by James Gregor
HOW ARE YOU? he wrote.
The minutes passed. Richard stared at the phone. There was no response.
CAN I BUY YOU DINNER? he tried again.
MAYBE A COFFEE, Blake replied after a moment.
It was a disheartening suggestion. Richard felt immediately that it wasn’t the coffee of idle, mending conversation, but that of a steaming propellant, grabbed in a hurry. Did Blake picture ending things definitively and quickly and then leaving with the remains of his latte in a to-go cup?
But then Richard was hit with a burst of die-hard enthusiasm, envisaging that he would persuade Blake to let him move in after all. The scenario was glowing: they rendezvoused and their intimacy overflowed any difficulties. They had a cathartic discussion about what had happened and began making renewed plans for their future together. He would treat Blake and remind Blake—convince him—that he was not a bad person. They would put everything back the way it had been.
HOW ARE YOU? Richard wrote again, gallantly ignoring the fact that he’d already asked that very question, and that it had been ignored. IT’S A WARM DAY, BUT SO HUMID.
A few hours later—Richard was back in bed—the phone shook with a response.
It turned out that Blake wasn’t in the city. For the past three days he’d been in Pennsylvania, interviewing clients with two other lawyers from the firm, but he was currently on his way back to Brooklyn.
THAT’S GOOD. GOOD TO SLEEP IN YOUR OWN BED AGAIN.
YUP.
Richard decided that he would surprise Blake upon his return. He got up, put on his shoes, and walked all the way to Blake’s favorite Korean-barbecue spot, placing an order for a bucket of chicken wings, half sweet-and-sour, half spicy. Then he proceeded to the organic grocery store down the block from Blake’s studio and bought two bottles of Brio, the syrupy bitter Italian soft drink they both liked.
With the bucket of fried chicken in a plastic bag between his feet, along with the bottles of Brio, he waited on the stoop of Blake’s building. The humid pollinated evening hung listlessly on the street. He sat there and nodded at the people who went in and out of the building. How long would it take Blake to get back from Pennsylvania? The expected window of arrival came and went, and he waited. Was there another way into the building? Maybe Blake had slipped inside without his seeing.
Richard went around the building; there wasn’t any other way in. Keeping the front door in view, the cooling meal swinging from his hand, he walked up and down the block. The sky faded to a thin contusion.
He decided to text.
HOW WAS THE TRIP? MAKE IT BACK YET?
Blake responded twenty minutes later. By that time Richard was back sitting on the stoop.
NIGHTMARE. WE HAD TO TAKE GEOFF TO THE HOSPITAL. TURNS OUT HE HAS A KIDNEY STONE. WE FINALLY JUST LANDED.
OH NO! I’M SORRY TO HEAR THAT, Richard wrote, not knowing or caring who Geoff was, and trying to mask his irritation at this medically triggered delay.
When Blake finally arrived he had a quizzical look on his face as he approached the entrance to the building. Richard rose stiffly.
“What are you doing here?” Blake asked.
“I’m the bringer of chicken,” Richard said, lifting the plastic bag almost to eye level.
Blake’s expression turned skeptical.
“You’re looking for somewhere to eat that?”
“Mm. Otherwise I’ll just be eating on your stoop.”
“Okay, I guess I’ve got plates inside. One of the few things I haven’t packed up yet.”
“Perfect.”
Richard followed as Blake dragged his suitcase inside.
“How was Pennsylvania?” he asked once they were in the apartment, while Blake set out plates. Stacked against the walls, most of Blake’s belongings were in cardboard boxes. Dust balls had accumulated in the corners of the once fastidious space.
Under a floor lamp dimmed to low intensity, they sat on pillows.
“Tiring.”
“Where is the case now?”
“Um,” Blake said, inhaling with a hint of exasperation, as if he really didn’t care to discuss it. Richard could tell in his face that he was exhausted, and in other circumstances he would have said don’t bother, I can tell you don’t feel like talking about it; let’s discuss something else. But he worried that if they didn’t continue on this trajectory, they might not get onto another one, that recrimination and complaint would rise to fill the space.
“The other side keeps bringing up silly objections,” Blake said. “Which the judge seems to think warrant consideration. It’s going to be a long haul.”
“That sounds annoying.”
Blake nodded.
“How are your parents?”
“Fine. They’re in Maine.”
“Good for them—escaping this weather.”
“Yup.”
They gnawed at the chicken in their fingers. It was easier to eat than to speak.
“Is the chicken as good as usual?”
“It’s good.”
“I noticed a new smoked meat place, um, down the block on my way over,” Richard said.
“Oh yeah, where?”
“Down the block. I forget the name now.”
It was alienating and strange for the conversation to be so awkward, but maybe it was better than silence.
Blake’s eyes moved around the room, as if curious about the design of the space.
“Can we talk?” Richard finally said.
Blake raised his eyebrows in mock-surprise.
“Go ahead, talk.”
“Well . . . uh, I need you to talk as well.”
“I’m talking.”
“You’re hardly talking.”
“Tell me what to say.”
“Come on, Blake. I’m sorry. Anne needed me. I didn’t know what to do. You saw what she was like.”
There was a metallic taste in his mouth. He took a swig from the bottle of Brio.
“I imagine it would be strange, what you’re doing,” Blake said.
“What do you mean?”
“Richard, it has to be something.”
“Why do you want to know?”
It was a stupid question, an artless attempt to deflect from all the wretched detail so close at hand.
“I just can’t really imagine what it’s like, with her. Just her trying to jump you . . . or something? That’s about as far as my mind goes. Based on what I’ve seen of your interactions.”
“Don’t be cruel. It’s not like that.”
“Does she read Dante at breakfast?”
Blake snorted. Richard closed his eyes and exhaled.
“It was a mistake. I led her on because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
His mouth opened haltingly.
“Yes.”
Blake nodded.
“I thought so,” he said, with a tired, absent look in his eyes. “I’ve never slept with a woman.”
Richard didn’t say anything.
“Should I be jealous? Am I allowed to be angry about that?”
“I don’t know,” Richard said “What do you want me to say?”
“Is it easier to talk to her than to talk to me?” Blake asked.
“No.”
“Do you need her?”
“Where are you getting this?”
“I’m trying to understand,” Blake said.
“You already understand me. You already know me.”
Richard reached out and took Blake’s wrist in his hand. Surprisingly, Blake didn’t pull away.
“That’s what you need to understand,” Richard said. “I want to move in with you. I want to live with you. I don’t want to live with her. I needed her help; that’s it. She needed my help. It’s not like with you.”
It was dramatic scenes like this that Richard had imagined for himself as a teenage boy, lonely in bed. But the imagined feeling had been so different then. There had been a swell, no
t this threatening quiet between words. Not this solvent taste in his mouth. Not the potential for fatal rejection and the possibility of a still, solitary aftermath.
“Move in with me? I don’t know if that’s still a good idea.”
“Let’s not lose this. I don’t want to lose this.”
Blake shook his head.
Richard leaned forward. “Is this because I can’t cook?” he said, holding up a piece of chicken.
Blake rolled his eyes but was unable to resist the flicker of a droll smile.
“I hope you’re joking.”
“I’m not funny?”
“I’m not sure this is a good idea, starting this up again.”
Richard nodded slowly and said, “Okay.”
He bit through the chicken’s greasy skin. He felt his eyes must look glistening and slippery, as if they might start furiously spinning in their sockets like the numbers of a slot machine.
“Don’t you think?” Blake said. “Don’t you think it’s a bit fast after everything that happened?”
“No.”
Blake shrugged. Richard glanced around at the boxes. He was desperate.
“You’re going to have a lot of room in that place.”
“Hardly,” Blake said. “It’s not that big.”
“I’ll help you move in anyway,” Richard said.
“You don’t need to do that. I certainly don’t expect you to.”
“I’m going to help you. I’m going to make it up to you.”
Blake sighed. He reached out and put his hand on Richard’s leg.
“Your leg is warm. You have good circulation.”
Richard took Blake’s hand again. They remained linked for a moment, and then Blake pulled back.
“A moving company is taking most of my stuff over to the new place tomorrow, but there will be some odds and ends.”
“So I can help?”
“Come over in the evening,” Blake said.
At this assent and invitation from Blake, this voluntary if reticent opening, Richard felt revived, almost physically enlarged. After these last few sad, limp weeks, hope prodded him again.
“You can help me take the last things over,” Blake said.
TWENTY
With the last of Blake’s belongings in a series of duffel bags, Blake and Richard took a livery cab over to the new apartment. Sitting at the window, surveying the August night full of the voices of people wandering in the soft purr of the humid streets, they drank kombucha from the bodega while Blake maintained a prudent physical distance. Hoping the evening would continue in this fashion, Richard was disappointed when Blake said he had work to do and went into the bedroom, in the corner of which he had installed a small desk. Richard got out his computer and began to read, resigned to his solitude.
But an hour later Blake wandered out again, complaining that he found it impossible to concentrate with the heat. It’s because of me, Richard thought. Blake poured himself some iced tea and sat down on the sofa near to Richard and asked what he was working on.
“I’m reading about the Modistae, those medieval grammarians I told you about.”
“That again?”
“Yup.”
A pleasant hour passed. To Richard’s relief, he felt them falling back into old conversational patterns. Then Blake suggested they go out. They put on their shoes and walked around the neighborhood, ultimately choosing to sit down for beers on a patio. A while later, they parted on the street with a long hug and Richard walked home happily.
The next day he woke up early to a text from Blake, suggesting that they go to the beach together. Pleased and surprised in his grogginess, Richard responded that he was up for whatever Blake had in mind.
Blake rented a Zipcar, picked up Richard at his apartment, and they drove out to Fort Tilden. For several hours they swam in the ocean, gawking at young men and dodging the seaborne garbage, Richard wearing the red swimsuit Anne had bought for him in Montreal. Water beading on their shoulders, applying and reapplying sunscreen, they took pictures of each other with their phones. It was the most intimate touch they’d had in some time. They were submerged in intense heat, healthy young men, the slender bending columns of their bodies quietly flourishing amid a thriving panoply of beach towels, umbrellas, and coolers.
Richard felt exhausted and happy when they returned to the apartment with banh mi sandwiches and Cokes they’d picked up on the way back. Unwrapping the sandwiches on the coffee table, they sat on the sofa and watched Nights of Cabiria on Blake’s computer. Blake’s tanned legs, one stretched out and the other tucked beneath him, seemed the most perfect, beautifully formed limbs Richard had ever seen. He wanted to stick his tongue in Blake’s ear but held himself back.
Instead of turning his way with knowing eyes when the movie was over, as Richard had been hoping he would, Blake stood up from the sofa and walked over to the closet. He extracted a pile of bedding and handed it to Richard.
“You’re welcome to crash on the couch. I know it’s late.”
“Thanks,” Richard said, hiding his disappointment. “But I can just get an Uber, or walk.”
“It’s too far to walk now. Besides, it’s a really comfortable couch.”
“All right.” He smiled. “If you insist.”
Blake nodded and looked away.
“Good night,” Blake said.
Blake went into the bedroom and closed the door. The light under the door persisted for some time, and then went out.
* * *
A WEEK OF ODD maneuvers followed. Richard slept in his own bed only twice, opting for Blake’s couch instead. During the day, when Blake was at work, they texted frequently. Although Blake tried to maintain some distance, as though Richard were a houseguest he didn’t know very well, they couldn’t help being in close proximity. As such encounters proliferated, Richard could feel their natural chemistry slowly eroding Blake’s resolve, the artificial and inversely sexy formality of this prescribed distance, this role-playing at withholding that began to imbue their every movement, eye contact, or avoidance of contact with tension and the potential for a turbulent physical resolution.
By the following weekend, they’d had sex on the couch a few times. Richard loved the once again familiar frame of Blake’s face looking up at him from the pillow when he climbed on top of him, the faraway ecstatic distraction in his eyes. Things seemed to shift, if not back to where they had been before, then forward into a new zone, a place both scarred and reinforced by their recent troubles. The apartment had the feeling of a vulnerable yet cherished redoubt where retreating forces would stop to regroup before pressing forward again, a welcome lull in the artillery barrage from which a new advance could be planned.
One night Blake said, “I want you to sleep beside me.”
Amid the cheerful disorder—his stuff was still in piles and boxes—and a thunderstorm outside, they drank an expensive bottle of red wine that Blake’s parents had given to him the day he was hired by the firm. They discussed the furnishings and decorative schemes Blake had been considering.
Maybe it was best that the destructive brunch at Sant Ambroeus had happened, Richard thought later as Blake snored beside him; that he had been forced to break with Anne, that she had been freed from him. It was better in the long run for her, for both of them. He was still texting her once every few days, but she never replied.
Of course, there was the matter of school and the money from the foundation. It seemed a light and irrelevant question for the time being. He could tell Antonella that his block had returned. She was obliged to help him. They would have to deal with it somehow. Maybe if he stood on his head. Perhaps he would give it all up and learn to cook and be Blake’s live-in husband. He wasn’t really worried about Anne telling Antonella, or anyone else, what they’d done. He had never believed that she would, for the simple fact that she would be implicated in any confession, and that whatever happened, she did not want to hurt him. He did not want to hurt her either. He was happy
.
A week after Blake had invited Richard to sleep in his bed again, they were standing in line at a restaurant in Williamsburg. Content to have Blake a foot away, to have their hips and arms brushing against each other, Richard felt generously disposed to everything in his vicinity. It was going to be a bit of a wait, the maître’d’ in her mesh top had informed them. Never mind. In the unexpected breeze, it was pleasant to be outside. Anne found slow-moving restaurant lines intolerable, Richard thought. They’d have left by now and gone somewhere else, tension in the air. But today, calmed by sex perhaps, Blake was patient.
They were both dressed in cotton pants and T-shirts, the luminescence of the season on their skin. Despite the summer reaching its kindled apex, Blake still had an appetite for heavy, expensive dishes. These dishes went well with alcohol, and desserts like grapefruit Pavlova or peanut butter ice cream sandwiches reliably followed. Like a person suffering a manic episode who decides to buy a ski hill or several horses, Blake’s potential outlays had the power to bankrupt those around him, namely Richard. Anne was no longer there to shoulder a good portion of his food costs, and the next installment from the foundation was still a month away, but Richard—for the time being anyway—found that he didn’t seem to care. Even though, instead of withdrawing twenties from the ATM, he now went to Duane Reade or CVS, bought gum or floss, and added five dollars cash back on top of the purchase; and even though it was now routinely as expensive to eat in the first half of the day as in the second, he was still in the phase of being gently ecstatic, of being quietly thrilled, to go anywhere with Blake.
The cost of brunch could be worried about later. He was living in a condition of deferral, a state of dazed suspension in which Blake could hardly do wrong.
“This is my treat,” Blake said.
“What’s the occasion?”
“You took me out the first time we ate together.”
The commanding professional who would spread his largesse, demonstrate his generosity, and take care of the meal was somewhere in there, Richard had always suspected. He’d been eager for this person to surface ever since they’d met. What else was the point in working that horrible lawyer’s job except to be able to pay for stuff?