The Tourists

by Jeff Hobbs

  In Thailand they swim naked in the clear water along the labyrinth of orange-and purple-and green-

  colored coral and walk along a pearly beach collecting seashells. They drink mai tais at sunset while listening to an old Bob Marley CD, and he considers how undeniable she is. Not necessarily as a person (he doesn’t really know her yet) but as a form, a thing of beauty. And that final night on the beach, before the ember burns her eye, Ethan’s drifting into the past, wondering if the one real choice he ever had to make—abandoning someone he loved—the choice that has defined him ever since—was the wrong one. Samona has forced him to reassess so much about his life.

  They return to Manhattan, where Ethan listens to David Taylor’s request on his answering machine.

  It’s a message which—a week earlier—Ethan Hoevel would never have even considered returning.

  Yet Ethan Hoevel returns David Taylor’s call. He does this just a few minutes before Angela and Aidan and Suzanne and Stanton come through the door for lunch on the Fourth of July.

  Because his curiosity about the man to whom Samona Taylor is married needs to be shut down and locked away.

  (Or is it because Samona has taken a different kind of grip over Ethan after he saw her together with her husband at the party—she’s become more desirable? He considers this idea and quickly dismisses it.)

  “I just got back from Thailand and I’m totally beat—I’ve got way too much work on the table and, you know, that’s not really what I do anyway.”

  “Well, do you want to have lunch and let me make the pitch?”

  And Ethan, maybe in response to the desperate quality of David’s voice, surprises both of them by saying, “Sure.”

  They meet at Corotta on July 7. David is waiting at a small corner table in the back when his cell phone rings. Ethan’s running late (not because he’s busy but because he likes the idea of Samona’s husband waiting for him), but David assures him that it’s okay because he’s only been at the restaurant for five minutes. He orders a glass of wine and tries to convince himself that he isn’t feeling tense. The morning was long and cutbacks have started again and all of them come through his desk for approval—essentially, he’s been firing people—and the construction noises are getting louder. But the wine eases him. He orders another glass and drinks half of it and then three guys David recognizes from The Leonard Company sit at the table next to his and everyone nods at one another. David starts daydreaming while waiting for Ethan Hoevel to show up.

  “David?” Ethan says.

  David looks up, startled, and his thighs knock against the table as he stands, his napkin falling off his lap to the floor. There’s an awkward moment during which David can’t decide whether he should pick up the napkin first or shake Ethan’s hand. He tries to do both at the same time. Ethan laughs and as they sit down David says, “I’m glad you could make it.” Ethan’s wearing a white Prada shirt—the top three buttons open—and faded jeans and a pair of three-hundred-dollar Nikes that David once thought about buying for himself.

  David has trouble fitting both elbows on the table. He finishes the second glass of wine in one gulp. Ethan notices.

  “Are we having a stressful day?” Ethan asks, gesturing at the empty glass.

  “Yes. No. Just busy. The war is mucking everything up and…I don’t know.”

  “Is it really like a war? The Post says it’s more like diplomacy.”

  “Or the lack thereof. But it’s a war. People are dying. It’s a war.” The wine David Taylor drank alleviates the pressure to perform. “And over here, a lot of talented young people are losing their jobs. Cutbacks. It all sucks.”

  “I kind of tuned out the war,” Ethan says as a waiter hands him a menu. He notes that David doesn’t have one, and it occurs to him that David Taylor knows the menu by heart. “I’ve always wanted to try this place,” Ethan says.

  “I come here a lot.” David gives up on his elbows. He puts his hands in his lap.

  Ethan opens the menu and asks, “What do you recommend?”

  “The beet salad is pretty good.” David reaches over and points out a few items. “The vegetable lasagna. The sea bass.”

  The heat David feels from his two glasses of wine prompts him to take off his jacket and drape it over his chair as he considers ordering a vodka.

  “A nicer suit might fit you better,” Ethan says offhand, scanning David before turning to the wine list. “Will you have some wine if I order a bottle?”

  David hunches forward to hide whatever Ethan is looking at. “Definitely.”

  Ethan orders duck confit and a pinot grigio that David likes. David orders the beet salad.

  “Where did you get that suit?” Ethan asks. “Barneys?”

  David tries to locate the smugness in Ethan’s tone—but it isn’t there. He’s genuinely interested. “Yeah. How’d you guess?”

  “You should try Prada next time.” Ethan unfolds his napkin. “I know some people there. I can put you in touch with them if you want.”

  “What’s so great about Prada?” David asks.

  “It’ll fit you better. You have those skinny shoulders.” David doesn’t know what Ethan means by that. Ethan sees this. “You’ll look good.”

  The wine comes and they each drink a glass quickly.

  “So,” Ethan says. “Why am I here? What is it exactly you guys need?”

  “Well, as I mentioned before we’re looking to contemporize a couple of conference rooms. You know, sort of make the office look hipper, younger, whatever.” David pauses to pour himself another glass. “We’re sort of thinking as we go.”

  “Even though all the young people are losing their jobs?”

  David smiles. He likes playfulness. He responds to it.

  “It’s more for the investors. There are a lot of young investors. And the problem is that they perceive Leonard as a firm for old money—even though it’s not—and our job right now is to make it appealing to them. To that particular…money.”

  “And I fit in…because?”

  “Because I just…think you’d be good. I’ve…seen your Web site.” David almost mentions that he bought a love seat at four in the morning last week, which is in a storage room in the basement of his office building and which he hasn’t yet gone down to see because first he has to figure out what to do with the leather sofa.

  Ethan frowns. “For a conference room?”

  “Yeah. For renovating a conference room.” David pauses. “Actually two of them.”

  “I have to tell you, I really don’t do things like that.”

  “There’s a very generous budget allocated to this project and I think we would make it very much worth your time and effort.” David hates how that comes out. He sounds like a corporate hack.

  Ethan doesn’t say anything.

  “Look, you should at least come by the offices before you say no.”

  David notices that Ethan Hoevel seems to be studying him with curiosity.

  Finally, Ethan says, “I’ll take a look.”

  For some reason relief floods through David Taylor. “You want to do it today? After lunch?”

  “I can’t do it today. How’s tomorrow?”

  David rolls through his schedule. “I can do it after six. Does that work?”

  “My class gets out at five-thirty.” Ethan tilts his head slightly, still studying him. “So, yeah. Sure.”

  “Great.” A pause. “What kind of class are you taking?”

  Because David Taylor expects an answer like “Pilates,” he’s surprised to hear: “I teach, actually.”

  David’s eyes widen with interest as he picks up his wineglass. “What do you teach?” He can’t help noticing Ethan’s smile.

  “Design classes at Parsons. Like, products design.”

  “Wow,” is all David can say before he takes another sip of his wine.

  “Yeah.” Ethan leans back slightly because David is now leaning forward.

  David’s voice sounds far away when
he asks, “What’s it like, teaching?”

  “It’s fun, you know? I mean the kids are mostly whiny idealists, but I guess we all were.”

  A forced chuckle from David. “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know,” Ethan says. “I like it.”

  “Yeah…” and then David’s voice trails off and it seems as if he’s talking to someone else when he says, “It’s just really impressive that you can do that.”

  “Well, you must do your share of”—Ethan turns his fingers into quotations—“ ‘teaching’ to the young guys in the office, right? The ones losing their jobs?”

  David chuckles again but it sounds like he is drugged. “Right. I guess I do.”

  After their food comes they talk about college.

  David Taylor brings up the Amber Blues playing at one of his frat parties, and he even hums a few bars of their amputee love song, though he can’t remember any of the lyrics.

  Ethan Hoevel praises the stellar track career.

  They both recall the performance of Love’s Labour’s Lost on the quad, though they disagree on which quad it was.

  They joke about the one class they had taken together.

  During their conversation—even after all the wine and feeling loose—David processes his words before they come out, measuring them, and he’s speaking quietly, with emphasis, but David Taylor is also thinking about his marriage and how it isn’t moving anywhere—why don’t they have a child? Why are they still living in Manhattan? What happened to the house in Connecticut? Why is their sex life not happening?

  And that is when he flashes on the idea—for the first time, while talking to Ethan Hoevel—that his wife is having an affair.

  What makes David Taylor suddenly suspect this?

  While staring at Ethan’s hands, David Taylor realizes that Samona never answered him when he asked her why she stopped waxing.

  His mind suddenly becomes overloaded and he tries to stay calm and maintain the lightness of the conversation.

  But Ethan Hoevel doesn’t know any of this because now David Taylor is becoming a real person to him, and Ethan is finding it easy to smile at David, and that smile at first seems to cause David Taylor a certain level of discomfort for all the usual reasons—this guy is gay, right?—which is then transferred onto Ethan when he apprehends the fact that he’s actually cruising David Taylor in a crowded restaurant in midtown during lunch hour, and then he knows he has to cut this thing short. Ethan finds himself attracted to David Taylor. And he does not want to be. This is the last thing he expected.

  David does not mention any of his marital fears to Ethan at Corotta.

  And later in the day, he can’t process the reason why Ethan Hoevel’s presence, of all people’s, was what moved him to become conscious of Samona’s infidelity.

  After lunch Ethan goes back to his loft and has sex with David’s wife for the rest of the afternoon.

  And while Ethan is fucking Samona, she becomes David Taylor, and Ethan’s thrusting into him as he comes.

  At the same time, David is in his office staring at the wedding photo while listening to the ticking of the antique clock.

  20

  AUGUST IN New York weighs down on us; everything gets absorbed into the heat and humidity that envelops the city. The weather weakens us and inspires a deep longing for the spring months that preceded this hell and will not be around again for almost another year. Air conditioners conk out, sleepless nights are drenched in sweat, the murder rate spikes, and a latent, low-level panic creeps up on everyone. There is always a fear in August—a fear that the heat will never rise off. People do things in August that they would never do in any other month.

  I was leaning against the railing of the Hudson Riverwalk at Canal Street. The Hoboken ferry was pulling in a few blocks south, its bumper slamming hard against the wooden pilings. A half mile beyond the ferry the Hudson River poured into the harbor. Kayaks paddled on the fringes of the channel, struggling to avoid the myriad sailboats that were gliding across the water. The Statue of Liberty was a muddied silhouette in the late-summer haze. The Liberty Island ferry steamed toward it.

  Then Ethan Hoevel was beside me, following my gaze.

  “They letting people up to the crown again?”

  I pretended not to be startled by his presence. “No. Just to the gift shop at the base.”

  “You ever been up there?”

  “Me? No.”

  “I haven’t either.”

  Ethan had been jogging along the riverwalk when he spotted me. He was wearing blue shorts and a white tank top and his hair was matted with sweat.

  “There are about two thousand people just a few blocks away from my place circling ground zero. Looking for what, I do not know.”

  “Remnants of hope amidst monstrous destruction.” It was a line from a piece I had written a few months after the attack that had never been published.

  “Bulldozers and garbage trucks clearing the way for yet another tall building that hasn’t even been designed yet three years after the things fell, while tourists wander around stupidly, should not inspire hope.” He was still panting, and his eyes scanned the river and the haze suspended above it.

  When I only shrugged, he assumed an expression of mock hurt. “You’re not happy to see me?”

  The key to Ethan Hoevel was that he didn’t give a fuck. A terrorist kills a loved one. You hurt a friend. Someone causes you unhappiness. Ethan understood that if you just didn’t care, then you didn’t need to search for signs of hope in the wreckage of it all. You could just travel on.

  “I guess not. You’ve been doing a pretty good job of not talking to me lately,” he said when he finally caught his breath. “But why don’t you come over right now and have dinner with us?”

  “Who’s ‘us’?” I asked, getting ready to cringe at the answer.

  “Aidan and me.” He smiled at my surprise. “Yeah, my brother. Surprise, surprise—he got fired from his job at the energy trading company and then that girl Suzanne dumped him and got transferred here, so now he’s coming here to”—he stopped to put his fingers into quotation marks—“‘hang out for a while.’ Draw your own conclusions. He’s moving some stuff in right now, actually.”

  “You must be over the moon with excitement,” I said playfully.

  “I just hope he’s not here for long,” he replied, deadpan. “I don’t know how much I can take.” He paused, considering something. “But anyway, you should come over. Come help me ease the burden that is Aidan Hoevel. I’m ordering good food.” He looked around. “And it doesn’t seem like you’re doing anything else. Are you?”

  I tried to ignore his presumption and turned to the water.

  I hadn’t seen Ethan since the Fourth of July lunch and I wasn’t sure that our friendship was a possibility anymore. But he leaned closer to me in order to meet my eyes, and I had to stare at him for a moment—to admire the beauty of Ethan Hoevel. He smiled unthreateningly and touched my elbow and then I moved along the river with him back toward Warren Street. I was hungry and at least his offer would stave off a serious dent in my meager account at Chase. I’d eat, I’d split, maybe I’d cry. My life had come down to this: an opportunity to satiate any lingering curiosities became a free meal.

  “So, what are you doing?” I asked in an obvious way that caused Ethan to roll his eyes.

  He laughed and wiped sweat off his face with his shirt. “What do you want to know? I suppose you want me to get something off my chest.” He laughed again. “I mean, don’t you?”

  “What I don’t want is to fight with you, Ethan.”

  I stopped for effect, and he turned around and glared at me. Those piercing eyes struck their target once again—the gleam in his eye, the smirk on his mouth—and I took it all in. “Things are never simple,” he said. “Not for me. And you know that.”

  I started walking with him again, weaving around groups of children and dodging Rollerbladers and cyclists until we were in a clearing, where I asked,
“Don’t you think they could have been?” and shrugged.

  “No.” He smiled, but there was something more behind it—something he was hiding from me. And since I assumed this involved what I already knew about David Taylor, I felt like I had the upper hand as he added, “Someday you might understand why.”

  “It’s not like you’re the only guy in the world with a fucked-up family,” I pressed. “It’s not like you’re the only guy who’s ever had an affair. Jesus, it’s not like you’re the only gay person.”

  Ethan smiled and lifted his head. “What if I’m not?”

  “Not what?”

  “Gay.”

  “I don’t want to get into that with you, Ethan. It’s not what this is about anyway.”

  “Oh, look, you’re so cute when you’re hurt.”

  “As cute as David Taylor?”

  Ethan shot me a look.

  I could see him trying to figure it out.

  A biker drinking from a water bottle, head upturned, flew between us in a rush as Ethan paused and slowed his pace, thinking, letting me walk a half step ahead.

  “Stanton. That’s how you know. He called you. Right?”

  “Whatever,” I muttered.

  “I broke up with Stanton.”

  “Is that right?”

  “But he hangs around outside my building. I’ve seen him ducking behind corners, trailing me up to the Village. Sometimes late at night when I’m looking down from the roof I can see him. It’s sad.”

  “Aren’t you a little worried?”

  “He’d never do anything.” A pause filled with dark thoughts. “Not to me, at least.”

  We were walking past the trapeze near Battery Park. A little boy was on the high platform strapped in a harness, and a teenage instructor stood behind him with her hands on his waist. The little boy didn’t want to swing even though a huge mesh safety net hung only eight feet beneath him, and the instructor was whispering words of encouragement into his ear. Ethan and I both watched as the instructor gave him a gentle push and the little boy fell. He swung forward and back again. He swung until all his momentum was gone and he was just hanging a foot above the net. On the ground his mother was clapping. She yelled for him to let go. And he did, bouncing lightly on the net, lying there for a moment as he stared up at the sky. He scampered off and smiled as his mother hugged him.