by Greg Johnson
Receiving Connie’s embrace, Patsy said, “Shut up, you overdressed old queen,” winking to Abby over Connie’s shoulder.
Resuming his usual, elaborate courtesy, Connie presented his friends to Abby. Patsy’s lover, whom Connie introduced as “Miriam—isn’t she sweet? And isn’t that the sweetest name?”—was a petite woman in a tight-fitting black leather jacket and skirt and matching knee-high boots. Despite her boyish haircut (virtually identical to Patsy’s, though Miriam’s darker, finer hair was more sleekly combed, and severely parted on one side) and what appeared to be flowery tendrils of a tattoo between her small breasts, Miriam was pretty in a waif-like, big-eyed way. After Connie and Abby had chatted with the two women, Connie grasped Abby’s shoulders, turned her sideways and introduced her to another couple, a handsome blond man in his forties with a receding hairline and hawk-like nose, and his much younger, exotic-looking lover.
“James is an architect, and Reginald is an interior designer, though I keep telling him he could make lots more money as a model.”
Reginald had slipped an arm around James’s waist: “Thanks, but we enjoy working together,” he said. “James has taught me so much.”
“And I’ll bet you’ve taught him a thing or two,” Connie said, with a mischievous leer.
Abby, exchanging smiles with Reginald, saw that he was indeed spectacularly good-looking: close-cropped dark hair, enormous fawn-like brown eyes with impossibly long lashes, a strong nose and square-cut jaw that saved him from effeminacy. His skin, a glimmering-pale sienna, made Abby wonder…but what was the point in wondering, she thought, chastising herself. He was a beautiful young man, easily the most attractive man at this party: wondering about his “background” was a vestige of her Southern upbringing she hoped she had outgrown.
Connie, keeping hold of Abby’s arm, chatted amiably with James and Reginald for a while, until the inevitable moment when Connie’s eye wandered, and he called across the room to someone else.
Another hour had passed, and by now Abby supposed they wouldn’t be going out to dinner, after all, though Thom had stopped refilling his guests’ champagne flutes, and had asked here and there if anyone wanted coffee.
“Coffee!” Connie protested, wrinkling his nose. “What kind of scrooge are you, Thom Sadler!”
Thom gave a slight smile as he turned away. “I’m your host, not your enabler,” he said.
Warren gave a melancholy laugh. “Thank you!” he called out.
Connie said, pettishly, “If you can’t get blitzed on Christmas, when can you?”
At last came the moment she’d been awaiting. Alex and Randy deposited their empty flutes on the coffee table and approached Abby, glancing at their watches.
“Got to be going—”
“Had a lovely time—”
They’d spoken at the same moment; they laughed.
“Wait a second, I’ll get Thom,” Abby said. “He’ll want to say goodbye.”
As if the gesture were contagious, the other guests glanced at their watches, too, and there were histrionic sighs and exclamations as if they’d all lost track of time, and a few moments later Thom and Abby stood by the door as people filed out, buttoning jackets and drawing on gloves, offering last hugs and pleasantries and “Happy holidays!” while those staying behind shouted “Happy holidays!” in reply. When the door had closed and Abby, shivering, turned back into the room, she saw Pace and Warren slumped on the sofa, each with a dachshund on his lap, while Connie hovered near the fireplace with his coffee mug, looking displeased.
“What’s the deal with ‘Happy holidays’?” he said, with mocking emphasis on the phrase. “Why don’t people say ‘Merry Christmas’ any more? Nobody at this party was Jewish, were they?”
Thom shrugged. “Might as well play it safe,” he said. He glanced around with the successful host’s smile of satisfaction; the room looked as if a friendly cyclone had blown through. “I think everybody had a good time, don’t you?”
“Yes, but next time let’s chat about your guest list beforehand,” Connie said, with his mischievous grin. “I mean, honestly… Alex and Randy?”
“I thought I should,” Thom said. “Alex called to invite Abby and me to their big New Year’s Eve party. He specifically mentioned Abby, which I thought was nice, since he only met her that once.”
“You’re going, then?” Pace said, morosely. “That’s good, there’ll be somebody there I want to see.”
Connie’s face had blanched; he and Warren exchanged a sudden, communicative look. It took Abby a moment to understand that Connie and Warren hadn’t been invited to the party. But Connie recovered within seconds.
“I wouldn’t attend one of their pretentious soirees if you begged me,” he said. “I’ll curtsy for the queen, but not those queens.”
“I guess James and Reginald won’t be going, either,” Warren said, his head tilted sideways as Chloe licked his earlobe.
Abby said, “Why not?”
Connie finished his coffee in a long swallow and set the cup on the mantel. “A few weeks ago,” he said, “there was a little get-together at Craig Black’s to start planning the Human Rights Campaign Fund dinner next spring. When someone mentioned James’s name, I heard Alex bend to Randy and sort of stage-whisper, ‘Oh, God. Don’t tell me James and his little slave boy are on this committee.’”
Thom stared. “Alex said that? Really?”
“In case you were wondering, Abby,” Connie said, fixing her with his intent, glassy stare, “Reginald is a mulatto. But isn’t he gorgeous? I’ve never been with a black man, but I’d gladly spend a few hours with him.”
“I doubt the reverse would be true,” Warren said tartly.
Everyone laughed, Connie most of all. “Touché!” he cried. “But then everybody is crazy about Reginald. My friend Keith goes to his gym and says he’s hung. Of course, that’s no surprise, since his daddy’s the black one. And I heard—”
Thom and Abby had stayed by the door, but now Thom stepped forward quickly, waving one hand as though dispelling imaginary smoke. “Connie, please don’t pollute the atmosphere,” he said.
Abby saw from the clench of her brother’s jaw that he wasn’t quite joking.
Connie rolled his eyes; he bowed magisterially to Thom. “My apologies, O Enlightened One,” he said, but he gave Abby an anxious look. “You’ll have to excuse me, sugar. I’m just an old Southern queen. I’m really not prejudiced. My cleaning lady is black, you know, and I just love her to death.”
“Yes,” Warren said, looking chagrined. “She gets all of Connie’s best castoffs.”
“Well, she does,” Connie protested. “What’s wrong with that? She has two sons in high school, and they’re thrilled to have my clothes. Some of the stuff has been worn only once or twice. You know, Abby, I could sell my things in consignment shops, but Ruby is one of those good churchgoing types. Her sons don’t belong to gangs or anything. Those are the ones you want to reward, you know?”
“Can we please change the subject?” Thom said.
Connie waited by the fireplace, his arms crossed.
“All right, on one condition,” he said, in a mock-demanding tone. “That we all have one more glass of champagne, before we toddle off to dinner.”
Pace glanced at his watch. “Dinner? My God, I forgot about dinner!”
“It’s only 10:15,” Warren said. “We could go to Mick’s or something.”
“Or Terra Cotta,” Thom said. “Their crowd should have died down by now.”
“What about Tiburon Grille?” Connie said. “They’ve redecorated the place, you know, and the food is fabu.”
Abby felt how swiftly the atmosphere had changed: again they were a close group of friends, deciding where to have dinner on Christmas Eve.
Pace said, “Has anybody tried Luna Si lately? It used to be so pretentious, but I heard they have a new chef.”
“Veto, veto!” Connie cried. “Luna Si is the worst restaurant in Atlanta, bar none! I’d
rather eat at Pittypat’s Porch than that place!”
They laughed. It had been years since Abby had even thought of Pittypat’s Porch. Noted for its bad food and worse service, it was one of Atlanta’s premier tourist traps, a Southern cliché jammed nightly with camera-toting vacationers from Kansas and Wisconsin.
“I vote with Thom,” Pace said. “I’ve never had a bad meal at Terra Cotta.”
“Fine with me,” said Warren. “Abby?”
“Four gay men agreeing on the same restaurant for dinner,” Thom said, smiling. “Amazing.”
Abby helped Thom carry plates and glasses to the kitchen, and she was about to hurry back to her room for her coat when the doorbell rang.
Thom glanced at his watch. “Who could that be?”
Abby said, “Did one of your friends leave something behind?”
“Quick, look between the sofa cushions,” Connie said gleefully. “Maybe Alex left his cell phone. We’ll pretend we can’t find it, then later we can drown it in the bathtub.”
Warren said, smiling, “Maybe it’s Santa Claus!”
But when Thom opened the front door, he and the other four—Abby most of all—stood gaping.
On Thorn’s cement stoop waited a petite, dark-haired woman with mascara-stained tears running down her face. She wore a stylish red wool suit, but the jacket hung askew; she held a wet-looking, much-shredded kleenex in her fist; her face wore an expression of adult embarrassment mixed with childlike uncertainty, almost an orphan’s look of pleading.
“Hel-hello,” she began. “I’m so sorry to disturb you, but—” Her words gave way to a new bout of tears, which she tried to daub away with the overused tissue.
Abby stepped forward. She put her arm around the woman’s shoulders and coaxed her inside. Thom closed the door and joined his three staring friends while Abby, hugging the woman’s narrow, trembling shoulders, made the introduction.
“Everybody, I want you to meet a friend of mine,” she said. “This is Valerie Patten.”
In this abrupt way the course of their evening changed: instead of leaving for Terra Cotta, Thom insisted on making them an impromptu dinner—and a delicious dinner it was—of fruit and cheese and sourdough rolls, along with the plentiful leftover hors d’oeuvres reheated in the oven. Valerie Patten insisted she could not eat, but she did accept a glass of champagne, from which she took ladylike sips as she told them about the ruination of her Christmas Eve.
After apologizing repeatedly for foisting her troubles on them—apologies they all dismissed energetically, especially Connie, who seemed rapturously fascinated by Valerie Patten from the first moment he saw her—Valerie haltingly told them about her revived marriage to her fourth husband, Marty, and how they’d planned a “special” evening together: a sumptuous dinner at the Hedgerose Heights Inn, followed by dancing at the Biltmore Room, and then a night at the Ritz-Carlton, where Marty had booked the twenty-second-floor Presidential Suite with its breathtaking view of the city. Around six o’clock she’d returned home from some last-minute shopping; Marty was not there, so she’d gone ahead and put on the new dress she’d bought at Parisian and had gone into the living room to slip under the tree yet another gift she’d bought him, a pair of cuff links from Tiffany’s. Then she’d wandered into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine and sipped at that while she waited. By then, it was past seven and she’d begun to worry: their dinner reservation was for eight. She’d started on her second glass of wine before she found the envelope.
Here Valerie succumbed to a fresh assault of tears, while the others made supportive, sympathetic noises. On the sofa, Abby and Warren sat on either side of Valerie (Warren was in his element, and Abby noticed how several times he had touched her hand and asked skillful, gently leading questions), while Thom and Connie listened intently, perched on dining room chairs pulled close to the sofa. Only Pace looked uncomfortable, cracking his knuckles in an armchair near the fireplace. But he listened, too, as Valerie told them what Marty’s note had said: that he’d gone to the airport, that he was flying home to Minneapolis to spend Christmas with his mother, that he couldn’t explain why but he felt their relationship could not work out, after all. He would call in a few days, he said. Unless she decided to leave for Philadelphia, which he would certainly understand. He hoped she didn’t hate him, he said. Goodbye.
“That was the last word. Goodbye,” Valerie sobbed. “Then just his name—not even ‘Love.’ Just…’Marty.’”
Abby wanted to criticize Marty’s behavior, but this wasn’t the moment for that; and Warren, who urged Valerie back to talking about how she felt, rather than about what Marty had done, seemed to confirm her instinct. As Valerie glanced around at the others, as if seeing them as individuals for the first time, she gave a tentative smile.
“Thank you all for being so nice,” she said, huskily. “I just didn’t know what to do, or who to call. Abby may have told you guys that we met on the plane, and then we talked on the phone the other day…. Anyway, Marty has this newfangled caller ID, and the name ‘Thomas J. Sadler’ had appeared on the screen, and that had stuck in my head so I looked up the address in the phone book. I should have called first, I know, but—but I guess I thought if I showed up in person, it would be harder to turn me away!”
She gave a feeble laugh, and Abby smiled back at her. “We don’t mind. Really.”
“When I got here and saw it was a complex, my heart sank,” Valerie said. “Then I looked on the mailboxes, and sure enough, there was your brother’s name and the unit number. So here I am!”
Connie said, brightly, “And we’re glad you are! We really are!”
He was drinking champagne, too, and sat with a paper plate perched on his knees, munching on cheese and blackened chicken while Valerie talked. Mitzi and Chloe were having a field day, making the rounds and begging piteously for bits of food that Connie and the others, absorbed in Valerie’s story, absently handed them.
When Valerie stopped talking, it was Warren again who took the lead, telling her they’d just been having an informal get-together and repeating that she was perfectly welcome.
Then another idea seemed to dawn on Thom; he looked at Abby, then back at Valerie.
“There’s a place called Blake’s not far from here,” he said. “But it’s a gay bar. I mean, I wasn’t sure if you realized—”
Connie laughed. “Valerie is upset, Thom honey, but she isn’t brain-dead.”
Yet Valerie, her smile faltering, did seem perplexed. She took another—and slower—look around the room. “I guess I didn’t… I mean, it doesn’t matter in the least to… The lovely man who does my hair, you know… What I mean is…”
Warren laughed gently, patting her hand. “We know what you mean.”
“You’ll get used to them,” Abby said. “They’re basically harmless.”
“But wait, I want to hear more about Valerie!” Connie said. Again his eyes had that glassy sheen. “How about one more glass of champagne before we leave? What do you all think? Valerie?”
There was a polite silence while the others gazed at their new guest.
Again Valerie smiled, more broadly this time, her hand fluttering to her throat as if she’d been paid an extravagant compliment.
“Why, thank you,” she said. “Another glass of champagne would be lovely.”
Chapter 6
“Tell me about the others,” Chip said.
“The others?”
Thom looked up from the yearbook, dazed. The twenty-year-old photographs from St. Jude’s had plunged him into the usual bittersweet reverie that came when he remembered his teenage years.
He and Chip sat on the edge of Thorn’s bed, the 1979-80 edition of The Torchlight spread open on their laps. Thom had lured his boyfriend back here allegedly to show him a crimson-red sweater from Neiman Marcus (one Connie had given him, several birthdays ago) he was thinking of wearing for the small dinner party he was giving tonight, but despite Chip’s youth and occasional naïveté
he knew better, surely. He knew Thom didn’t care about clothes and that whenever they ended up in the bedroom together—even in the middle of the afternoon, like this, Thom still wearing the jacket and tie he’d donned for his two o’clock closing—it was because Thom wanted to undress Chip and undress himself and make love in their slow, languorous way for as long as possible. But when Thom had slid his arm around Chip’s waist and kissed him, his other hand tugging at the tie, Chip had glanced down at his feet, distracted.
“What’s this?” His shoe knocked against an edge of the yearbook, and before Thom could protest his boyfriend had retrieved the book from under the bed (Thom had forgotten he’d kept the yearbooks under there, along with God knew what other detritus from the past) and with a delighted air of discovery sat on the bed and started flipping through it.
“…You know,” Chip answered. “Your other boyfriends.”
Thom had shown him the square-jawed, grinning Lawton Williams, two years ahead of him in school, whom he’d described to Chip as his first “great love.” The year these pictures were taken—he’d only glanced at his own photograph, though Chip made the obligatory noises over how cute it was—Thorn’s crush on Lawton had been so intense as to cause him a physical pain whose ghostly throbbing he could feel even now, with Chip, both of them staring at Lawton’s big, bony, handsome face with its longish mane of glossy blond hair brushed sideways along his forehead in vintage 1970s style. Those deep-set, long-lashed blue eyes had sent Thom into an inward swoon every time he’d passed Lawton in the hall, but staring at the photo he recognized the eyes looked fairly vacuous, and he remembered with satisfaction that Lawton had been a straight-C student and later had flunked out of Georgia State in his freshman year.
But yes, he’d confessed to Chip: “My first great love. He and Abby were both on the senior prom committee, and they met at my house a couple of times. They’d gather in the den, and Thom the dorky little tenth grader kept dreaming up reasons to go in there, pretending he was looking for something, passing very slowly through to the kitchen.”