by Aiden Bates
Kevin smiles again. He’s got ridiculously straight teeth and a strong wave in his hair when it’s long enough, like it is now. Between his wavy hair and Glenn’s corkscrew curls, their kids must have some considerable volume on their heads. Sam doesn’t know, he can’t remember the last time he even bothered to look at pictures of them.
Sam’s got to borrow some bathing trunks to run in from Kevin, but other than that he’s not too badly prepared for a jog. They’re silent and enjoying the sloping woods on their path, along roads with hardly any houses, and so hardly any cars. It’s quite peaceful. Too bad it didn’t do any good for Alex.
It’s only near the end of the jog that they start to talk, when they’re walking back to the house and pausing to stretch and cool down along the way.
“What was he like the last time you saw him? Alex?” Sam asks. He’s been wanting to ask someone, but reluctant to push Glenn—he knows how Glenn last saw Alex.
“He … wasn’t happy.”
Sam nods, and that’s the last of the Alex talk for a while. Next they start talking about what’s for dinner.
Glenn and Greg are tasked with staying home and baking dessert, half because they’re both into baking, and half because they’re both into gossiping. Jeff’s job is to help them when they ask for help with stuff he can’t screw up, stirring or holding something or handing over something; he’ll also be tasked with setting the table, tossing the salad, getting everybody drinks, if he comes to dinner at all—Jeff’s still hopeful about his date with the waiter in New Hampshire. Sam and Kevin will go shopping for the meat and potatoes, then come back and cook them when the baking has cleared out. Nobody asks Clarkie to do anything, though he is still invited to join them for dinner. So is Jeff’s new friend depending on what kind of date it ends up being.
Jeff does indeed miss out on dinner, and Sam is magnanimous enough to wish him luck (to wish for him to get lucky), though as a TV star, getting laid is not a problem for Sam.
It would have been more of a tragedy to miss out on this dinner for Sam. He hasn’t been among this group of people in about fifteen years, and they’re still his favorite people in the world. It’s nothing but jokes nearly as old as poor Clarkie, who has no way to participate in what they’re discussing. They start pegging each other with bits of food, trying to land bits of broccoli and later sliced apples from the pies that Glenn and Greg baked, and the whole time they’re going through bottle after bottle of wine, which is probably why during a sudden lull at the end of the meal, right when you’d expect someone to say something like, “Let’s get a jump on these dishes,” or, “I’m tired, let’s call it a night,” the mood becomes sad.
“I feel like we should have set a place for Alex.” Glenn has said this, and is looking at the place that was left empty because Jeff’s out gallivanting, and clearly thinking, If we leave a spot open for Jeff, then why not Alex? To which the answer, of course, is that Jeff might take his place at any time, but Alex never will.
Greg is quick to comfort Glenn—they’ve spent the morning together and probably did a lot more talking about Alex and life and friendship and everything than the rest of them have said in the past week to anyone. Surely when Jeff was around he was listening to them, harvesting material for some article of his; the more Jeff hears you, the more you find your thoughts printed in a magazine. That habit doesn’t bother the others as much as it does Sam—Sam is a public figure, he has a publicist for a reason, and he and Jeff once had some static about an article he wrote about him that included way more information than any reporter who hadn’t gone to college with him could ever have known. Jeff thought that was great, that it gave the story a unique angle. Sam thought that was intrusive and told him right or wrong, Jeff is never allowed to quote him again.
“I’m so glad you guys are all here, I love you, you’re like the family I got to choose, it’s wonderful, but I can’t help thinking that this isn’t right—Alex should be here too, and the only reason we’re all here is because he’s not, and never will be again.”
“You know what Alex would have said if he was here and heard you talking like this?” Sam asks, hoping to lighten the mood a bit. He’s of the opinion that the best way to mourn is to remember the good times and not the bad, to laugh and smile when you think of the dead, in gratitude that you knew them at all, instead of moping in sadness that they’re not around anymore. “Alex would have said something like, if you leave a chair open for me, be sure to put a whoopee cushion on it.”
Greg smiles gently at this idea, but Glenn doesn’t look comforted, more like he’s closer to crying than ever. Kevin, on seeing Glenn in distress, cannot appreciate Sam’s attempt at levity. Clarkie laughs loud and suddenly, but as he’s the only one to laugh, it makes the room seem even quieter when he stops.
“We should start cleaning up,” Glenn says, going into chore-mode to stave off his emotions. He used to do this back in the dorms too, cleaning other people’s rooms half the time just to deal with any awkwardness in trying to socialize when they were all so young and needy for friendship. Sam’s heard stories from Kevin about he and Glenn’s courtship, how his dorm was never cleaner than in the days leading up to their first time together—apparently the sexual tension and the will-he-won’t-he nervousness of young love drove Glenn into a cleaning and organizing frenzy. Some things never change, apparently.
Of course, this time everyone gets up to help, even Clarkie has the social intelligence to at least pick up his own plate and take it into the kitchen (though he doesn’t help with the rest). Clarkie does, however, catch Sam’s eye and jerk his head so that Sam will follow him into the doorway from the dining room to the living room. He has something he wants to say to Sam, apparently. Kevin notices this sidebar, but doesn’t linger too long to hear what the big secret is, that’s just for Sam’s ears.
“That was funny, what you said about Alex,” Clarkie says. He has saucer-like eyes, the big, wide-open ones on people who might well believe firmly in flying saucers, to be specific. “You remind me of him the most, Alex was pretty funny. We watched your show a couple of times when Glenn was out. There’s no TV in the garage, so we snuck in a few times to find them on the DVR. You’re pretty good at it, acting.”
“Thanks,” Sam says. Who is this weird little fella who’s somehow found himself having dinner with a group of friends from another decade? “Hey, Clarkie, where will you go after this? What I mean is, I know Kevin and Glenn won’t just kick you out or anything, but you don’t want to stay here forever, right?”
Clarkie shrugs like he doesn’t know, honestly doesn’t know anything. Maybe he doesn’t know where to go after this, or maybe he doesn’t know whether or not he wants to stay here forever, maybe both. Sam wonders if all these adults he calls his friends were once as meek and lost and foggy-eyed as Clarkie here. Sam shrugs back at the kid.
Sam says, “Well, if you’re ever in Los Angeles, look me up!” Who knows what Alex was even up to with this kid—was this relationship him trying to hold on, to get back to his younger enthusiasms, or just an end-of-the-line kind of fling? When did he know, exactly when did Alex know, that he was in the process of giving up?
Sam doesn’t spend too much time thinking of that. Once the kitchen starts to look put together again and the dining room is clear, people start to peel off for showers and night routines. Sam hops through a quick shower (extra quick because the water’s cold by the time it’s his turn), and puts on boxers and a robe to join the others (minus Clarkie) who’ve managed to reconvene in the living room for night caps, or a hot cocoa for Glenn, or a hot cocoa and an Ambien for Sam. Maybe he will turn out like Judy, who can tell? Maybe he’ll wreck his good fortune with a pill habit and end up like Alex. Maybe the look of concern Glenn gives his use of real homemade hot chocolate will bother him until he changes his ways. Maybe he’ll switch out pills for chocolate and die of over-eating, or give himself diabetes. There are as many ways to die as there are lives to live, after all.
Instead of r
eminiscing about the Alex of today, the Alex of two days before yesterday but not today, they start reminiscing about college in general.
“I can’t believe how long it’s been,” Kevin says. “So much has changed. I mean I imagined a life just like this when we were back at school.” Kevin puts his hand on the back of Glenn’s neck and starts to squeeze his shoulders a bit, a tiny massage. “It looks so close to what I imagined—two kids, this guy right here, a big house just like this one is, in a town this quiet—and yet still it isn’t really anything I could have expected.”
“Didn’t expect it to be a funeral home, you mean?” Greg asks. “He’s holding an unlit cigarette and his lighter, clearly waiting for the antsy feeling of a craving to drive him to the window or the porch. He won’t smoke inside and Glenn and Kevin wouldn’t want him to (the kids, you know, what if they smell the ghost of a cigarette and catch double fatal emphysema?), and maybe that’s why he’s speaking so flippantly about their dead friend: he’s on edge wanting to light that sucker.
“Sure,” Kevin says with a sigh.
“I think I’ll go to bed now, I’m beat,” Glenn says. Greg starts to apologize for saying what he did, but Glenn shakes his head. “I really am exhausted. I’ll see you bright and early for breakfast tomorrow, all of you, before anyone can leave without saying goodbye.” Glenn smiles at Sam pointedly, and in an instant Sam decides something.
“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to move my flight,” Sam says, smoothing his mustache as he speaks as if he’s really just pondering it. “I should be on set, but fuck it, people get sick, don’t they? I’ll call in sick for an extra day or two, they can shoot all the scenes I’m not in. I’d like to stick around a little longer.”
“That’d be great, Sam,” Glenn says. At least his impulse has managed to send Glenn to bed with a smile.
“I know what you mean about life being close to but not exactly the way you imagined it, Kev,” Greg says. It’s just the three of them left now, nursing their drinks. “I knew I’d be a lawyer, but I thought I’d be a public defender, doing the good work, the dirty work, the hero’s work, but … It was so little money for so much thankless, constant work, and some of my defendants were so goddamn guilty I just had to quit at a certain point, the ideal wore away and reality set in, didn’t it?”
“That’s exactly what I meant,” Kevin says, nodding. “I knew I’d be a family man, and I am, but I’m also not even living in my own house for half the week.” Kevin shrugs. “You’ve got to live life the way it comes at you, I guess.”
“And try not to lose your ideals, but good luck, because it’s pretty tough.”
“Maybe for you guys!” Sam joins in, hoping to lighten the mood again. “Here I am, the movie star I always wanted to be and happy every day! Or wait, did I say half-stoned generic TV actor? Sure I did, it’s the dream come true.”
Kevin laughs and downs the rest of his drink after that and says goodnight to Greg and Sam. Then there are two.
Greg gets up, but doesn’t move for the stairs, instead he moves closer to Sam and sits down on his lap in the big sweetheart armchair Sam is starting to melt into as the Ambien takes hold of him. Greg wraps his arms around Sam and kisses him on the mouth, with tongue.
“Well, hello,” Sam says when they part. Greg’s easily one of the top five best-looking people Sam has ever met, and he’s in the acting industry, he sees attractive people all the time. Greg kisses him again, longer this time, and Sam responds better, putting one hand on one of Greg’s beautiful cheekbones, his gorgeous face, and the other hand on his upper thigh.
“What do you say to sleeping in my bed tonight?” Greg asks.
“How much sleep will we actually be getting?”
“Hopefully very little,” Greg says with a twitch of his eyebrows, suggestively.
“Are you serious?” Sam asks. He hasn’t stopped smiling since Greg came over and started flirting with him like this—they’ve never been more than friends before. Sure, they got drunk and made out a bit before falling asleep in the same bed once, and did the same in a tent when they went camping one spring break, but they never actually got below the waist, they were just friendly and practicing on each other. What’s going on now?
“I am serious, but there’s an ulterior motive,” Greg says. “I love you, buddy, you know I do, but not exactly like this, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Are you just messing with me?”
“I’m not messing with you. I love you and I trust you, but I’ve never been in love with anyone yet. Honestly, Sam, I’m tired of waiting. It’s first come love then comes the baby, right? Okay, well love is taking too long. We’re not that young anymore, I’m almost too old to have a baby safely at all, and like we were saying earlier: you’ve got to live life as it comes at you, right? So I’m here, I’m here with the best men I know, men I’d trust with my life, my money, and my future child’s genes, you know? I’m not asking you for a ring and child support or anything, I’ve already got enough money to send this kid to college twice, it’s not that. I’m just asking you for a donation—you know, a favor for a friend. What do you say?”
Even without the Ambien dragging him down and making him useless as a stud, Sam has to say no to this request. He really hopes he does this without embarrassing either one of them.
“Ah, Gorgeous Greg, I can’t. I mean that literally, I can’t get you pregnant. I can’t get anyone pregnant—I had a vasectomy ten years ago. I didn’t want to trust my seed to luck, you know? What if I hook up with someone who gets pregnant and thinks, pay day! Now the guy on TV owes me and this kid support for life?”
Greg’s face falls, but he doesn’t look that heart-broken, just bummed out. “Rats,” he says. “You were at the top of my list. There’s always Jeff, of course, but I mean come on, he’s Jeff, I don’t know how much of him I want to see in my own kid. Next up I guess I’m asking Kevin and Glenn if one of them won’t be a sperm donor. Obviously I don’t want to go messing around in their marriage though, so I don’t know if I can even ask that of Glenn. They’ve already made two great kids between them though, they might be my best bet at this point, but then again … it would have been so much easier with you, too.”
Greg is talking to himself as much as he’s talking to Sam now, he’s thinking out loud, and his thoughts are complicated, more complicated than Sam can really grasp right now. He tries to deflect with more humor.
“Hey, I’d still be happy to fuck you, Greg, it would just be for recreation and not procreation, you know?”
Greg laughs and kisses Sam on the cheek. “Thanks, funny guy, but let’s just stay friends, then. You’re about to pass out anyway; is Ambien a horse tranquilizer or something? Come on, let me take you up to your room so you don’t fall and crack your head on the stairs. One more death in this house and you know Glenn would just have to kill us all and be done with it, blood messing up his nice carpet.”
Greg leaps up and holds out his hand for Sam to take, to escort him to bed. His single bed.
“Gorgeous Greg, my morbid Greg, thanks, pal,” Sam says. He really is pretty woozy and appreciates the help.
4. Jeff Answers the Phone
Jeff is late to his date with Julian and has to go on a hunt for him. It’s not that the traffic was so busy out in leaf land up here, but he was caught up eavesdropping on the gossip between Greg and Glenn during the early Sunday baking that he lost track of time!
Glenn and Kevin, though they seem like the power couple they’ve always been, the core couple of the group, aren’t as perfect as they seem. Or, they’re perfectly perfect, Jeff has always thought so, but their relationship isn’t perfect, and that isn’t even their fault, it’s just their circumstances. Suddenly Jeff is almost happy he’s been serially single most of his life … almost. He doesn’t like being single so much that he meant to miss his date, but the gossip between two best friends was just so juicy, Jeff forgot that time even existed.
Glenn went fir
st: “You know, I sometimes wonder what we’re even doing. I mean, I know what we’re doing, we’re together and raising a family, but we’re not together enough. We’ve fallen into this weird catch-22 where in order to afford to be a family we have to live apart, it’s maddening. At least once a month we talk about selling the house and moving the family to Texas, but we don’t want to live in Texas, and that job doesn’t have to be forever, eventually an opportunity will open up to bring him back here, but how long is that going to take?”
“Right, and it’s not like you can replace the kids’ childhoods, or put those off; they’re happening right now, and if Kevin’s hardly here during these years specifically . . .”
“Exactly, Greg, you get it, you think just like a parent. Hey, Jeff, could you put this in the fridge and pull down another bowl from that cabinet above it? Thanks.”
Jeff was loitering near the kitchen, waiting to be summoned to help, and he saw Greg smile upon being told he thought like a parent. Jeff was up on his tippy toes reaching for the bowl Glenn wanted when Greg lowered his voice a bit and delivered some gossip of his own.
“I’ve got to tell you, and Jeff this is going to be weird for you to hear, but don’t go getting any ideas … I was hoping that this weekend, I might actually conceive a child.”
Jeff’s eyes bugged out, and he remained rummaging for Glenn’s bowl for way longer than was necessary, just because he couldn’t believe what he was hearing and didn’t know how to react to it.
“What do you mean?” Glenn asked.
“I mean that as much as I’d like a man in my life, and need one for at least one night to get what I want, I don’t need a man. I’ve been looking for a long time, but just like we were saying, the timeline matters. If I wait for the first love, then marriage, then baby sequence, I’m going to wait too long to be the father I want to be. I want to be young enough to run around with the kids, and I want more than one, too, you know? If I start now I’ve still got time to get those kids the way I want them, but I really have to start now, and the relationship be damned. It’s not like I’ll never find love if I have some kids first, I can pick up some hot widower dad, we can marry our fortunes together someday, right? We’ll be the Brady Bunch or something, I’m not worried about that, but I am worried that if I don’t act now I won’t ever be able to meet my own kids, and I . . .”