Where the Boys Are

by William J. Mann

  A soft, steady snow has begun to fall, blanketing the town with three or four inches. There’s no sound, only the occasional wail of the wind off the bay. I look at my watch. I’m a little early, but usually so is Lloyd.

  I push my hands down deep into the pockets of my leather jacket, the snow collecting on my shoulders and the top of my woolen hat. I watch, nearly entranced, as the shingle swings silently back and forth. The peacefulness of the place offers me a clarity that I haven’t had in days. I think about the stranger back home in Boston, sitting on my bed watching TV, flipping through the channels with the remote control. What the fuck did I do? I ask myself.

  In the wind, I can hear Javitz’s answer: You asshole, you know precisely well what you did.

  A gust of wind seems to laugh at me. The way Javitz would, when I was being obtuse or stubborn. Inviting a complete stranger to live with you, he’s telling me, was an impulsive act, a passive-aggressive counter-punch to Lloyd. Who knows who that boy in your apartment really is? What could he be making off with, right at this very moment?

  But Anthony’s no thief. I trust my instincts enough to know that. I saw how authentic he’d been with little Jeffy. Anyone who can play that well with a kid is definitely trustworthy. We’d all arrived from New York at my sister’s house ready to do nothing but crash, the lateness and the drugs of the night before finally catching up with us. I sprawled out on Ann Marie’s couch, Henry fell asleep in a chair, and the Windex queen propped himself in a corner and gabbed all night on his cell phone. Alone among us it had been Anthony to get down on the floor and play computer games with Jeffy. From under half-lidded eyes I observed that he let the kid win every time.

  Yet in almost every other way, Anthony has remained a mystery. He still hasn’t shared much more about himself than he had the first day. I asked him again about his family, but he simply restated they wanted nothing to do with him. I asked him again where he’d grown up, and he only repeated “outside Chicago.” I asked him again if he’d ever had a relationship, and he said, for the third time, no. It’s as if his life only began six months ago, when he’d stumbled into his first circuit party.

  I look at my watch again. Ten minutes to eleven. I consider waiting in my car, but despite the cold, I’m enjoying the air and the light. I used to love spending time in Provincetown in the winter. There’s something about the rawness and the wind that makes you feel right on the edge of life, as if you were pushing living to its limits. That was the reason Javitz has so loved it here. He was forever pushing limits, his and ours.

  Damn it. See what happens? This is precisely why I don’t come to Provincetown anymore. Because it makes me think of Javitz. Even more than during the hectic summer months, I can feel Javitz here in the winter. He’s present in the wind he loved so much, in the taste of the brine in the air, in the uncanny light that reflects off the water in three directions. Even after four years, thinking of Javitz is still too hard for me to do.

  God, I wish Lloyd would hurry up and get here.

  The wind whipping in from the bay is getting colder. I consider standing on the wraparound front porch of the guest house; at least up there I’d be sheltered. But somehow I just don’t feel right walking up the steps until Lloyd is with me.

  It’s not my house, after all.

  I look around at the houses on the street, wishing in at least one I’d spy a light, a shade being lifted by a curious homeowner. But no one. The snow collects in window boxes, drifts up against front doors. Here Provincetown still looks the way it must have thirty, forty years ago. Weather-stung white clapboard houses with widows’ walks, stone walls overgrown with sea grass. In the winter most of the places in this part of town are boarded up, their owners safe and warm in New York town houses, like the one Eva’s leaving to move here.

  What if this were our house? Mine and Lloyd’s?

  The shingle creaks in the wind. SEABREEZE INN—a sign I know will soon be changed to read NIRVANA.

  What would we have named it, Lloyd and I? Would I have even agreed to such an idea? To run a guest house?

  I’d never considered it. But then, he’d never asked me. The few innkeepers I know seem overworked and scattered. The workload is tremendous, the responsibility daunting. But I can’t deny, standing here, watching the shingle sway in the wind, that I wish the place were mine. Mine and Lloyd’s. It’s hard even to remember now what it was like when we’d lived together. I have only fragments, memories like torn pages in my mind: watching the six o’clock local news cross-legged on the floor, balancing our dinners on our laps. Putting up the Christmas tree. Waking up on the edge of the bed at three in the morning, Lloyd’s arms snaked around me. Faux-finishing the walls of the bathroom. Grocery shopping at the Star Market, always opening the bag of potato chips before we checked out. It’s the silly, ordinary things I remember, little images and moments I’d never admit to cherishing as much as I do.

  But in so many of those memories, Javitz is there, too. Topping the Christmas tree with a Star of David. Critiquing the color of the bathroom. Taking the half-eaten bag of chips away from us and finishing them off himself. Listening to us bicker, rolling his eyes and signaling when one of us went out of bounds.

  “Shit,” I say out loud, amazed at how quickly my thoughts go around to Javitz again, standing here.

  It’s eleven o’clock. Where the fuck is Lloyd?

  Lloyd

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s okay.”

  Eva shudders in my arms. I’m very conscious of how precariously my towel is secured at my waist. I’d rushed out of the shower when I heard her crying. She was sitting at the kitchen table with her face in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. “What’s the matter?” I shouted, but she was unable to answer for several minutes. She just wept hysterically, as if she’d gotten a telegram giving her bad news.

  But it’s just a memory.

  “It just came over me,” she manages to say. “I thought of Steven. Of our life together. And here I am starting something new …”

  “I know,” I tell her, stooping down, one hand holding on to my towel to keep it in place. “Sometimes it does make you feel guilty in a way. How we’re continuing our lives, moving on.”

  She grips my free hand. “You understand.”

  I look up at the clock. It’s now a few minutes past eleven, and I still have to get the key. The guest house is in the East End, a good ten-minute walk from here. I’d ride my bike, but it’s snowing pretty hard now. I’ll make faster time on foot. Still, I’m going to be at least fifteen minutes late for Jeff—more if I have to console her much longer.

  I try to head back into the bathroom to towel off, but she holds on to my hand. “I’m sorry to be such a burden,” she says. “The tears—I never know when they might strike.”

  “Grief is an unpredictable thing,” I say. “Look, Eva, I’ve got to hurry. Jeff is waiting.”

  “Of course,” she says, but it still takes several more second before she releases her grip.

  I hurriedly dress and pull on my hat and gloves. I give her one final embrace. She seems reluctant to let go, her tiny hands clinging to my wool sweater, her heavy breasts pressed up against my stomach. Finally, I have to take her by the shoulders and look down into her swollen eyes. I tell her to take a walk in the snow and clear her head, then to meet us at the guest house.

  Thankfully, Ernie’s not at the office when I arrive, so I won’t have to engage in time-consuming small talk. His assistant hands me the key and I begin a fast trot down Commercial Street. The wind slaps my cheeks. I think about Eva’s tears. They had come last week in New York as well. She had been sitting there on the couch, smiling as I called Jeff on my cell phone, but then, just as I was hanging up, she broke down in tears. A sudden memory of Steven, she explained as I consoled her, putting my arms around her and moving her head to my shoulder.

  And now, tears once more.

  I don’t like playing psychologist with my friends. I can’t be diagnosing
them every time they act out or have a fit. But Eva’s more than a friend: she’s becoming family, and I’m planning a major life change with her. I tell myself that her little outbursts are signs of nothing more than a temporary adjustment disorder. A grief problem, maybe on the edge of depression. Nothing that can’t be treated. Maybe I’ll suggest an antidepressant, have her see someone. It’s nothing that I need to be overly concerned about.

  First impressions tell the truth: mine of Eva was one of strength. I remember how strong she was with Alex. How insightful she was about taking those baby steps back to life. How she had counseled me so sagely about my own grief, sitting up with me late into the night talking about life and love and death and loss. It’s exhilarating to talk so openly about my grief, to have it understood and resonated, especially with how guarded Jeff has become. When I’m with Eva, I feel more heard and more appreciated than I’ve been in a long, long time.

  I needn’t worry that she isn’t up to all this. Her strength inspires me. This is a woman who, when she discovered her husband’s gayness, had not only accepted it but embraced it. Hadn’t she cared for him lovingly during his final illness? How many women could have done that? Wouldn’t most have thrown him out, viewing his sexuality as some kind of personal affront? How many could have sat at his bedside along with gay friends and lovers, all of them linking hands in Steven’s final moments? It’s an image of love and unity that brings tears to my eyes whenever Eva describes it to me.

  That’s what true family is.

  “I loved Steven’s gay friends,” she told me that first day we’d met. “I even loved his lovers.” It was right after I’d told her about the family that Jeff and Javitz and I had made, a family misunderstood by so many but which Eva seemed instinctively to appreciate. When she went on to describe the queer family she and Steven had constructed, it made sense. Our whole so-called coincidental meeting at the seminar suddenly seemed karmic. We were destined for this path together.

  I trudge through the thickening snow remembering that night. We’d disclosed so much about ourselves right away. We’d gone out for coffee after visiting Alex, and within moments of sitting down in the booth I’d learned she was fifty years old, that she’d had a scare with breast cancer two years ago (the lump turned out to be benign) and that her husband had died of AIDS. We sat there for hours swapping stories, marveling over the synchronicities in our lives.

  “This Jeff person you keep mentioning,” she observed toward the end of the night. “Are you … lovers?”

  I smiled. “We’re a rather unconventional couple,” I explained. “We were together for six years, then drifted apart after Javitz’s death. Lately we’ve started to reconnect. I believe we’re soul mates.”

  Look, I’m smart enough to recognize Eva is a little threatened by Jeff. I understand she’s probably a little frightened about meeting him. Maybe that’s why her nerves are on edge today. Hey, it’s only natural. A little insecurity is to be expected. This is a big change she’s making, after all. She’s overhauling her life, uprooting herself from the world she’s known for so long. She’ll have to leave Alex, to whom she’s become so attached. But she has the strength to do it. I’m confident of that.

  And once Jeff gets to know her, I’m certain he’ll love her. How could he not?

  I see him standing there in the snow, looking up at the guest house. I run the last few yards. “Cat!” I shout. “Cat!”

  Jeff

  Lloyd flings his arms around me. His cheeks are flushed and his nose bright red. He looks adorable.

  “I was beginning to worry,” I say to him.

  He sighs. “Eva just arrived. We were … talking. I’m sorry.”

  We kiss.

  “It’s bigger than I thought,” I tell him. “The house.”

  Lloyd grips my hand through our gloves. “Come on,” he says. “I can’t wait to show it to you.”

  He leads me up the path to the front steps. He fumbles with the key, and the front door creaks open. Stepping across the threshold, we’re careful to wipe the snow off our shoes. I look around. The previous owners have left behind much of the furniture, and despite the sudden whiff of mustiness, I have to admit, it doesn’t look too bad. Tattered antiques, mostly, nothing too kitschy. A Victorian sofa, a Hepplewhite table, an ancient globe standing in the corner. I spin it gently. Ancient indeed: across much of Europe is still printed AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE.

  “Let me turn up the heat,” Lloyd says, adjusting the thermostat. The old furnace kicks into gear beneath us, exhaling a gust of warm air through the grate on the floor.

  I walk over to the bookcase, running my fingers along the spines of the volumes. They’re certainly an eclectic lot: T. S. Eliot. Fitzgerald. Moby Dick. Mary Heaton Vorse’s History of Provincetown. Henry Beston’s The Outermost House. A thick layer of dust suggests it’s been a long time since any of these books have been read.

  “Come on into the kitchen,” Lloyd calls.

  It’s newly tiled, with a modern refrigerator, but the stove is an old black beauty. “Works perfectly,” Lloyd says, opening the oven door. “Gas. Vintage 1935.”

  He struggles to bring more light into the place, hoisting the Venetian blinds as high as they can go, but the window is nearly covered outside with crosshatches of bare wisteria branches. “I think I’ll cut those back,” Lloyd says. “Bring more light into the kitchen. Eventually, I’d like to put another window in here. Really open it up.”

  I look over at him. I can see the excitement in his face, the glow in his eyes. It’s been a long time since Lloyd has been so enthused by anything. I know he’s spent the years since Javitz’s death struggling to find a direction, trying to decide whether to continue hammering out a living as a psychologist or to do something entirely new. I didn’t expect this—playing Bea Benaderet at Petticoat Junction—but I can’t deny Lloyd’s enthusiasm; and no matter what, it’s good to see him so animated again.

  “Come upstairs,” Lloyd’s beckoning, crooking a finger at me. “Wait’ll you see the view.”

  The stairs are narrow and creaky. On the walls hang somber sepia photographs of ship captains and their wives: former inhabitants of the house? I pause briefly to study one pair. Why did they always look so grim in those days? Is it because they had to sit still so long for the camera that they couldn’t hold a smile? Or were they just unhappy?

  Lloyd’s reached the top of the stairs. Somehow he bypassed an enormous, sticky cobweb that I walk straight through. “Shit,” I curse. “Didn’t they clean out this place before selling it?”

  “Look, Jeff, in here,” Lloyd calls, oblivious to my dilemma. He’s entered a room off the top of the stairs. I follow, my fingers in my hair, certain that a nasty spider has landed there. It takes several seconds before I relax enough to look around.

  The room is large, an old stone fireplace set into the far wall. A canopy bed stands in the center, a rolltop desk pushed up beneath a window. “This will be my room,” Lloyd is telling me. He corrects himself. “Our room, Jeff, when you’re here.”

  “It’s a good size,” I say, looking around, consciously noncommittal.

  “The rooms on this side of the house have a water view,” Lloyd says. “See?” He bends down, gesturing for me to follow. “If you look out that way and turn your head—no, farther, Jeff, this way—see? Beyond that house? You can see the bay.”

  I turn my neck nearly a hundred and eighty degrees, finally making out a glimpse of the water, angry with whitecaps. The wind howls suddenly through an eave of the house.

  “You can sit here at this desk,” Lloyd tells me. “You can write with a view of the bay.”

  I rub my neck. “Lloyd, it might be difficult working on my laptop with my neck twisted around like Linda Blair.”

  He smiles. “Don’t be a wise-ass.”

  “I just don’t want you to advertise water views and then get sued for truth in advertising.”

  He touches my face gently. “I want you to be a part of this, Je
ff,” he says, suddenly serious. “I want us to share this vision.”

  I look at him with equal seriousness. “Lloyd, it was never my dream to run a guest house. Neither did I know it was yours.”

  He shakes his head. “I didn’t know either, Jeff. It just came to me. Can’t you be at least a little excited for me?”

  All the way down here I tried to prepare myself for this conversation. I want to give Lloyd a chance. I want to give this project a chance. I don’t want to turn my back on him out of fear or pique the way I had on New Year’s Eve. I’d been a shit. I admit that.

  “It’s just that you never even talked with me about this,” I tell him. “That hurt, Lloyd.”

  He starts to reply but I cut him off. If I’m going to share my feelings, I’ll have to do it fast, before they get all confused and jumbled and I change my mind.

  “You know what it reminds me of, Lloyd? How quickly you decided to move out of our apartment when we lived together. You didn’t talk to me about that, either. One day after six years, you just turned to me and announced you’d decided to move out.”

  He approaches me and takes my hands in his. “That was a long time ago, Jeff. Things are different now. I’m asking you to come down here, to spend time here. To share this with me.”

  I smile uncomfortably. “But it’s not just you anymore. There’s this … this woman.”

  “I think you’ll understand all this better after you meet Eva.”

  I break free and move over to the window. The snow is turning the red rooftops white. “Lloyd,” I say, trying to measure my words, “I know this is the eleventh hour. But—well—have you completely, thoroughly thought this through? I know you’ve struggled with what you want to do with your life. I know you were tired of playing healer and caretaker as a therapist, but here you are, making that role not only your job but now your home. You’ll be living with it twenty-four-seven, three-hundred-sixty-five.”

  “But it’s different, Jeff.” His eyes plead with me to understand. “Way different than being a therapist. I’m meeting new people. Tending to a garden. Living here with the seasons. I know it will be hard work, but it’s not hard work I mind. Hard work is good for the soul. This is a dream, a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Don’t be sour on it, Jeff. Please.”