The Rare Event

by P D Singer

  “That pocket garden isn’t going to last,” Jon grumbled at the next high rise, though Davis admired the oasis of green. “No sun; there will be a small forest of dead plants in six months, all in exchange for another fifteen floors of vertical. Stupid zoning.”

  Davis found other reasons not to like that apartment. The third dropped from the possible list when Jon asked about commuting to Davis’s office; the subway didn’t actually get from here to there except in the most roundabout fashion. “It would be faster to walk it. Maybe bike it in warm weather.”

  “That wasn’t useful,” Davis said once they and the agent had parted ways. “Although you asked questions I wouldn’t have thought of.”

  “Yes, it was, if it kept you from making any expensive mistakes.” If Davis wanted thirty-five floors of Miami-clone architecture, Jon had the perfect place to sell him. “I’ll come up and say hi to the parents.” He wanted a hug and a few words from someone who loved him, and there would be no chance of that tonight at the fundraiser. Looking at apartments had brought back the pain of his last real-estate transaction. Davis, contrary to Ricky’s predictions, had made no attempts at test-touching, let alone test-fucking, in any of the apartments. Maybe Ricky couldn’t think of anything else, but others could.

  “Any luck?” Jessica asked, when she and the dogs came through the front door a scant moment after Jon and Davis, and she tsked when she heard about the offerings. “Well, no hurry, Davis; you’re welcome here as long as you like.” She squeezed Davis’s arm with the same sort of auntly affection Jon recalled from years before, and said nothing when he hugged her hard, soaking up what she’d always given him so readily. “Why don’t you boys take a walk out in Central Park, now that the heat of the day is over?” Jessica unsnapped the leashes from her English spaniels’ collars. Jon was glad she didn’t suggest taking the dogs for a second round of walkies; nothing would have screamed “gay couple” to the world so much as him and Davis with a pair of high-maintenance dogs that looked like crosses between cocker spaniels and shi tzus.

  Then again, the only one who would have been angry was Spencer, and he was miles away. Jon flinched. Offending even the idea of Spencer made him nervous.

  “Yeah. Let’s.” Davis patted his pocket for his wallet, then went to leave it in his room. Jon agreed with that and dropped his on the breakfront table.

  “I’m not being tourist-jumpy?” Davis asked on the elevator ride down.

  “It’s daylight and the entire city’s crime rates are down, but there’s no point in making it easy for anyone. The high-traffic areas are okay, but there’re some neat places off the beaten paths where anything is possible.” Jon’s first kisses and more had been in such a place, and he’d also been relieved of a few hundred bucks. He’d learned, and he wasn’t going to take Davis to the places he recalled as being private enough for hanky-panky. Maybe Davis was gay, but he still wasn’t a possibility for Jon, no matter what Ricky might think.

  They skirted the enormous Metropolitan Museum of Art—“We’ll have to get in and see the Rembrandt drawings before the exhibit moves, and there’s a special display of Japanese seasonal drawings, but that will be around until December”—and followed the path down the middle of the park, sharing it with mommies pushing strollers, small children skipping with jump ropes, and a thousand others.

  “Does Belvedere Castle still have all those bird skeletons?” Davis asked. The stone Victorian folly in the center of the park was just ahead.

  “Yes, and they have all sorts of guides and lists for the kids now,” Jon mused. “Wonder what Mom did with my notebooks.” Davis might be staying in Jon’s old room, still done in blues and creams, but it didn’t hold the memorabilia of Jon’s youth.

  “I think I still have my bird list and my sketchbook back at the Connecticut house. Mum never throws that sort of thing out.”

  “Did it ever seem weird to you that you came to New York City and got taken on nature excursions?” Jon wondered.

  “Mum and Aunt Jessica dragged us to enough concerts and museums that the nature excursions were a relief, remember?” Davis veered sideways to let a bicyclist pass. “And how all three of us howled, ‘No more Nutcrackers!’ and got taken to the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater instead?”

  “Mom and—Aunt Olivia”—Jon stumbled over the title; Spencer had broken him of using it ten years earlier, but Davis would wonder why if he didn’t say it now—“made sure we saw something of everything.”

  “Even opera.” Davis grimaced. “I always wanted to yell, ‘Quit singing and die already!’ at the sopranos.”

  “I am dying of consumption!” Jon warbled in a squeaky falsetto, making them both break out laughing.

  “Yeah, of consumption of sandwiches!” Davis choked out. “Are you going to that Friends of the Opera thing tonight?”

  “I promised Mom I would.” Jon pointed out a side path, which took them around Turtle Pond. The noise level dropped the closer they got to the Great Lawn, a quiet zone where no radios or loud activities were permitted.

  “Good, I can sit with you, and you can refresh my memory for all the people I only half-remember.” Davis stepped away from the path, pausing at the water’s edge, intent on something in the middle of the pond. “What’s that?”

  Jon came closer to see what had captured Davis’s attention. “The ripples? Probably a turtle; the pond’s full of them.”

  “No, across, standing. A heron?” Davis pointed, and Jon took that last fateful step to follow his companion’s line of sight. Then Davis’s hand was on his shoulder, and the greenish water rose up to smack Jon in the face. Chill and murk grabbed him, separating him from the precious air. Flailing to find the surface pushed the cold into his nose and ears, stealing reason for a moment. Where was up? One good stroke shot him gasping into the sunlight. Water streamed from his hair and dripped from his chin—he spat a nasty mouthful, exchanging liquid for air. Too deep to stand here—Jon treaded water, thinking. Davis had chosen a terraced area for his little prank, with water plants growing in clumps on the shallow ledges that he’d sailed right past.

  “Paybacks are hell.” Davis loomed on the bank, wearing the toothy smile of the at-long-last-vindicated.

  “You got me, all right.” Jon stroked a bit closer to the bank, finding the terrace with his feet but not rising above the surface, and refusing to think about the nameless muck he’d stirred up with his thrashing. Instead he lifted a supplicating hand. “Get me out.”

  “Now we’re even.” Davis squatted down and offered a hand. His error: Jon yanked hard, sending the big man sailing over his head and down with a splash. Davis emerged, sputtering and hacking, shaking his head and making the water fly. Jon remained immersed only long enough to be sure that Davis would stay at the surface and stood up to knee depth on the ledge to climb out.

  “Now I’m ahead again.” He scraped his hands across his face and hair to squeegee out as much water as possible, all the while keeping a wary eye on Davis, who extracted himself from the pond unaided. Jon took another step back. “The creek wasn’t this revolting.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” Davis squeezed the water out of his shirtsleeve and mopped his face.

  They wrung themselves out as best they could without undressing, attracting strange looks and titters of laughter from the passersby. They had to look bizarre. Davis’s hair stuck up in spikes and his clothes clung to his body—Jon tried not to notice how nice a body—and he couldn’t look much better, with his thin cotton shirt plastered to his chest, probably with his nipples showing through the white fabric. Davis was certainly staring at something on his chest. Looking into each other’s faces now, they began to laugh, the deep belly laugh for the truly absurd, and as one, they turned back down the path toward home.

  Davis hung a friendly arm around Jon’s shoulder, leaning against him as if the laughter was debilitating. “But it was worth it. The look on your face was priceless!”

  Jon elbowed Davis, making him stand up straight and
take his arm back. “Yuk it up, pal. We’re both disgusting.” Jon couldn’t help laughing; he’d been caught completely off guard, even after he’d been warned. “You’ve been dreaming of this for years, haven’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah.” But Davis wasn’t laughing now, and he was looking sideways again at Jon, not at his face.

  The doorman laughed and let them in once he recognized them. They squelched their way to the elevator and to the front door, where they stood dripping, pinned in place by Jessica’s horrified stare.

  “The reservoir or Turtle Pond?” she inquired, holding her nose.

  “Turtle Pond,” Davis admitted sheepishly.

  “Augh. You’ve disturbed the efforts of generations of reptiles. Get cleaned up: you are both supposed to be presentable by seven thirty.” She herself was flawlessly dressed in a froth of Ungaro red chiffon. “I’m going in early to take a last look at the setup with Brooke. Chaz will be back from tennis in about an hour. You two behave yourselves like adults for the rest of the evening, you hear?” Jessica peeked inside her tiny handbag, found the contents acceptable, and shut it with a snap. Sweeping past them in a cloud of something that smelled better than they did, she disappeared through the door.

  “Mother has spoken.” Jon thought glumly of getting home in his current condition. New York saw all sorts on the subway; he’d barely stand out. “I doubt I can get a cab to stop for me like this.”

  “Shower here. I can run our clothes through the wash really quickly, and then it will be a matter of changing into dress clothes.” Davis was pulling his shirt over his head and toeing his shoes off.

  “I’ll have to borrow a pair of Dad’s shoes to get home.” Jon pulled his own ruined footwear off, grimacing. “At least our wallets are dry.”

  “That wasn’t entirely accidental.” Davis dropped his soaked shorts, revealing more bare skin than Jon thought he should look at. “You want me to—”

  “I’ll shower in Dad’s bathroom,” Jon interrupted. “I’ll bring my stuff out.”

  He should have locked the door; Davis came through to collect wet clothing a scant second after Jon had pulled the frosted glass shower door closed. Pausing for a moment, Davis looked toward Jon, who turned his back but was more than aware of being watched. Davis left, and Jon reached for the shampoo bottle with a trembling hand, Ricky’s words echoing in his head. Had to be nonsense; Davis needed to get the washer started.

  Clean at last, Jon enveloped himself in his father’s terrycloth robe and went in search of information. The washer was on a short cycle, but the dryer would need more time, he ascertained. Davis should be dressed by now. Jon went to his old room. The door was open. Davis, however, was not dressed, by any means. He was pulling on some underwear. Jon would have bolted had it not been so damned obvious. Instead he went to look at the book on the nightstand, though he couldn’t have repeated the title a moment later. He heard drawers open and shut and finally dared put the book down and turn. Clad in a fresh shirt and some cargo shorts, Davis was perfectly fine to look at now.

  “Sit down, chat a while,” Davis invited him.

  Faced with the choice of the queen-sized bed or the chair to sit on, Jon chose the chair, not piled high with clothing as it had been when this had been his room. Davis sank to the edge of the bed, a flash of disappointment on his face. “Jon, do I make you nervous?”

  He didn’t want to say yes to that, though it was true. Between Davis’s innocent actions and Ricky’s surely unfounded speculations, Spencer’s fury now echoed in his head. “Davis, have I ever behaved inappropriately to you?” He glanced at Davis, who only looked puzzled.

  “No, unless you count noogies and Indian rope burns back when we were kids.” Davis lifted an eyebrow. “Spencer did that stuff to me too.”

  “I mean, ever made you uncomfortable, or did things that you later thought were wrong?” Jon stopped looking at his companion and looked instead at the carpet. “Or that other people thought were wrong?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Jon.” Davis shook his head irritably. “You were just sort of ‘big brother’ friendly-mean. We got older and you got nicer, maybe because I got big enough to fight back. Then you disappeared from our lives, and I never knew why.”

  “It wasn’t my choice,” Jon mumbled.

  SPENCER was getting married today. Jon cast a bleary look at the alarm clock—too much partying last night shouldn’t be allowed to take its toll. He’d rehydrate, run, and get combed and curried for the big event. He got up, careful not to disturb Walter, snoring in the other twin bed, and found some shorts and a shirt. Only the caution born of years of dorm living kept him from barreling through the opened bedroom door, and a good thing too. The other groomsmen had gotten playful: a pyramid of beer cans blocked the doorway. Jon didn’t intend to be the one to bring it clattering down.

  Instead he stepped carefully over it to the side and quickly reassembled it in smaller towers in front of the other bedroom doors. With luck, the pranksters wouldn’t feel nearly so wary. Smiling, Jon let himself out of the guest house and swung down a familiar drive. He could get a couple miles in and be ready to face the day and all its festivities. The big tent was already up on the expansive green lawn behind the Willinghams’ mansion, and a crew would set four hundred chairs out on the grass this morning. The sky was a soft blue, the forecast good, and Ashley hopefully over her fit of nerves. His best friend had fallen in love and was going to pledge “forever”—Jon didn’t want anything, especially a tantrum from the bride, to mar the day.

  His own pledges of “forever” would never happen like this. Two miles from the house, Jon pulled out his cell phone, yearning to hear his lover’s voice. “Cam, hey, you awake yet?”

  “Am now.” Cameron’s sleepy voice came through the ether from New York City. “Is it time for me to get on the train yet?”

  “Not yet.” Jon used a bit of that extra time with soft words, ending with, “I’ll see you at the wedding, okay?” He couldn’t be the one to pick Cam up at the station, but there was a delegation of friends with cars who would collect out-of-town guests, and tonight they’d sleep together. The sun was a little higher in the sky when Jon came back up the leafy country lane to the guest house behind the mansion. Spencer paced the grass outside. Guess he was having his own fit of nerves. Jon would talk him down; he always had, whether it was an exam or an interview.

  “Damn you to hell, you fucking pervert!” Spencer lashed out the second Jon came close enough to talk. “You lowlife slime, you cocksucking, cheating monster, you stay the hell away from my family, you stay the hell away from my brother, you stay the hell away from me! I’d throw you out of the wedding party, but I don’t want to explain to anyone why, so you go on the end where I don’t have to hear you, see you, think about you. Ashley’s upset enough as it is, I won’t give her any reasons to freak out, but you, my former friend, stay out of my way.”

  “What the—” Jon tried to stem the flow of invective long enough to find out what had spawned this diatribe from hell. “Spence, what? Why?”

  “You know what you did, you shit! I hate the sight of you, you make me sick, and if you ever come near any of us after today, I will kill you with my bare hands. Don’t you dare call my parents ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’ ever again, either, and don’t ever, ever talk to me or Davis again. I won’t have you corrupting him, you hear me?” Spencer’s eyes bulged out with his wrath; his fists were up and clenched. “Cameron deserves better than you.”

  Jon thought he’d lash out with more than words if he was interrupted, but still, this was so out of the blue that he tried again. “Spence, what did I do?”

  “You don’t even see it as wrong, do you?” A fist propelled by a freight train doubled Jon over; he fell to the ground, retching, and Spencer looked down with hate-filled eyes. “You play your part today and then you get out of our lives.” He drew his foot back to kick, and Jon could barely squirm backward. “All of our lives. Especially my brother’s.�
� Spencer stalked back to the main house, his worst blow delivered not with foot or fist but by the amputation of a family.

  When he could breathe again, Jon rolled to sitting, still stunned by the fury rained down on him. This was no ordinary outburst, soon calmed with reason. He reeled from the hatred, the unfairness, the nebulous accusations, and he wasn’t entirely certain all his ribs were intact.

  Davis had gone back to the main house with Spencer last night around 1:00 a.m., and Jon hadn’t seen him since. What had gone so badly wrong?

  The wedding had gone off beautifully, though more than a few people had questioned Jon’s new position at the far end of the line of groomsmen, rather than his originally assigned post to the right of the best man, Davis. “Spencer suggested it” warded off more questions, though many curious eyes had followed the look of daggers from the groom to his groomsman. Jon had had to maneuver carefully to stay away from all Willinghams, unwilling to spark any further explosions. He’d taken refuge with Cameron, who had tried to get him aside for explanations he couldn’t offer for his unusual social ill-ease. Jon had sidestepped the wedding couple and absented himself from picture opportunities.

  He’d called Spencer after the honeymoon, only to be cursed again, and threatened. Spencer was entirely sincere; Jon took it as a promise and never called again.

  “WHY?” Davis’s voice brought him forward the ten years since that day.

  “Spencer told me to.” Some superstitious part of Jon wondered if Spencer would materialize, blazing with fury, for this conversation even taking place.

  “Why on earth would he do that?”

  “I don’t know. Davis, I really don’t know!” Jon got up to pace. “Something went wrong, I don’t know what, and he reamed me a fresh one the morning of the wedding. He basically told me to get out, never talk to any of you again.”