by David Connor
“Shit.” Spencer turned back to his work, painting edible gold with the thinnest paintbrush ever invented. “White Christmas my ass.”
“Sorry,” Getty said.
“You don’t make the weather.” Scrooge was taking over completely.
“So I had lunch with Isabelle.”
“I know.” Spencer didn’t want to hear about that right then any more than he wanted to hear about a foot of frigging sneet—the term the weatherman coined for a combination of snow and sleet. “I remember, Getty. I’m not nearly as senile as Troy thinks I am. I actually recall almost everything that happened yesterday.” Including seeing Getty naked, wet, and aroused.
“We had a good talk. She, um, actually accepted the fact that I’m gay.”
“Did she? Have you?” Getty seemed visibly stunned. It had been a rather sarcastic thing to say, and Spencer’s chest seized at the guilt he felt for saying it. “Sorry.” He reached for Getty’s arm, but then pulled back. “Stress.”
“Well, you know, good thing you’re the only one feeling any of that, huh?” Getty gave back what he got. “I’ve got my own problems, Spence.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“You know how hard this situation with Isabelle has been. I only got her back in my life a few months ago. I only really got her back a few weeks ago.”
“I’m glad things have gotten better. I’m sure divorce is hard on a kid.”
“I’m never going to be anyone’s Hallmark movie romantic lead for the way I handled things, but it’s finally working out. Tinkerbell and I are getting there. Kirstin and I are almost closer than ever.”
“Really?”
“She wants the three of us to start hanging out again.”
“Yeah, right.”
“She misses it, Spence. I don’t know. Maybe something magical happens when a person turns almost forty. Maybe we all grew up. One day, almost out of the blue, it felt like old times again whenever we ended up in a room together, like the recent past was the past and the distant times… I don’t know. The hurt, the anger, the animosity… it’s gone.”
“Really?” Like when he said “Oh,” Spencer had no idea what else to say.
“Really.”
“That’s great. I’m glad to hear it. And now you have Isabelle’s… blessing.” Spencer couldn’t think of a word more appropriate than the one Troy had used. “That’s good too, right?”
“Yes. Except… I didn’t even mention you.”
“Why would you?” Almost immediately, Spencer threw up that wall of sarcastic protection again, and then, just as quickly, he felt the need to apologize. Only this time, he didn’t.
“I thought it might be better if you and I talked first, to make sure…” Getty trailed off.
“Make sure what?”
“I don’t know, Spencer. We skirt the issue. We flirt, talk dirty, and come close to fucking every now and then, but we’ve never really discussed what would happen if we were both free to be together. Is it something you would even be interested in, something you’d want?”
“I always was. You were the one who…” It was Spencer’s turn to leave his sentence unfinished.
“Who cheated. I was the unfaithful party. I was the one who messed up what we had… what we were. That’s what you’ve been thinking for almost twenty years. That’s what you want to say, right?”
Spencer’s hand was shaky. He had to stop, or else he was going to screw up the cake. “You didn’t call me yesterday. You didn’t come to the shop.” He walked to the window to check the sky. Still blue. So far so good. “You’re here all the time—and I like that—but yesterday, when you had something to say, you went radio silent. Yeah, truthfully, I wonder… Maybe you’re still not ready to settle down with one guy—with a guy.”
Getty shook his head. His expression was hard to decode. “Don’t start that. It was always about the person, not the sexuality. We both loved Kirstin, and she and I both loved you.”
“But only one of us had sex with two different people. If you want to consider your options, Getty, before you commit…” Spencer turned to face him. “I say, have at it.”
“I wasn’t asking permission,” Getty said harshly.
“I’m offering it.”
The jingle of the front door, like the ringside bell at a boxing match, called a timeout to the stare down that followed, as Troy slammed the shop door against the wall hard enough to rattle the glass and rustle the lush white pine wreath hanging against it on the outside.
“Jesus, Troy! Watch the sheetrock!”
Troy turned on his brother. “Not in the fucking mood!”
Spencer reached for the shamrock at his neck and immediately calmed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” But Troy’s eyes darted back and forth between Spencer and Getty. “You got more decorations to put up in here? It should probably look more ‘Merry frigging Christmassy’ before the reporters come, even if we don’t really feel it. You started off with a bang with the tree and some lights, but got a little sidetracked.”
“A dozen wedding cakes will do that to a guy.”
“Sorry.” Troy’s voice was shaky. Spencer doubted it was due to his mistake back in October.
“I didn’t mean…”
“I’m going to take off.” Getty reached for his jacket. “I’ll go out through the basement, so I can check the generator on my way, in case the ice storm brings down the power lines.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Call me… still… if something else breaks.”
Spencer wondered if that included his heart.
“Seems a little icy in here already,” Troy said, once the coast was clear.
“Nothing major.”
“Not like yesterday, when you watched him shower.”
Spencer whirled around. “How the hell did you know about—? You didn’t know.”
“I do now,” Troy said. “Lucky guess. And eww.” He headed toward the back room. “I need the ladder, and horny old people are gross.”
“Ignore that little safety sticker that says be sure to open it fully, and go ahead, stand on the very top even though it tells you not to.”
“You’re in a mood,” Troy said.
“And you’re not? What did the front door ever do to you?”
Troy’s look said “Fuck you.” His mouth asked “Bells or snowflakes?” as he grabbed one of each from a green storage tote in the corner. “Which would look better dangling from the ceiling?”
“Troy, talk to me.”
“Not much to say.” Troy tossed the tissue paper ornamentation back atop the pile. “Isabelle and I split up.” He grabbed a croissant cooling on the counter, then slammed through the door to the kitchen, no doubt leaving a second dent in a second wall. Spencer waited a while, wondering if he should follow, or if allowing his brother a minute or two to cool off would be better. When Troy came back with the croissant hanging from his mouth and the ladder tucked under his armpit, Spencer decided to venture on.
“Broke up? Why?”
“Cottage cheese, apple nipples, North Carolina, pheasant farts.”
“What?” The words Spencer heard could not be the ones Troy had said.
“I said, sometimes a fight isn’t about what it’s really about.”
Though the words were much clearer without the croissant, Spencer still didn’t grasp the meaning. “I don’t get it.”
“She was making pasta and she broke the fettucine in half before she put it in the pot.”
Spencer gasped.
“I know, right!”
“It’s a heinous thing to witness for anyone with even a dash of Italian blood flowing through them, I’ll admit that, but you broke up over pasta, Troy?”
“No. We broke up over something else.” Troy started up the ladder with a bunch of snowflakes. “And so I drove around half the night and ended up sleeping in my car. I can’t even talk her right now. ”
“There’s a third person i
n the mix. Don’t forget that. The most important one… an innocent little baby.”
Troy affixed the first snowflake, then leaned to either side, the ladder rocking precariously as he flanked it with two more, never letting go of his snack. “I’m going to love my kid either way, but I don’t have to be with Isabelle. Yeah, it’d be better if I was, but not if it’s going to be a repeat of her childhood, where we live as a family in a house filled with animosity and resentment.”
Wow. The kid was smart, and his words, the picture it painted, they grabbed hold of Spencer’s heart and twisted as if wringing out a rag. He actually felt it, and though the scene was imaginary, the sensation in his chest was quite real.
“So where might this animosity be coming from?” Spencer had a feeling he knew.
“Eh.” Troy waved it all away with his croissant. “What was your tiff about?” Troy climbed down and moved the ladder. “Yours and Izzy’s dad? I actually expected you two to be banging like bunnies upstairs… things falling off the wall, plaster cracking, swear words spewing… ya know, like in porn.”
Spencer doubted he could ever live up to that description. “I was kind of pissed Getty didn’t call after lunch with Isabelle yesterday.”
“And the deeper reason?”
Spencer shrugged. “I wonder if sex between us is only hot when forbidden.”
“Okay.” Troy cringed. “I’m going to go get a fondue fork to stick through my eardrum.”
“You asked.”
“You don’t trust him.”
“What?” Spencer grabbed more snowflakes to hand to Troy.
“He cheated on you… he cheated on Izzy’s mom...” Troy climbed the ladder. “You don’t trust him, maybe rightfully so.”
The kid was too smart. “And your fight with Isabelle was over Getty and me too, I’ll bet, not broken fettucine.”
“Maybe.”
“Did she say anything about her lunch with her dad?” Spencer hated to drag the kids into his love life, but he asked anyway.
“I asked her how it went, but never really got an answer.”
“Let me guess… she put her hands on your junk instead.”
“Her hands, her mouth… let’s just say I couldn’t ask too many questions with my face between her legs.”
“Pass that fondue fork.”
“Too graphic?”
“Sometimes I still see you in footie pajamas.”
Troy got down and Spencer moved the ladder.
“Yeah, well, I’m going to be a dad by Easter, so get over it. I know it’s all about the gays right now, but straight people fuck too. We fuck, we fight, we split up.”
“And then you get back together. Though it’s probably best if we both just move on. Me and Getty, I mean—not you and Isabelle.”
“Why? Why is one relationship more valuable than the other?”
“Because of the baby.” Spencer set some holiday figurines around the room as they talked—a ceramic tree beside the register, a smiling Santa on the sill that reminded him of his father.
“No. That’s a rationalization. Forget thinking. That was one of dad’s favorites.” Troy nodded toward the Santa. He jumped topics like the ladies on The View.
“I know. Remember how he used to tell us we were related to Santa, and that’s why our name was Holiday?”
“Kids were so gullible in your generation. I never bought it for a moment.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I can’t wait to tell little Troy, Jr.”
Spencer smiled imagining the conversation.
“Pretend Getty is standing here right now.” Troy went back to his task and played conversation hopscotch again. “What do you feel?”
“Troy.”
“He’s right there next to you, handing you things from that box, and none of the problems between us all exist. What is your first thought?”
“That I want to make love to him.”
“Now I got to jump to my death to erase that visual.” He was quiet a moment, maybe thinking. “When you were younger, I bet you didn’t analyze everything so damned much. You just followed your heart and your dick. Think of how hot it was to just meet up and get naked.”
Spencer did think about that. Then he thought about Getty doing it with Kirstin. “Mature people don’t just jump into things without considering the consequences, especially when we might hurt someone we love in the process. At least they shouldn’t. Getty can’t hurt Isabelle, and I won’t screw up Isabelle and you.”
“You’d think at your age you’d want to be more spontaneous,” Troy said judgmentally. “It would make a whole lot of sense to just be open to the few good surprises left in life, if you ask me, the ones that might be exhilarating and fulfilling. Ya know, because time is short and you’re so much closer to death.”
“Nice.”
“Just a fact.”
“I’m not even forty yet!”
“You’re not twenty, either.” Troy climbed down and went to the tote. There were no more snowflakes. “Look. Isabelle will get over it. We will. I’m not giving up. I’m just mad. The only ones losing out if you do are you and Getty.” Troy folded the ladder. “I’m going to take this outside and put that huge inflatable sleigh and reindeer on the roof before I head into town.”
“Be careful.”
“I will. I want to be around to see my fabulous gift.”
Spencer hadn’t bought a single present yet. “The way this year is going, I can promise you anything you want from the ninety-nine cent store after Christmas sale.”
Troy was at Spencer’s side, hugging him again by the end of the sentence. What was with so many hugs all the sudden. “I don’t really care about that. Just promise me you’ll give SpeGetty a shot.”
“Don’t be gone all day. I need you here when the reporters come. From now on, you’re the face of Holiday Bakery, and I’m—”
“The ass?”
“And you’re a pain in it.”
Spencer turned back to the cake once alone. Pretty good, he thought. Naw. Not pretty good—damned awesome! It was beautiful, each layer done in cream fondant, with pearl snowflakes, gold painted holly berries with silvery leaves, and white sculpted poinsettias and pinecones all frosted with glittery sugar. It was elegant and simple, reflective of both a wedding and the yuletide season.
Spencer pulled himself away after five more minutes, and headed for the kitchen, to get started on some holiday extras. He checked his watch on the way and his chest got tight from nerves. Reporters would be ascending any moment, and the day had already started out stressful. He was wondering how much worse it could get when he heard the shattering glass. As Spencer ran back through the kitchen door, all he could think of was the brick that had come through the front window with the fancy lettering, just like that on the mugs. The word fagit had been scrawled across the brick by the misspelling hate mongering miscreant from For Good and God, one too stupid to debate, and far too cowardly to do it face to face, even to promote his allegedly worthy cause. Were they back? One guy? A whole group?
“Oh my god! Troy!” When Spencer got to the shop, however, he saw it wasn’t a vandal at all. “Oops.” The thick black brows were knit, and Troy looked both sheepish and ready to laugh. “The good news is, Santa looks amazing up on the roof.”
“You’re okay?” Spencer asked his brother.
“Not a scratch on me.”
“Good.”
“You? You’re turning blue.”
Spencer realized he’d been holding his breath the whole time. “I’m fine. Now get your ass in here and clean up the glass.” He turned. “Shit!”
“What?”
“Most of this morning’s product is ruined. I can’t serve people glass—that asshole Stefan, maybe and perhaps a gift basket for Grayson Devries—but none of my regulars.” Spencer shrugged. “I’ll have to start over. So much for Christmas extras. Can you hang around and help a while instead of going to the mall?”
Troy sighed loudly.
“I guess. Shopping can wait too, I suppose.”
“Maybe we ought to just forget Christmas this year. It’s not going to be the same, anyway.”
Troy covered his face with gloved hands.
“Sorry, bro.” They both fondled the charms on their chains then.
“It’s not like I forgot,” Troy said through the empty window frame. “It’s good there’s been a lot of distraction to keep us from thinking about it too much, but it still creeps in there.”
“I should put a wreath or something up on the graves.”
“We’ll go together,” Troy offered.
“Good deal, little bro. Now come in and warm up—it’s already gotten colder—and then we’ll get the breads restarted.
“Don’t forget to call Getty,” Troy said.
Spencer paused for a moment. He shut his eyes.
“You heard what the man said, ‘If anything breaks…’”
“And thanks to you, something did.”
“Hey. That’s what I’m here for.” The grin was both endearing and irksome. “I’m sure you have the number memorized. One eight hundred s-p-e-g-e-t-t-y.”
“That’s too many numbers, dill weed.” Spencer threw a whole loaf at his brother, just as the smart ass streaked out of view.
Chapter 5
Getty came up from the basement with a sheet of plywood. He’d arrived five minutes after the call. “I think this ought to do it. Let me go get my power drill and some screws.”
“I’m so sorry,” Troy said, coming in as Spencer took the black bag with a couple dozen loaves and twice as many rolls in it out of the trash bin.
“Shit happens, Turkey.” Spencer offered a pat as Troy passed.
“All set.” Getty revved his drill upon re-entering to make his point. The smirk on Troy’s face made his—power tools were phallic.
“Just take this out to the dumpster.” Spencer shoved the trash bag at him, and then noticed Getty struggling to hold the plywood in place as he reached down into his pocket, presumably for screws, lowering his jeans, flashing a lot of skin on the side and just a hint in the back.
“Let me get in there,” Spencer said. “To hold the wood.”
Troy made a gurgling sound in his Holiday Bakery hot chocolate mug, like a subtle spit take, only not quite subtle enough.