Never Enough

by Alexandra Caluen

  “Okay.” Andy looked slightly shifty.

  Victor said, “What are you up to.” It was so clear that Andy was up to something, it wasn’t even a question.

  “Well, she said that about a permanent set. And I had a thought.” He pulled out his phone again, woke up a text exchange, and handed it to Tanith.

  She read it, looked up and stared at him, read it again, handed it to Victor. He read it and laughed. Andy said, “Well, come on. It has sixteen-foot ceilings, it’s air-conditioned, it’s secure, there’s a bathroom and there’s parking.”

  “What are you talking about?” Loretta looked deeply confused.

  “My friend Nick,” Andy said. “The guy who’s teaching me to speak English so I can tape that audition. He has a studio rentals business, vintage and antique furniture. He has this huge warehouse out in the Valley.”

  “And apparently he’s willing to squeeze his shit together so one end of the warehouse can turn into a semi-permanent movie set.” Victor was shaking his head.

  “Well, like he says. A rental is a rental,” Andy said reasonably.

  “I cannot with you,” Tanith said. “Okay. One screenplay coming up. Sid, let’s get out of here before something else happens.”

  “Yeah. Good idea. Thanks for dinner, guys.” There were handshakes and hugs, and then Victor and Andy were alone with Loretta.

  “This is what he did all the way through that movie,” Victor told her.

  “Somebody would say, we have this problem, and he would say, well here’s how you fix it.”

  “It’s no wonder you love him,” she said. “Do you have all those shows she was talking about?”

  “Yes, we do. Catnip, why don’t you steer Loretta that way while I get this cleanup started.”

  They spent most of Sunday doing not much. Victor was finding it unusually easy to talk Andy into spending an hour on the lounger, or listening to music, or watching a movie. They had a great excuse to simply hang out and consume entertainment: Loretta kept finding things in their collection that she’d never seen or heard. Molly was delighted to have an extra human around, and especially to have her own humans both there so much of the time. She was with Andy and Victor in the sunroom on Monday morning, when they settled in with some coffee to figure out their Broadway concert.

  “We need to send Sharon some flowers,” Andy said, about two hours in.

  “I would never have thought of putting a mini fridge and a coffeemaker upstairs, but this shit is lit.”

  Victor laughed. He was also a fan of not having to go downstairs for a beverage or a snack. Especially now that they were confining all their love play to the master bedroom. “Thank God our house guest is an adult.”

  “For real. An adult who can drive.” Loretta was making regular, if tentative, forays into the maelstrom of Los Angeles traffic. She was showing no sign of wanting to go back to Miami. They’d promised they’d start taking her out dancing once she had a few more tango lessons. They had also suggested to Jim that he should take a few dance lessons. “Okay. So we have a lot going on here.”

  Victor studied the list. He read it out to Andy. “Is that what you have too?”

  “Yep. Eighteen numbers, counting ‘Mein Herr’ for the encore. ‘At the Ballet,’ we need to line up two more singers to do it with you, and two more dancers to do it with me.”

  “That’s a lot of dancing. Two rumbas together, plus ‘Hot Honey Rag’

  and ‘Mein Herr.’ Then you’ve got your tap extravaganzas to ‘Lullaby of

  Broadway’ and ‘Let’s Misbehave,’ and the ballet thing. This is going to be a hell of a show. Who are you thinking to dance with you?”

  “Mike and Zach, probably. I’ll bet I can bribe them to choreograph it.”

  Victor laughed. Andy was grinning at him. “Jesus, I can’t wait to do this. I need to get back in tap class, stat.”

  “And I need to get back in jazz. Dmitri can give us the rumbas. Who do you want to choreograph the Hot Honey? Tomás?”

  Andy set his notepad down on the table between them and shoved a hand through his hair, which he still hadn’t cut. Victor watched that hand move, the Australian ring flashing, and thought yum. Then he tuned back in to what Andy was saying. “Yeah, he’d be good. He can give it some of that tango flavor. And we can ask Dmitri for some tango in the rumbas, too. This is going to be so much fucking fun.”

  “You know what’s funny? How we ended up with so many of the same things before we even started comparing lists. Did you ever play Julian Marsh?”

  “No. I was in the chorus for a while. They might take me seriously for it now. If the show is ever casting here I might go out for it.” Andy stood up, stretching his back. “I want to watch every one of these shows again.”

  “Me too. Are there any we don’t have?”

  “Not really. Nothing essential, in terms of creating references. I don’t even want to reference ‘Phantom,’ ugh. Let’s pretend all that is, is a nice sweet somewhat-over-the-top love song.”

  Victor watched Andy, now bending over to touch his toes, pet Molly’s head, and then fold himself even further. “I should stretch more.”

  “Yes you should.” The voice issued from between Andy’s knees. He unfolded slightly to shoot a sideways look at Victor. “I could help you with that. I could help you with that right now.” He straightened up, expecting some kind of flirty or dirty comment from Victor.

  Instead he got gender-bent Shakespeare. “Age cannot wither him, nor custom stale his infinite variety.” Victor said it softly, registered Andy’s expression, and stood up. “God, when you look at me that way.” He stepped over Molly, laid a hand on Andy’s bearded face, and kissed him.

  About fifteen minutes later Andy said, “I wish there were some way to actually quantify how much I love you. Because it seems like it’s more all the

  time. I keep thinking there has to be a limit, and then the next day it’s like okay, another record shattered.” Victor was smiling against his skin. He was lying in Andy’s arms, sweaty and satisfied. Andy’s hand was stroking lightly, lazily, up and down Victor’s arm. Victor’s hand was behind Andy’s neck, still closed around a hank of hair. “You know my hair hasn’t been this long since I was actually in ‘Hair.’” Victor laughed silently. “I forgot how nice it could be to have my hair pulled.” Victor tugged on it again. “Maybe you should let yours grow too.”

  “Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t cut it till it’s time for Broadway.”

  “I’d like to see that.” Andy moved his head, and made a sound of protest.

  Victor let go of his hair. Andy kissed his forehead. “Now that you’re all relaxed, let’s get down on the floor and stretch. And then one of us needs to put some pants on and take Molly outside.”

  “Counteroffer. Let’s put on warmups and both go out. We can stretch on the patio and then lie on the loungers for a while.”

  “I accept.” Andy patted him. “Let’s get moving.”

  The topic of the property next door came up that night. It wasn’t posted for sale, but Victor hadn’t been able to dismiss the idea. “It’s awful, and it’s in awful shape. The people in there have either been there forever, or they’re renting and don’t give a shit. If they’ve been there forever they’re probably a million years old and either don’t want to fix it up, or can’t afford to fix it up.

  If we got that, we could have a pool.” He’d saved his best argument for last.

  From the look Andy was giving him, he should have led with that.

  Loretta certainly thought so. “Your own pool? Oh my God I would never leave.” Both men laughed. “Are you going to build a new house?”

  “We may have to,” Victor said. “For a bunch of reasons. But there are a lot of reasons why having a spare house could be a good thing. Between us we almost always know somebody who needs a short-term rental.”

  “We could see if Paige wants to take point on it again.” The idea had been too much back when they were on tour. Now, the
more Andy thought about it, the more he liked it. Maybe their real-estate guy could find a way in.

  “Ping Elliott. See what he can find out. Because the second you said ‘pool’

  my inner goldfish went yes please.”

  Andy knew he was going to laugh about this later. They were supposedly on vacation, and here they were planning a concert, rehearsing two dances, discussing another real-estate deal, anticipating another Tanith project, and launching the Shakespeare photo sessions. Their own went off without a hitch. Loretta looked great for hers. Dmitri and Patrick were scheduled for the first week of September. Dana and Rory still hadn’t decided what they wanted to do. Andy nagged Rory about it: Make up your alleged minds She wrote right back: Kiss my grits

  LOL you know I’ll put you in no matter what but I’ve got other people pitching things too now that the word is out. If somebody else comes in ready, don’t come crying to me about how those were the characters you really wanted

  Gaahh whatever okay

  I would have expected someone with an English degree to be a little more decisive about her text

  Rory sent back a sticking-out-my-tongue emoji, and followed it up with: Speaking of English have you done your audition tape yet?

  Tomorrow

  Is Victor reading the scenes with you?

  Of course

  Well knock em dead

  Thanks chica. Go make up your mind now plz

  The following Sunday found Loretta, Andy and Victor seated at a lounge table, about a dozen feet back from the stage at Chrome. A couple of security guys from the company they used were discreetly nearby. The club was packed, the noise level was high, and Loretta was not sure about the show’s signature cocktail, a Black Widow martini. “It’s black?” she said. “How is it black?”

  “Don’t worry,” the server said. “It’s dark rum and crème de cacao with a little food coloring. Not squid ink.”

  She laughed. “Oh my God that’s what I was afraid of. Okay.” They all ordered the same thing. “I think I see why this cocktail, though,” she said, looking over the show’s program. Act I started with ‘Someday I’ll Fly Away,’ by Nicole Kidman; Act II ended with ‘Bad Girls,’ by Pussy Riot.

  “Yeah, this is not a case of needing a bunch of dialogue to tell the story, is it?” Victor was smiling. “Sixteen numbers though, wow. That’s a big one.”

  “Everybody we know is in this damn thing.” It was a slight exaggeration, but Andy was full of righteous envy. “I wish we could have done it. I want to dance every one of these songs with you.”

  “Especially ‘Bad Girls,’” Victor said. Andy caught his eye and smiled.

  “That’s definitely a song we should dance to.”

  “Yes it is, sweetness.”

  Not too surprisingly, they loved the show. Nearly every male dancer they knew appeared at least once. There were three who had through-lines. One was Charlie’s husband Sacha, in a cross-dressed role. The second was Tomás. They inferred from the graphic novel that he would be playing a lounge pianist, in love with the lounge singer. Here he seemed to be a sort of pet for the merciless women in charge, led by Vicky. The third was Andy’s prince Zach, who had a recurring role as a seducer before being assassinated.

  Every other man in the cast was also shot, strangled, poisoned, stabbed, or otherwise exterminated before the end of the show. Every female dancer was getting a spotlight moment.

  Victor and Andy were cracking up at how many ways the choreographers had come up with to introduce and then end characters.

  “Vicky is enjoying this an awful lot,” Andy said at intermission.

  “So is Anya. What did she say about Desdemona?”

  “She said, the second this fucking show closes. Those exact words,”

  Andy added, listening to Victor giggle. “Terry’s going to be dead Othello and Ricky will be dead Iago.”

  “Can’t wait to see that. Loretta, what do you think so far?”

  “I need to take more lessons!”

  So many people were dancing at the after party, the club opened up the curtain to make more space. Andy and Victor took Loretta to join a crowd of cast members on stage. They each danced with her once before Ricky cut in.

  After a while they saw her over at the bar, talking to Jim. “I love you,” Victor said. He was in Andy’s embrace, dancing slow tango to something fast.

  Andy turned his head for a kiss. “I love you too.” He made eye contact for a second, to see if Victor’s statement was part of a conversation, or simply a gift. Apparently it was the latter. Andy kissed him again, and kept

  dancing.

  When they finally got home, very late, they steered a woozy Loretta into her room, took Molly out for a few minutes, and then went upstairs at a slower-than-usual pace. Washing up was leisurely too. They were both tired, but pleasantly so. The whole day leading up to the show they’d had next to nothing to do. The night before, they’d gone to bed early and slept late. Lying in bed together now, with Molly stretched out on the floor – she almost always came up to the bed at some point, but had been their dog long enough to know that she might want to wait a while to join them – Victor said, “I felt like I could have danced all night. I didn’t want to stop.”

  “It was the best milonga ever, wasn’t it? All kinds of different music, everybody there somebody we know. Little miss cutie was having fun.”

  “She’s a good follower. I was thinking about the times we went out dancing before. Way back. Before you were on the show. And that time in Oregon.”

  “Oh my God, Oregon.” They’d been in Eugene, pausing their return from vacation to put in their offer for the Faux Chateau. There was a dance studio across the street from their hotel. When they went over to see what was happening, it was an Argentine tango class and practica. “We should go back there someday.”

  “We could do that whole trip again someday.”

  “Stay longer everywhere.” Andy was smiling, and he could tell even in next to no light that Victor was too. “Do the whole Shakespeare festival in Ashland.”

  “Jesus, yes. You could take your show up there.”

  “Holy shit, yeah! Goddamn, Victor, I keep thinking we’ve planned things out so far ahead we’ll never catch up and then here’s something else.”

  He leaned in for a kiss. “Table that idea. We’ll discuss it after you’re done with your English movie. Oh, and by the way, it’s our show.” Another kiss.

  “You’ve been an idea machine. All the staging you come up with, it’s great.”

  “It’s writing, kind of,” Victor said, almost hesitantly. “Taking one of those lines and thinking of who we’re putting in the role and then coming up with the scene that makes it work. I really like it.”

  “I can tell.” They were lying close together, skin to skin, both mildly aroused. It always happened when they were this close, especially if they

  were kissing. Andy knew he could turn this into lovemaking with a word, or a touch. But somehow the whole evening had felt like lovemaking. And they had nothing to do the next day. Nothing but what they wanted to do.

  Glorious, amazing, incredible nothing. He changed position, settling them in a way he knew worked for sleeping. Kissed Victor’s forehead. “I love you.”

  Victor let himself relax against his husband. He could have initiated something. All he had to do was put his hand on that long lean body. But this felt so good, and there was always tomorrow. “I love you too.”

  Chapter 11

  September 2019

  It seemed that their not-so-subtle maneuvers had achieved their immediate aim, namely getting Loretta and Jim to go out on a date. At least one date. Andy was strongly tempted to interrogate her, but restrained himself. He had photographs to take, and more photos to plan.

  Their friend Red Warner – off in London being Macduff – never had collected the dragon-bones throne Andy’d used for the Tempest photo shoot.

  It was locked in the storage shed, in the garage. Andy op
ened up the shed, studied the throne, remembered how heavy the fucker was, and did not try to move it himself. Instead he went next door and wheedled the three men living in the triplex. “You’re all so much younger than me,” he said, trying to look pitifully old and frail.

  The ‘so much younger’ part was true; they ranged in age from thirty to forty. The ‘old and frail’ act got a lot of rolled eyes. All of their tenants had seen Andy and Victor in ‘The Ghost of Carlos Gardel.’ The middle guy, Sandesh, had worked on the movie as Tanith’s production assistant. He said,

  “With all due respect, give me a break. Who brought it downstairs?”

  “I’d rather not say,” Andy hedged, because the answer was ‘me and Adrian the security guy’ and he frankly didn’t want to admit it because he still couldn’t believe they hadn’t both been killed. Getting it up the stairs had been ‘Red and Adrian,’ a combination Andy had underestimated. Red was three inches taller than he was. It was the extra fifty-plus pounds of mostly muscle he kept forgetting.

  The eldest, Matthew, said, “Where do you want it?”

  “Not up the stairs.” He and Victor had gone over their staging ideas for Kent and Lear several times. All of the Shakespeare images were going to be processed, with layers of effects. The Lear line would be shot in the studio, with a neutral backdrop so Andy could layer in the suggestion of castle walls.

  For the Kent line, they’d both agreed that an overtly sensual starting point would provide the best context. “Under the pepper tree, please.” He directed them as they took the throne out and across the backyard, bitching all the way about its weight. “Well, that’s why I came crawling to you. About four feet in front of the trunk, please, on this side so the wall is behind it. Awesome.

  Thank you so much.”

  The youngest, Sandesh’s brother Lochan, shook out his hands. “I suppose you’re going to want us to put it back.”

  “Well, yes.” He gave an apologetic shrug. “But hey, I’m letting Paige get chickens.” Paige was Lochan’s wife.