by Greg Johnson
“You had lipo?” Valerie said. “Did it work?”
The others tittered, briefly.
“My dear, I’ll ignore that somewhat tactless question,” Connie said, with an airy wave of his hand.
“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way.” Valerie ran one hand along her thighs. “It’s just that I’ve thought of getting it, too, for my legs. I hate my legs.”
Connie said, “As it happened, my guy was a criminal. I had it for my tummy, but the swelling and bruising were so bad, I couldn’t walk for three weeks. Of course, during that three weeks I did nothing but watch TV and eat ice cream, feeling sorry for myself, so I just put on more weight. And the pain pills!—they slow down your metabolism, you know, so you gain even more. The bruises were so bad, I couldn’t take off my shirt for six months.”
Valerie’s immense sunglasses had turned in Connie’s direction; she made a tsk-ing noise. “That’s terrible, Connie. Did you confront the doctor?”
“Oh, he kept stuffing me with Percocet to keep me quiet. Eventually, I healed up, but I was no better off than before, and sayonara to 4,000 clams. Finally, I just started living at the gym. That’s really the only way to slim down.”
Thom was laughing to himself, gently. Connie’s head jerked sideways to face him. “What?” he said.
Thom grinned. “I was just remembering what Pace said when you were recounting all your problems with that surgeon.” He lowered his voice and barked out a perfect impression of Pace: ‘“Sue the bastard!’”
The others laughed, even Connie. “I should have, too,” he said.
They were quiet for awhile. Connie returned to his People, Valerie to her sun worship. Thom sat looking pale but not unhappy behind his sunglasses. Across the pool, several middle-aged couples sat at tables sipping tropical drinks and reading.
Abby shut her guidebook and tossed it aside. The others were right; this wasn’t a time for sight-seeing. She had no problem with the routine Thom and Connie apparently followed in Key West—sleeping late, lounging by the pool discussing where to go for lunch; then strolling up and down Duval with a bit of shopping here, a cocktail there; then more lounging by the pool and discussing where to go for dinner. In the evenings there were neighborhood bars and oversized dance clubs that began filling slowly around eleven o’clock and by one A.M. were packed with gay men and a few “fag hags,” as Connie persisted in saying, with wry glances toward Valerie and Abby. Last night they’d stopped at Epoch after dinner, but they hadn’t stayed long; Connie had danced with Abby, Thom with Valerie, but she noticed that the men hadn’t danced together. She hoped Thom didn’t feel constrained by her being there. She wanted him to be himself, didn’t she? A younger man had come up to her brother while he was buying drinks, but Thom hadn’t seemed receptive; was that because Abby stood next to him? Close as they were, they’d had so many secrets from each other. After all these months, she still hadn’t told him about Philip; nor had they talked much about their mother, or about their long estrangement that had ended so abruptly last fall…. It might be too late, she thought. They might go forward and never “process,” as Warren would put it, anything that had happened. A few months ago this idea would have bothered her much more than it did now. Had she become a less responsible, earnest person, or had she merely discovered that she was no more responsible or earnest than anyone else?
This laid-back, patternless vacation in Key West seemed the right time to have such thoughts, without pain. Even her life in Atlanta (much less her old, constricted life back in Pennsylvania, with her mother) seemed distant and unthreatening, its claims easily ignored. The image of Philip’s lean, angry face and the jealous tone of his words over the phone seemed almost cartoonish, remembered here. She could not take them seriously. It seemed likely she would never tell her brother about that affair, for what was the point? And Thom had his secrets, too. Sitting there behind his dark glasses with his new wan smile and his old familiar, slumping posture, his way of hunkering down into a chair that their mother had scolded him about for years. “Sit up straight, Thomas Sadler!” But he never had.
The last thing Abby expected on this humid March afternoon in Key West was that Connie would toss down his copy of People, look over to Thom, and say something Abby found so startling her hands began to shake.
“I’ve meant to ask you, Thom honey—how are you feeling? Are you taking your medicine?”
Thom didn’t seem unsettled by Connie’s question. “Yeah, sure,” he said.
Abby’s body had tensed, partly because she feared what Valerie might say, or ask; sometimes Valerie was unpredictable, with a tendency to speak without thinking. Abby held her breath, but Valerie gave the impression of not having heard Connie’s question. She’d stayed in the same sun-worshiping posture, her head tilted back and her mouth slightly ajar, so that Abby wondered if she’d gone to sleep.
“You know,” Connie said, “I was reading in Southern Voice that lots of guys get sick because they get careless about their doses. With some of these new things, if you miss even one pill—”
“I know all about that, Connie,” Thom said. He hadn’t turned to face them, either, and Abby guessed that behind his glasses her brother’s eyes were closed.
Shortly before Abby had moved out of her brother’s condo, she’d been in the kitchen one morning after he’d left for work, hunting down his copy of the Yellow Pages. She was opening and closing drawers, and in a bottom drawer near the refrigerator she’d been startled to see a shoe box stuffed with amber-tinted plastic containers of various sizes. She’d lifted the box out of the drawer, careful not to disarrange the containers. They were alphabetized, she’d noticed, Acyclovir and Bactrim in the front of the box, Viracept and Ziagen in the back. Perhaps two dozen in all. The labels faced frontward, and carefully tucked into one side of the box was a folded sheet of notebook paper. Her hands had shaken as she’d gently unfolded the paper and read, in the small, precise handwriting Thom had learned in parochial school, a chart outlining the time of day and dose for each drug, and brief reminders about each: Clarithromycin (suppresses MAC), Hydrea (suppresses T-cells hut enhances effect of other drugs), Zerit (can cause neuropathy!) One or two had been whited out, with new prescription names written over them.
Another language, she’d thought. Another world. The sheet was soft and crinkled, as if folded and unfolded countless times. Abby handled it with the care she would give to an artifact, a sacred relic. Her eyes had filled at the idea that Thom must be thinking about all these pills throughout each day and even at night (two of the drugs had 2 A.M. and 6 A.M. doses) without saying anything to her, perhaps to anyone. Except when he visited his doctor, he was alone with all this, wondering if these hundreds of pills would continue to work, if he would live or die. He was alone with all these thoughts.
Even today he seemed alone, and a little remote. But he was the polite Southern boy Thom Sadler, nonetheless, for now he did look over at Connie, offering his lazy curl of a smile. “But…thanks for asking,” he said.
Over the next couple of days, as Connie said, they did all the things they were supposed to “do” in Key West. They bought silly T-shirts and postcards at shops along Duval Street; they shopped at Fast Buck Freddie’s, the town’s colorful department store where Connie treated himself to several designer shirts, and both Abby and Valerie shamelessly bought another new swimsuit apiece. On anyone’s whim they all stopped for ice-cream cones or a round of tropical drinks at a sidewalk cafe. They rented bikes and rode lazily and aimlessly through the muggy, shade-dappled streets. Despite all the tourists with their multiple cameras, their inimitable mix of weariness and aggression, the fabled charm of this place worked its spell on Abby. She loved the dilapidated white-painted houses smothered in purple bougainvillea; the sudden glimpses of huge multicolored parrots perched on a porch rail, or the handlebar of an abandoned bike; the weathered, zonked, but harmless-seeming druggies wandering the streets as though it were still 1968; the loud crowing of roosters at all
hours, proclaiming an eternal dawn; the little tumbledown cafes where your sandals might push dead flies along the floor, but you’d be served key lime pie so cool, sweet, and smooth it felt like manna filling the desert of your mouth. She couldn’t remember days when she’d eaten or drunk so much, yet she rationalized the excess by imagining their bicycle rides and hours of dancing each night worked off the calories. Even Thom seemed livelier by the end of their second day, and she was pleased when he and Connie finally did wander off to dance, while she and Valerie rested at their table in pleased, sweat-soaked exhaustion, sipping gin and tonics.
It was almost midnight, yet this was Saturday and the place was still filling up.
“I have an idea,” Valerie whispered in Abby’s ear.
Abby felt a lurch of panic—what if Valerie, as a lark, asked her to dance?
But Valerie said, “Let’s just stay here in Key West. We’ll open up one of those little shops, peddle seashell jewelry or something.”
Relieved, Abby smiled. “If you’ve got the money…”
Valerie gave her throaty laugh. She seemed thoroughly at ease in this cavernous, smoky dance bar with its shirtless young men, some of them with pierced nipples, others with shaved heads and elaborate tattoos adorning their muscular arms, their sweating backs. She might have been frequenting gay bars all her life. Though the men smiled politely at Abby, they seemed more drawn to Valerie, who often blew them kisses or batted her eyes. With her makeup and perfect coif, Connie had remarked over dinner, Valerie had missed her true calling—she could have been a drag queen!
“That’s the highest compliment I can offer,” he’d insisted, with a wry little smirk.
It was past two A.M. before they left the club, unlocking their bicycles and meandering slowly down Duval. The air was still warm, but the street was darkened, everything closed, the sidewalks almost deserted.
Connie, in the lead, turned abruptly down a side street, calling back over his shoulder, “Let’s take a little detour. I’ll show you where Tennessee Williams used to live!”
But they made a turn, then another turn, and Connie’s pace slowed; Abby could tell by his frequent head-craning that he’d gotten lost. Along here the streets were so poorly lit that Abby could barely make him out, but her brother was just a few yards ahead.
“Thom?” she called. “Are we going the right way?”
Thom shrugged, but Connie had overheard.
“Yes, dear!” he cried. “Just follow the yellow brick road!”
“Very funny!” came Valerie’s small, winded voice, bringing up the rear. “This ‘little detour’ is wearing me out!”
As Connie turned them down another side street, Abby heard the squeal of tires and the loud twang of country music. She felt exposed in the sudden illumination of headlights. An old pickup truck approached them, slowing. The music switched off. Abby glanced over and saw three gawking heads inside the cab, all wearing cowboy hats. She heard an empty beer can hitting the street, close to Thorn’s bicycle.
“Hey fag!” one of the men called. The others laughed raucously.
Another can flew out, hitting Abby’s calf; she winced and glanced down.
“Hey there, fag lady!” the voice cried.
More whoops and laughter, then the truck swerved toward the sidewalk, behind Connie’s slowed, weaving bicycle. Abby held her breath.
“Connie, watch out!” Thom called.
Abby heard a scream of the truck’s brakes—or was it Connie’s terrified voice?—and then the tires screeched away from the sidewalk and back onto the street. The cowboys’ laughter was drowned in the loud farting of the truck’s engine. The country music switched back up, loud, as the truck sped off.
Within seconds the others had reached Connie, who’d evidently panicked and run his bike into the red-brick wall facing the sidewalk. He got to his feet, brushing at his clothes.
“My, wasn’t that fun!” he said, trying to sound unbothered. But his voice was shaky.
“Are you OK?” Thom asked.
“Yes, but I believe this darling Ron Chereskin has a rip on the sleeve,” he said ruefully. “I just bought it this afternoon!”
“You’re not hurt, are you?” Valerie asked. She added, indignantly, “Those stupid rednecks! But how did they—”
She broke off, but Connie was quick. “Know we weren’t breeders, boy-girl-boy-girl? They probably saw us leaving the bar,” he said, with a flutter of his hand.
“They followed us?” Valerie said.
“Things like that happen, even here,” Connie said. “One time, when poor Tennessee was walking home…” He stopped and looked around him. “Wait a minute, now I know where we are.” He pointed to the red-brick wall. “That’s the Hemingway house!” He slapped his forehead. “Boy, did I get us lost.”
From the thicket of vines along the wall, Abby thought she heard a muffled, plaintive mewing.
“One of Hemingway’s cats!” Connie cried. “This block is overrun with cats, you know, and they’re all descended from Hemingway’s. They all have six toes. Or is it three toes? Anyway, some wrong number.”
Thom laughed, wearily. “I vote that we head back.” He pointed. “Come on, Duval is right up there.”
“All right,” Connie sighed, gazing up to the sky. “Maybe we’ll see you tomorrow, Tennessee!”
When they returned to their room and the men had gone, Valerie said, “Wasn’t that awful? Imagine having to put up with that kind of abuse all through your life!”
Abby said, quietly, “I can’t imagine it.”
“You know, hon,” Valerie said, unscrewing an earring, “despite my advanced age, I never gave a thought to gay people before, one way or the other.”
“Really?” But Abby was only half-listening. She’d noticed a folded square of paper that had been shoved under the door, and picking it up she saw her name—“Ms. Abby Sadler”—scrawled across it. She unfolded the sheet and read:
Hello, darling. Spending a lonely Saturday night and just wanted you to know I’m counting the hours until Monday. Call me when you get this? Sorry I was such a cad the other day. Love, Philip.
Watching Abby’s face, Valerie said, “Is something wrong?”
Abby handed her the note.
“Oh. Isn’t that sweet?” Valerie said, uncertainly.
“No, it’s not sweet. It’s annoying and intrusive.”
Valerie said, “Oh, dear.”
Abby went to the phone and dialed the concierge, who told her that Philip had called the message in around ten o’clock. Relieved, Abby hung up. She hadn’t thought the handwriting was Philip’s, but she had to be sure. She took the note firmly in both hands and ripped it into small pieces, then tossed them into the trash.
“Abby? It’s not that bad, is it?”
“No,” she said quickly. Why had she torn up the note? Melodrama wasn’t her style. “It’s from someone I used to know. The relationship is over, and he won’t quite recognize it.”
Valerie rolled her eyes. “Believe me, I know what that’s like! We ought to introduce him to Marty—they’d have a lot in common!”
Abby smiled. “Let’s get to bed. I’m exhausted.”
The next morning, shortly after she and Valerie had gone out to the pool, Abby came back to the room: she’d forgotten her sunscreen. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, applying the lotion and enjoying its rich coconut smell, the silken coolness along her arms, her abdomen…. One of the great pleasures of this vacation was the attention she gave her body, sunning herself, sleeping late, eating what she pleased; she couldn’t remember having indulged herself in this way. She did recall, with a little shudder, the trip to Hilton Head she’d taken with Graham Northwood about this time last year. Graham, of course, had plotted out virtually every minute of their trip, wanting them to “get the most” from their first vacation together, not knowing, as Abby had known, that it would also be their last. On the plane Graham had shown her, proudly, a “log” he’d made in his neat print
ed script. Meals had been scheduled, reservations made weeks in advance; their tennis and swimming time had been scheduled, too, as had the various side trips, at least two each day, Graham had chosen from the countless brochures he’d ordered from the Hilton Head Chamber of Commerce. Once they arrived she did talk him into going dancing on their first evening—he’d bought tickets to a tennis exhibition, an idea that made her heart sink—but when Graham “danced” he resembled a man trying to operate an invisible jackhammer, his face scowling with effort, his fists pounding up and down in the air, feet jerking in spasms that bore no relation to the music. It was the hopeless dancing style that afflicts certain overeducated, uncoordinated white males, and after a few songs she’d suggested they go back to their hotel. Later that night his lovemaking—which she supposed he’d scheduled, too, though he’d had the tact not to write it down—had been awkward and uncomfortable. He’d had to approach her twin bed, since the management had failed to provide the king-size bed he claimed he’d reserved, but fortunately their coupling was brief (like a pair of sand crabs, she thought, dry and mechanical) and soon enough he’d retreated to his own bed, leaving her wide-eyed in the dark and counting the days before their return to Philadelphia.
Now as she gently rubbed lotion along her thighs, that memory, which would have struck her as comical if it had happened to someone else, seemed so distant it might have been a scene she recalled from a movie…. She was twisting the cap back onto the sunscreen when she heard a brief, polite knock. Valerie was always forgetting her key; Abby hurried to the door.
It was Philip. He held a dozen roses in his arms.
She gaped at him, too startled (as she would later think, furious at herself) to slam the door in his face. She must still have worn the pleased, dreamy expression she’d had before the mirror, enjoying the pure sensation of her own fingertips as they massaged her tender, sun-reddened skin. Philip pressed the advantage. He smiled, extending the bouquet.
“Special delivery,” he said. “From an admirer.”