Little Comfort

by Edwin Hill

  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing in the shadows when the front door to the mansion opened. From across the street, he recognized Wendy’s athletic frame as the butler helped her into her coat. Her dark hair was wound around in a sort of cone that threatened to topple her over. She clutched at a gift and hurried down the stairs and onto the sidewalk, her heels clacking against the brick. Sam followed, stepping lightly between shadows so as not to be heard. The street, so full of energy before, suddenly felt empty. It was cold, and Wendy pulled her coat in close. Her feet moved so quickly she practically ran. Still, Sam nearly got close enough to smell her perfume.

  She came to another house, and another set of stairs, where Sam could see a holiday party in full swing through the parlor window. She climbed halfway to the door, and turned. The light from over the doorway silhouetted her pale face. “Who’s there?” she said.

  Sam stepped into an alley. He’d have to be less eager in the future.

  “I can hear you,” Wendy said, “I can hear you breathe. So fuck off,” and then she rapped on the ornate doors.

  Another butler greeted her as piano music filtered from inside. Sam could almost smell the gust of pine-scented air that rushed into the night. Through the front window, he saw Wendy make her way into the parlor, her cheeks flushed from the cold, but otherwise seemingly recovered from her walk. She took a glass of champagne from a passing tray and then seemed to greet each and every person who passed her. Sam imagined standing beside her. He could almost feel his fingertips as they found the crook of her arm. When she laughed, he laughed too. He imagined the tick of clocks, the scent of linseed oil, the hum of small talk—season tickets to the Red Sox or the symphony, weekend jaunts to Nantucket, square footage, board meetings, CrossFit. Inside, in the warmth, he’d have focused on the way people spoke, on the cadence of their voices, on the clues that dropped around him like a million keys to a million locks, so that when he finally spoke, he’d feel as though he’d been part of this world for his entire life. More than anything, Sam wanted to be at the center of that world.

  He stepped out from the shadows and nearly collided with a well-dressed elderly couple who tottered up the street. “Excuse me,” he said, catching the woman’s arm before she fell. He inhaled a wave of Chanel No. 5.

  “Oh, thank you dear,” the woman said. She put a hand to her silvery chignon.

  “I need to watch where I’m going!” Sam said. “Off to a party?”

  “To the Wigglesworths’!” the man said, as though there was nowhere else to be.

  “Of course,” Sam said. “The Wigglesworths’!”

  He watched as they creaked up the stairs and into the party, and then he plunged down the hill to the shops and restaurants of Charles Street. A young man with the close-cropped hair and good looks of a frat boy eyed Sam as he walked by. Sam thought about a quickie—a reward for a good day at work—but he had places to be. A moment later, he burst through the oak door of the Beacon Hill Tavern and into the empty bar. “How about an IPA?” he said to the bartender, who asked for ID and then barely looked at it.

  Nowadays, Sam used the identity of one Aaron Gewirtzman. It was a name he hadn’t gotten used to, one that belonged to a young man buried in a cemetery outside New York whose Social Security number Sam had borrowed. Last year he’d been Casey Crawford in New York. Before that, he’d been Justin Rogers in Chicago, Gavin Kennedy in Baltimore, and Jason Hodge in San Francisco. Now he was getting to know Aaron, who was twenty-six, a year younger than Sam. Aaron was born on July 22 (a Cancer), and wore corrective lenses. He’d grown up in New York and worked a series of temp jobs where, Sam hoped, no one would remember the nerdy young man who’d died in a random car accident. Thankfully, the real Aaron Gewirtzman had barely left Manhattan in his entire short life, so the chances of bumping into anyone who’d ever met him were slim to none.

  Sam downed a beer and ordered another, and had nearly finished that by the time the tavern door opened. A woman wobbled in wearing a black Lycra dress that might, possibly, have fit a few years earlier. She puckered her less-than-thick red lips as her eyes adjusted to the dark. Then she teetered toward the restrooms as though she’d recently learned to walk in heels. “Shot of vodka,” she said to the bartender, and a moment later she was at the bar, texting madly.

  “You’re back,” Sam said, moving to the stool next to hers. He’d met her for the first time two nights ago in the same spot.

  She downed the shot and swiveled toward him. “So are you,” she said, signaling to the bartender for another round and pointing at Sam’s beer. He nodded.

  “That’s it?” she asked.

  “Give me a shot too,” Sam said. “On a date tonight?”

  “What’s it to you?” She lifted her glass. “To new friends,” she said, snapping her head and grimacing. Sam raised an eyebrow in a way he’d practiced in the mirror, arrogant and sure. The vodka slid down his throat. “Aaron Gewirtzman,” he said, extending a hand toward the woman.

  “Felicia Nakazawa,” she said.

  But Sam already knew that.

  He’d seen Felicia leaving the Richards house for the first time two months ago. Since then, he’d dug into her background and learned as much as he could about her. She lived in the Atelier, a fancy South End building with a doorman. She’d moved to Boston from San Diego fifteen years earlier to get her undergraduate degree at Boston College, where she’d befriended Wendy Richards, her neighbor in the dorm. And she’d worked as the Richards family’s personal assistant ever since she’d finished school.

  “No parties tonight?” Felicia asked. “’Tis the season.”

  “Could say the same for you.”

  “I have nothing but parties.” Felicia waggled her phone as a text message popped onto the screen. She scanned it and banged in a response. “On call tonight. Tonight and every night.” She hit send and put the phone down.

  “A drinking doctor?” Sam said.

  “I wish,” Felicia said. “I’m more of a jill-of-all-trades. What about you? You seem fancy!” She scrutinized Sam all over again. “I know your type. You’re like my friend Ron. Spoiled gay boy whose liberal New York daddy pays for your Back Bay apartment. You have that fresh-from-the-regatta look going.”

  “I wish,” Sam said, toasting with another shot.

  “God, I wonder what it’s like not to worry about money all the time?” Felicia asked as her phone buzzed again. “I should know. I see it all day long.”

  From what Sam had observed, Felicia didn’t worry much about money either. But he supposed when it came to the Richards family and money, all things were relative.

  “What I wouldn’t give to have it easy for once,” Felicia said. “It’s the first Saturday in December, and I’m stuck in here. Tell me my story. What do you think I’m like?”

  “You mean dressed up, nowhere to go, and drunk off your ass?”

  Felicia hit him in the arm. “You want to see me drunk? Order me a vodka martini. Dirty.”

  Sam signaled to the bartender. “How’s this,” he said. “You’re meeting a man tonight, not exactly a date, but not not a date either. He’s older than you. In his forties, married and divorced—he claims. He’s not into kids or commitments. He might take you to a hotel for champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. He might fly you to his villa in the south of France. You never know. He doesn’t stand a chance—you’re too smart and you know he’s only in it for the chase—but you’ve asked yourself whether it’s worth the ride.”

  Felicia drank half her martini in a single gulp. “Did you make that up?”

  “Two parts Sex and the City, one part Private Benjamin.”

  “You are gay. Not even close, but I’ll take it anyway.”

  Sam finished his drink and fished the hundred-dollar bill Wendy had given him from his wallet. Felicia put a hand on his arm. “Stay,” she said, pushing the money toward him and dropping an American Express (platinum) on the bar. “Tonight’s on me. I have to wait here fo
r a while anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Your job is to sit in a bar and drink by yourself?”

  “Not really. My job is to make things run smoothly. And I shouldn’t say much more about it. Another part of my job is to keep my mouth shut. I did sign an NDA.”

  “Got it,” Sam said, wondering how much Felicia would have to drink to lose that discretion.

  They talked for another hour as Sam created more of a backstory for Aaron, keeping the details general and as close to his own as possible. Aaron liked fashion and baseball and working out, just like Sam. He was a Yankees fan, though—it only made sense—and Felicia seemed convinced he came from money. Sam let that one go. Maybe it would be useful in the end. He found out that Felicia wrote nearly all of the material Wendy Richards used on her blog—probably a secret covered by the NDA—and Felicia’s father still held out hope that she’d be the first Nakazawa in space. “Not very likely,” she said. “But maybe, if Pearly Richards buys a space shuttle …” Her phone rang. “I have to grab this,” she said.

  Sam heard her mumble assurances for a few moments, and when she hung up, she signaled to the bartender for the check. “Sorry, I have to go. Wendy wants me to walk her home.” Felicia barely suppressed a roll of the eyes. “She thinks someone followed her to the Wigglesworths’ tree-trimming party tonight.”

  “Does she often have people … following her around?”

  “Not till recently,” Felicia said.

  “Sounds important.”

  “It’s important to her, so it’s important to me. That’s how I stay employed!” Felicia put on her coat. “It’s around the corner.” She was halfway out the door when she said, “You’re coming, right?”

  “I guess I am,” Sam said.

  He slipped one of the empty shot glasses into his pocket while he grabbed his things. Outside, he snapped a photo of the tavern door, where snow had begun to build up. “To remember tonight!” he added.

  Felicia took his arm in hers as they headed up Beacon Hill. Snow clung to her long, black hair as they came to the Wigglesworths’ house. Felicia punched a message into her phone, and soon Wendy in her red dress, hair still twisted toward the ceiling, appeared in the parlor window, bending down to hug the hosts.

  “She’s tall,” Sam said.

  “Six foot four in heels!” Felicia said. “But don’t mention it if you want her to like you. It’s an easy way to get on her bad side … and you don’t want to be on Wendy’s bad side. But she’s smart, and she works hard. I had no idea who she was when we met or how fucking rich she was, and her family has never been anything but generous. They take me on trips and pay for my apartment and have me over for dinner.”

  “To their house?”

  “Where else?”

  “What are her parents like?”

  “Pearly and Elise? They’re …” Felicia stopped and seemed to catch herself. “I’ve had a lot to drink,” she said. “And we barely know each other.”

  The front door to the townhouse opened. “Thank you, thank you,” Wendy said, hugging Felicia. “I know it sounds crazy, but I swear I heard someone behind me on the way here, and it freaked me the fuck out …” She stopped mid-sentence when Sam stepped into a circle of light cast from a streetlamp. Wendy let Felicia go.

  “This is Aaron,” Felicia said quickly. “He’s a friend of mine. We were having drinks when you texted.”

  Wendy extended a gloved hand. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “I didn’t mean to disturb your evening. The house is a few blocks away. Then the two of you can be on with your night.”

  “We’re happy to swing by,” Sam said, mirroring her finishing-school style like it was a first language. “But you’re not going home already. It’s only nine o’clock!”

  Wendy glanced at Felicia and then at Sam. “Do I know you?” she asked.

  “I doubt it. I’d have remembered meeting you.”

  “Don’t you two want to be alone?”

  “The more, the merrier,” Sam said.

  “To Club Café?” Felicia said.

  “Where else?” Sam said.

  “Club Café!” Wendy said, turning to Sam and seeing him anew. “We haven’t been there in forever!”

  “If you really do have a stalker,” Felicia said, taking her friend’s arm in hers, “you can’t get much safer than the middle of a gay bar!”

  *

  At the club, Wendy’s hair unraveled into an unsettling mass that seemed to fill the room on its own. They danced to eighties hits while videos blared on the screens around them. They also took breaks to slam down more vodka shots and post photos to Instagram, though Sam ducked out of them or obscured his face. He avoided any online presence. He could feel more than one set of eyes taking him in, and as the club grew more crowded, he stripped off his shirt and tucked it into his jeans. Maybe he’d get lucky tonight after all.

  “Someone works out,” Felicia said, her hands grazing his flat stomach.

  “Every morning,” Sam said.

  “Keep it up.”

  A twink in a pair of hot pants came by with Day-Glo shots. Felicia bought three and stuffed two twenties in the boy’s shorts.

  “She’s always been a fag hag,” Wendy shouted in Sam’s ear.

  “Oh, shut up,” Felicia said with a giggle as she tossed the blue liquor back.

  “We came here all the time in college,” Wendy said. “It’s the best place to dance without getting harassed.”

  “Seems like both of you are fag hags,” Sam said.

  Wendy downed her shot too. “We like to have fun,” she said.

  “So do I,” Sam said.

  “Selfie!” Felicia shouted.

  Sam managed to turn his face into Wendy’s mane of hair as he heard the phone click.

  Later, Felicia stormed outside in a drunken rage over something Sam didn’t see, but that he thought might have involved a bull dyke and her femme girlfriend.

  “What happened?” he asked Wendy, who laughed.

  “She’s a terrible drunk. Wait till you see her sobbing in front of the toilet. Let’s go find her.”

  Outside in the snow, Felicia insisted she wasn’t drunk. “But you two can walk me home anyway.”

  “Weren’t you the one who was supposed to walk me home?” Wendy asked.

  “We’ll get you an Uber,” Felicia said as she stumbled down the sidewalk. “Or stay over.”

  She mumbled something else and nearly fell over. Wendy and Sam each got on a side and helped Felicia navigate home, up the elevator, and into her enormous loft apartment, with its floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on the Prudential building.

  “I’ll get her some ginger ale,” Wendy said, heading toward the kitchen.

  Felicia watched her go, and then shoved all her weight into pinning Sam to the wall and trying to kiss him. “I’m so fucking horny.” Her words slurred together so that he could barely understand her. “And you’re so Goddamned cute.”

  Sam stood stiffly, hands at his sides, waiting her out. He’d played straight plenty of times, but his path to knowing Wendy better would be through having Felicia as a friend, not a lover. She gave up, and then twisted her ankle running for the toilet. Sam heard a long gag, and then a splash. “Why, why, why!” Felicia said through tears. “Oh, God, would someone hold my hair?”

  Wendy hurried in from the kitchen, swept Felicia’s hair into a ponytail, and tied it with a rubber band. “Make yourself at home,” she whispered to Sam. “I’ll take care of her.”

  “Isn’t she supposed to be the one taking care of you?” Sam said.

  “We trade off.”

  Sam left the two of them sitting on the bathroom floor. He listened from the hallway outside and then went into Felicia’s bedroom, where he opened the closet door and slid his hands under piles of cashmere sweaters until he happened upon a tiny bag of cocaine, which he added to the shot glass in his coat pocket. A photo on the bedside table showed Wendy and Felicia
with a man Sam recognized as Pearly Richards on what looked like the summit of Kilimanjaro. In the kitchen, he dug up a box of saltines and took them to the bathroom, where Felicia lay flat, her cheek pressed to the tile floor. Wendy sat with her back against the wall.

  “Would these help?” he asked.

  “I don’t think anything will help at this point.” Wendy struggled to stand without waking Felicia. She stepped out of her shoes and came a bit closer to earth. “We’ll check in later to be sure she’s not drowning in vomit.”

  She took his hand and led him out to the living area, where she opened a bottle of red and grabbed two goblets. Felicia’s taste in furniture was an expensive blend of contemporary Scandinavian and mid-century modern chic. They sank into an overstuffed sofa and turned on the gas fireplace. An Alex Katz print hung over the mantle.

  “Where did you come from, anyway?” Wendy said. She ran a hand down Sam’s knee. “You’re exquisite.”

  “The street,” Sam said.

  “My favorite place!”

  Even after all these years, it still surprised Sam how trusting people could be, how willing they were to let handsome strangers into their homes and their lives. It was easy with someone needy and desperate to please like Felicia—or Ellen in San Francisco, where he and Gabe had fled after they ran away from New Hampshire, and where everything had seemed possible. Ellen had worked at that Internet startup where Sam had found a job as a receptionist named Jason Hodge. She was fleshy and smelled of damp talc, and at first, from the way the other employees talked about her, he thought she might be the office manager, not the owner of the company, along with her brother, Zach.

  Ellen was lonely. Her brother, who was handsome and gregarious, could flirt with women and high-five his bros, while Ellen sat in her windowless office, seemingly bewildered by anything but the game of Mine Sweeper staring at her from her computer screen. She seemed like someone who simply wanted to be liked, and Sam started with tea. Herbal, soon learning to bring her ginger lemon. And then he moved on to cookies. Gluten free. “I’m sure you don’t want any of these,” he said one day, popping his head into her office with a Tupperware container of chocolate chip cookies he’d bought. “I made them with rice flour.”