And the Next Thing You Know...

by Chase Taylor Hackett

  “If you’re free, my best friend’s string quartet is playing tonight. If you like string quartets.”

  “I love string quartets. What are they playing?” The blue eyes were unveiled again.

  “Ravel and Bartok.”

  “I love Ravel and Bartok.”

  I could still see just enough face under there to know that he was beaming.

  “Liar,” I said. “Nobody loves Bartok.”

  Under the table, my Italian sneaker—the one not peed upon—found Swithin’s black canvas Converse.

  Footsy. Those eyes had reduced me to playing footsy.

  It must be the real thing.

  E-mail from Jeffrey

  To: Kaminsky, Daniel

  Collins, Victoria

  From: Bornic, Jeffrey A.

  Sent: Monday, May 2, 6:45 a.m.

  cc: McPherson, Rebecca

  Subject: Hiromi Industries

  I regret that I feel I must withdraw my name from consideration for the litigation team for this important case. If you would like to discuss my reasons for doing so, I will be happy to meet with you at your convenience.

  I don’t know how much weight it carries, but, contrary to anything I may have written in the past, I would like to give my strong recommendation to Rebecca McPherson, whose work has always proven exemplary and professional. If selected, she will bring a sharp insight and intelligence to the case.

  I deeply regret that I have ever given the impression that I considered her to be anything less than one of the finest and most talented lawyers I’ve worked with in my time at Parker O’Neill.

  Thank you.

  J.A.B.

  Chapter 47

  And Boy Were My Arms Tired

  Jeff

  I had been schlepping a pile of stuff for the last three hours, and I was beat. It was also May now and really warm for the first time this spring—which would normally be lovely, if I hadn’t been running around trying to get all this stuff together. In a hooded sweatshirt.

  Of course I had no reason to think that any of this would work, but I had to try.

  I had done everything I could think of to fix this, at least so far as this thing could be fixed, so here I was, standing in front of Rebecca’s door with an armload of things I’d picked up. Beccs had assured me that Theo was home. Thank God, after everything, I at least still had Rebecca on my side.

  I plopped the armload of precious booty down to one side of the door, pulled the sweatshirt off and toweled my face with it. I leaned against the wall, and gave myself a chance to think and to cool off a little. Red-faced and pitted out was not what I’d have picked for this—confrontation—when I so desperately needed all the charm I could muster.

  Deep breaths.

  Of course this was New York, and the thing about New York? There’s always somebody. So frigging crowded. All you want is a moment to yourself, and there’s somebody. This particular somebody was a neighbor with his little shih-tzu-whatever on the end of a leash. Looked like an old gay guy. The neighbor, I mean, not the shih tzu. Although, come to think of it…

  The guy eyed me suspiciously—yeah, like I’m a mugger with a great big pile of stuff on the floor here.

  Just keep moving, Dorothy, I thought. And little Toto too.

  Only now did he take in my pile of props. His turn to smile.

  I’m so glad you find me amusing, gramps.

  The shih tzu was finally bored with my shoes and waddled on, taking the gay geezer with him.

  “Good luck,” the old guy said.

  “Thanks,” I said after them, a little surprised.

  I’ve said how I had resolved to stop being a selfish coward—it occurred to me I should also really try to stop being quite such a cynical, crabby-assed dick while I’m at it.

  Deep breath.

  Truth was, I was here and I was scared to death. My whole life could go down in flames right here—and probably would. If I couldn’t get Theo to talk to me again, I had no idea what I would do. Sell my apartment and join the Peace Corps. I’m sure they could use me. I could teach. I could teach starving children in Ethiopia how to write a really kick-ass brief. Useful stuff like that.

  Or I could enlist in the CIA and disappear into a secret life. Or maybe move to Tibet and become a monk. So many options. Is there still a French Foreign Legion, do you think?

  But I could do this, right? I pep-talked myself. I had faced down Dan Kaminsky and Victoria Collins. I had vaulted over a New York taxi. I had stared Death in the eye and laughed a bitter and ironic laugh. I could do this.

  Of course none of that meant squat. Theo McPherson was way scarier than Death ever hoped to be.

  I reminded myself that I had made my resolution and I was sticking to it. Gut it out, Bornic.

  Which reminded me of something that had occurred to me in my brooding, during these long, dark, Theo-less days: whatever happened today, I was stronger now. I was so much braver than I was before beautiful Theo came along and threatened to take my balls off in the middle of a Midtown bistro.

  I pulled myself up straight. Deep breath. It was now-or-never time. I tapped on the door. No answer. Fuckaduck, could nothing be easy here? Did absolutely everything have to be an ordeal. I took another deep breath, and knocked again, louder. After a bit, it opened. Rebecca.

  “Theo,” she called over her shoulder and stepped off to the side, holding the door open for me. “There’s someone to see you.”

  I stood out of the doorway, and extended one hand in the open doorframe with my first peace offering—a dozen red roses.

  “Go away, we don’t want any!” said the man of my dreams, the prince of my heart. He was out of my line of sight—I don’t know if he even looked up.

  Rebecca took the roses, shrugged a little and gave me an encouraging nod.

  I stuck my hand in the doorway again, this time holding a big ol’ heart-shaped box of chocolates. I had no idea what might work, so I was covering all the bases.

  “Get lost! Go home! Get a life!” yelled the water in my desert, the sunlight of my days.

  Rebecca took the chocolates, and gave me a thumbs-up. Yeah, like this was going soooo well.

  Okay, I hadn’t really expected that either of those was going to work. I was betting everything on my next shot. I picked up this enormous teddy bear—sitting, he was probably close to three feet tall. I held him in front of me and stepped into the doorframe.

  “Theee-oh!” I said in a funny very un-bearlike voice. At least I hoped it was funny and not just stupid. I wagged one of the paws in a teddy-bear wave. “Hey Theeeeee-oh!”

  “Will you—” he started. And my precious treasure, the center of my universe, the key to my happiness—reached over and grabbed a jumbo eraser from the top of his keyboard and he flung it at the doorway.

  I ducked behind the bear, my Kevlar vest in a bow tie. The eraser bounced off the teddy’s tummy and fell to the floor.

  “Theo!” said Rebecca, reprimanding.

  “Ouch!” said the silly bear voice.

  “Oh wow,” said the guy I loved more than anything on earth. He had finally looked over.

  I had figured this much out—if you want to get around Theo McPherson, just remember: he’s only seven years old. I took a step inside, and poked my head carefully around the bear, making sure it was safe.

  “Theo?” I said in my own voice. He didn’t throw anything. “Please talk to me? I’m sooooooo sorry. I screwed up, but I’m trying. Please?”

  “Where did you get him?” He had no interest in me, he wanted to talk about the bear. My heart’s desire, my darling, my all. I sure can pick ’em.

  Why you? I wondered, watching his animated face. Why did this strange alien have such power over me, that it absolutely hurt not to be with him. I didn’t have an answer—I only knew that he was it. He
was everything.

  At least he’d spoken to me.

  “Saks,” I answered. “And just for your amusement, please picture me carrying this thing around the store trying to find a cashier to ring him up. And lugging him around Rockefeller Plaza while I found a florist and a chocolate shop. And then carrying him up Fifth Avenue, with the chocolates and the roses, while trying to get a cab to stop. Tourists were taking pictures. The indignities I put myself through. A German couple wanted to take a selfie with me and would not take nein for an answer. There are people checking their Facebook feed in Düsseldorf right now, laughing their schnitzels off.”

  “You dope,” he said, finally glancing at me. It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to me in my entire life.

  He hid behind the bear.

  “I was just hanging around, in case someone was needed to call nine-one-one,” said Rebecca. I’d forgotten she was still there. She was fluffing the roses, which she’d put in water. “But I think you boys got this.” She picked up her keys from the counter.

  “Wait,” I said. “Before you go—I had a talk with Dan Kaminsky—and the lovely Victoria.”

  “I saw your strange e-mail taking yourself off the Hiromi case. What’s that about?”

  “I told you I’d try to fix my mess, and I think I have. Hiromi is almost certainly going to trial, and you should plan on making yourself available for it.”

  “I’m in?”

  “You’re definitely in.”

  “Wow. That’s fantastic. I didn’t expect to hear that today.”

  “Keep it under your hat, as they say.”

  “Wait,” said Theo, looking up from the bear finally. “What did you do?”

  “I had to make it right, if I could, and I did.”

  “Thank you, Jeffrey,” said Rebecca.

  “Don’t thank me.”

  “Yeah, really,” said Theo. “You shouldn’t.”

  He had taken the bear from me and was making him dance on the couch.

  “I’m going to—um—” and she kissed me on the cheek. “Text me when you’re ready for me to come home.” And she kissed Theo on the cheek. I guess she slipped out the door. I could only see Theo; and Theo could only see—the bear.

  Now that we were alone, we were both a little shy.

  “What’d you do to your head?” he asked after a bit. The bandage.

  “Lost it, apparently.” He glanced at me, and then back to the bear. “There’s a card.”

  I had punched a hole in the corner of a 3x5 card so I could lace a piece of red satin ribbon through it—and I’d tied it to the bear’s wrist with the best bow this clumsy lawyer-boy could manage.

  He looked at the card for lots longer than it took to read it.

  I suppose I should tell you what it said. It wasn’t a big thing. I’d wanted to tell him how special he was, how I’d recognized that he wasn’t ‘nothing,’ that he was clearly an absolutely magnificent something, and that I wanted as much of that magnificent something in my life as he could allow me. But I kept it simpler. All the card said was, “Please. I love you so much.” And I’d signed it “Jeff.” Not Jeffrey. For him, I could be Jeff.

  “Thanks,” was all he said. That would have to do. “Are those for me too?” he asked, nodding to the flowers and chocolate piled on the kitchen counter.

  “Of course.”

  “Cool. Anything else? If I were still not speaking to you, is there like a Fiat downstairs? Or a Shetland pony, at least?”

  “No, ’fraid not. I thought about a puppy, but then if it didn’t work, I’d be stuck with him, and I wasn’t sure the Foreign Legion would take me with a puppy. The bear was my best offer.”

  “The bear’s pretty good—oh, wow!” He had opened the heart-shaped box and eaten one of the little chocolates. “Man! These things are life!” He held one out for me, and I ate it from his fingers, still looking at his lovely freckled face.

  “I did buy you a bunch of underwear, but I was too embarrassed to bring them.”

  “You should have. Should have started with the underwear, you’d have had me right there.”

  “Good to know.”

  We traded blushes.

  “My mom wants to meet you,” I said finally.

  “I’ve met your mom.”

  “Well, now that she knows you’re not my assistant, she wants to meet you again. I told her. I told them.”

  “You outed yourself?” He looked at me a bit.

  “You shamed me into it.”

  “Cool.” He looked away again. “What did you say?”

  “I told them that you weren’t my assistant. And that you were very probably the love of my life.”

  “How’d they take it?”

  “My mom wants to meet you for real. That is, if you’re still my boyfriend.”

  “I don’t know. You want me to be your boyfriend?”

  “That’s all I want in the world.”

  “Shut up. And your dad? What’d he say?”

  “He doesn’t care if you’re my boyfriend or not.”

  “Idiot.”

  “That’s exactly what he said. To be honest, I think he liked you better when you were the lousy assistant I should have fired.”

  “That’s just because he doesn’t know me yet,” said Theo, propping the bear up on the couch and trying to get him to cross his legs. “But wait til he gets to know me, and sees how sweet I am. How does he feel about professional football?”

  My head spun at the thought of Theo giving my father his football speech.

  Having found the pose that he wanted for the bear, Theo stepped over to me, and, without another word and without looking at me, he slipped his arms around me and pressed his face against my chest. I pulled him to me as tightly as I could.

  I thought the lump in my throat might be fatal.

  “So. I’m the love of your life?”

  I nodded, and cleared my throat.

  “Seems like,” I said finally.

  “Too bad about you.”

  “I know, but what can I do? And just so you know,” I added, “I took myself off the Hiromi case.”

  He looked up at me finally.

  “That’s good. That was the right thing to do. But doesn’t that hurt your promotion thing?”

  “Actually I offered to resign, if that’s what they wanted.”

  “You did that?”

  “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give up, Theo, to prove to you—”

  “Shut uuuup and just give me the underwear already!” he said blushing, grinning, and he buried his face against my shirt. I put my arms around him and squeezed, and pressed my face against his curls. “You really quit your job?” he asked.

  “Well, no. I explained everything, and I offered to resign, if that’s what they wanted. They didn’t want. In fact, Mr. K. wants me next to him on the Hiromi case.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I guess I must actually be the hotshot lawyer I make myself out to be.”

  “That’s good. Hey—I got a job too!”

  “Oh wow! The thing at Lincoln Center?”

  “You know how I said it wouldn’t happen? I was wrong. I start on Monday.”

  “That’s awesome! I’m so glad for you!” And I really was thrilled for him and I hugged him still tighter. And I thought—Please, Theo, please don’t ever let go.

  “I’m in show business!” he went on. “The only bad part is—they pay total crap. So—unless I can find another incredibly cheap apartment situation, I’m going to be sleeping on Rebecca’s couch for the rest of my life.”

  “At least until you get your first Broadway show.”

  He looked up at me for a long time. I think maybe I’d finally said the right thing.

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling a little sid
eways. “Until my first Broadway show.”

  It seems to me about then that I was struck with a bizarre case of acute dementia, because an absolutely mad idea came into my head, and without a moment’s consideration, I was talking.

  “You know, if you’re looking for a flat-share, I just happen to know somebody who has a gigantic apartment that he just knocks around in.”

  “Great! Where?”

  “Upper East.”

  “Not my favorite neighborhood, but at least it’s Manhattan. Close to your place?”

  “Not far.”

  “Can I afford it?”

  “Probably. It’s a bit of a construction mess right now, but when it’s done…”

  He pushed me out to arm’s length and looked at me.

  “You insane?”

  “Obviously. There’s lots of space. Of course the bedroom at the end—that’s really a practice room. The guestroom downstairs—well, I was going to use that for my gym equipment. There’s another bedroom—but I was going to use that for my office.”

  “Does that still leave room?”

  “If you don’t mind sharing.”

  He put his face against my shoulder again, and I held him tight. Man, I loved him like this.

  Then he pushed himself back up.

  “Hey!” he said, a light bulb glowing above the red curls. “Your building takes dogs, doesn’t it!”

  I shook my head.

  “Of course you would go there.”

  He smiled at me a little shyly.

  “Hi,” he said, suddenly quiet.

  “Hi, Theo.” I pulled him back to me.

  “I love you, too, by the way,” he muffled into my shoulder.

  “Good to know.”

  I kissed the side of his head. How I had missed this, missed him.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw that three-foot teddy bear sitting on the couch behind him, looking goofy.

  “You know, I didn’t really think this through,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” and he pulled back, scowling.

  “I could spend the rest of my life with that stupid bear sitting in a corner of my bedroom, couldn’t I?”