The River in Winter

by Matt Dean

  "I'm still thinking about it," I said, though I'd given her suggestion barely a moment's thought since she'd made it. "You know who has a lot of space, though?"

  She blinked at me, said nothing.

  "Tory," I said. "His house is huge. Have you seen it?"

  "What the hell?" She narrowed her eyes.

  I stared out the window. "You're going to kill me," I said.

  She hoisted herself up and slid her good leg out from under her. "What are you talking about?"

  "Tory. He's here. He's out in the hall."

  Slumping against the back of the chair, she said, "Did you tell him about Peanut?" Her tone was as sullen as the bare white sky outside her window.

  I shook my head. "I almost slipped, but I caught myself. You have to tell him, though. He won't go away until you talk to him."

  She groaned and leaned back in the chair-or tried to. The chair was not tall, and her head dropped back and knocked against the wall behind her. "You're right," she said. She rubbed the back of her head. "I'm going to kill you."

  "I couldn't help it," I said. "He was just there, at your apartment. Well, not your apartment. In the parking lot. When he heard you had a car accident, he more or less kidnapped me."

  "You poor thing. The torture you must have endured."

  "You have to talk to him."

  She glared at me. "And how's that conversation going to go? 'Hey, Tory, I got really wasted one night at a bar and slept with the first guy I saw-and I do mean the first-and now I'm carrying his baby. Want to shack up? Oh, let's do!'"

  I toyed with the hem of her blanket. "This was before you met Tory? The guy at the bar?"

  Nodding, she said, "A couple of days."

  "I thought it was weeks and weeks. If it was only a couple of days, then how do you know-?"

  She yanked the blanket, pulled it out of my hand. "Because Tory and I always used protection."

  "Oh." I stared at the floor between my feet, at the beige linoleum, at its green speckles and streaks. When I looked up again, the set of her jaw was ominous.

  "Where is he?" she asked.

  "Right outside."

  "Shit," she said. "I must look like utter garbage. Did you bring me makeup?"

  "In the bag."

  "Give it."

  With the aid of a small rectangular mirror in the drawer of her bedside table, she applied powders and paints. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her. After many arduous minutes of grooming, she put all the pots and tubes back into the duffel bag. She looked up at me.

  "Okay?"

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say that it was obvious how badly she needed her contact lenses or her glasses, but I thought better of it. Not a good time for jokes. "Gorgeous," I said.

  She spread her fingers, examined them. She sighed. "I wish you'd brought nail polish. Never mind." She waved toward the door. "I'm as ready as I'm going to get. Bring him in."

  In the hall just outside the door, Tory fidgeted and paced. "How is she?" he said.

  "See for yourself," I said. I stood aside to let him pass. "Good luck," I said.

  "Thanks." His breath came in short gasps.

  "Somehow 'break a leg' doesn't seem appropriate," I said, but he didn't seem to hear. Not a good time for jokes.

  Standing tall, he smoothed the folds of his overcoat. He cinched his tie. Buttoned, then unbuttoned, the jacket of his suit. It occurred to me that at this early hour I'd already spent an unusually large proportion of my day watching people primp themselves.

  Tory slid past me. As the door swung shut, I watched through the slowly narrowing gap. Tory knelt beside Christa's chair. He put his head in her lap.

  Tentatively, she reached for him, pulled back her hand, reached again. She stroked his hair.

  * * *

  Nurses and aides scuttled in and out of Christa's room. I sat on the floor, slouching against the wall opposite her door. Christa's roommate must have been the recipient of all the medical attention; I could see, whenever the door opened, that Christa still sat in the armchair, that Tory still knelt beside it. In relative privacy, with the blue curtain partially drawn to divide the room, they talked on and on. Tory held Christa's hand in both of his. He leaned in close, so that the top of his head nearly touched her forehead.

  After thirty minutes or so, the nurses and aides disappeared. Christa's roommate's problem, whatever it had been, must have been corrected or resolved. For another thirty minutes I stared at the closed door, humming new melodies for my setting of "fuck." I wondered if a viola could somehow be made to sound like a heart monitor. Harmonics, perhaps?

  When Tory emerged at last, he was pale, and his hands shook, but when he saw me he smiled. I stood.

  "How did it go?"

  "I'm a daddy," he said.

  Mouth open, I stared at him. For some reason, I could think only of the scene in Chicago in which Amos-Mister Cellophane-cries out, unheard, ignored, "Hey, everybody! I'm the father! I'm the father!"

  "What?" I said at last.

  "Oh, not technically," he said. "I know, I know. Not technically a daddy. She told me everything." He frowned, mock-stern. "No more secrets."

  Until the muscles in my gut slackened, I hadn't realized how tight, how tense, they'd been. All morning, since Martin's call, my belly had been a tangle of knots and snags.

  Tory said, "We still have stuff to work out. We're not getting married or anything, but we're going to try to do this together."

  "This is a lot to take in. Are you sure you're okay with-?"

  Before I quite knew what was happening, he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tight against him. Slipping my hands between his warm body and the cool silk of his jacket lining, I hugged back. I lay my head on his chest and breathed deep. He smelled of something clean and summery, of green apples and sweet pinesap and fresh water.

  He whispered into my ear. "Yes," he said. "Yes. Yes. Yes."

  * * *

  Part Three

  23 - Deep Water

  "We're not getting married or anything," Tory had said, as if getting married were the most outlandish or inconceivable course of action anyone could have suggested.

  It became a theme.

  When, early in January, Christa returned to work, hobbling on her cast and a pair of crutches, she told me that she'd given her landlord notice, had given up her apartment, had begun to pack her belongings and sell her furniture. By the end of the month, she'd be living at Tory's. She said all of this in a rush, her face flushed, glowing. But, she said, it wasn't as if they were getting married or anything.

  The following Sunday, while Christa was visiting her mother in Hudson, attempting a reconciliation after their quarrel, Tory invited me for brunch.

  Standing barefoot at the stove, wearing short denim shorts and his madras plaid shirt, whisking a bowl of frothy, creamy-white pancake batter-he claimed he'd forever given up on frittatas-he described with agonizing specificity the difficulty he and Christa had had in finding baby furniture. I sat in the breakfast nook, listening, watching.

  They'd been to a dozen boutiques and easily as many department stores and discount stores and furniture stores, he told me. He rolled up his sleeves. He whisked and whisked, the thick muscles of his forearms flexing. He poured batter onto a sizzling griddle.

  They'd comparison shopped, he said. They'd sent away for catalogs, had consulted friends, acquaintances, and interior designers. The search continued, and they were enjoying every minute of it.

  I realized I'd never seen his bare legs, had never seen him barefoot. I couldn't take my eyes off his meaty thighs, his chunky pear-shaped calves, the long, blue-veined insteps of his bare feet.

  They couldn't wait, he told me, for the racket of a baby in the house, for the nightly grind of two-o'clock feedings, for the drudgery of diaper changes and baths.

  * * *

  Christa's birthday fell on the first Sunday in February. On Monday I took her to lunch. She chose Lagoon. To my surprise
she ordered hot and spicy chicken, extra hot and spicy, and she asked the waitress to bring a bottle of chili oil to the table. Though she'd had her cast off for nearly a week, she sat with her right leg thrust out to one side, her foot and calf blocking the walkway between the tables.

  While we waited for our food, I handed over my gift, a set of Prince albums and twelve-inch singles I'd spent weeks collecting. She tore open a corner of the wrapping paper, and then for fifteen or twenty minutes the package lay in her lap, mostly wrapped, while she recounted the seven-course meal Tory had cooked for her, the music they'd danced to, the dozens of roses, the white candles, the antique diamond brooch and bracelet he'd hidden in a hollowed-out book. It had been the single most romantic evening of her life, she told me, all the more so because it had all taken place in her own living room.

  But it wasn't as if they were getting married or anything.

  * * *

  When Christa invited me to join the two of them for brunch on the following Sunday, I knew that something was coming. For weeks the lady and the gentleman, both, had been protesting too much, I thought, and I knew that something was coming.

  For Tory and me there were mimosas, for Christa, sparkling cider. Christa brewed coffee in a French press. We had to drink it black; the very sight-the very idea, it seemed-of a jug of milk or half-and-half or cream in the fridge could make Christa queasy. Even black, unsweetened, the coffee was delicious, rich and velvety on the tongue.

  We sat at the table in the breakfast nook. Snow fell, deepening the drifts in the back yard.

  Tory and Christa sat opposite me, barely inches apart. They were dressed as if for church, he in khakis and a starched blue shirt, she in a silk blouse and skirt. It must be for my benefit, surely. The very idea-Christa attending church-. Impossible. Absurd. The two things were mutually exclusive-Christa and church. Preposterous.

  Tory made a frittata. If he remembered banishing the frittata from his culinary repertoire, he gave no sign. It was perfect, the frittata-fluffy, creamy, exquisite in texture, studded with chunks of bacon and flecks of spicy red and orange peppers.

  Tory ate and drank one-handed, with his left arm wrapped around Christa's waist. "What's going on with that court case?" he asked me.

  I looked at Christa.

  She blushed. "Sweetie, he's an attorney," she said. "I thought he might have some ideas."

  "It's still pending," I said. "Luther-. That's my landlord." I cut my eyes at Christa. "Also an attorney."

  "Weigh 'nough," Christa said.

  To Tory, I said, "Luther talked to Tom's mother. Weeks ago now. He tried to get her to drop the case, but she has this strange notion that it will be a life lesson for George. That's Tom's little brother-George."

  "A life lesson?"

  "He's been in trouble lately. Cutting school, vandalism, smoking pot. Luther said she went on for quite a while, describing all his shenanigans. She thinks it's all because of his grief about Tom. She thinks if he sees the justice system punishing someone who really deserves it-that is to say, me-he'll come to understand that the authorities aren't out to get him."

  Tory said, "That makes no sense."

  I shrugged. "Couldn't agree more."

  After that we ate in silence-or rather, Christa and I ate. Tory set his fork crosswise on his plate. He gazed at Christa with an expression of uxorious bliss. When we'd finished, Christa looked at Tory. He looked at her-but of course he'd never stopped looking at her.

  "Is it time?" she said.

  He nodded. "It's time."

  Christa looked at me. She held up a finger. "One sec."

  She scooted her chair back. Giggling, she scurried from the room.

  "What's going on?" I asked Tory.

  Quivering with joy or anticipation-nearly throbbing, in fact-he kept his eyes on his napkin. He laid it across his lap. He folded it, creased it, folded it again. Shrugging, smiling, he said, "Guess you'll have to wait and see."

  Christa returned, her hands behind her back. She shuffled toward the table, came to a stop inches from my chair. I looked up at her. Her face was incandescent.

  "What have you got behind your back?" I asked her.

  She grinned and showed me her right hand. On the ring finger she wore a platinum ring. It was brand new-spotless, shiny, entirely free of scratches or nicks. A spray of tiny diamonds girdled a pink pearl the size of a golf ball.

  "I don't know how he knew," she said. She seemed to be speaking to me, though she looked at Tory. With her free hand she held her belly. She was showing now, I saw. There was a swelling, a firm, full mound below the waistline of her cocoa-brown skirt. "I don't know how he could possibly have known, but I've always dreamed of a pearl engagement ring."

  "Engagement ring?" I said. I tried to sound surprised.

  Tory yelped with laughter. He doubled over, arms held tight across his ribs, as if assuaging a deep ache there. He laughed and laughed. I stared at him.

  Wiping tears from his cheeks, Tory said, "Jonah, I just love you to pieces."

  "I-. I-. I-. What?"

  He said, "I have never in my whole life met such a bad liar."

  * * *

  Later, in the living room, the two of them sprawled arm in arm on the sofa while I sat in an adjacent loveseat. Through the front windows I watched a flock of black birds rise and fall on currents of air above the icy lake.

  The slow movement of a Beethoven symphony-the Eighth, I thought, though I didn't dare say so aloud-muttered on the stereo. The woodwinds sang a sweet melody against a hesitant, dotted-rhythm accompaniment in the strings. The theme swelled in a crescendo, and the brass joined the accompaniment, and then everything dropped back to a whisper.

  Tory said, "I'd like you to be my best man."

  I looked at him. "Your best man?" I couldn't be the closest thing he had to a friend, could I? He must have other friends, coworkers, buddies from that bar-what was its name? Players? Victors?

  "It'll just be a small ceremony," Christa said. "Just us, and you, and my mother as my matron of honor."

  "I-. I don't know what to say."

  Tory said, "Say yes." He sipped his mimosa.

  "When? Have you set a date?"

  "Valentine's Day," Christa said. She giggled. "Isn't that kitschy?"

  I finished my drink and set the glass on the floor at my feet. "That's-. That's one word for it."

  "Will you be my best man?" Tory said. "You haven't answered me." He leaned forward, elbows on knees. He watched me intently, as if it meant more to him-more, even, than marrying Christa-that I consent to stand up with him.

  "Haven't I?" I said. "Sorry. Of course. Of course I'll be your best man."

  He grinned. "Fantastic."

  Christa said, "You have to get rid of that ridiculous beard, though, you know. There will be pictures. I don't want Ayatollah Cockamamie showing up in my wedding album."

  * * *

  By the time the icy streets of Saint Paul led me home, the sky had just gone dark. Still, the words on my front door-the leaning white letters my vandal had painted there-shone like foxfire in the glow of the humming streetlights. Reflective paint?

  I approached the house slowly, my eyes searching the street and the snow-covered lawns. When I reached the door, I found that the paint was more or less dry. The bulbous beginnings and ends of the letters were gummy, but the paint left no traces on my fingers.

  So. My vandal had come to my house in daylight, had spray-painted graffiti across the front of it, and no one had noticed-or at least no one had done anything about it. In the plain light of day, this had happened, and no one had done anything about it.

  Turning, I glanced up and down my street. Neighbors' houses just opening their eyes to the night, a few still and ice-crusted cars along the curb, the neon glow of University Avenue-nothing out of the ordinary.

  Nothing, that is to say, except for the two words painted on the front of my house.

  DIE FAGGOT

  I sorted through my key
s. I slipped the door key into the lock. But before turning it, I pulled my hand away. What if my vandal had broken in, and he now waited inside for me? What if he'd rigged the door in some way? What if "DIE FAGGOT" wasn't just a coward's hollow threat? What if-?

  I pulled the key from the lock, backed away from the door. The street was too quiet. I needed to be where there were people. University Avenue.

  At the corner I passed a Ford Festiva, parked crookedly with one wheel against the curb. On its back bumper there was a Sam Stinson bumper sticker, also crooked. "Love Is All Around." I hadn't seen-or hadn't noticed-one of those in a while.

  At the traffic light in front of the Rainbow parking lot, a Chevy van idled, its engine chuckling, its tailpipe rattling. On its rear doors, it bore the familiar "Love Is All Around" sticker and an older, much-begrimed sticker that read, "This Is The Day." Even a bicycle, locked to a light post, sported a pair of "Love Is All Around" stickers on its salt-spattered panniers.

  A stretch of empty curb, a yard or so long, lay at my feet. I sat down. The cold of the concrete bled like water through my jeans.

  Forgive, I thought. Everything and everyone is forgiven.

  Christa and Tory were expecting a child. They were getting married. Tory had asked me to be his best man, which surely made me his best friend. I had a family. I was wanted, loved.

  There was paint on the front of my house. So what? It meant nothing. I was forgiven, and I could forgive. I was a child of God. We were all children of God, weren't we?

  I could put aside some graffiti. I could wash it off my house with the magic potion Luther had given me. The house could be spotless. So could I. I could be spotless. I could be clean. I could be happy-if I tried hard enough. Love was all around.

  "Enough," I said aloud, rising. "Enough." Passersby stopped, turned, stared. Ignoring them, I set off for home. On the stoop, I turned and shouted to the street, to the neighboring houses. "I will not be driven from my home," I shouted. But the words at my back, glimmering pinkly out of the darkness, robbed my voice of its force. I raised my voice, cried out, but the round painted words spoke louder.

  The wind gusted, blade-sharp. My nose and eyes were running, and I shivered in my leather jacket. As before I found the key, but now when I slid it home, I turned it. The deadbolt released with a hollow snap. I opened the door on solid darkness. I went from room to room, switching on lights. Everything was just as I'd left it.