by Mel Gough
The patio doors are thrown wide. Against all odds, the weather has improved, and the day settles into a bearable summer warmth.
“We could’ve gone to the Botanical Gardens after all,” Maria sighs, glaring at the sunshine streaming in through the windows. “Now I have this mess in the house!”
Just then, there’s a crash and a shriek from the kitchen. Maria expels a sharp breath. “What now?” she mutters, and leaves Brad standing in the hallway with the gifts still clutched in his arms. He turns toward the living room again, but then the doorbell rings. Not wanting any newcomers to cool their heels on the stoop as he just did, Brad hurries to open the door.
“Neal,” he says in surprise when the new arrivals are revealed. “Eric!”
His partner beams at him. “Hey Brad! I had no idea this was where we were going.” He nods at his husband. “Neal has just made partner at Peter’s firm. I didn’t put two and two together until we pulled up outside.”
“Come on in, guys,” Brad says and steps aside. Neal holds out his hand, smiling.
“Hi Brad. The world is small, huh?”
Brad shakes the offered hand. He likes Neal. He’s good for Eric, even if they’re an unlikely pair. With his salt-and-pepper hair, his George Clooney good looks and the tailored suits he prefers, Neal tends to look out of place in the midst of Eric’s much younger friends. But he’s a kind man, quiet and sociable. And today, among his new partner’s acquaintances, he’ll be much less conspicuous than Brad and Eric, even without wearing his tailored suit.
Brad is about to move them into the dining room, but just then two small boys come shooting into the hall. Their little faces are flushed, and the knees of their jeans are green and muddy from playing in the yard.
“Uncle Brad!” one of them yells. “You brought us presents?”
“Hey, buddy,” Brad says as Kyle barrels into his legs. He crouches down and hugs the boy, who squirms in his arms like an excited puppy. Then he hands him the gift that contains a toy car. “Happy birthday!”
He holds the other box out to Jay, who is the quieter of the twins. Jay beams and grabs the box. “Thanks, Uncle Brad!”
Neal crouches down too and holds a smaller box out to each of the boys. “Here you are, guys,” he says.
“Thank you,” the twins say in unison. Then they’re off, whooping and laughing, to unwrap their gifts.
Brad straightens up, and he, Eric, and Neal make it into the living room at last. The furniture has been moved against the walls to fit a number of tall bar tables, a temporary bar, and a DJ mixing desk. About a dozen adults stand and sit around, chatting. Despite her grumblings, Maria loves entertaining, and has taken the excuse of the twins’ birthday to put on a get-together the adults will enjoy, too.
Maria hurries through a side door, her eyes wide. “Eric!” she exclaims. “I thought I recognized that voice!” She turns to Neal. “So you are Peter’s new partner! I can’t believe that penny didn’t drop sooner. So good to meet you!” She waves at the open door. “Peter is out there at the BBQ. He’s having so much fun, I’m almost glad the caterers couldn’t spare anyone to flip burgers.”
The doorbell rings again, and Maria sighs. “Go help yourselves to drinks,” she says as she hurries away. “Peter will let everyone know when the meat is burnt…I mean, lunch is ready.”
She hurries away again, and Brad leads the way to the bar, behind which a young man in a white shirt and bow tie hands out drinks. They each ask for a beer, then retreat into the garden, where it’s no less noisy, but the entertainment is better. More than half a dozen kids between five and ten play soccer. Jay waves at Brad. “Come play, Uncle Brad!” he yells.
“Soon as I finish this,” Brad calls back, lifting his beer.
“I’ll play,” Neal says, grinning. He hands Eric his own beer and pulls off his light sweater. Then he jogs over to the boys, who absorb him into their team.
Brad and Eric find two garden chairs nearby and sit down. Eric watches Neal, a smile on his face. “I had wondered why he said yes to a kiddie party,” he muses. “Now I know.”
“Neal has a son, too, doesn’t he?” Brad asks. Eric nods, his face now glum.
“Michelle moved Sean to Philly a couple months ago.” He sighs. “Neal misses him so much.”
Brad looks at Eric, feeling a great sadness. It’s easy to forget that he’s not the only one with problems.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know.”
Eric shrugs. “Why would you? I haven’t exactly shouted it from the rooftops that this year’s been shit. Neal and Sean just spent a week in Disneyland for Sean’s eleventh birthday. They had a lot of fun, but I think Neal misses him more than ever now.”
“Why didn’t you go with them?” Brad asks. “I wouldn’t have minded you taking a week off.”
The lines around Eric’s mouth grow hard. “Michelle prefers me not to be around the kid. Guess it’s easier to forget your husband left you for another man when you don’t have that guy shoved in your face.” He shakes his head and rubs his eyes. “It’s all a bit fucked up right now. Before Neal and Sean went away, we were considering adopting, or a surrogate. He hasn’t mentioned it once since he’s been back.”
Brad isn’t sure what to say. Anything that comes out of his mouth will be trite now. But saying nothing seems the wrong thing, too. “Give him time,” he says, touching his knee to Eric’s for a moment. “He loves you, and that still counts for something. And,” he nudges Eric a bit harder. “You’ll be a great dad, when the time’s right.”
Eric gives a wan but grateful smile. “You and Aiden ever thought about it?” His eyes grow wide and he looks apologetic. “I mean, before…shit, Brad, I’m sorry. I forgot for a moment.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Brad says. “He’s still part of my past, and I’m not going to pretend we never happened.” He’s silent for a moment, then makes himself answer the question. “We talked about it a lot, early on. Then things…”
“Got complicated,” Eric supplies. “Yeah, I know.” There’s a small pause, then Eric adds, “Have you heard from him?”
Brad hesitates. He has tried to forget about the mystery phone call the night before, but it still weighs on his mind. “Actually, I had a strange call last night,” he admits. “There was someone at the other end, but they never spoke. They didn’t try again, and when I rang back there was no answer.”
“Was it a New York number?” Eric asks.
“Yeah.”
“And you think it was Aiden?” When Brad nods, he adds, “You’re worried something is wrong.”
“Yeah,” Brad admits. “And I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know the people he used to hang out with before we met. I don’t know if he’s still in touch with any of them. He never was when his depression got so bad…”
He stops, not looking at Eric. He can’t put it into words, that feeling of helplessness that he always gets when he remembers Aiden and his illness. But he has to try. This has been haunting him for weeks, and since last night he can’t stop thinking about it. Maria would listen to him, of course, but she’s too close for comfort.
“I worry about him so much. He was in a very bad place when we broke it off.” He takes a deep breath. “Do you think I should try to find him?” he asks. “It’s not gonna be hard.”
“Do you want to?” Eric asks.
“I don’t know.” Brad rubs his face, staring across the yard, not seeing the kids running around like balls in a ping pong machine. “Something’s still…open, and it drains me.”
“Do you want him back?”
“No.” Brad has thought about it again since last night, and there’s no doubt in his mind about that. “That ship’s sailed. I just want…”
“Closure,” Eric supplies.
“And to see that he’s landed on his feet, yeah.”
Just then, Peter’s two-year-old nephew Theo toddles toward them from the house. He carries a football clutched against his chest. The ball is
almost as long as his whole body, and Brad can’t help smiling. Theo giggles, his little legs running as quickly as they can. When he reaches the lawn, he trips and goes sprawling.
Brad is out of his chair and by Theo’s side before the little guy can even get over the shock enough to start bawling. He snatches Theo off the ground just as the boy’s face contorts with shock and pain. “Hey, little man,” he says, bouncing Theo. “No need to start a racket, you’re all good.”
Natalie, Theo’s mom, hurries across the patio. “I’m sorry,” she pants over Theo’s howls. “He’s too fast for me sometimes.”
“Don’t worry,” Brad says, still rocking Theo, whose sobs quieten now. “He just got a little shock, and grassy knees.”
Natalie smiles. “Thanks,” she says as Brad hands the toddler over. “You got him to shut up in record time. You’ve got a knack for this, I think.”
Clutching her son against herself, Natalie goes back into the house.
Brad returns to his chair and picks up his almost empty beer. Eric gives him a funny look.
“What?” Brad asks, disconcerted.
“You shouldn’t stop looking, you know,” Eric says, grinning. “For Mr. Right.”
“Who says I have?” Brad asks, a little harsher than intended.
Eric raises his hands in mock surrender. “Just don’t, is all I’m saying.”
14
Brad has just finished his first coffee when Eric stops by. He perches on the edge of Brad’s desk and leans down.
“Now, don’t fly off the handle,” he says, with a peremptory calming motion of his hands. “But I asked around a bit, and I found out where Aiden lives now.”
Brad says nothing. It’s not a surprise. He’s unsure what he feels, but it’s not anger. Brad’s mood on the weekend prompted Eric into action. He likes a challenge, and he loves helping others. And Brad signalled that he’d appreciate some help.
“Is he back in Queens?” Brad asks at last.
Eric nods. He pulls his notebook from the back pocket of his jeans and rips off the top page. “It’s where you first met, right?”
Brad takes the paper and glances at it. On it, in Eric’s neat hand, is the address of the art collective where Aiden lived and worked before moving into the brownstone. Brad folds the paper and puts it in his pocket. “Yeah, it is.”
“Do you think you’ll see him?” Eric asks in a low voice.
Brad takes his time before answering. “Probably,” he says at last, and glances up at Eric. “Thank you,” he adds. “I mean it.”
The building looks much worse in the daylight. Brad had never been back to the collective after he and Aiden first met there. Seeing the Dumpsters and piles of trash in the back alleys he wonders if Aiden didn’t engineer it so Brad would never come here again.
He walks past a wide-open loading bay, which he remembers is the entrance to the exhibition space. The warehouse beyond it is empty now. No show is on, and the space looks even more dismal and forlorn that way. Brad wonders how the art collective survives.
On the piece of paper Eric gave him there’s a line of directions below the address:
Entrance to apartments located next to event space. Doorbell #3, Sydney White.
Brad spots the doorway with a dirty orange door. There are four buzzers. Brad presses #3. After a few seconds, the door clicks open.
The hallway is dark and shabby. The carpet on the stairs shows wear from many feet and gives off a musty smell. This must’ve once been the administrative office belonging to the warehouse.
As he climbs the stairs, Brad’s nerves start to buzz. According to Sydney, who Eric spoke to, Aiden isn’t averse to seeing Brad. But maybe he should’ve at least sent a text. Though as he contemplates this, Brad realizes that he doesn’t have a current number for Aiden. He deleted the one from the strange call—if that even was Aiden.
The numbering of the living units isn’t intuitive. Apartment #1 is on the second floor, then Brad has to climb three more flights of stairs before he comes to another landing with doors that look like they lead into residential dwellings. One of those doors is open, and Aiden stands in it.
“Hey,” Brad says. He stops on the stairs.
Aiden looks down at him, unsmiling. His face is narrower than Brad remembers, and his tall, lanky frame even skinnier than when he left. When deep in a depressive phase, Aiden always stops eating.
“Hey Brad,” he finally replies. “Come in.”
He retreats into the apartment. Brad climbs the last few steps and follows.
They’re in a large studio room, bright and airy, and cleaner than Brad expected. There isn’t a lot of furniture, and what Brad can see all looks cheap and functional. Two narrow doors lead to, Brad assumes, the bathroom and the kitchen.
“Drink?” Aiden asks, turning toward the left-hand door.
“No thanks.” Brad’s throat is so tight, he won’t be able to swallow anything.
Against the far wall lean several canvases. Brad indicates them. “You working on those?”
“Yeah.” Aiden’s voice is soft, and a small smile appears on his lips. “I started painting again a few weeks ago.”
Brad now recognizes the clothes Aiden wears—a faded Eraserhead T-shirt, washed-out blue jeans, and trainers. He looks showered and has brushed his hair. This is a good sign. Aiden leaves the house in those clothes. If he were in a deep slump he’d be in grubby sweatpants and barefoot.
They stand for a moment, the silence straining between them.
“I’m sorry, I…,” Brad begins, but then doesn’t know how to proceed. I’m sorry, what? He’s sorry for a lot of things. “That I didn’t come sooner,” he settles on, wincing at how inadequate that sounds.
“I didn’t want you to,” Aiden replies, looking away. He walks over to a futon that sits under the window, folded up for the day. A pile of blankets and pillows is stacked neatly beside it. He sits down, then looks at Brad with a raised eyebrow. Brad goes over to the single armchair, standing at right angles with the futon, and sits down, too. There’s no coffee table.
“When Eric called Sydney,” Aiden begins, “I was going to tell her I didn’t want to see you.”
Brad says nothing at first. Aiden’s eyes, dark blue and so familiar, are on him without heat. His gaze is a little clouded and unfocused. His hair has grown out somewhat and falls in soft curls around his too narrow face. Not long until it will be as long as when Brad first spotted him on the exhibition floor below.
“Why did you change your mind?” he makes himself ask, unsure he wants to know the answer. Aiden’s expression doesn’t change.
“My therapist told me to get closure. And I’m glad I said yes.”
Brad feels his mood lift. Aiden is seeing a therapist. Maybe it’ll work this time. Sounds like he’s trying, at least. “How’s therapy?” he asks.
Aiden shrugs. “Same as usual,” he says. Before Brad’s buoyant mood can sink again, he adds, “But I’m sticking with it. I feel okay. Different, but okay.” He looks at the canvases again, and the smile is back. “That’s not happened before.” Aiden has never been able to paint while on medication.
“I’m so glad,” Brad says, finding the words inadequate. “Really, I am.”
Aiden appraises Brad again. There’s something working behind his eyes, but Brad knows that it’s hard for Aiden to formulate the right emotional response when taking antidepressants. “It wasn’t ever you,” Aiden finally says. “I hope you know that.”
“Of course I do,” Brad says. It’s the quick, knee-jerk response, dissimulating and keeping Aiden calm. Don’t cause upset. Brad means the words, though. He knows it’s the illness, and neither of them, that’s to blame. But still, he sounds fake to himself. “I wanted to see how you are.” This isn’t any better, but he’s out of words. He desperately wants a cigarette. Previously, when in therapy, Aiden always smoked. But now no cigarettes or ashtrays are in evidence.
“I appreciate it,” Aiden says. “But Brad…”<
br />
“I’m not here to ask you to come back,” Brad says. That sounds all wrong. “I mean…”
“No, no,” Aiden shakes his head. “I know…I hoped that wasn’t why you came.” He looks down at his hands folded in his lap. “The guy I was, when…the guy you loved…that guy who loved you, he’s gone.” His voice is choked and barely audible, and Brad knows what it has cost Aiden to say that.
It hurts to hear, but Brad knows it’s true. It’s more than just time that has changed Aiden. The depression, the mania, the drugs, and the anorexic phases, they all have had an impact on his brain. He can’t come back from it, even if he comes through it.
They talk about trivialities for a few minutes more, the words stilted and sticky like syrup. Then Brad takes his leave. They say goodbye with an awkward hug, and Brad feels tears sting his eyes as he holds that body, so familiar and fragile, one last time. He finds it hard to let go.
On the way back to the subway, Brad lets the sun warm his face. He’s glad he came, even though it was a difficult visit. But he’s seen what he came to see. Aiden is getting better, even if it’s slow. He’s trying, and, under the circumstances, that’s as much as they can hope for.
15
At first, Viv is ecstatic to be back in LA. Filming moves, almost without interruption, into the lot at Universal Studios that Victor has rented. Studio filming means indoor shoots and air-conditioning, a vast improvement over the heat and dust in the desert.
But Damien’s role only requires another five days of shooting, a lot of fight sequences in front of green screen, in which Viv has no part. She spends one more wonderful afternoon in his company while they shoot the illicit love scene that takes place in the Empress’s boudoir. Knowing that Victor is behind the camera while she and Damien reenact what they did for real in Vegas gives Viv a special thrill.