“Hey,” said Luz, finding Peter at one of the aluminum tables outside on the terrace, overlooking the marina. She was in a dark suit, as were most of the well-starched, young financial types who packed the place.
“Hey, ” said Peter.
“How’s it going?” She parked her briefcase and patted Peter collegially on the shoulder, as she sat down.
“Oh, you know, it’s going. Thanks for coming.”
“No problem. What are you drinking?”
“Vodka.”
“Good, me too.” She looked around for a waiter.
“I’m feeling kind of in a weird spot,” said Peter, after the waiter had taken Luz’s order.
“Talk to me,” she said.
“I’m in love. I think he is, too, or at least has feelings for me. I think things were going really well between us. I mean, things are going well. . . .”
“OK.”
“They are going well, right? You don’t know anything I don’t know.”
Luz laughed.
“I don’t know what you know,” she said. “But I don’t think he’s breaking up with anyone, if that’s what you mean.”
“Thank God.”
“You guys communicate pretty well, as I understand it. He wouldn’t just walk away, unilaterally, in silence.”
“No, I know. So what’s going on, then? What’s he doing?”
“He’s thinking.”
“About what, may I ask? Can you say?”
“Yeah, I can say. He’s thinking about whether he has the right to demand anything of you.”
“Demand anything?”
“He respects you, Peter. He can’t demand that you give up a job, so I think he’s trying to figure out how he can coexist with you.”
“Oh.”
“File it under ‘New Relationship Stuff.’ It’s as hard for Will as it is for anyone to suddenly have this new person to alternately respect and challenge. I should say simultaneously respect and challenge.”
“Hmm.”
“Plus, maybe it’s harder for Will. I don’t think he’s ever been as close to a guy as he is to you, and he doesn’t want to fuck a good thing up.”
Peter sighed.
“That’s a relief,” he said.
“I’m glad,” said Luz. “Now, it’s not for me to say what you should do, Peter, but if you were my client I’d recommend you don’t fuck up a good thing, either. I think you and Will are pretty good together.”
Peter smiled.
“I know,” he said. “I have to do something.”
The waiter came with Luz’s drink. Peter ordered a second.
“You hungry?” he said.
“I’m fine, thanks,” said Luz.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Peter, handing the waiter the menus. “Except maybe I do.”
They made a wordless toast and took a sip.
“I’m a little lost, Luz,” said Peter. “Lost for words, lost in time. In the bad old days they used to refer to gay men as ‘Peter Pans’—you know, not wanting to grow up or something. But I have to say honestly I feel a bit that way. Always have. Suspended between infancy and old age. Not quite sure what grown-up is. That’s part of what’s going on.”
Luz smiled and nodded.
“I can remember hearing Chubby Checker for the first time and knowing that the Twist was the future,” continued Peter. “Very exciting stuff for a boy who was, like, seven. And every moment since then that was also the future, also exciting, I can remember. And all those moments feel scattered in the middle of something, not . . . lined up on some directional path. Do you know what I mean? Most of the time I can’t see a direction, a spot that everything points to, and most of the time that’s OK, ’cause it’s all kinda floaty good. But suddenly . . . it isn’t good. I’m trying to see a direction now, for dear life. Like when you get knocked over by a wave in the ocean and you don’t know which end is up. Even my job, for Christ’s sake, in this thing we merrily call ‘the media,’ supposedly in the middle between the mind and the world. The media. Sometimes it feels like that’s all there is nowadays, this middle zone. No mind, no world.”
Luz patiently let Peter ramble. He spoke of Harold and Nick and his expectation of a “third husband.” He explained that over the years, without a partner, he’d distracted himself from loneliness with the achievements of an illustrious career that was built partly on his feelings about the future. In the absence of love, work took over—and that was a kind of direction. He knew he was the luckiest man in the universe to have found Will, and would do anything to keep him, but was having trouble making room for this particular future now, and was shocked and ashamed to find this so.
“In the middle of everything,” muttered Peter, “central to nothing.”
The sun was low over the Jersey City skyline, barely peeking over a stand of skyscrapers that had cropped up in what some New York chauvinists deemed “the last five minutes.”
“Are you saying,” said Luz finally, “that you think it has to be between Will and your job, and that you don’t know how to choose?”
Peter dropped his head and said nothing.
“Well, let me ask you this,” said Luz, “and maybe this is the lawyer in me, too. Can’t you just step away?”
“From what, my job?”
“From this assignment. Say you got hit by a bus, God forbid. Would your company lose the account?”
Peter had to think a moment.
“No, I don’t think we would lose the account. Though it’s me, to some degree, that they want.”
“Again, forgive me—I don’t want to be presumptuous—but couldn’t your team or the process go on without you?”
“Maybe they could. I dunno. I guess they could.”
“All I am saying is that maybe there’s a way for you to step aside, if you really dislike this guy as much as Will says you do. And, Peter, you’ve said it yourself—I’ve heard you, at dinner. . . .”
“I know. I have.”
“Anyway, I’m sure you’re weighing all the options.”
“I’m trying to,” said Peter, wistfully. In front of them, in the marina, a small party of passengers was boarding an eighty-foot schooner for some kind of dinner cruise. More young people in the money business.
“You know, advertising is funny,” he mused. “You have to create work that answers a client’s business needs, always—the bottom line. But to be a real success in this business you also have to get inside a client’s head, be able to intuit their deepest emotional connections to the product, the brand, the mission. It’s an entirely different talent from the work itself.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I’ve always been proud to get a little symbiotic with my clients. I love being able to mind-meld with their urgencies. It’s a little mystical, this talent, and it tends to foster what we in the industry very smugly assume to be an advanced kind of ethics. . . .”
Peter shook his head and Luz nodded in understanding.
“I never encountered a downside to this talent,” said Peter, “though I’ve often wondered if there could be one.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Luz.
“I guess maybe I’m encountering one now.”
“Maybe you are.”
Peter thought for a moment.
“He really likes me that much?” he said.
“He really likes you that much,” said Luz.
“Does he miss me?”
“I think he does. Yeah, for sure he does.”
Peter made a small, joyous sound like a whinny, then took a swig of his vodka.
“I don’t wanna fuck this up, Luz,” he said. “On top of everything, it might be my last shot.”
“I hear ya.”
“So how should I handle it? And I’m so grateful for your help. Do I show up at his doorstep? Do I send flowers to the office? Do I just wait for him to reach out? I mean, I think he and I should be talking. . . .”
“Talking is good. Ask him to talk.”
“Again?”
“Again and again. At some point he’ll say yes and you’ll talk. You could send flowers, too.”
“Right.”
“Good.”
“Thank you, Luz.”
“No problem.”
The party on the schooner had already started. Even as guests were still boarding, the folks on deck were toasting, schmoozing.
“Did he know you were coming to meet me?” said Peter.
“Of course,” said Luz.
“How does he look?”
“How does he look? It’s only been a few days. He looks the same.”
“I miss those eyes, that little laugh.”
“I know what you miss.”
“Yeah, that, too.”
Peter drove upstate to see Jonathan alone. Except for a little news from the radio, the drive was silent—no music. Arriving in Hudson early and stopping for coffee at a diner on Warren Street, Peter thought bitterly how odd it was that people could be strolling blithely down the street, looking in shop windows, while someone precious lay dying, under something called “palliative care,” just a few miles away. He felt remote from the diner’s morning bustle and found himself remembering, as he thanked his waitress with robotic cheer, the way when he was in high school TV sitcoms would roll out normally even on the nights before a test that was destined to annihilate him.
Aldebar greeted him soberly at the door of the house and showed him up to Jonathan’s room.
“He’s in and out,” said Aldebar quietly, before they went in. “The moods come and go very fast.”
“OK,” said Peter.
Inside, Jonathan was installed in a hospital bed that had been brought in to replace his regular one. He was sitting up, propped by a mountain of pillows, wearing the embroidered red cap he was wearing on the night of his housewarming. There was an IV line in his arm, running up to a bag on a pole. In a chair next to him was Sofia, a kind-looking older woman with a tight-tight bun of black-black hair.
“Look who’s come to see you,” said Sofia, standing and smiling a greeting toward Peter.
Jonathan raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth slightly, as if ready to greet a guest as soon as someone appeared or was identified.
“Hi, Jon,” said Peter, approaching. But Jonathan still didn’t appear to recognize him.
“It’s Peter, Jonathan,” said Aldebar.
“Oh, Peter,” said Jonathan. His breathing was shallow. He could barely raise his arm but motioned toward the chair where Sofia had been sitting. “Come . . .”
“If you need anything, we’re right here,” said Aldebar, slipping out with Sofia.
Peter had resolved to stay upbeat for his friend, but he started sobbing the moment he took Jonathan’s skeletal hand, its skin translucent and markedly unpink, and bent forward to kiss it.
“How are you feeling, Jon?” said Peter, sitting back and making an effort to regroup. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you.”
“Peter . . .”
“Hi.”
“OK.”
“How are you feeling?”
Jonathan raised a hand feebly, as if to stop Peter.
“Let me say this while I can,” whispered Jonathan. “I love you and want to thank you for everything. Your friendship meant the world to me.”
The room was very still. Jonathan’s voice may have been soft, but it commanded authority. The words were a surprise for Peter, and he saw they must have taken some strength, or resolve, to summon. Maybe they’d been rehearsed?
“No need to thank me for anything,” said Peter. Then he paused. It was hard for him to say so little, since the moment was fraught and he had thought of so much else to say, on the drive up. But he wanted to make sure Jonathan could say anything he wanted to say, without the effort of interrupting or waiting for Peter to finish.
“Love you,” repeated Jonathan.
“Love you, too,” said Peter. “Always.”
“Sometimes . . . sometimes I get confused,” said Jonathan. “I think Roberto is here.” A twitch of the mouth seemed to mark the spot where a laugh would have been. “They know how to handle me, but . . . I like it when he comes.”
“He’s always right here,” said Peter, tapping the center of his chest.
“Yes.”
Peter noticed a splendid arrangement of tulips and lilies near the window and asked who sent them. Jonathan said he didn’t know. Peter asked if anyone else had come to see him and Jonathan said no—no one but Roberto.
“Aldebar says Connor’s been coming to see you.”
“Who?”
“Connor Frankel.”
“He reads to me.”
“What does he read?”
“Oh . . . ,” said Jonathan, gesturing toward the night table, where a copy of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets lay next to a box of Kleenex.
“Really? Eliot?”
“I know what to make of it.”
“You know those poems very well, don’t you?”
“Mmhh.”
“I forget which one is your favorite.”
Jonathan didn’t respond, and after a minute Peter saw that he’d drifted off to sleep. It didn’t feel like an emergency, so Peter just sat there. Several minutes passed, during which the only sound was a small click and whir made by a machine attached to Jonathan’s IV line, which Peter supposed signaled the dispersal of a dose of morphine.
Peter was shocked at how little of his formerly vital friend remained, yet what Aldebar said was true: Something essential still remained, something congenital. It was a gift to be able to behold it, even in flashes, if under such terrible circumstances.
Presently, Jonathan awoke with an anguished whimper.
“Aaah!”
“Jon, I’m here,” said Peter.
“Achh . . . What?” said Jonathan, grimacing, looking frantically about.
“It’s Peter—I’m right here.”
Jonathan’s breathing was heavier. Then he seemed to focus.
“I dreamed I was at the wrong gate,” he said.
“You did?”
Jonathan sighed.
“They told me . . . they told me I was going someplace that didn’t exist,” he said.
Peter didn’t know what else to do but tenderly stroke the top of Jonathan’s hand.
“Well, right now you’re exactly where you should be,” said Peter. “You’re safe at home.”
“Water, please,” said Jonathan, adjusting his position so he was a bit more upright. The grimace was gone.
Peter looked around and saw a sippy cup on the table.
“Is this water?” he said.
Yes, nodded Jonathan, outstretching both hands in an almost infantile way. Peter inspected the cup, just to make sure it was water, then gave it to Jonathan, who drank and then handed back the cup.
“Help me . . . ,” said Jonathan, still trying to adjust himself. Peter repositioned a pillow and smiled sadly when he noticed how nicely Jonathan’s favorite Black Tourmaline cologne married with the scent of freshly laundered cotton sheets. The patient was clearly being well taken care of.
“Better,” said Jonathan. He sat there for a moment, surveying the room almost contentedly. Then he looked at Peter and said, “OK, present and accounted for.”
“You feel OK?”
“For the moment. It’s horrible. I know when I’m not making sense, then I slip into it. We don’t know if it’s the drugs or the disease. It’s like a roller coaster.”
“Do you need anything?”
“Only my life back.”
Peter nodded. “If I only could, dear friend,” he said.
“Nice shirt,” said Jonathan.
“Oh, thanks,” said Peter, raising an arm to model a blue-and-green-striped sleeve. “Paul Smith.”
Jonathan nodded.
“My body finally betrayed me, Petey,” he said. “Payback for Vietnam.”
“What?” said Peter. “How so?”
“I kille
d people.”
Peter knew that his friend had been drafted and seen action during the war, but was uncertain of what kind of response was called for now. Jonathan had never been open to sharing details of the experience.
“I don’t think . . . ,” he began.
“I never questioned enough,” said Jonathan. “I should have gone to Canada.”
Where was this coming from?
“It was a very confusing time,” said Peter.
“My parents supported the war; we couldn’t afford a lawyer. . . .”
“This was all before NYU. . . .”
“I tried to forgive myself,” said Jonathan. “I guess maybe the universe didn’t forgive me.”
Why was he thinking about Vietnam, after all these years?
“You did the best you could, Jon, and you went on to do even better,” said Peter. “That’s all anybody can do.”
“I guess so. . . .”
Jonathan went silent again, and this time, after a moment, Peter saw that he was weeping.
“No Fire Island this year, Petey,” he sobbed.
Peter rose and embraced Jonathan gently, leaning over him in an approximation of a hug. They remained that way for a few seconds, and Peter gave Jonathan’s ear and the side of his face a gentle caress.
“That place is boring, anyway,” said Peter.
Weak laughter emerged out of Jonathan’s sobbing.
“I know,” he said. “We always hated it, didn’t we?”
“Too much alcohol, too many nipples!”
“Well, good-bye!”
Both men were laughing, as Peter resumed his seat and Jonathan adjusted himself further and coughed a bit.
“You OK there?” said Peter.
“I’m fine,” said Jonathan. “Morphine is my new best friend.” Vietnam seemed already forgotten.
Jonathan made more sense as they spoke about the daily routine that Aldebar and Sofia had established for him, what he could and couldn’t eat and keep down, and how he expected his memorial service to go. Peter initially pooh-poohed talk about the latter, but realized Jonathan needed to talk about it.
“I’m going for High Classical,” said Jonathan.
“A string quartet?” said Peter.
“Yes! Have I told you about it already?”
“No, but I know you.”
“And a tenor.”
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