by Pat Henshaw
But my world had been transformed, and I was now one of two residents of the Red World. I loved and was loved. I should be smiling, not wallowing in loneliness.
When I glanced up at Stone, I could see he’d been following my internal pep talk.
“Okay. We good, then?”
I nodded.
“Yeah. Okay. Go sit with Jimmy, and I’ll bring you both some beer.”
Stone joined us, bringing glasses as well as the beer. I’d been going on and on about Vic and how much I loved him. Jimmy was staring at me like he’d never seen me before or like I’d changed into someone he didn’t know.
When Stone sat down, I kept going, telling them both about Vic’s search for his ancestor and how we’d meshed even though when you looked at us you wouldn’t think we had anything in common. I was starting in on more of the same when Stone stopped me.
“Wait. Go back there. What you said about the Indian chief.”
“Native American,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, whatever, babe.” Stone looked puzzled. “What’s this photo look like?”
I told him, and he grinned at me.
“Tell Vic to come talk to me when he gets back to town. I gotta surprise for him.”
Stone wouldn’t say anything else, but I relayed the message to Vic when we skyped. Did Stone know where the photo was hidden? Seemed like it to both of us.
12
VIC CAME back to town with no fanfare and no warning at all. His little sports car was filled to the brim with clothes and books. I cried and clung to him when he drove into the alley cubbyhole where we’d been keeping his car after moving it from the town garage. Anyone watching us—meaning the entire hotel staff—would probably think we’d been apart years instead of a measly seven days.
While the fly fishermen were checking in during my lonesome week, I’d transferred Vic’s things to my suite. I was pretty sure when he said he’d live in the hotel until he found a place, he meant he’d be staying with me. It didn’t really matter since I’d rented out his room.
In retrospect, I should have used the time when we were separated to plan how we would share our lives here, where he would put his clothes and books in particular. But I didn’t, so the next few days were chaos as I tried to run the hotel and get him settled at the same time.
Stone called Wednesday morning and asked if Vic was still interested in seeing the photo at Stonewall. Vic dragged me over to the saloon almost before Stone hung up.
The framed picture was one of four in the far corner at the side of the saloon’s ornate bar. Because of the dips and swirls of the bar’s carvings, I couldn’t see the stage from here. I wondered if anyone sat in this dark corner while I was playing and wished I’d just shut up. It seemed like the perfect place for a curmudgeon to nurse a drink and ruminate on the sad state of the world.
“I think this is the one you’re looking for.” Stone took the photo off the wall and handed it to Vic.
I peered over his shoulder to see someone looking like Vic’s twin, dressed in buckskins and a huge headdress, shaking hands with Stone’s double, dressed in dark pants, vest, and coat. His bushy handlebar mustache and messy hair contrasted with Stone’s bald head and stubble.
“It’s you, Vic.” I took a breath. “It’s your ancestor. This is what you’ve been searching for.”
“You want to keep it?” Stone, too, seemed to be stunned at how much Vic looked like the man in the headdress.
Vic ran a hand over the picture, then stared at the wall where it had been hanging long enough to have a halo around its place in the photo gallery.
“No. I’ve seen it, and it’s part of the bar’s history. It belongs here.”
“I can get a copy made,” Stone offered. “Give you the original and leave the copy here.”
Vic shook his head. “Thanks. I appreciate it. But I know where to find it if I want to look at it again.”
“Okay. Whatever you want to do.”
“What do you know about the photo?” I asked since Vic had a faraway look in his eyes, like he wasn’t with us but somewhere that he would wear Native American dress and be shaking hands with Stone’s look-alike.
“Other than this guy,” Stone said, pointing to his mirror image, “was my great-grandfather or maybe great-great-grandfather, nope, I don’t know much at all. If there was anything written on the back, I put it on a card next to the picture.”
He and I peered at the blank wall. He took a breath and stared at Vic a moment. Then he looked around, seeming to nod to someone behind us. “Okay. Gotta go. I gotta get back to work. Glad I could help.” Stone hung the picture back on the wall, gave Vic another long look, and turned away. “See ya later.”
I could feel Vic’s mind working as we walked back to the hotel. I didn’t interrupt since he seemed so deep in thought.
Finally he seemed to pull out of it a little and asked, “Can we go somewhere quiet and talk?”
I had to think. Somewhere quiet left out the hotel and the Bottom and Monique’s, but we needed to go where we could get something to drink and maybe a snack.
I drove us to La Foothills Spa, a swanky new total-body spa that had opened the year before in an old farm hacienda. The established Old Town residents called it La Loco Spa because there were so many things wrong with it before the big-money city folk came in and claimed they were going to clean it up as a resort. So far all the predicted visitors seemed to have stayed away, making the café patio the quietest place I could think of.
As I parked, I looked around at the pristine piece of foothills beauty the investors had fashioned from a place that previously could only have been called a relic. The adobe roof and the stucco had been repaired and the tile flooring, the tin ceiling, and the fans replaced. The gentle breeze and the streaming water flowing through the patio cooled and calmed the day that was becoming hotter as the minutes passed. The place reflected the area’s Spanish heritage, something that was being erased more and more in California by modern buildings and conveniences.
We were the only ones sitting under the canopy of dried palm leaves crisscrossed over the patio. The waiter, who I’d seen in Stonewall a few times, complimented me on my playing, took our order of lemonades, served us, and left to sit under the overhang with his earbuds in.
“What happened back there in Stonewall?” I asked it quietly so Vic didn’t think I was pushing. But I really wanted to know.
His hand flew toward his hair but stopped midway.
“I always thought I’d find myself, my place in the world, if I looked at that photo.” He rubbed a long finger over the skin on the back of his other hand, almost like he was trying to wipe away a stain. “I thought I would instantly merge with the image and become whole. I thought it would erase the feeling I was just some abandoned Native kid longing for his people.”
He looked up at me, and my heart nearly broke with the anguish I saw bleeding from his eyes.
“I looked at the photo and saw an old Indian in ceremonial dress meeting Stone’s ancestor. I didn’t see me anywhere. Not even a little bit.”
He sounded forlorn, lost in a way I’d never felt. I couldn’t figure out how to comfort him. This wasn’t a moment for hugs and feeble pats on the back. It felt like he’d spun out of control and was floating untethered in the universe.
I put my hand over his, a gesture unworthy of his disappointment. But what else could I do?
He stared at our hands, mine a light pink with darker freckles, his the color of the red earth.
“Look at our hands,” I said. “Whose is the color of the soil? Whose is part of his surroundings? Who’s the interloper?”
He sighed, then looked up at me.
“So what are you doing here, gringo?” His smile didn’t reach his eyes, but he was trying.
“Not the point. What I’m saying is that you belong, probably more than me if we go on skin color.” He tried to break in, but I didn’t let him. “Some of us don’t need ancestors or lineage or family
connections to belong, whatever that means. We belong to ourselves. We make our own families and forge our own connections. Look at me. I’m not a Bandy, but I’m the keeper of the hotel. I can hold together a tradition or let it go. My father said over and over to me that he and my granddad didn’t want me to be the hotel. Sure, he adopted me with the hope that I’d preserve it into the twenty-first century. But there were no promises asked or given. He adopted me, and even though I took on the responsibility of running the place, he never forced me to.”
Vic started to speak, but again I stopped him.
“What I’m saying is that we aren’t the past and neither of us has any obligation to it. It’s enough that you are the best you you can be. That’s all anyone can ask of you.”
I stopped and smiled at the number of times I’d used the word “you” while on my little soapbox.
“I happen to like you, whether you’re a chief or a warrior or merely a stockbroker with a worldwide firm. All those terms are interesting words, but they don’t begin to define the Vic I know.”
“But you’re so much more….”
“Forget me. I’m a tall, gangly, ginger mess. We’re not in a competition. We’re two unique puzzle pieces looking for a piece that completes us. Because we come from other pieces who’ve found their matches means nothing. Their puzzles aren’t ours. We just need to find someone who fits us and completes our lives.”
I turned his hand over and clasped it.
“Have we completed our puzzle? Or should we go back through the box of pieces?” I asked.
He smiled, then started to chuckle, finally ending on a full-on belly laugh.
“You are so full of shit.” He sounded breathless but happy.
“Yeah. That’s me. The piece of shit who wants to be your piece of shit.”
“Fair enough. To two puzzle pieces completing the world’s smallest puzzle.” Tears shone on his cheeks, so I carefully wiped them away.
FRIDAY NIGHT at the end of the performance, I stood before the audience, sweating and grinning as usual.
“Thanks for coming out tonight.” The clapping and whooping and hollering almost bowled me over. “I want to end the evening with a song for Vic, who needs to know how I felt when he went back to the Bay Area and how I feel now that he’s returned. Our road is just beginning, baby.”
I started with the second verse of “Ain’t No Sunshine” and segued into Frank Sinatra’s “All of Me.” I was stunned silent when Vic hopped up on stage and gave me a showstopping kiss.
Despite my looks and my mistress, love had found me and made me whole.
To Jake, Becca, Sarah, and Jill, without whose help and love I would have given up long ago. Thank you all so much. I love you!
Thank you also to Andi Byassee, who has the patience of a saint and eye of an eagle.
1
I WAS saying good-bye to the people who’d showed up for the last “Fridays with Frank” before the summer season began. I’d explained basic spring-cleaning and distributed a detailed handout to help cut down on area wildfires and was answering the last few questions when I saw the newcomer wandering around the shop. A lot of people—mostly men—seemed to do that here in my old-fashioned hardware store.
Riley, my seventy-year-old assistant, raised a brow at me and gave a minimal shrug. I shrugged back, took out my pocket watch, and gestured for him to take his break. While I had no problem with Riley watching the stranger, I wanted the privilege to do so myself. This good-looking newcomer liked walking around the store as much as I liked admiring him.
Oh, I knew it wasn’t me he came to see. There’s just something ambrosia-like about hardware—screws and nails, and little bits and pieces, all of them fashioned to make bigger pieces stay together and work. Not to mention the tools to put everything together or take it apart.
For whatever reason, many men responded to the siren song of the store. They ambled in and wandered around with no particular purchase in mind. Some ended up buying all kinds of stuff I knew they’d never use, and some just spent the time moseying and left in better spirits, smiles on their faces.
Even now at age thirty-five, I don’t know what siren sings to anyone else. Hardware stores, even though I own and operate one, still do it for me.
At any rate, for the past week or so, the newcomer had walked the aisles in the mornings, never buying anything he couldn’t pay for with cash but always with a relaxed, happy attitude. A dark, handsome man, maybe a couple of years older than me, the stranger had the easy grace of the rich men who strolled around town in the summer while on vacation. Instead of exuding entitlement as so many of them did, this stranger acted like he’d arrived home and it was good to relax.
With his tawny, messily chic hairdo, his twinkling brown-gold eyes, and his charming smile, he looked like he could lean up against a wall or sit outside on one of the benches and photographers would flock to take a shot. Despite the fact that he wore boat shoes, no socks, chino pants, and designer sweaters in a town where boots, jeans, flannel shirts, and lumberman jackets ruled, he looked like an all right sort to me.
Actually, if I were being honest, he looked a whole lot better than all right. In fact, he was up there in the exclusive category where I’d buy him a few beers at Stonewall Saloon and try to get him to go home with me.
If I was that sort of guy.
But I’m not.
After all, I was wearing my monkey suit: denim overalls, button-down shirt, and clip-on bow tie. My grandfather all but patented the getup in the early 1900s as part of the nonthreatening hardware helper image he was convinced oversold merchandise. Even though he was a taciturn curmudgeon at heart, he mainlined helpful and genial until closing time.
The men in my family were clones of my grandfather as far as appearance went. We’re all tall, thin, and geeky, with prominent Adam’s apples, pale blue eyes, and dirt-brown hair. The only differences began internally and seeped out externally as people got to know us. My grandfather was addicted to Stoker’s chewing tobacco and Jim Beam, but only indulged outside work hours. Dad, on the other hand, at least early in my life, found religion and shunned all things mind-altering, except the Good Book.
I’d strayed from the straight and narrow after my preteen years. But I didn’t advertise it. My persona as helpful Frank McCord had long ago marked and unsexed me around here. Coming out wouldn’t serve any purpose now.
So I had spent years watching men come and go without a problem. Not this time. This stranger I wanted to meet and get to know. But how did other men do that? I was still working on the answer.
TODAY WHEN the stranger came into the store, instead of wandering and giving me a moment to fully admire him, he stepped confidently up to the counter.
“Hi there. I’m Christopher (mumble, mumble).” He stuck out a hand.
“Frank McCord. Sorry, I didn’t catch the last name.” I gripped his hand firmly, happy to get a chance to touch him. He shone. Handsome as they come, with a clear, warm smile and a gleam in his eyes. I wasn’t ever going to win a beauty contest, but I stood up straight as I looked at him.
Then I noticed his cheeks had reddened in what looked suspiciously like a blush and wondered what that was about. I was still waiting to hear his full name.
“Uh, yeah. Uh. Don’t laugh.” He cleared his throat and pulled out of our too-long handshake. “I’m, uh, Christopher Darling.”
It took me a minute because he hesitated between his first and last names. Had he called me…? Naw. But for a second I let myself believe. No, no. Darling was his last name. I almost chuckled before I remembered he’d asked me not to.
Instead, I put on my helpful store smile.
“Nice to meet you, Christopher. What can I do for you?”
His grin grew in confidence, probably because not only hadn’t I laughed at his name but I also looked as benign as they came.
“I saw you had a Help Wanted sign in the window.” He turned a little and pointed behind him.
“W
ell, now, I’m not saying you’re old, but I’m looking for a couple of teenagers to work either full- or part-time for the summer. Are you in high school?” I thought I’d asked it teasingly, but he reddened again.
“It’s not for me, but my son. He’s fifteen. Is he too young?” Before I could answer, Christopher scurried on. “He’s a junior, going into senior year. We think he’ll be going to MIT or Stanford after he graduates.”
“Oh my. He’s a child prodigy. You must be proud of him.” I was impressed.
Christopher flushed. “Yes, I’m terribly proud of him. We’re hoping he won’t have as many problems here as he did in Mountain View.”
Who were we? Him and the boy’s mother? I hesitated to ask. After all, it wasn’t really my business. But now that we’d broken the ice, I hoped to learn more about him.
“He had problems?” I couldn’t imagine any kid having problems with a father who seemed as supportive as the god standing in front of me.
“My son’s gay like I am. A group of kids his age thought it unacceptable there.”
Now wasn’t that good news? Focus, I reminded myself. Answer the man’s concerns.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. Stone Acres Regional High, and the town as well, are gay-friendly and no-hate. The new principal and the gay sheriff go out of their way to keep it that way.” I gave a dry laugh. “Besides, as far as the school is concerned, only a half-dozen kids went out for football and even fewer for basketball last year. That cut down on the number of jocks. Mostly, Stone Acres is a live-and-let-live place with squalls only breaking out now and again.”
The bell tinkled as someone walked into the store. I shifted from one foot to the other and looked over Christopher’s shoulder. Speaking of teenagers, the half day of school must be out, and here was a potential applicant who was the right age, if I wasn’t mistaken.