella to ask if the department could give him any more money. She wasn’t encouraging.
“I thought—I just read in the Times that the endowment has been doing very well on the stock market.”
“You can see the state of my office,” Antonella said. “I don’t know where the money goes, but it’s not coming here.”
Richard clasped his hands together and closed his eyes.
“I wish I could do more to help,” she said. “I really do.”
“I understand.”
“In Italy my friends never work. They stay in school or they move back in with their parents. There is no money, and somehow the system keeps going.”
Once you finally did get out of school, she said, you had to leave: in Italy you could only move up the academic ladder through sexual favors.
Richard nodded but he wasn’t really listening. Birds chirped in a tree beside the window. Down below, the students in their clumps seemed annoyingly privileged and unfairly prosperous.
“Your proposal for the submission to the Clio Prize was excellent,” she said. “If the paper itself is of the same high quality, you have a good chance. You must keep going.”
On the way home, despite this discouraging conversation, he imagined himself on a podium swept with floodlights as he accepted the Clio Prize. Anne and Blake were both in the audience, but on separate sides of the room, clapping.
* * *
COURTNEY WAS LEANING OVER a steaming kettle when Richard arrived home, her face dripping. With her fingers, she squeezed and prodded at recalcitrant pores.
“Ariel came by and I gave him your check,” she said.
“Thanks for doing that.”
“Have you thought much about where you’d like to go next?”
“Travel, you mean?” he said.
“Oh,” she said, wiping her face. “No. When the baby comes, I meant. Where you want to live. Your next apartment.”
“Right.” He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it a bit.”
“I know it’s still a few months away. I was just wondering, with how hard it is to find a place to live in New York, I assumed you’d have started looking.”
“I think I’d like to stay around here.”
She nodded encouragingly while saying, “Prices are really going up around here. Do you think you can afford it?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“You’d have to find some roommates, probably.”
“Probably.”
He frowned.
“I’ll let you know if I hear of anything.”
“Thanks, Courtney.”
She wiped her face with a towel.
“Uh, how are you feeling about everything?” he asked.
“I can’t wait, Richard. I really can’t wait. I think this baby will solve a lot of my personality issues.”
She turned placidly back to the kettle. Richard went into his room, closed the door, and sat down on the bed. He put his face in his hands.
* * *
HE MET ANNE FOR lunch the following day at a small restaurant near her apartment. The older waiters with their tranquil but precise locomotion circulated around the cramped space, emitting a dusty, restful, and established superiority.
He asked Anne how it was going with Erin and Alicia.
“They just moved out. They’re in Queens now. I’m all alone in that big apartment.”
She picked up her sandwich and took a bite, then patted her lips with a napkin.
“I meant what I said, you should move in.”
“I can’t just leave.”
“Why not?” she said, exasperated.
Richard took another bite of the sandwich, an oily soppressata, but said nothing. He was picturing the apartment in Clinton Hill, with the fringe of leaves over the window.
“Why would you imprison yourself in that place?” she insisted.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “I do think about it.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“I mean it this time.”
“Well, that’s good to hear.” She sipped her spritzer, looking at him over the rim of the glass. “You can’t keep living with those two. Why would you stay?”
“I’m not planning to stay forever. It’s just for now.”
Fortunately, Anne had an imminent appointment at the dentist. They went outside and parted ways with a brusque kiss.
* * *
ON THE WEEKEND RICHARD went to SoHo with Blake. They were browsing at McNally Jackson, in the magazine section. The aisles were crowded with tourists and people from the neighborhood dressed in weekend slovenly precision. Anne had asked him to come over but he let her messages go unanswered, feeling resentful for the pressure she’d put on him the day before at lunch.
Blake said he’d spoken to the landlord, who had yet to check the references, but otherwise it was looking good.
“That fast?” Richard said, again beset by the sense of anxiety that had become as familiar as his own heartbeat.
“Efficiency of the private sector,” Blake said.
“Ha.”
It was all happening at a disturbingly fast pace. If you had asked him a year ago whether the speed of such a potential arrangement—moving in with a handsome, lawyerly man in one of the most sought-after neighborhoods of Brooklyn—would have made him anxious, he’d have laughed scornfully. But now that it loomed in front of him, Richard was uneasy. In his swiftness and certainty, his sincerity and generosity, and his open communication, Blake was so unlike the majority of young men he had met and dated in New York, those curatorial souls who could never find the ideal arrangement of things, like a decorator forever tormented by the misalignment of a portrait above the fireplace.
Frankly, sometimes Richard wasn’t sure he wanted to spend his life with a man anyway. Men were on the whole essentially incompetent when it came to taking care of you—at least, he was eager to believe this at that moment, despite all evidence to the contrary where Blake was concerned—and would always, now that Grindr had been invented, be tempted to go onto their phones and seek out a bigger dick. It was the same as checking the weather. They always said they were happily partnered and yet you could tell by the green dot in the corner they’d been online only ten minutes ago, or within the last forty-five minutes, or were online at that very moment. It was a nightmare of infinite choice, a menu without end.
And yet Blake had decided on him; he was ready to close the menu.
“An efficient landlord is a good thing,” Richard said, clearing his throat.
“Oh, he’s efficient.”
Richard smiled.
“You don’t sound very jazzed about it,” Blake said. “I’m sensing hesitation again.”
“No, no,” Richard said. “I’m definitely happy about it.”
&
nbsp; “Okay,” Blake said, with a sort of half smile.
Blake went back to reading a copy of VMAN. He stared at a young man with full lips, wearing one leather glove and a bright green speedo. He put the magazine back on the shelf, frowning.
“Are you really sure?”
“Yes,” Richard insisted. “I really am.”
“I don’t know if I believe you.”
Blake looked like he was gearing up for a cross-examination. Richard inhaled.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re distracted,” Blake said. “I mean, like, all the time. I don’t know where you are. Where do you disappear to? I mean that literally. And aren’t we beyond the phase of leaving each other hanging by text?”
Richard was taken aback, having long convinced himself that his clandestine moves were effective, that Blake did not miss him when he was with Anne, nor did she miss him when he was with Blake.
“Is that why you want me to move in?” Richard said, attempting a playful tone. “To keep an eye on me?”
“You’re being cagey.” Blake’s voice was unaltered. “You don’t have to play games with me.” He took Richard’s hand. “I told you, I’m all in.”
“I’m all in too. I didn’t realize . . . I should try to communicate better.”
“I thought we’d be spending more time together at this point. I mean, shouldn’t we be spending more time together?”
There was a brief silence, and then Richard confirmed: “Yes.”
“I know I’ve been busy. But I’m willing to make time if you’re willing to make time,” Blake said. “Didn’t I say that?”
“I’m willing to make time—of course I am.”
Blake exhaled. “I felt like I needed to say that. I don’t want us to be living together but then never see each other, or some stupid situation like that.”
“No, of course not.”
“We go days apart. Don’t you think that’s weird?”
“I guess?”
“You don’t have a day job.”
Richard frowned.
“That’s not what I meant.” Blake grabbed his arm. “I love what you do. I mean that you could do your work at my place. Or we could go to a coffee shop or something. We could work together.”
“It’s hard for me to concentrate if I’m not in the library.”
“I could bring my work to the library.”
“But that’s so inconvenient for you.”
“This is what I’m saying,” he said, putting his hands on Richard’s shoulders. “I don’t mind making the effort.”
“Right, I get it.”
“And I want you to not mind doing that for me.”
Blake was plaintive and unblinking.
“I don’t mind.”
Richard reached for Blake’s hand. At the klutzy sensitivity, the superabundance of mirror neurons that showed on Blake’s face whatever emulsion of testosterone and cortisol splashed from his glands, Richard felt a slip in his gut.
“I want to be around you as much as possible,” Richard said.
Blake nodded eagerly.
“I think you’re just hungry,” Richard said. “I think you need something to eat.”
“Probably,” Blake said, and smiled.
They walked west, not able to decide where to go but figuring they would come upon something. The crowds seemed to grow ever more dense.
“This neighborhood on a Saturday, ugh.”
“I know,” Richard said, looking in the windows of a shop where black neoprene fabrics clung to headless mannequins.
They made their way along Prince Street, stopping at a traffic light. Richard’s phone vibrated. He glanced down at it.
I SEE YOU, Anne wrote.
As if he’d been alerted to the presence of a sniper, he scanned the street.
“What’s wrong?” Blake said.
“I thought I saw someone I know.”
The light changed and they crossed the intersection. It was then Richard saw Anne, approaching from Crosby Street. She locked eyes with him. It was too late to walk away now. He felt submerged in a woozy fatigue.
“I decided to have a very late breakfast at Sant Ambroeus,” she announced, coming directly toward Richard, her words blaring in his ears. She raised her sunglasses onto her head and smiled.
By the angles involved, Blake was for an instant excluded.
“Anne,” Richard said, both introducing her and addressing her. He felt he might have been yelling; it was as if he had lost control of his voice.
“This is Blake,” he said, stepping backward to open up a space for Blake again.
“Hello, Blake,” Anne said, looking up at the person who had caused, she must certainly have noticed, Richard to make this discreet but accommodating adjustment in his position.
They shook hands. Then she looked at Richard, who, for no reason at all, nodded.
“I decided to get some fresh air,” she said. “I’ve been a bit sick, Blake. But don’t worry, I’m long past being contagious.”
“Okay,” Blake said. “We’re having a casual Saturday morning.”
Richard flinched at his use of the first-person plural, a word that in another situation would have pleased him.
“Why don’t you join me for a very late breakfast?” Anne suggested. “Sant Ambroeus isn’t far.” She looked at Blake. “Are you hungry?”
Blake looked at Richard, eyebrows raised.
“I actually am hungry.”
“Do you like Sant Ambroeus?” Anne asked him.
“I’ve never been,” Blake said.
“In that case, we have to go.”
“Let’s go then.” Blake looked at Richard. “If that works for you?”
“Sure,” Richard said, having no other option, and struggling against a sense of dread.
* * *
A MAN IN A beautiful green suit took them to a table.
“Are you really hungry?” Richard asked Blake quietly as they sat down. “We don’t have to stay.”
Though he had no idea how he would extricate them.
“Am I really hungry?” Blake said. “I’m starving. And we’re already here. Why leave?”
A droplet of sweat went down the side of Richard’s face.
“Are you okay?” Blake asked, frowning.
“I’m just hot. It’s hot in here.” Blake put a hand to Richard’s forehead, a gesture that Anne observed pointedly. “Really, I’m fine.”
“It’s not that hot in here,” Blake said. “The air-conditioning is perfect.”
“He’s right. It’s really not,” Anne said. “The air-conditioning is some of the most perfect in the city, I think.”
“Can you take something off?” Blake said, eyeing him up and down in a vaguely flirtatious manner. “I guess not.”
“I’ll be okay,” Richard said, continuing to sweat.
For a moment Richard closed his eyes and pretended that he was somewhere else. A waiter approached. Sensing him, Richard opened his eyes and looked up. Like a car on film when the film is reversed, the waiter’s voice seemed to retreat as he asked for their orders.
Anne chose the Norwegian eggs Benedict and a coffee. The waiter turned to Richard, and Richard avoided his gaze by looking at the menu. All of the options were faintly sickening.
“I’ll have the artichoke salad.”
Blake ordered a crostino Milanese and a cappuccino.
“Anything to drink?” the waiter asked Richard.
“A cappuccino.”
“You’re getting the salad?” Anne said when the waiter left. “Is that going to be enough?”
“It’s fine,” he said, slightly delirious.
“You know how you are when you don’t get enough protein,” Anne said.
Blake snorted.
“At least I’m not dining alone,” she said to Blake. “I hate doing that.”
“Personally, I don’t mind it,” Blake said. “Sometimes when I do it, I feel like I’m in a movie. It can be g
lamorous.”
“If you want anything else, go ahead,” Anne said. “It’s my treat.”
“What’s the occasion?” Blake asked.
“Oh, running into you.”
“That’s nice.”
Richard sensed a befuddled skepticism emanating from Blake, who kept looking at his water and nodding.
“And please order something else,” Anne said. “Or you’ll make me feel like a glutton.”
Blake glanced at Richard opaquely. He turned back to Anne.
“I can’t eat any more than what I’ve ordered,” he said, his smile constricted.
“You’re not on a diet or anything?” she said.
Blake shook his head.
“We could split the ricotta,” Richard said, disgusted, in fact, by the idea of ricotta at that moment.
“No thanks,” Blake said.
Richard glanced toward the veiled freedom of the street.
“How do you two know each other?” Anne said after a pause, her eyes wide, involuntarily expectant.
Richard felt like something large and underwater had begun moving toward him.
“Through friends,” he said. Blake turned toward him.
“Which friends?” Blake asked, jokingly but with a hint of irritation. The question arched tensely over the hysteria gathered beneath, like a concert tent inflated with gas.
“Well—”
“How do you two know each other?” Blake asked Anne, turning toward her.
“School,” Richard said.
“That’s right, school,” Anne said, her tone of voice slightly altered.
“Everyone is so well dressed here,” Richard said, as a man in a blue topcoat and red suede ankle boots went past. “It’s all of a style. How would you describe it?”
“Have you met Antonella?” Anne asked Blake.
As he considered the question, a perplexed crinkle appeared on Blake’s forehead, as though he’d come across some not immediately soluble piece of information.
“Sorry, I’m getting a bit thrown by the name overlap. You know Antonella too? Are you in the same program?”
“More or less,” Richard said.
“Yes, we’re in the same program,” Anne said. “You seem to know a lot about it.”