A Madness Most Discreet

by Laura Lascarso

  The boy sailed them up to Anclote key, then Honeymoon and Caladesi Islands. The trip took a week in all, and it would become a familiar circuit as the captain got sicker, as his body weakened, and he performed fewer duties on their sails, until all he could do was sit on the steps off the side deck, cradle a cigarette in his shaking hand, and stare blankly at the horizon, alternating between nursing a beer and vomiting his meager nutrition into the water.

  Their fights continued, but they lessened in intensity as the boy realized he was losing, had already lost. The captain’s will was as indomitable as ever, and their parting more inevitable with each passing day. He was bitter and angry, and neither running as fast as he could on the packed sand, nor screaming his frustrations underwater could soothe him. Some days, and especially toward the end, his anger was all he had to sustain him.

  19

  the aftermath

  I’m not proud to admit it, but I spent quite a lot of time wallowing in those few weeks after Arden ended it with me. I hardly left my apartment or even got out of bed. I ordered delivery when I bothered to eat and fired off one-word responses to all those inquiring about my mental health and well-being. The contract for the Cold Lake Chronicles option was still in my inbox, awaiting my review. If I didn’t address it soon, Bitzy would have my head. Or worse, involve my father.

  I was staring at a defunct cobweb on my ceiling on one particularly bleak morning (or was it afternoon?) when I decided that if I couldn’t kill Matteo in real life and win Arden back, then I could at least do it in fiction.

  And so, it was vengeance which ultimately motivated me to pull myself together.

  I went out to the kitchen and made myself a pot of coffee, drew back the curtains to discover construction across the street had (finally) moved inside, and noticed the flowers Arden had last purchased for my apartment were wilted and brown, and the water was growing new lifeforms.

  I threw out the flowers and scrubbed the vase along with the other dishes that had been piling up on the counter. I took out the trash. But that was where my housekeeping ended. I couldn’t manage to put away the robe Arden had worn or the personal effects he’d left lying about the house, not even his silly stockpiles of single-use creamers, ketchup, and soy sauce packets that were cluttering up my kitchen drawers. I’d never even seen him take them. He must have filled his pockets when no one was looking.

  A thief of inconsequential things.

  I put that thought to bed because the nascent threads of a new novel were calling to me as though whispered through a cottony shroud. Speak up, Muse! I had pages upon pages of material with which to draw upon for a beguiling, and also maddening, love interest. One who was terribly sweet, a little bit tragic, and entirely perplexing.

  I sat down at my desk and began to write.

  I called Arden one night when I’d had too much to drink. It wasn’t the first time I’d tried him, but it was the first time he answered.

  “Michael,” he said. My name in his airy cadence was like being spirited into the woods with the fairies and the nymphs.

  “Arden,” I said and wondered if it was a similar effect for him. Probably not. I was the ballast and boulder. Trying to make him more practical, telling him to think about his future. Did he miss the structure I’d provided him or was he relieved to once again be skipping between daydreams? More importantly, did he miss my cock?

  No, my inebriated inner voice warned me. Do not mention cocks.

  “Fair warning, I’ve been drinking,” I said.

  Arden’s laugh was like a songbird. “How drunk are you?”

  “Nearly to the point of reciting poetry and tomorrow, pretending like it never happened.”

  “That wouldn’t be too far off-base for you. Have you been writing?”

  How could he know that?

  “Have you spoken to Franco?”

  He hummed, and I suddenly missed all the little noises he made. “I may have made some inquiries,” he admitted.

  Did he also know about the month I’d hardly left my apartment, when Franco and Liam staged an intervention, and I’d thrown my books at their heads and snarled at them to leave me alone? Those were the same ones Arden had left on my nightstand as an ever-present reminder of his absence. But I needn’t ask questions I didn’t want answered. Wasn’t that one of our rules?

  “I started a new project.”

  “That’s wonderful. A mystery?”

  “A romantic thriller.”

  “Two of my favorite things.”

  Romance and thrills, that about summed him up.

  “I hope it’s going well,” Arden prompted.

  “Yes, very well.”

  I miss you, I wanted to say and come back to me. But I’d determined already that I wouldn’t be the one to fold. Arden knew how I felt, had always known. He could come back to me at any time.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” I said as a compromise, my voice too rough to be mistaken as indifferent. “I’ve missed the sound of your voice.”

  “Yours as well. Listen, Michael… I’m…” He ended it with a long sigh. Was it wistful? A little bit.

  “Me too.” If it was an apology, then I owed him one as well. And if it was something else, whatever bridge he felt he couldn’t cross, I wanted him to know that I’d be waiting. We sat there for a moment, simply sharing breath as we had so many times while making love.

  “It’s late,” I said at last. “I’d better let you go.”

  “I’m glad you called,” he said, and it was a relief to hear it. “Keep up with your writing. I can’t wait to read it.”

  “Thank you. Take care.”

  I signed off with a lump in my throat. The thought of Arden becoming just another one of my fans was altogether too depressing to contemplate.

  I began calling him once a week, around the same time, very late on Sunday night as though I couldn’t begin the next week in good conscience without doing so. It’d be incredibly inconvenient for anyone with a banker’s hours, but this, at least, had never been one of our obstacles.

  “Are you still working on your memoir?” I asked him during one of our regular check-ins.

  “In fits and spurts. I’m afraid it’s lacking in organization.”

  I smiled at his willingness to admit his own shortcomings. “You’re a beginner still. That sort of thing comes with time and practice.”

  “I don’t know how you keep the plots of your novels straight. I can hardly understand what I’ve written, and I was there.”

  “It helps if I’ve outlined them ahead of time.”

  “Did you know how the Cold Lake series would end when you set out to write the first one?”

  “I had an idea of what I wanted in the last showdown between Nathan and the White Pine Strangler. And I knew I wanted it to be personal.”

  “You don’t get much more personal than the love interest’s own brother.”

  “It’s a bit incestuous that way,” I said with a laugh. “The plots sound ridiculous when I try to explain them out loud.” But perfectly adequate for escapist fiction.

  “Then don’t,” Arden argued. “I’d rather go in blind anyway.”

  Would he? Would I? Why did everything seem to have a double meaning these days?

  “I’d like to read your memoir,” I said. “If you’ll let me.” Despite our estrangement, I still found him fascinating. Wanted to know all of his secrets and every abstract thought running through his mind.

  “It’s not very interesting,” Arden said. “No car chases or explosions.”

  “If it’s about you, I’m sure I’ll find it riveting.”

  Arden hummed, the telltale sign that he was demurring. As always, I let him have his way. In the pregnant pause that followed, he said, “I’ve been thinking about you, Michael. And about us.”

  I’d thought of little else. The insensitive things I might have said to him, the insinuations that he might not be clever or successful enough for me. Not meeting my standard. I’d never th
ought I had one, but I could see how it might come across that way. I did have a reputation of being snobby as fuck.

  “So have I,” I confessed.

  “I’ve been thinking about what might have happened if we’d met at a different time. A different season. If we’d decided to be friends instead of lovers.”

  I had some remorse about what had transpired between us, but I’d never regretted our physical intimacy.

  “How would it have been different?” I asked.

  “Easier, maybe. Less painful.”

  The thought that I might be hurting him was far worse than suffering alone. “Are you in pain, Arden?”

  I heard him make some noise in his throat. His voice, when he spoke, was thick with emotion. “I feel bad… about the way I left things… with you. I was terrible. You only ever wanted to help me. And I… I was ungrateful.”

  “It was arrogant of me to assume you needed my help. I should have listened to you and respected your boundaries.”

  “I have a hard time expressing my feelings,” he said, perhaps one of the truest admissions he’d ever made to me. “My father didn’t have much patience for my sensitivity. Neither did Matteo. And I’m a little bit rusty.”

  I smiled at his honesty. I wanted to be supportive. “Having strong feelings about things can make you feel vulnerable.”

  “You overwhelmed me, Michael, in every way. I’ve only ever had to play pretend before, but with you… I began to want things… And then… I just panicked.”

  I began to have hope, just a little, because I knew then that there was an opportunity for us to heal. If we could talk about our relationship openly and be honest with each other, then maybe we could try again.

  “This isn’t the end of us, Arden,” I said.

  He gave a wet splutter of a laugh. He might have been crying. “Oh no?”

  “Definitely not.”

  He was quiet then for a long while, perhaps trying to sort through his emotions.

  “All right.”

  “I was thinking,” I began one night. I’d just written a scene between my two main characters, the first of many arguments between them. It was somewhat revelatory for me to cast Arden and I in a fictional universe and use what I knew about each of our personalities to create conflict between the characters. My diary read differently too, since I knew that much more about him, now that I had the space to be objective.

  “You thinking? Never a good sign,” Arden jested at my extended silence.

  “I was wondering if you might tell me what I may have said or done to upset you.” I’d done some reflecting, and I wanted the opportunity to learn from my past mistakes.

  Arden sighed. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Michael. It was me. All me.”

  “You don’t have to spare my feelings. I know I made mistakes. We both did. There must have been things I did to make you feel like you weren’t good enough for me, and I wish you’d tell me so that I don’t do it again.”

  “I don’t want to rehash it.”

  “Because it’s painful for you?”

  Another extended silence and then, “That night at Matteo’s party, when Liam said what he said. I think maybe, some part of you, agreed with him.”

  He was right, though I’d tried to hide it. Liam gave voice to all of my insecurities, in a very unkind way. “If I did, it came from a place of fear. I was scared to lose you. I never doubted your feelings toward me, though I did wonder…”

  “What did you wonder?”

  “You have an assortment of very rich men, most of them willing to give you whatever you want, and probably with a lot less hassle, and yet, you still chose to be with me. Why was that?”

  He grunted in frustration. “Michael, that’s the stupidest question you’ve ever asked me.”

  “Why is that stupid?”

  “You must think I’m really superficial.”

  “I don’t, Arden. Not at all. I think you have incredible depth. It’s why I—” I cleared my throat, catching myself in time. “It’s why I’ve always enjoyed our conversations.”

  “Then you should know you gave me everything I could possibly want. Your time and attention, your praise. You made me believe… and I thought that maybe just this once…” He faltered.

  “It was real,” I said.

  “Yes, it was real. The only real relationship I’ve had since my father died. I didn’t have to hide anything… and you just… understood.”

  I did understand him, at least, everything he allowed me to see. His personality had always been prismatic, only ever revealing one facet at a time, but I’d paid attention, and I’d learned.

  “I miss you,” I said.

  There was another long silence, and then, “We should probably talk soon. In person.”

  I nodded on my end. “Yes, I think that’s a good idea.”

  20

  the announcement

  We set a date for the very next day, and I spent several hours going over exactly what I might say to win him back. Words had always been my wheelhouse. But even if I crafted the perfect argument and delivered it eloquently, I couldn’t make the decision for both of us. Arden had to want it too.

  And what if he didn’t?

  We met for coffee at a café in Greenpoint. I should have known something was off straight away because Arden ordered a muffin and a latte with whole milk and syrup. I wanted to ask him about this holy trinity of no-no’s, but I worried it might border on invasive. And we’d spent too much time apart for me to tease him.

  He wore a pair of well-worn, faded jeans and a long-sleeved Guy Harvey t-shirt, looking every bit the transplanted Florida native. I might have assumed he was planning on going fishing later if the weather weren’t so terrible.

  “You look…” A dozen words ran through my mind—handsome, pretty, lovely, ravishing… Despite all the compliments I wished to shower upon him, I landed on “well.”

  Arden grinned, showing off that dimple I’d missed so much.

  “You look well too, Michael,” he teased.

  I cleared my throat. Partly due to nerves and also because I didn’t want to waste another moment apart, I launched into my speech. It was an apology, of sorts, as well as an earnest assurance to try harder in the future. I wanted him to know that I thought of him as my equal in every way, and that it was never my intention to demean him. I was just reaching the crescendo of my monologue when Arden interrupted with, “I’m leaving New York.”

  I sat back in my chair as if I’d been sucker punched. “Excuse me.”

  “I’m going to work on the boat. Get her ready to sail again.”

  It took me quite a while to process. It was so out of left field. Wasn’t it?

  “You’re moving back to Florida?” I asked, stupidly. Of course, I’d known people to come and go, but not one of my own tribe. We were New Yorkers for life. But this wasn’t Arden’s home, had never been, really. I’d assumed that because he fit so easily into my world, that he was here to stay. And in my own self-importance, came the thought, why would anyone ever want to leave?

  “After I fix her up, I’m going to sail south, to the Keys and then over to the Bahamas. Visit some old haunts. Maybe finish up my memoir.”

  This was about his father. Perhaps it always had been. His albatross and unfinished business.

  “What about your modeling?”

  “I’m taking time off.”

  “What about Matteo?” I didn’t give a shit about the man, but it was easier than asking about myself.

  “He’s given me his blessing. He’s known all along that my stay here was temporary.” He looked at me then, guiltily.

  “Why didn’t I know that?” I was trying very hard to keep my composure because I wanted him to open up to me. And I didn’t want this to end in a fight.

  “Because I never told you,” he admitted. Well, at least we were operating within the same reality. “I wanted to, but I just… didn’t know how.”

  “I didn’t realize you had
a long-term plan.” One that didn’t include me. Had never included me.

  “I didn’t think it would be possible. But I can’t put it off any longer. I owe it to my father. And to myself.”

  I gave myself a moment to contemplate this new development. Arden didn’t rush me to speak, which I appreciated.

  “Did writing your memoir cause you to realize this, or had you always known you’d go back to sailing?”

  “It’s what I know best. The way you know stories. It’s where I feel at home.”

  He’d told me that himself, hadn’t he? In his own circumspect way? When he’d spoken about the boat, and sailing, the places he’d visited, how he missed the ocean. All that he was willing to do in order to keep his father’s boat from falling into the hands of creditors.

  This was the life he pined for, like his father. And Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea. Christ, he’d been telling me all along. I’d never considered what a sacrifice it might be for Arden to trade open water and freedom for the materialistic rat race of the city.

  This was why he always seemed to be staring at the horizon.

  My mind was scrabbling for a foothold, trying to figure out a way to bridge what was swiftly becoming an ocean between us.

  “I made him a promise,” Arden continued. “Franco helped me get a few things straightened out, and Matteo…” Arden shook his head. “He was very generous. I think he knew we weren’t going to last much longer.”

  “And what about me?” I hoped I’d figured somehow into his plan, that I wasn’t just a lark, as Liam had so cruelly put it.

  “You.” He swallowed thickly. “You were the one to make me realize that I could have more. Something real. Our time apart made me think about where I was in my life and where I wanted to be. Who I wanted to be. I admire you, Michael. I always have.”

  He was telling me, in his own Arden-way, that he loved me and that he’d missed me. It warmed my heart to hear it, but it still didn’t solve our problem. “Where does that leave us?”