“Isn’t that why you picked him?”
“No! Your hubris is positively mind-boggling!”
“I don’t even know what that means, Dweeb.”
“I’m sure you’ll look it up!”
“I will! Sorry, I didn’t go to Ivy League schools like you two—”
“I don’t care—”
“When did you become such a snob?”
“I’m not a snob!”
“You and what’s-his-name are a better couple than I thought!”
“We are not either!”
“A-ha!”
“Damn you!”
“Tell the truth, Dweeb. The only reason you picked that gutless wonder is because he looks like me!”
“No! I picked that—Jeff! I picked Jeff because he’s not like you! In fact he’s the opposite of you! He’s dependable—”
“So you said—”
“He’s educated, he’s smart—”
I was bulldozing right over the top of him.
“And Ivy League, you pathetic snob.”
I was going to make him understand finally.
“He’s methodical, he’s—”
“I’ll tell you what he isn’t. Funny. Or fun. Caring, spontaneous—”
“I knew you were going to say that, and spontaneity is so over—”
“—and at least I never called you baby! Why do you let him? Make him stop, Dweeb, it’s creepy.”
“You call me dweeb! Like that’s any better!”
“Totally not the same thing, Dweeb—”
“And stop calling me—”
“—and you know it!”
“What I know is—there’s nothing wrong with baby, and there’s nothing wrong with Mexico, and it’s none of your business anyway, and your little costume designer called you Toots!”
“When he calls you baby, it’s so much worse—”
“Does that make any sense to—”
“Yes!”
He snatched up the bag of dog food and headed into the kitchen. “But I wouldn’t expect you to understand—”
“Great!” I followed him. “Then let me help you understand something.” I had added an accelerando to the cresc. “Jeff is smart! He was top of his class at Princeton Law, he has a terrific future, he has tons of friends, he has incredible connections, he’s going to make partner, probably next year. He looks out for me, he—”
“No he doesn’t.”
“He takes care of me!”
“He takes you to Cancun, Dweeb.”
“And he’s really—reliable!”
He leaned back against the refrigerator, arms crossed. So goddamned full of himself.
“Really?” He smirked. “I bet he’s dependable, too.”
“He is! And he—he—he—” Okay, by now I was way out there triple forte, but Fletch’s attitude—so damned cocky, so sure he’d won the argument—really pissed me off. I was sure I looked like a tomato, like a stuttering tomato, but I would have done anything to take that mocking smile off his face. “At least he doesn’t cheat on me!”
Fletch didn’t seem to know how to answer. He pushed himself off the refrigerator, his arms fell to his sides, and all of his arrogance had vanished. He looked like he’d been slapped.
He turned and leaned on the kitchen counter, staring at the marble. I could see his jaw muscles clenching.
All of a sudden I was scared.
I wasn’t scared of Fletch. I was scared I had somehow gone too far. People who don’t normally express anger are usually really bad at it when they try.
Case in point.
I waited for him to look up at me or something, but he didn’t. I had definitely crossed a line.
“I put the dog food in the cabinet,” he said quietly to the countertop.
“Fletch—” I wanted to try to apologize—but for what? I hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true, had I? But still.
Fletch was scooching past me sideways in the narrow galley, holding his hands up, making a big thing out of not touching me.
“Fletch, wait—”
He didn’t even close the door behind him. Converse sneakers boomed in the stairwell, two steps at a time at least.
What the hell.
Chapter 15
The Greeks Had a Word for It
Fletch
You have picked up by now that I have been more than a little bit of a tramp. I slept around a lot before I met Roger, I slept around a lot after Roger kicked me out. Unfortunately I also slept around some while I was with Roger, which now strikes me as astoundingly stupid, but it seemed like a really good idea at the time.
So I certainly am not going to bore you with the details of every little sexual adventure, even if I could remember them all, but there’s one that’s important.
Once upon a time…
I was at work. Ushering. The Longacre Theatre. It was a short run, a production of a Greek tragedy called Medea that’s about a million years old. It’s about this woman with a dickhead husband and two adorable little children, and the husband dumps her for some bimbo—which just goes to show that nothing’s changed in the intervening millennia—and the dickhead then expects full custody of the little darlings. Instead of calling a good lawyer like a sensible girl, Medea takes matters into her own hands. She kills off the bride-to-be, and then, since the hubby wants custody of the two adorable little children, she butchers them and then flings the two adorable little corpses at his feet. I swear the classics are just dressed-up slasher movies—lots of screaming, lots of blood and dead bodies all over the place.
I may have got the plot a little muddled, but I think it’s clear—this was Medea, not Mamma Mia!
But even without a single ABBA song, Medea was sold out for the run because it was this famous English actress—if you’ve ever seen a Harry Potter movie, you’d recognize her.
So that’s where I was, handing out programs and helping people find row K, because apparently nobody knows the alphabet, and it was my job.
And there was this guy. Nearly as tall as me, seriously nice-looking, dark blond, and he was totally checking me out. I walked him down to his row. I smiled, and I flirted.
“Enjoy the show,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“But not too much.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t have too much fun. It’s a tragedy.” A weak joke, and he laughed weakly.
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’ll see you at intermission,” I said and held eye contact a second too long to go unnoticed. I left him to think about that during the seemingly unending and completely miserable first half. In verse.
There was an empty seat next to him, and it stayed empty. I’m telling you the guy was ripe.
At intermission, I found him on his way to the stairs down to the restrooms.
“How do you like the show?” I asked.
“It’s great!” he said.
“It’s dreary as fuck.”
He burst out laughing.
“Yeah, it is sort of.”
“I noticed you’re alone?”
“My date—has the flu.”
“Lucky guy.”
“The show’s not that bad.”
“It gets so much worse—but,” I added, “if you’re interested…” I was three-quarters set to go already, and now I stood close enough to him in the crowd at the back of the theater that his hip could feel exactly how set to go I was, “we could probably find something more amusing to do.”
The chimes were going for the second half, and people were moving back in through the various doors.
“Seriously?”
“Does this feel like I’m kidding?” I pressed his hand where it wanted to be.
“Wow.�
�� His eyebrows rose in happy surprise.
“While everyone’s heading back in, go downstairs to the men’s.”
I did my job for another minute or two, watched the houselights go down, and I slipped down the stairs to the lounge and into the john. He was standing at the sink, looking very nervous.
“Come on,” I said, pushed him into the farthest stall, and I reached around behind my back to latch the door. And no, in case you’re wondering, this was not the first time I’d done this. (Now you know how I met Darwin.) “This will be lots more entertaining.”
I unzipped my fly and pushed my pants down.
“Wait—what about the play?”
“Don’t worry,” I said, ripping open a condom with my teeth. “I’ll tell you how it ends.”
The smart ones among you will have guessed that that lucky guy getting banged under the Longacre Theatre was none other than our old friend Jeff Bornic. (Remember when I bumped into Jeff walking Haggis in Chelsea Park, and I remembered I knew this guy from somewhere?)
Time to do some quick calculations.
Roger said they’d been together since just before the holidays. Let’s say, November or so of last year—ten months ago. And Harry Potter’s aunt brought her Medea over here just in time to be eligible for a Tony Award (she didn’t get one), toward the end of April. So our sordid little second-act number was maybe—at most—hmm—five months ago.
Yep, I had—without knowing it—done Roger’s boyfriend in a toilet stall while Roger was home, sick and miserable, and Harry Potter’s Aunt Petunia was overhead, slaughtering little children and acting up a storm in a great work of the classical drama.
So.
Kids.
Imagine how I felt, hearing Roger defend this smug, self-righteous, hypocritical little prick because, unlike me, he at least was faithful.
Chapter 16
The Old Folks at Home
Roger
Okay, it wasn’t really a recital, just an afternoon entertainment for some old people in a senior citizen residence on the Upper East Side. Forty-five minutes, light music. We play for them a couple times a year, among other senior centers, and we’ve learned that if you play longer than that at these places, or give them anything serious, they will fall asleep. Some do, even so. Or the really batty ones will just start to yell about it.
So. Light music. We have an arrangement of “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” by Johann Strauss Jr., and we do a Latin number that’s very camp and a lot of fun called “Tico Tico.” That sort of thing. I had worked up this medley of show tunes they would know, and I had my Gershwin medley that I’d arranged a couple years ago.
Punch and cookies after. It’s a party.
In any case, all of this music works for these occasions. We save the other stuff—Schubert, Beethoven, et al.—for other events.
Three of us were there, already setting up and settling in, when Katrina came barging through the double doors at the back of the room like a terrorist attack, lugging her violin case, a jumbo tote bag, and her famous music stand. As noted earlier, she’s a big girl, and it doesn’t seem to faze her.
Her coat was positively flapping behind her.
“My God,” Bob said, “she looks like Cruella de Vil on an off day.”
By which time she was on top of us, slightly out of breath, beaming, and started pulling off her coat.
“Wow, Katrina—is that Chanel?” asked Janine.
Katrina stopped, looking over her shoulder to Janine.
“Possibly.” She smiled slyly.
“You should have warned us, Katrina,” Bob said.
Under the coat, she wore a sleek black cocktail dress. And pearls, of course.
“What?”
The three of us were dressed considerably more casually—it was a warm day in October and sunny. Bob and I wore neckties, but I hadn’t even worn a jacket.
“If you’d said something we’d have dressed up,” said Janine.
“What, this? Don’t sweat it—you guys are fine. But I have to get to a cocktail party straight after—Roger, I know you won’t mind if you take my things with you. You can bring them to the office tomorrow.”
Well, of course I minded. Lugging two violins, okay, no big deal, but hauling that stupid music stand back to Chelsea on the subway, not to mention carrying the goddamned thing through Midtown in Monday morning’s rush hour? How incredibly rude of her to assume I’d do it, just to accommodate her social schedule. What an inconsiderate cow.
“No problem, Katrina,” I said, smiling. Yeah well—the cow was my boss.
Mrs. Greenbaum, our contact at the residence, checked in with us, and then she opened the double doors at the back of the room. Immediately a group of about a dozen seniors came in, some more quickly than others. As it got to be time, I’d say we had about thirty or so geezers and geezerettes—mostly geezerettes. I didn’t know if the men didn’t like music, were deaf, or were just already dead.
Mrs. Greenbaum checked with us again. We were ready. The doors at the back were closed, and she was about to step out and introduce us when the double doors opened again, and—what the hell?
It was an old lady in a wheelchair being pushed in.
By Fletch. Of course.
Fletch was chatting away, flirting, and the old broad was giggling like a girl. I’m sure she’d have blushed if she’d had any circulation left. They seemed totally oblivious to everyone else, as he parked her chair at the end of the second row.
“Glad you could join us, Ethel,” said Mrs. Greenbaum.
Ethel smiled, nodded, and raised a pale, blue-veined hand in gracious acknowledgment. You’d think she was Marie of Romania.
After he’d crouched down to her, said something that made her smile, patted her arm—and carefully set her brake, lest she roll off on her own—
“Thank you, Fletch,” Ethel croaked with a voice that apparently hadn’t spoken since the Crimean War.
—Fletch stepped to the back row and sat by the door.
He never used to come to these things. Of course I never used to invite him to these things. But then again, I didn’t invite him to this one either. So why was he here? I wondered. Maybe he just wanted me to know he wasn’t still mad about our fight the day before—the whole Cancun thing—whatever it was I had said/done.
He looked at me and gave a little finger wave. He looked so goofy that I had to smile a little, and I shook my head in dismay.
Whatever yesterday had been, we were good. I felt a lot better. I’m not sure why I cared, but apparently I did. Maybe I just didn’t want to be an ass, not even to Fletch. Anyway, I was surprised how happy I was that he was there.
Mrs. Greenbaum welcomed us, and the old ladies clapped. It’s amazing how they do it—you can see their hands moving, but there’s no sound. You have to lean forward and concentrate to hear anything. Fletch clapped loudly in the back.
Instruments up, bows up, Katrina took a deep breath, and we were off.
It went well. The old ladies seemed to be lapping it up. The sixties’ show-tunes medley turned into a hum-along, which was great. Somewhere during the “Blue Danube” I looked out over the top of the music stand—a couple of them were actually swaying to the waltz. And I saw Fletch, looking up at me, smiling. With this really stupid grin. Like he was proud of me?
And then he did it. Something terrible. He winked at me.
And I screwed up.
I don’t even know what I did because by the time I looked back at the score, I’d totally lost my place. I stopped while the others sailed on down the beautiful Danube, so blue without me. I found my place and started playing. Out of the corner of my eye I caught the dirty look Katrina flashed me over her violin. I knew the others weren’t too happy with me either. Damn Fletch, I thought. I glanced up for just a second to see if he’d noticed how badly I’d messed
up, and I guess he must have. There he was in the back, head down, bent over, his shoulders bouncing in silent laughter. He looked up, all twinkling blue eyes, his lips pressed together, still trying not to laugh out loud. It was his turn for the dismayed headshake.
So what did I do?
I screwed up.
Completely lost my place. Again. Of course.
I flipped the page forward, no, flip back, no, flip forward. I’d gone too far, but I waited there for the others to catch up and joined in as they got there.
And I vowed—never, ever, ever to look at Fletch Andrews. Ever.
I need to focus, I thought.
I played very carefully, very mechanically, sweating the whole time, and when we got to the end of that damned river, I never wanted to hear about the blue frigging Danube again.
From there on, the concert went along okay. I had learned my lesson. Fletch was a landmine. Like I didn’t know that already? Stop thinking about Fletch! I scolded myself. Focus!
The last piece on the program was my Gershwin medley. I’d crafted it as a shared piece. In addition to ensemble playing, each member of the quartet had a section where he was featured. It started with Katrina playing the clarinet solo from the opening of Rhapsody in Blue, while the rest of us played this super-reduction. After a chunk of Rhapsody, Janine took the lead with “Fascinating Rhythm.” I’d given myself “They Can’t Take that Away from Me.”
Now, you may remember that which I had forgotten—that that was the song I had played for Fletch that first night he moved in, so long ago, back when it was all nervous uncertainty and getting to know each other and so much wanting and hoping, and I was so scared he wouldn’t like me, and he had thought that the song was so beautiful, and how he’d kissed me after, and how wonderful it had been, how wonderful he had been.
That’s probably what you’re thinking, but I didn’t think of it until I was playing it, and then there it was, this big, fat memory had plopped itself down in the middle of my head. In the middle of my solo.
Would Fletch remember it? I wondered. Of course he would. Was he thinking about that night right now, the way I was? Probably. And how would he feel about hearing it again?
I have to focus, I told myself.
Where Do I Start? Page 12