by B. G. Thomas
Charlie wasn’t striking him that way.
“So, um, this show of yours today,” Charlie said. “It’s a little, um, different?”
Tory burst into laughter. “Um, yes. It is. This one is mostly for people who follow more… earth-based religions.”
“Earth-based?” Charlie asked.
“Pagans. Wiccans. Witches….”
“Witches?” Charlie looked around the room in surprise.
“I hope you’re not looking for green women with tall pointed black hats,” Tory said.
Charlie bit his lower lip. “Um…. Well. I guess I don’t know what I was looking for.”
Tory propped his elbow on the table, rested his chin on his hand, and leaned close to Charlie. “You’re not that naïve, are you?”
Charlie ducked his head.
“Did you know that you are absolutely adorable?” Tory asked him before he could stop himself.
What? First handsome? Now adorable? “I know you’re absolutely adorable,” Charlie stammered.
Tory grinned, and just as he was tempted to lean in and give Charlie a kiss, he got another customer.
Chapter Sixteen
SO CHARLIE sat back, almost trembling, and tried to relax.
Why am I acting like this? he asked himself. What is it about Tory that has me acting like a kid with his first crush? A kid! I’m forty-nine years old!
Wait a minute. A crush. I’ve got a crush on Tory!
A memory surfaced then, heavy and full and strong. Something he hadn’t thought about in a while. Quite a while actually.
Benedict “Buster” Brown. The wondrous basketball star of his high school and the crush he’d had on him. God! He had even looked a bit like Tory, hadn’t he? Slim, and with crazy hair. Blond, though, not brunet.
Everyone had worshipped Buster.
But it was him that Buster had kissed. In the bathroom during prom. If he hadn’t known before, he had in that incredible moment.
He was gay.
“The way you look at me,” Buster said. “God. If only Gina looked at me the way you do.”
Gina. His girlfriend.
“You almost make me wish I was gay,” he’d said and kissed him again, and Charlie had actually cum in his pants.
After that, there had been nothing more. Buster was never cruel. Never called him “fag” like a lot of the other jocks. But once in a great while, he’d catch Buster’s eye, or catch Buster looking at him, across a room.
But there never was another kiss.
And from that moment until today, there had never been a kiss like that. Certainly not with Kill… with Gerald.
But, God! When Tory had leaned so close to him! He could smell Tory’s breath, warm and minty, and he quite suddenly wanted to kiss that lovely mouth, touch his cheek, feel that closely trimmed facial hair, find out at last if it was soft or prickly. Wondered what it would feel like kissing that mouth. For a second there, he thought Tory was actually going to kiss him and he realized he forgot what they were talking about.
Somehow Tory transformed him into a giggling girl from a 1980s teen movie.
Maybe, Aunt Charlotte suggested, it’s because you never got to be a giggling teen from a 1980s teen movie. Maybe if Buster had just taken you into the stall and bent you over the toilet and banged the living hell out of you, you wouldn’t be stuck in that bathroom today, wondering if sex is good. You’d know how good sex can be. And Kill-Joy wasn’t good.
The thought was more than he could allow himself to think about. Too big.
So instead he watched Tory. Watched his sales technique. Was enchanted with it—so different from the method he would have used. How open Tory was. Charlie wished he could be that way. How “colorful” Tory was. A tad flashy without being overly flamboyant—the quality that had originally attracted Charlie to Gerald.
God! I’m not attracted to Tory because he reminds me of Gerald, am I?
Nonsense! Aunt Charlotte assured him. You have a “type.” Get over it! And relax. If you look at the way that boy is looking at you, I’d say he has a type too.
Whoa! Dare he hope that was true?
God! I’m not attracted to Tory because he reminds me of Buster, am I?
He also took the time to look at Tory’s wares. Some of them were the same as they’d been at Bells, Bows, and Beyond. But no Nativities. Nothing Christian. The focus was instead on statuettes of Greek and Roman gods and plates with the same stars that were on the signs outside. Realizing that, he said, “Pentagrams,” aloud.
Tory leaned into him again (which he could do any time he wanted as far as Charlie was concerned). “Pentacle seems to be the preferred term amongst the people I know,” he said. “And when it’s upside-down, that usually means Satanists, which is a whole different ballpark. Wiccans and Satanists get lumped together, and they shouldn’t. They’re not the same. Wiccans don’t even believe in Satan.”
“Really?” Charlie said.
He learned a lot about the crowd that hung out at Bright Blessings Bazaar that day. And he learned a bit about Tory too. Some very nice. Some sad.
“I haven’t talked to my parents or brother and sister in… over a decade,” Tory told him, his eyes faraway. “I got kicked out shortly after I had sex with a man the first time.”
That was part of the sad stuff.
“I’m not sure how they even found out. But I admitted it. And when I got home from my high school graduation, I found my bags and stuff packed on the front porch.”
“Jesus!” Charlie gasped.
“I chose to believe that Jesus didn’t have a thing to do with it,” Tory said with a sigh. “I like to believe I’m just the kind of guy ‘God’s son’ would have hung out with. He invited tax collectors and prostitutes into his club, didn’t he?”
Charlie admitted he wasn’t sure. His mother and father were atheists.
“You’re lucky you didn’t grow up with all that baggage,” Tory said.
Tory also told him how his travels had brought him to Kansas City after living in several different cities along the way. How he’d found Paloma’s ceramics classes, rediscovered something he’d loved in high school, and eventually bought her business.
That was part of the nice.
They also talked about Tory’s original pieces.
“I think you’re wasting your time with elves on shelves,” Charlie told Tory.
“Even an elf with your eyes?” Tory asked?
Which only made Charlie blush.
“I hear what you’re saying. It’s my biggest wish. But did you see the problem I had with my Holly King? I had to mark the price up with all the time it took. And I still paid myself half the minimum wage it the time it took. People want art, they just don’t want to pay it. But one day….”
That was some of the nicer.
Charlie told Tory a lot about his Aunt Charlotte that day.
How she had taken him and his mother in the first time his father had left for another woman. And then after he came back, after Charlie’s mother had totally forgiven him, how Charlie had gone to live with his aunt again when his mother went on the road with his father when he decided to become a trucker.
Charlie had rarely seen her after that, and when he was a freshman in high school, both his parents had died when the truck jackknifed on a dark country road.
That was some of the sad.
Charlie told Tory that he wouldn’t have made it without Aunt Charlotte. Somehow, she had filled his life with laughter and hope.
“She was my own personal Auntie Mame,” he said, grinning.
That was some nice.
“Although I guess she was a lot of people’s Auntie Mame.” Thinking of how her will had cleared out the house after she died, sending her possessions to the four winds and to countless relatives and friends.
“Kind of like our friend, Gay, huh?” Tory asked.
Charlie gave a little gasp. Something stuck in his throat at those words. He knew Gay had a lot of friends but
was finding there were far more than he’d ever realized.
“And a bunch of us are gay,” Tory added. “Gays for Gay!”
The “something” got bigger.
“But then that’s Gay. The woman has a lot of love to give. Especially to those who need love so badly.”
And then?
Why and then that something seemed to grow smaller.
“Gay is love,” Charlie whispered.
“Yes!” cried Tory. “Exactly!”
And that something—it was jealousy, wasn’t it?—seemed to grow even smaller.
“She’s not successful at making superstars just because she’s a good business woman,” Tory continued. “It’s her heart. She makes the world love her stars. Because she pours her love into them.”
Charlie nodded.
“Gay came along at a down time in my life,” Tory said. “It wasn’t just a bad day. It was bad days. Lots of them. I don’t know what I would have done had she not come along.”
God. “Me too,” Charlie said. “I don’t know what I would have done, had she not come into my life.”
“Auntie Mame,” Tory replied.
And Aunt Charlotte.
Whoa.
He gasped again.
And just like that, the something, that lump, that jealousy, that was stuck in his throat, was gone.
G.O.N.E. Gone.
AND LATER, he called Gay and asked her a question. “You know your friends, Taylor and Myles?”
“Y-yes,” she said, and damn, he could hear the caution in her voice.
Because I’ve been so jealous about them. Because I’ve always felt like I was in competition with them. When all you were doing was being love.
“You said they were going to go to your place for Christmas dinner but then—”
“Alejandro’s parents asked us to go to Spain with them….”
“Right,” Charlie said. “And you felt bad because—”
“I ditched out on them,” she said with a moan.
Charlie nodded. “Which is why I’m calling. I’m sure they’ve got plans already—”
“But they don’t.” She sighed. “They were supposed to go to New Orleans and spend the whole week with Myles’s manbo. That’s like his spiritual guide or something hoodoo! But it’s just not working out and Myles is brokenhearted about it, and I was wanting to give him a place that felt like community, you know? Family.”
“I do know,” Charlie said, although he had no idea what she meant by hoodoo. But hey, he knew a lot about witches now, and they weren’t what he thought. Why not hoodoo?
That’s when he asked her if he thought they might want to come spend Christmas with him and his friends.
The squeal of delight from her end of the phone said it all.
And one more bit of the last vestiges of darkness fled his soul.
THAT WAS when some of the not-so-good turned really great.
But best of all?
Tory hadn’t blinked an eye when Charlie told him he talked to his Aunt Charlotte all the time. In his head. Hadn’t called him crazy.
“I think you’re lucky,” Tory told him. “She really does live inside you, doesn’t she? Don’t you let anybody tell you any different.”
“I’ve never told anybody about her… talking to me,” Charlie said. He’d never told Gerald. No one.
And Tory’s eyes had filled with tears at those words.
“I am so honored. Thank you.”
That was some of the very nice.
There was a lot of that while they sat at that table at Bright Blessings Bazaar.
And the next weekend for Happy HoliGays, and the one after that for Holiday Treasures. It surprised Charlie. He wouldn’t have thought working craft shows was his thing. Of course, that first day it was mainly so he could be around Tory, but he soon found he was enjoying them for what they were. And it allowed him to see sides of Tory he might not have otherwise seen.
He saw Tory as a salesman, who had to stay nice and polite if he wanted to make money. But he saw him when he got tired and frustrated. You learned a lot about a person when you saw them like that. And Tory was never rude, no matter what. And while that might have been because he was trying to be at his best behavior around Charlie… it also meant he was trying to be at his best behavior around him.
That said something, didn’t it?
As far as the shows themselves went, Charlie was finding his own technique to help Tory sell his beautiful works. For Tory, his showmanship and knowledge of his craft worked the best. But Charlie’s businessman ways worked on others. And he noticed Tory picking up a bit on that. Charlie was a bit delighted when he found himself expressing his own inner showman.
Chapter Seventeen
“I ENVY you, watching you,” Charlie said. “You’re such an extrovert.”
Charlie couldn’t have surprised Tory any more. “Me?”
“Yes!”
“I think of myself as a forced-extrovert introvert. This ain’t natural, baby. It’s taken years of practice. I just found out there were things I wanted very much, and so I had to learn to put myself out there. I’m scared every time.”
He could see that surprised Charlie. And that he had no idea how scared Tory was right now.
They talked about their parents. They’d both been through a lot there.
They talked about their favorite music. Charlie liked Michael Bublé, and wow, showed him that the singer was a lot more than “Haven’t Met You Yet.” He sang a lot of music in the style of that Frank Sinatra guy, who Tory had thought a bit corny. But Charlie showed him something he hadn’t seen before. Heard before. Really amazing music that showed a mind-blowing vocal range.
And now Charlie was listening to Sia, the singer he’d only known before as “that lady who did the lovely song from Finding Dory.” Now he knew she did songs like “Chandelier,” and “Elastic Heart,” and “Diamonds.”
But the one he loved the most was “Titanium.”
“I know I’ve heard this song before,” Charlie had said that Sunday afternoon, watching a YouTube video with lyrics on Tory’s cell phone. Was it only last week? That seemed impossible to believe. “But these words! They’re… they could be… they’re….”
“Yes?” Tory asked.
There were tears wet on Charlie’s face, and for once Tory was oblivious to what was going on around him. The people, the customers at their… well, his table.
(But thinking of the table as theirs had felt really nice there for a moment, hadn’t it?)
“These words.” Softly. Tory could barely hear him over the commotion of the room. “These words….” Charlie wiped his eyes. “I’m bulletproof, she says. T-telling people to t-take aim, to go ahead and fire away….”
And then Tory realized there were tears in his eyes. “Because I’ve got not a thing to lose…,” Tory paraphrased (because after all, sometimes it was hard to understand what Sia said).
“I’m titanium, Tory. I must be. How else have I made it this long? And I think you are too.”
But it wasn’t until the next week that Charlie finally told him what that meant.
They were at Tory’s place, the basement, class. Gay hadn’t been able to make it. Neither had Karey (but she had finished all her teapots, and experience had taught Tory not to be surprised if he never saw her again). Not his neighbor either. Only Shirley had shown, with her heavy-handed brush and her snow people, but she ran out the door when he assured her she could pick them up in two days. There wouldn’t be another class before Christmas. The next Tuesday was Christmas Eve.
Charlie had been very evasive whenever he talked about his ex. Tory had gotten the idea the guy really hurt him, that it wasn’t all that long ago things had ended, so he hadn’t asked.
Chapter Eighteen
“THE END came very suddenly, or at least it did as far as I was concerned,” Charlie said.
Tory didn’t say one word. Not yet.
“I parked in front of the house,
and I hadn’t really noticed the overly big U-Haul in front of the house, even though I parked—backed in!—right in front of it. You see them everywhere, after all. They’re just a part of the background. It wasn’t until I walked through the propped-open door and saw the living room half-empty, including the fact that our brand-new flat-screen was missing, that I realized that particular Friday afternoon wasn’t ‘life as usual.’”
Charlie gave a half laugh. “Absurdly, my first thought was that we’d been robbed. Burgled, I guess. But then I saw the people taking our things were still doing it. And that’s when Gerald told me he was leaving.”
Again, Tory said nothing, and Charlie supposed that was a good thing because Charlie had to keep going or he might not be able to finish.
“‘You’re home early,’ Gerald said.”
Charlie trembled for a moment, then got in control of himself.
“I had picked us up some dinner from a Chinese drive-thru—General Tso’s chicken, not too hot, empress shrimp, and two orders of dumplings, one fried, the other steamed. And fried and white rice, because Gerald and I always had very different tastes.
“Gerald was standing there in jeans and a tank top, and I thought, Gerald? In a tank top? Without a shirt? And he was all sweaty. I don’t know if I had ever seen him sweat. Not really. And he said he was leaving, and he was taking half of everything.
“There were these two burly men, equally tank-topped and just as sweaty, moving boxes and some chairs, and all I could do was stand there in shock. He told me that he couldn’t take it anymore. And I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was talking about.”
He looked at Tory and struggled to keep control. It still bothered him. Still hurt!
“Because I’m the one who had reached the end of my rope! I changed everything for him. I didn’t decorate anymore because he hated my things. He didn’t like my music or the movies I liked. He wanted an open relationship and I didn’t, but I put up with it to keep him. He never listened to me. I bored him. I think I’m interesting, but he never paid attention to anything I was interested in. Hadn’t cared that the doorbell played the Westminster Chimes, and that they were the same ones Big Ben used or that they originally came from Handel’s Messiah. He kept saying he hated ‘all of this,’ and all I could see was that ‘all of this’ was half gone.