My Worst Date

by David Leddick

  “I know, I know, I know,” I said, feeling very much like an asshole myself.

  “Is this the good-looking older guy I see you hanging around with? That kind of Paul Newman type? The young Paul Newman.” I admitted it was. We were parking behind Books and Books on Lincoln Road now. I guessed we were heading for Gertrude’s, where Myrtle likes to hang out.

  “Are you really in love with this guy?” I said I didn’t really know. That I thought that I was, although my subconscious seemed to be keeping a certain amount from me.

  “Well, I like finding out that you are only human, Hugo, my dear. Although you are only seventeen today you are a very composed young man, and seemingly close to faultless. And for an older guy to want to make out with someone besides you is pretty hard to fathom, but who can figure out the mind of man? Having known the best, he had to go and treat himself to less than the best, right?”

  “It was somebody he had been having an affair with before he met me.”

  “The guy you had lunch with today,” Myrtle said, not asked.

  “You don’t miss much, do you Fred?”

  He looked up from his piña colada. “I like it when you call me Fred. I’m thinking of putting Myrtle Beach away for a long, long rest. No, I do not miss much. Least of all when you come back from lunch all red-eyed and stand around like a wet chicken all afternoon. That is not the Hugo we all know and love. Maybe the guy’s lying.”

  “He could be, but somehow I don’t think he is. Actually, I think he’s quite a nice guy. It’s all mixed up. I think he’s jealous and at the same time I think he’s trying to steer me away from a bad situation. But I don’t think that’s even very important. It’s more, what am I supposed to do about … with … to Glenn. I mean, it isn’t like he’s ever said he loved me and wanted to stay with me forever or any of that kind of stuff. If I say anything to him he’s probably just going to say, ‘so what?’”

  “Well, look, you can just drop him. Do you want to do that?”

  “No, definitely not. I can’t.” For one thing I was going to see him all the time at the house when he was with my mom, so saying I didn’t want to see him anymore was kind of out of the question. “Look, Fred, the big question is, where does all this stuff go, anyway? Have you ever known two guys who really stayed together?”

  Fred said, “Of course. You see them all the time. Short. Overweight. A pair of fussbudgets. Shopping. Looking exactly like their mothers. A pair of dowdy lesbians, except they’re men. I don’t know. There must have been dashing male lovers. Alexander the Great loved his boyfriend all his life, through marriages and all. Tyrone Power and Cesar Romero must have been a great-looking couple when they were together. Marlon Brando and Wally Cox? No. It’s a tough one to answer. Maybe the best way to start out on an affair is not to be discouraged and to plan it as the first great one. The first one where both people are attractive and loving and intelligent. And determined to stay together. Intelligence is very important, Hugo. I think most people aren’t smart enough to look around and not make the mistakes they see everywhere. And I think they’re lazy, too. It’s easier to ditch the loved one and start in on a new project. Until your looks go and then nobody wants to start again with you. And you’re all alone on the telephone.”

  “You’re pretty intelligent yourself, Fred,” I told him.

  “Want to marry me?” he said.

  “Well, it seems to me a person could do a whole lot worse.”

  Fred seemed embarrassed. “Back to your Paul Newman lookalike.”

  I said, “I’d just feel so dumb asking him if he loved me and accusing him of betraying me by screwing around and all that stuff. Our relationship really isn’t like that. I sort of pursued him in the beginning. Sort of. I pursued him. I got him. Now he’s getting bored. It’s so stupid. I feel like my life is on daytime TV.”

  “Let’s just take it a step at a time,” Fred said. “Do you want to still see him? Let’s not talk love. Let’s talk lust. You still want to hop in the sack with him, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Number one,” Fred said. “Never do what they expect you to do. The running, screaming, crying routine never works unless you really don’t care and you’re trying to get rid of them. Oh, God, it is really easy to tell someone else what to do. So hard to do it yourself.”

  “Are you in love with someone, Fred?” I asked him.

  “I’m always in love with someone. Yes, I’m in love with someone up in Fort Lauderdale who is about to get married to his girlfriend and then a divorce and several kids later will be back, having proven to the world that he’s quite a man. It’s so bizarre. If they weren’t quite impossible you wouldn’t be interested. Programmed for stupidity. He is. And I am.

  “I’m just giving myself over to the tropical rhythm of the moment. I could be wrong. Maybe one of these nights he’s going to show up and say ‘It’s you, it’s you!’ ” Fred laughed. “Look, your guy is going to know that his old boyfriend spilled the beans to you. You can count on that. So, he’s going to expect you to come on the run. So you don’t. I guess if you really love him the best thing to do would be to let him think he’s free to leave at any time. Be mysterious yourself. Don’t tell him if you love him or don’t love him. Don’t tell him to go or stay. Just sit tight. But you probably can’t do that, can you? I know you, Hugo. You act cool but there’s a little Mexican spitfire under all that Teutonic exterior.”

  “It’s my Brazilian father cropping up, I guess,” I said.

  “Your father is Brazilian?” Fred said. I think it actually surprised him. I told him yes but didn’t think it was necessary to also tell him that I’d never seen him. No point in explaining my entire history to him.

  “Well, my little blond bombshell, you’ve got your work cut out for you. At best, you can keep this guy on the string for awhile, Hugo. But let’s wake up and smell the cappuccino. You’re going to college. You’re going to meet all kinds of different people. You are going to change. Even if this romance was to last forever, would you want it to? Do you want to miss all the fun by going out of circulation when you’ve hardly stepped in? But, of course, Hugo you must do as you feel. That’s the best advice I can give you. Don’t be sensible.”

  But I was. Mom and Glenn Elliott and I all had supper together. The next night. At the Strand. Which wasn’t bad.

  They brought out three pieces of cake with candles. It was nice. My gift from both of them was a huge beautiful book on Tiepelo, the 18th century Venetian painter. My new craze. The last of the Renaissance painters they called him, even though the Renaissance was long over. I must say they both do pay attention. At least Mom does and drags Glenn along.

  I wasn’t working the next day and Glenn asked me if I wanted to go to the beach. I could tell by that “nothing is wrong” style of his that he was expecting trouble. So I told him no but that I would like to go to Viscaya. I’ve been there for school projects of course, but I’ve never been there just by myself and it struck me that a really weird place like that might be just the place for a really weird conversation.

  viscaya

  Do you know Viscaya? It’s the only house I’ve ever seen in the United States that was built to look European that actually looks European. Or perhaps it’s that the houses in Europe it resembles that I saw as a child were built to look like some kind of fantasyland, and Viscaya inhabits that same fantasyland. On both continents they tried to make magic. And they did.

  Viscaya is Italianate. As though it were in southern Italy somewhere. Or more Sicily. A big grand villa. When I first came to Miami when Hugo was small we visited it, and the central court was still open to the weather, and the big loggia facing the sea still had gigantic canvas draperies looped back, to be dropped in bad weather. Very dramatic.

  I would have loved to have gone there in its heyday when yachts actually tied up to the giant stone gondola just offshore from the landing terrace. How did they ferry those lavish visitors to the terrace with all their trunks and d
ogs and jewels?

  Like the woman who sat across from me at dinner years ago when I was modeling. Deedee something. She had planned to cross on the Andrea Doria but at the last minute had flown to attend a party in New York, leaving everything on the ship. “I lost everything,” she said. “My jewels, my furs, my dog, my maid. I lost everything.”

  Those were the kind of people who came to Viscaya to party. They had to come by boat. There were no roads. Just a village of Italian artists to do the building, stucco work, frescoes, sculpture. It’s a very elaborate house.

  And there must have been other kinds of guests, too, because the owner was gay. Confirmed bachelor I suppose they said in those days. The guide book is very discreet but they did admit that there were torchlit parties in the gardens and dryads and nymphs were to be found in the grottoes. More dryads than nymphs would be my guess.

  There’s something about that house that suggests liaisons. Stealthy creeping up narrow staircases to small bedrooms, beautifully done in First Empire Yellow.

  There’s nothing spic-and-span about Viscaya. It’s not like those terrible Williamsburg places where everything is so fresh and clean. You just know those poor old Colonials never lived like that. Not with all those smoky fireplaces.

  But Viscaya has slightly frayed upholstery, worn silk at the windows, crumbling edges to the sculpture. Now that it’s air-conditioned they’ll probably put a stop to all that, but for the moment there is still that feeling of rich men indulging themselves, good-looking young men of no background advancing themselves, lechery and sneaking around and no guilt. That’s what probably makes it feel so European. No guilt except for that poor guy who built it. His family made tractors to allow him all this excess luxury. He probably tossed and turned some nights in his painted Venetian bed, unable to forget that Grandpa had marched through the furrows behind a mule until it struck him how to improve upon the plow.

  Some famous names were attracted to the isolation and sex shenanigans at Viscaya. I remember going there before the renovation and seeing reproductions of Sargent drawings done at Viscaya displayed along an upper wall. The most obscure one showed a naked black male in the sand under a low branch of beach grape, the villa scarcely to be seen in the distance across the water, a little sketch beyond the curving buttocks in the foreground. This sketch you never see in the collections of Sargent works. And I’ve looked. Nobody wants to add any further fuel to the feeling that Sargent must have been homosexual. I certainly hope he was. Horrible to think of that uptight guy hanging around all those rich people and never having any kind of romantic life at all.

  Hugo and Glenn Elliott are there today. I wonder if they’ll pick up on that little quiver of illicit romance that hangs in the air there. It is quite fantastic to think that this large and beautiful house, filled with beautiful furniture from France and Italy, the paintings, the silks and satins, was here in the mangrove swamps when the best that the rest of Miami had to offer was wooden boardinghouses and coconut plantations. A true Xanadu. When those yachts unloaded their passengers from New York and Boston and Philadelphia and perhaps even directly from the Continent, they must have felt it was almost a mirage. A mirage filled with beautiful Italian boys. And of course, I’m Italian. So I would like these feelings of beauty and magic first, morality second.

  viscaya 2

  I decided I wasn’t going to talk about anything. Anything I planned to say was just the kind of thing I’d never want to hear. And I certainly didn’t want to hear myself saying them.

  So I decided on deep pleasure. I love Viscaya and being there with someone I love.

  From the parking lot we walked into that leafy reception court, hanging heavy with jungle and those stone half-statues, half-pillars, where all the faces have a kind of smart-ass look. As though they know something. That you are going to find out.

  Then down that inclined road with the streams trickling on each side, the jungle still heavy around us. That smell of rotting things and watery plants and heat. Pulling you in, wrapping you up.

  And then that big stone house with its tile roofs and shutters, showing up too soon, looming over you. So big and heavy, but not scary. Inside, thick tile floors and dark walls and little delicate lights set on the walls. I heard the ticket seller say to Glenn Elliott, “That’s ten dollars for you and your son.” An older man, maybe an ex-policeman. Where’s he been, I wonder? Glenn caught up with me. He looked a bit sulky, not liking being thought of as my father, I guess.

  As you first come in there’s a little dressing room. Where ladies used to go to repair their face powder, I suppose. The small silk-covered chairs, mirrors you can hardly see yourself in, the lights are so low. You peer in and you’re floating there, almost underwater. Blond hair. Brown eyes. Sort of like yourself, sort of not. Glenn behind me. Even darker, murkier. He looks at me in the mirror. He puts his hands on my hips and pulls me tightly against him. No one is there. We have a little paper guide sheet to tell us what we’re looking at.

  The big empty drawing room. I can imagine entering it. No ropes to keep out tourists in those days. Trying to decide where to sit, with dozens of choices, none of them comfortable. And so much cloth. Upholstery, draperies, rugs. Now we would never think of being in the tropics with all those yards of cloth around us. And all this frail, inlaid wood furniture. Waiting to split and fall apart in the heat and humidity and become sad ruins for people to see later and think, How did they ever think such delicate wood and painted flowers and woven shining fabric could survive? But it did. Long enough for air-conditioning to rescue it.

  The angular, toppling dining room. Like a dining room in some giant stone castle in Scotland. High, huge vases standing up above, ready to fall on you. High stiff-backed chairs, row facing row. People trying to be amusing. Laughing, raising their glasses. You’d have to be awfully drunk to make a go of it.

  Outside in the hall there’s a portrait of Mr. Deering, who had the house built. Just as wrapped in cloth as his drawing room. A white suit, a shirt, a stiff collar, a tie right up under his chin. Little glasses on a round face with round eyes. Slicked-down hair, a neat part. I wonder if he was short? He must have been. Hard to imagine this big sprawling house his choice. But I guess all that rigid dining room furniture, all that prissy upholstery fits in.

  He must have wondered if he really fit in here, all this sun and tropical flowers and beating sea.

  Now the center courtyard is glassed over, but I remember being little and looking up as it rained down on me and the plants in their big, round pots. We were all looking up and sopping up the rain. Mom in the breezeway toward the sea calling me to come to her, to come out of the rain.

  Behind her the big, square porch with enormous draperies filled the arches. The wind blew through, and looking out across the gray bay, I saw a big stone gondola raising its ends just offshore. That’s the most magic part. Supposedly when people arrived by boat they tied up to the gondola. But I wonder. It’s more like a statue, or a stage set. Looking over the stone gondola to Key Biscayne in the distance you can imagine that Key Biscayne is the mainland of reality, and here we are on an island of unreality.

  Today the sea is very blue, the distant key very green, and the gondola very white in the sharp, sharp sun, carved more deeply with black shadows. The clouds are piled up higher and higher in twirling peaks. Everything is green and blue, white and black.

  Glenn and I stand on the porch looking out, the draperies tugging in the wind, huge wicker furniture covered in big chintz flowers. Perfect for cuddling and nuzzling. And casual nookie upstairs in the afternoon with the sun slanting through the blinds. Perfect for everybody but Mr. Deering in his collar and cuffs.

  Many beautiful bedrooms upstairs and Mr. Deering’s large glassy, glossy tile and mahogany bathroom. I imagine him lowering that pale, white body into his bath. Only his valet around to hand him towels. Sort of like a snail out of its shell. Then bullying and tying itself into the shell of clothing and crawling slowly through the even
more gigantic shell of this house.

  There are two beautiful little bedrooms up separate small flights of stairs to the third floor. So exquisite with their screens and ornaments and small drawings and gathered silk daybeds. Here seems to be the real heart of this house. Those secluded sets for sexuality. You can just imagine someone on all fours on the counterpane, hanging off the end of the bed, upside down on the floor, legs supported by the side of the daybed, the lover probing down from above. Naked, sweaty, spunky in all this pretty decoration, all a little too small for full-size fucking.

  The gardens are the most beautiful part. Formal low hedges, paths moving straight ahead at right angles. And the cascades at the far end. It’s as though some ballet was about to be performed all the time. Walking up the steps at the sides of the cascades there is a kind of fresh, dripping feeling. Centuries ago when they first began creating these things, it must have been a wonderful treat in hot weather. For the upper classes, of course. The poor folk were struggling around outside in the dust.

  They were so locked into their clothes in those days. I wonder what Queen Elizabeth wore in the summertime? All the pictures you ever see of her she is in ruffs and massive skirts sewn with jewels. In really hot weather I wonder if she permitted herself a little white robe to blow in the breeze. Women seem to have smartened up sooner than men. Back in Mr. Deering’s time you see photographs of women in little flowery dresses with bare arms. And men still in their three-pieces with a straw hat.

  Above the cascade is a terrace with little card rooms at each end. They probably came up here to catch the afternoon breezes. Below a little cliff is the canal where the gondolas waited to take guests through the jungle that lay beyond the garden. Now it’s a trailer park. Quite a sight, those sun-cooked trailers without a tree or a bush, sitting there in front of you. Behind you the cascades trickling down over mossy stones to the gardens, a checkerboard of flowers and shrubs and hedges.