Little Comfort

by Edwin Hill

  “It wasn’t too bad.”

  “I bet she yammered on about Hero?”

  Sam shrugged.

  “We’re like sisters,” Wendy said. “We know how the other one thinks, and I think she wanted Hero for herself. The same may be true for you.”

  “She thinks I’m gay.”

  “Good,” Wendy said. “It’ll help her mind her own business, and keep my father from nosing around. I told Twig all about you over lunch. She understands. Her father’s the same way, maybe worse.” She assessed Sam, reaching out and mussing his hair. “I like the glasses,” she said. “Boys in expensive glasses work well online. And we’ll get the hair taken care of on Saturday. What are you wearing to the party?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “I’ll see what I have.”

  “Yeah, that won’t be good enough. I have a brand to watch out for. I need people to talk and tweet, and for that I need you to look great. They’ll like the mystery too. They’ll wonder who you are.”

  Sam felt a seed of alarm. Online, it was easy to connect one image to the next. But a moment later he’d forgotten the panic as he found himself careening through the streets of Boston in Wendy’s Audi. She was at the wheel, and her long legs worked the pedals. “Honestly,” she said, “you’d think you’d never been to a benefit in your life.”

  They zipped past people and streets. Wendy swerved her car into an alley, and made her way across the Charles to Drinkwater’s in Cambridge. She parked and headed into the exclusive men’s store. Sam trotted to keep up with her long strides. “Logan,” she said to the sales clerk.

  “Miss Richards,” Logan said with a polite smile.

  “Take care of my friend, would you? We need something festive and sexy. Something that reminds you of crocuses.”

  “My pleasure,” Logan said.

  “I’ll leave you two,” Wendy said. “Back in a few.”

  Sam waited while Logan brought pants and shirts and jackets and shoes to try on. He didn’t dare look at the price tags as he breathed in the scent of leather and ran his fingertips over the soft fabric.

  Logan held up a pair of pants. “These are nice and tight.”

  Sam changed into the new outfit and felt like he was changing his skin at the same time. In the mirror, he saw Aaron Gewirtzman and who Aaron might become, and it made him feel high, higher than he had in months.

  “I should measure that inseam,” Logan said as he kneeled down and unwound the tape measure. He had the efficient attractiveness of the best in retail. His salt-and-pepper hair was neatly clipped, and his skin had a moisturizer glow. “Miss Richards is a generous woman. You’re not the first, you know. She likes a pretty face and to have a plaything. I’d like someone to be that generous with me.”

  That was bold. Rude. Cause for dismissal. But Sam hardly cared whether he was the first or not, because he was the one right now. He looked at himself in the mirror, at the way the pants hung, at the cuff links that peeked from his jacket sleeves. He worked out every morning, running through Somerville for an hour no matter how cold it got, and then lifting weights in that tiny bedroom while Gabe stunk up the house with fried bacon. The Crocus Party would be another night to remember. And when Sam looked this good, how could anything possibly go wrong? He swayed his hips into Logan’s face, whose hand froze in his crotch.

  “I can be generous,” Sam said. He adjusted the Windsor knot on a pink tie, but decided right then to go without at the party. After all, a flash of skin never hurt. “Just don’t stain the fabric.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Gabe DiPursio didn’t want much out of life besides to belong somewhere. Anywhere.

  And to have someone love him.

  And to love someone. And to have a family and kids, a house, a dog. To be ordinary, in every way.

  Loving someone, at least, was easy. Too easy, at times, as Sam often told him.

  Gabe was in love right now, so in love that he’d left his computer for once and braved the cold to stand outside the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square and watch the girl working the concession counter. He loved the way she moved deftly from the popcorn machine to the soda fountain, the way she wore that baby-doll dress that seemed too thin for a day like today. She ladled extra butter on popcorn for anyone, even those who didn’t ask. He’d seen her for the first time two weeks ago when he’d come for a midnight showing of Back to the Future. “I love this movie,” she’d said as she handed him a ticket.

  “Me too,” Gabe had said. At least he wished he had. Instead, he’d stared at her till she asked if he needed anything else.

  So today he practiced what to say: Are you going to the Girly Man show next week? or It sure is cold outside! Ordinary things. Things that anyone could say and that wouldn’t make him stand out. No matter what, he wouldn’t tell her that he knew her name and where she lived or that her roommate left for work at 8:13 on the dot every weekday morning. He wouldn’t mention the spare key he’d found hidden under their porch either. Maybe he’d ask for Sno-Caps. He definitely wouldn’t tell her that he liked her tits.

  Gabe pulled the theater door open. Inside, the lobby smelled of popcorn, and the air was warm and dry. He swore that she glanced down the short line and paused when she saw him, that she bit her lip to keep from smiling. Maybe he’d ask for Milk Duds and popcorn and tell her that if you shook them together you called it Popcorn Surprise. “Here, be surprised,” he might say as she glanced toward a coworker in a way he was sure meant yes. He should have shaved his beard before he came. Who wanted to kiss someone with a beard? And he should have worn something besides flannel.

  Her name was Penelope.

  He was next. He stepped up to the ticket counter. Did her friends call her Penny? “You’re always here,” he said.

  “I work here,” Penelope said, glancing to the line behind him.

  “Can I …” he began.

  “Which movie?” she asked.

  “Dinner?”

  “The thing is,” she said, “you’re not my type.”

  A blast of cold air swept through the lobby as a couple came in from the outside. Penelope’s blond hair lifted around her face. Her nipples, he swore, popped beneath that thin pink fabric, and even though he tried not to stare, she winced. “Do you want a ticket or not?” she asked. The smile was gone.

  Gabe turned and left.

  He walked quickly out into the cold, his eyes aimed squarely at the ground and his face burning with shame. Thankfully, a wave of people flooded out of the T entrance and swept him into the heart of Davis Square. He looked around the crowded sidewalks. It was a Tuesday in the afternoon, and the sidewalks were filled with people. Christmas lights lined the streets, while small groups huddled in a crowded café. Gabe could only imagine heading inside to that steamy warmth and noise. He could only imagine belonging, or being seen. He wondered where Sam was, but Sam had better things to do than sit around the house. If Gabe went home, he’d be even more alone.

  He stopped in the middle of the square, a few hundred yards from the movie theater. It had begun to snow. He lifted his face toward the sky and felt the snowflakes dot his cheeks. Even here, in this crowded square, snow brought peace. He opened Tinder on his phone and scrolled through profiles till he found “Ally-Kat,” who was “raring to go.” She’d done the duck face in her photo and looked slutty and not too pretty.

  He swept right. She’d be perfect for a day like today.

  *

  Ally-Kat was plenty slutty, though her tits were average. Average size, average nipples, but not too veiny, at least. A solid B. She liked to be on top, to sit straight and sort of bounce up and down while Gabe lay there like a dead fish on her futon mattress. She also liked to chew gum. And talk. She’d talked since the moment she’d opened the door of her Cambridgeport apartment and motioned him in as she finished a phone call. She talked as she pulled her t-shirt off and undid her belt. She talked when she straddled him and told him she wouldn’t even think about kissing. “Because there is
no way I am getting a cold sore,” she said.

  And now, she talked about her mother and her cat and an ex-boyfriend named Rooster and her job as a pediatric resident. “I hate kids, really,” she said. “Wiping noses and pink eye? It’s not anything like on TV and sometimes I really …” She squeaked. “Yup, right there. Sometimes I think I chose the wrong specialty.”

  Gabe had on two condoms. For protection. And to make this last. He’d have put on a third too, if that hadn’t seemed too weird.

  “I’m twenty-six,” Ally-Kat said. She took the gum out of her mouth and stuck it behind her ear. “I never thought for one second that I’d get to twenty-six and be a doctor and still have roommates.”

  Gabe closed his eyes and pushed away Ally-Kat’s high-pitched voice. He thought about the lake, about Sam, about Lila. He could see Lila, in that yellow bikini bottom and tie-dyed t-shirt. He could see the three of them, hiking through the woods past granite and ferns. He could smell the mulch in the air from the forest floor. All they brought with them were cigarettes and beer as they wound their way along the well-worn path till the lake, as blue as a raspberry Slushie, opened in front of them. The cabin’s roof had already caved in by then, but the wooden sign announcing Little Comfort hung over the doorway. The dock looked like it might disintegrate beneath their feet. Still, Sam took a running start and leaped off the end into the clear water. He called to them to follow and then swam into the cove.

  Lila held her nose and jumped in feetfirst. When she surfaced on her back, Gabe watched as her breasts splayed out on each side and her fifty-cent-piece-sized nipples popped beneath the worn cotton of her t-shirt. Her tits got an A.

  All Gabe wanted was to lie on the warm planks, to drink his beer, and to watch. Dappled sun shone through birch leaves while Lila sang a few notes from “Pocketful of Sunshine” and pulled herself through the water. Out in the cove, Sam dove deep and came up yards away like a loon. Gabe touched the surface of the lake. Water bugs floated over the concentric ripples that circled out. A sunfish poked at a stone on the lake floor.

  Lila treaded water in front of him. She’d taken her hair from the braid, and it floated in an auburn mass behind her. She was beautiful. He handed her an icy can of Coors Light. She asked what he was thinking about, and he shook his head and said nothing. But he was thinking about Lila’s legs clinging to his hips, and burying his face in her breasts, and the smell of lake water. He was thinking about fucking her brains out.

  *

  Ally-Kat stopped bouncing with one last squeak. “Done?” she asked.

  He was. Gabe pulled off the condoms and searched for a place to throw them away.

  She pointed to the hallway bathroom, her face suddenly sour. She didn’t have much to say anymore either.

  “Where are your roommates now?” Gabe asked.

  “We’re all doctors,” she said, which really didn’t answer the question.

  She’d put on an Oxford shirt and boxer shorts. Gabe’s fingers brushed her arm, and she winced. He nearly touched her neck. Somehow, somewhere, he’d lost the signs—the sweat, the tingling skin, the pit in his stomach—that distinguished good from bad, that told him he was going too far, though logic and reason could still prevail. He could have broken her neck right then and there and no one would have been the wiser, except for Ally-Kat’s parents, whom he imagined as preppy and blond, like her. They’d have learned that their baby was a hookup slut. The police would have been wiser too. They’d have traced Ally-Kat’s final call right to Gabe’s phone, and then Gabe and Sam would be on the run. No, Gabe reminded himself, he should go. “I should go,” he said.

  “You think?” she said.

  He should go.

  But…

  He didn’t want to leave. “I love you,” he said.

  It surprised her. He could tell. It even surprised him a bit, though all he wanted now was to take her away from this house, away from those roommates. Neither of them should have roommates anymore. She let out a laugh, half shock, half—Gabe couldn’t tell—delight? He ran a hand through her hair, and then leaned into her, pinning her legs to the mattress. Her heart pounded against his. It made him feel warm. She squirmed. He remembered just in time that she wouldn’t kiss. “I don’t have cold sores,” he said.

  She turned her head away, into the pillows. He focused on where her hair had stuck to the pink gum behind her ear. She had tears in her eyes now, which wasn’t what he’d wanted. Not at all. “I’m sorry,” he said, letting her shove him from her room. “Thanks,” he added at the front door. “That was … fun.”

  He went to hug her, and she shrank away. He stood in the doorway for a moment. The falling snow dotted his shoulders and hair. It was dark now. “Is your name Allison or Katherine?” he asked.

  “Neither,” she said.

  He smiled. Flirting. “I bet you’re lying.”

  He stepped out onto the stoop. She slammed the door.

  He felt as light as the snow falling around him, lighter than he had in days. He could feel Lila all over again, with her horsy braid and breasts. She’d stayed with him all these years, in spirit at least, and it reminded him that he wasn’t alone. There’d been other women. Michelles and Lisas and Amys and Jennifers. So, so many Jennifers. But mostly there’d been Sam. Sam, who said to make a mark, to be someone, to find people who could make it happen, who said do something, anything, besides wander. Sam, who guided Gabe through a world that stretched out like a vast, colorless sea. Sam, who wouldn’t let Gabe fade away. He remembered the first time they’d met, in the cafeteria, after Gabe, new again, had spent two weeks wandering the halls of the high school like a shadow. He used the green punch card to pay for his subsidized lunch and sat at the end of a long cafeteria table, where a quartet of basketball players bent over their trays and ate without seeming to breathe. Some kids who got free lunch were targets for ridicule, but not Gabe. Never Gabe. To be bullied, you had to been seen. And Gabe had spent his life observing others and making himself disappear. He’d mastered it. It was his way of surviving.

  He could still taste the lunch they’d served that day: turkey and gelatinous gravy, a pile of mushy carrots, an ice-cream scoop of salty white rice. He ate quickly to be sure he got every bite. As he finished, Sam came out of the lunch line and paused to survey the room, and it seemed, to Gabe, as though the cafeteria grew quiet in a gentle wave as Sam walked through the crowd, head high, smiling, as though he knew all eyes would be on him. Gabe also remembered Sam walking straight to where he sat. Almost instinctively, Gabe piled trash onto his tray to leave. He didn’t know the rules of the new school yet, and he certainly hadn’t mastered where to sit in the cafeteria, but Sam said, “Stay,” as he took the seat across from him without asking.

  With that, the spell on the room broke. The basketball players went back to eating. The lunch line began to move. Conversation rose to a dull roar. Sam took a bite of his lunch. “This sucks,” he said, then shrugged and kept eating. “How have your first two weeks been?”

  Gabe hadn’t known what to say.

  “I’m Sam.”

  If Gabe could have a found a way to melt away, he would have. He wasn’t used to being noticed.

  “You’re Gabe, right? We’re in algebra together.”

  Gabe nodded. He couldn’t find his voice, but at that moment, in that cafeteria, on a day in early March one month after his fourteenth birthday, Gabe felt a wave of joy start in his stomach and spread though his body. He felt as though the sun had shined on him for the first time in his life.

  *

  Gabe shouted Sam’s name the moment he stepped into the house, even though the air hung with dank emptiness and the smell of ramen. He shuffled his boots across the worn carpet in the front hallway to clean off the ice and snow. In the spring, Gabe and Sam had moved from New York to this ground-level apartment in Davis Square when Sam’s relationship with a stockbroker he’d been dating soured. These days, Gabe was supposed to call himself Barry Bellows, even though on the r
are occasion that he spoke to anyone, he usually forgot.

  He went into the kitchen and opened the fridge, and stood at the laminate counter eating cold pizza from the night before. He checked to see if any of his clients had Slacked him. Gabe worked as a freelance programmer—it was how he and Sam paid for everything, including the car and this apartment—and he could have used some complicated code to debug right then to keep his mind off Ally-Kat and Lila.

  And Penelope.

  He could have been upset about being rejected earlier. Maybe he should have been. But what, he asked himself, would he have done had Penelope taken him up on the offer to chat? After the pleasantries, he’d have been stuck with nothing to say. Still, he wondered what she’d have called him after their third date? Sweetheart, maybe? Or darling if she was pretentious, and he thought that maybe she was. She probably wanted a loft apartment with stainless-steel appliances. Really, he told himself, he’d dodged a bullet.

  He paced around the kitchen. If he went by Penelope’s house, her roommate wouldn’t be home yet. Maybe he’d misunderstood her earlier. Maybe there’d been too many people around or her boss was watching or maybe she wanted to play hard-to-get and he hadn’t known to play.

  Maybe he should go on Tinder again.

  He went to his room to light up. His stash was empty. He crossed over to Sam’s room, even though Sam never had pot of his own. The room reeked of neatness, a dry blast of control, weights lined up for tomorrow’s workout, the beginnings of a diorama of trinkets from this Somerville life spread across the dresser: a shot glass, a nip of cocaine. They’d left similar displays behind before. Gabe texted Cricket to order a half ounce, and she said she was close by.

  And then the front door opened.

  It was Sam.

  Sam’s arms were laden with fancy bags that he tossed on the floor, boxes spilling out. He ripped open the boxes and threw silky clothes in the air. He was talking about a woman and a benefit and a town car, and Gabe didn’t care. He could barely hear any of it. He was too happy not to be alone.