“Have you ever felt anything was missing in our marriage?” Alex asked.
“Never,” Val said, without hesitation. “Is there any white wine in the fridge?”
Alex found half a bottle of Cono Sur. He poured it out into two glasses. “I never felt it either,” he said. “I’ve been happy with you. And Deane. And this life. I never needed anything else.”
Her eyebrows raised.
“So why is it I wanted something else?”
She took a long drink of wine. “Ah,” she said.
“And why with a man?”
She drained the glass and reached for the bottle. “Why indeed.” As she filled her glass, she drew in a deep, preparatory breath that made Alex instinctively brace. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why you didn’t tell me about it.”
“I didn’t know how.”
“Same reason I didn’t tell you about him and me,” she said. “How do you bring it up? And what for? It has a better chance of being hurtful than an interesting topic of conversation. Why risk it?”
He nodded, mute and answerless. Pinned down in a lab tray for dissection but he was empty inside.
“That night in the armchair,” Val said. “We both had an opening. What would’ve been worse? That I wanted him once and remembered? Or you wanted him now and desired?”
“Would you have understood?” Alex said. “Or is it easy to say you would in hindsight?”
Val ran the back of her hand along her forehead. “I saw you through the dark after Nine-Eleven. I understood when you could barely leave the house. Understood the anxiety when Deane was out of your sight and the panic when I was late to show up somewhere. I know when you cut your arm, you were cutting a throat. I know why you have both Nine-Elevens tattooed on your back. I know why that handkerchief has to stay under your pillow. I know why you’re afraid of the dark. Why would I understand all that but not understand this?”
Alex stared off at some invisible horizon. “Maybe because it’s about sex,” he said, flipping the cruise-control switch on his consciousness and taking his hands off the wheel. “It hits below the belt. It upsets what I think of as being a man. It alters the man I am. Or the man I think I am.”
“All the reasons Jav’s family threw him out.”
“It’s not about sexual persuasion, Val, it’s about being weak.”
Out the corner of his eye he saw Val’s gaze widen and her head tilt.
He gave a laugh under his breath. “Aren’t I weak enough?”
“I’ve never thought you were weak,” she said. “Is that really what you think?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I was attracted to Jav and I don’t have one goddamn theory for it that makes sense. The point is I pursued it. I went for it. Why, just because it was new and different and wild? Because it was Jav? Because I could?”
“Because you never royally fucked up anything in your life before now?”
Alex looked up at her. “Yeah, I have.”
“No. You haven’t.”
Val slid her butt along the lower cabinets and sat on the floor. Alex followed. Sheba put her head in his lap. Roman sat by Val. Two referees.
“Look, I don’t want to tie everything back to your childhood,” Val said.
“Except everything does tie back to it. Come on.”
“You never got in trouble. All your life, you’ve never been in trouble. You lost your parents and with them, you lost the rite of passage of pushing boundaries and suffering the consequences. You never crossed swords with Felipe. You never butted heads with my parents.”
“Only you,” he said.
Her finger came off the wine glass and pointed at him. “Exactly.”
He tilted his head, eyebrows wrinkled. “What, you’ve been my mother?”
One of her shoulder shrugged. “I’ve been friend. Sister. Lover. Caretaker. Wife. Soulmate and fucky. I’m sure part of you still wants a mother. Shit, I still want my mother.”
“So I never got in trouble.”
“And now you’re grounded.” She got up.
“Kind of makes sense,” he said. “Except I still don’t have coherent answers for why I felt this way about Jav.”
“Feel,” Val said.
He blinked, not understanding.
“Feel,” she said. “You’re speaking in past tense but it’s still present. You want him.”
“Yeah.” The word burned his throat as he pushed it out. “I’m sorry.”
“Alex.” Tiny muscles in her face twitched as she looked down at him. “Deep down in my heart, I truly believe wanting isn’t something to apologize for.”
Slowly Alex put his arms around his knees.
“I go through phases of wanting all the time,” she said. “Wanting isn’t having. Wanting isn’t doing. Wanting isn’t making come to fruition. Everyone wants. I want. It’s the human condition.”
“I want you back,” he said softly.
Val crossed her arms. “Problem with wanting… Even when you do the right thing and don’t put anything in motion? You can’t switch wanting off. This is an emotional flu you have to suffer. And I have to live with you until it passes.”
He got up from the floor. “Do you want to live with me?”
Her hand reached and brushed his face. “I’ve liked having you around since I was twelve.”
“Even though I’m a train wreck?”
“You’re my train wreck. And all tickets to Crazytown are round trip.”
He turned his mouth into her palm. Her skin was cool and damp from the wineglass and smelled like lemongrass soap. “I love you.”
“I know, and you’re still grounded.” Val handed him the plate with the burgers. “Put those on the grill please?”
He did as told, wanting her badly. I don’t want to eat. I want to go upstairs. Please let’s go make love. I need to be inside you. I need you so bad.
For the first time in his married life, he felt he didn’t deserve to ask.
Jav lay diagonally across his bed. Sprawled on his stomach with one arm around the pillow, the other outstretched on the mattress. The sunlight sliced through the window and eased between the spaces of his fingers. He turned his hand over, then back again. Looking at the light coming through the gaps where Alex had slipped away.
All of him. His love, his friendship and his family. You’ve lost it all.
Again.
But you knew you would. You knew what you were doing. You knew you were setting the house on fire.
His hand turned palm down, moving through the air as if running over Alex’s head. He could still feel the roll of Alex’s jaw in his palm. The close of his teeth around Jav’s thumb. How he pulled his arms from his jacket sleeves and flung the garment aside. Threw himself against Jav’s body and pushed up hard and tight, groaning in his throat. The two of them bouncing off walls, kissing and seizing as they ricocheted into the bedroom.
Jav’s hand pushed through the dusty sunlight. Remembering the heave of Alex’s chest, yanking breath between kisses that bit and sucked and pulled at Jav’s mouth. His passion was a punch straight from the shoulder. No uncertainty in his touch. Nothing shy or hesitant. Not a shit or giggle as he slid a hand between their bodies, folded it around Jav’s erection and gave it two long, expert strokes.
Put it against mine, he said. Jav pushed closer and Alex gathered both of them into his hands, unleashing a moan into Jav’s mouth. Jav bit the cry in half and swallowed it down. He dug his fingers into Alex’s hair, held his head immobile against the wall and kissed him. Crazed, on fire, burning to death and unable to stop.
Want you so fucking bad, he said against Alex’s throat. I always did. Starting back at the diner, when I didn’t know what the fuck it meant.
You always made me act like an idiot, Alex said around a small, wicked smile.
Jav grabbed Alex’s shoulders and shoved him toward the bed. He dove after, wrestled Alex down into the sheets and kissed the g
rin off him, slid his tongue into Alex’s mouth and shut him up good because there could only be one idiot in the room.
Now Alex’s fingers dug into Jav’s hair as his body bucked under Jav’s crushing weight. He pushed up into the kiss, sliding his cock against and along Jav’s. His ribcage rose and fell like a wave and Jav, out of his mind now, surfed its crest as he slid down the mattress. Running his face over Alex’s stomach, following the inverted parenthesis of iliac lines pointing the way. An elementally male scent rising up to meet him, making Jav’s mouth water.
Jesus Christ, Alex howled in a whisper as Jav’s hand closed around that pulsing hardness, filling up his fist and bringing it to his tongue so he could—
“You feel all right, T?”
Jav closed his mouth, counted to five and opened his eyes. “No,” he said. “I’ve got a headache. I think I’m coming down with something.”
“Can I get you anything?” Ari said. “Couple aspirin?”
You can get out and stop interrupting my life. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be in this shitshow.
He closed his teeth down on the tip of his tongue, curtailing a dozen other cruel replies the boy didn’t deserve. Full of misery, guilt and uncharitable thoughts, Jav swallowed hard, counted to five again. “No, I just want to sleep. Can you close my door?”
“Sure. I’m going to work. Feel better.”
“Thanks, sobrino.”
With a quiet click, Jav returned to being the idiot in the room. He dragged his wet face along the pillow and tilted his fingers into the sunlight again. Squinting between them and looking for Alex.
I’m sorry, where were we…?
“Well, this feels familiar,” Val said.
From his place in line at the deli counter, Jav turned around and, as he did twenty years ago, he looked a little horrified.
Goosebumps swept up Val’s arms, not only from the grocery store’s refrigerated chill, but from the swift passage of time. “I’ve definitely been here before.”
She was twenty-six on that hot summer day. Dewy-skinned and bright-eyed, fresh and energetic and determined. As she looked at Jav, mental calendar pages began to fall away. She was sorting out her parents’ house after their death. Leading Alex down a hallway in Vermont. Standing before a judge to be married. Opening her arms to clasp the squalling, bloody miracle of Deane to her chest. Moving to Guelisten and starting two businesses while raising a child. Working and worrying their asses off. Making love to recharge the batteries. Deane growing up. Alex breaking down. Work and worry and love and life. And now she was forty-five, a wife and mother with a grocery basket on her arm, staring at Jav again.
“Is it just me,” she said, “or did two decades flash before your eyes, too?”
He nodded. His shoulders were tense and his weight shifted from foot to foot, poised to flee.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said.
“You should.”
“I wasn’t prepared for this today, but…” She set her basket down. “This is me attempting to be hip and civilized, and inviting you to a conversation. In public. Where I can’t make a scene or kill you.”
He thought a minute, then slowly nodded. “There’s a Starbucks next door.”
The coffee shop was cool and quiet, and mostly empty. They took their cups to the most remote table possible and sat.
“Val, I’m sorry,” Jav said. “I ruined everything.”
“As I recall, you’re in the business of ruining people.”
“I feel like shit. I’m sorry.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised at all this.” She shrugged and blew across the surface of her drink. “I mean, I told you Alex had a really big dick.”
Jav’s eyes widened, then he leaned on an elbow, two fingers touching between his brows. “I swear to God,” he said. “You Larks are going to be the fucking death of me.”
“You know, when you look at the arc of our friendship.” Val’s hand drew a generous arch in the air. “It’s really rather funny. But it also feels sort of fateful.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Barely anything happened, I swear. It’s over and after Ari graduates, I’m leaving Guelisten.”
“And we’ll miss you,” she said. “Which is so fucked up.”
Jav’s laugh was a bitter bark.
“I’ll be brutally honest,” she said. “Because I’m exhausted and I have no filter. A part of me is extremely aroused by the thought of him being aroused by you.”
“I find that arousing.”
“It’s put a lot of deposits in the spank bank.”
“I’m glad to know that.”
“Should I not make jokes? It’s how I deal.”
“I love your jokes. I love you. I love this town. I love your family. And I love Alex.” He drew in a deep breath and it trembled out of him.
She took her own bruised breath. “What if I were there too?”
“Where?”
“With you and Alex. What if I gave permission, for want of a better word, but only if I was there?”
He blinked at her. “You’re seriously considering this?”
“I’m considering everything. This is called having coffee. Play along.”
He stared at her a moment with narrowed eyes. “I told you once I don’t dig fucking another man’s wife in front of him.”
“I think in this case you’d be fucking another woman’s husband in front of her.”
“Val, I’m sorry. I got caught up in the heat of the moment and I grabbed for it. I had no right, I knew it was wrong and—”
“And Alex was pissed at me so it gave him justification to even the score,” Val said. “Blah, blah, blah. I should be screaming threats at you while speed-dialing my lawyer to file divorce papers. Fuck that. I love Alex more than anything in this world. He’s my husband and you can’t have him. I can pee on what’s mine, no problem. But it’s hard to see you as a threat when I love you so goddamn much. When you’re part of my family and you belong to our story.”
“I’m not your family,” he said dully.
“Oh? You left a job and flew to Santiago for my daughter. Was that for shits and giggles?”
Jav didn’t answer.
“Jav, I’ll never forget or dismiss what you did that day,” Val said. “You were one of us afterward. I’m not happy with you right now. I am pissed as all hell. But I cannot throw you down the stairs of my house. It’s not me. It’s not the family I was raised in. And the people that raised you were wrong. Flat-out fucking wrong.”
He sank his face into his hands. Hunched over, he looked younger than Ari.
“I’ll ask again,” Val said. “What if I were there?”
He chuckled through his fingers. “And then what, we go on being friends? Hanging out and taking ski trips to Vermont because we got it out of our system? Christ, Val, if I want a gay experience for my resume I’ll hire someone. I love Alex.”
“I’m just—”
“I know.” He put up his palm. “I know you are. You’re hurt and betrayed. You’re being supernaturally cool when I should be floating in the Hudson by now.” He exhaled and looked up. “If you were there… I don’t know. I guess.”
“What if you were paid?”
His head flicked to her. “What, you’re hiring me? Not asking me?”
“I’m not doing either. I’m throwing shit on the table. You know, I could do this the easy way and tell you to stay the fuck away from Alex. Vaya con dios and don’t come back. Throw you down those stairs. I could be a real vindictive bitch and ban Ari from the house. Would you rather? For fuck’s sake, tell me now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“My daughter’s in love with your nephew.” Her voice was starting to dissolve. “You’re in love with my husband and I’m trying, Jav.” She sniffed hard. “You don’t want to see my ugly cry. It’s worse than the drunk cry.”
Her hand itched for a handkerchief as Jav slid a napkin toward her, then folded his fingers around hers. “I’m
sorry,” he said. “If I could pull wires out of my head and disconnect these feelings, I’d do it yesterday. I don’t want this. I don’t want to want what I’ll only lose. I don’t want to ruin your life. I don’t want to break up Deane and Ari. I don’t want to be with Alex in front of you and I don’t want to be paid.”
“What do you want?”
“I want what’s impossible, I want what’s not mine and I have to figure out how to deal with it.”
“All right, then.”
They sat in silence a while, still holding hands.
“Alex told me about your friend,” Val said.
“Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine how it haunts you.”
He sighed. “Yeah. Five years and part of me is still waiting for him to come back and have a conversation.”
“Were you in love with him?”
Jav took a deep breath. “It was still new when he died. A more honest answer is I could’ve been.”
She squeezed his fingers. “I can see how it would make you feel more reckless with Alex. Not reckless. Daring, maybe. Aware of how tenuous life can be. How too many things go unsaid or undone. How we wait too long and miss the chance.”
“Miss the chance to make someone miss their flight,” he said. He stared at her a long time. “I’ll think about it,” he said softly.
“It would be for him,” she said. “I’d be doing it for him. Paying for it makes me feel part of it. In control of it.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“And I know it’s the part you like least. But I’m trying to think of how everyone can get some of what they want.”
“Want some, lose some.”
“Better than all,” she said. “And better than you sneaking into the garden shed behind my back. Like you tried to sneak into me without a condom that last time. It was sloppy then and it was sloppy now. I love you awful, Jav, but both you and Alex need to grow the fuck up.” She rose from her chair. “Whichever way you decide, you tell me first. Not him. Me. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” He huffed out his breath and ran hands through his hair. “I’ll go somewhere else if you still need to food shop.”
“No, you have a growing boy at home. Feed him.”
They met down at the waterfront.
An Exaltation of Larks Page 43