Ted understood.
“Mark used to ask what you were like, and I said you were like a stuck door. It takes an incredible amount of effort to open you up, but once you’re open, you’re completely open until someone slams you shut. And then someone has to make the effort to open you up again. This was what it was like when we were together. It’s my fault you slammed shut. I’m sorry I broke up with you so abruptly. I really am. I did it, and then didn’t stay around to help open you up just a little so that someone else could get their foot in. I get the sense that you’ve opened the door again, and that’s great, but I don’t want it to get slammed so hard that no one can open it.”
“Is this how it’s going to be?” Ted asked. “Every time we meet, you’re going to chew me out about my life?”
“Basically,” John said.
“Then, here.” Ted took out a business card. Printed there, an undeniable confirmation of his identity: his name, the word “Crixevir,” the Avartis logo. The smell of benzene clung to it.
John and Mark left together. Two gorgeous men, John’s hand on Mark’s shoulder, tugging at him to share a secret. He wanted to be happy for John — he really did — but all he could think was, That should have been me. He was six years too late. Maybe eight years. Ten. He had done just enough, and it wasn’t enough. John’s illness had descended into their lives, and Ted had made room for it. He had accommodated it. The battle was futile, but maybe he could have done more.
He asked Ann, “Do you think I’m closed off?”
She looked pale, sleep deprived, but better. “Never really thought about it. You’re shy. Not ‘closed.’ Safe, maybe. You’re not a bank vault.”
“Still throwing up?”
“Haven’t eaten anything since last night. Nothing to throw up. I think your Cipro did the trick. I could eat a horse right now.”
“There’s time to call room service.” Ted was packed, ready for the flight home. “What do you mean, ‘safe’?”
“It’s not a bad thing. I mean, if I’d gone through what you did with John, I’d probably be boring too.”
“Great,” Ted said. “I’ve become a boring, middle-aged gay man.”
“Thirty-two isn’t middle-aged. Not unless you’re gay,” she said. “Oh, wait—”
“Do you think,” he asked, “we’re doing something good?”
Ted had never considered himself as someone who promoted a drug; he promoted Crixevir, which, at this moment, kept John and countless others alive. Why, then, did this feel insufficient? Why was it not enough?
“Don’t even ask the question,” Ann replied. “Otherwise, you’re in for a world of disappointment.”
Ann called room service for tea. The waiter brought it in on a silver tray. He laid the cups in front of them and poured the tea in a single, unbroken stream. He asked, “Sugar?” and Ann said yes, and Ted said no, and the man stirred a spoonful into Ann’s cup. She downed the last Cipro pill. Ciprofloxacin. A runaway hit for Bayer. It would retain its patent for another six years or so, Ted guessed. When Crixevir’s patent expired, would its reps still insist that doctors use the original product, rather than a generic formulation? Would he still defend Crixevir fervently if, for instance, the WTO ruled against Avartis?
Ann picked up a biscuit from the saucer. “These,” she said, “are the best things ever. I’m so hungry I’d even risk eating on the street again.” She bit the cookie in half. “Can you tell what’s in it?”
Ted chewed. “Cardamom.”
“When I get back to New York, I’m going to buy a pound of this stuff.”
Ah, yes. Tomorrow they would head back to New York. Ann, presumably, to roll in a bed of cardamom pods. But Ted’s life was inertial. He couldn’t move forward because everything else moved at an even faster rate. Catching up wasn’t the painful part; the painful part was knowing that he had missed something, possibly something important, and by missing it, he would never know what that something was.
The decision, then, seemed simple:
“I think I’m going to stay awhile,” he said. “I’m postponing my flight back.”
“Seriously?”
“I missed out on so much. It’ll be like a vacation.”
“Like a vacation? Is this about the guy you hooked up with last night?”
“I wouldn’t say he isn’t part of it.”
“That’s so sweet,” she said. She thumped her chest. “I think I feel cardamom coming back up. You know that Avartis won’t spring for extra time in Le Méridien.”
“There are other hotels. This hotel — it’s not really part of Delhi. It’s not the real India.”
“The real India,” Ann said. “Look what it did to me. Look what it did to you.” She brushed her finger against his bruise.
“At the very least, I want to see the Taj Mahal.”
“You know that’s not actually in New Delhi, right? It’s like a day trip away.”
“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t.”
She handed him her Fodor’s. “Forget what I said about you being shy,” she said. “But at least stay safe.”
Safe. The endless variations of the word. Ann meant it in regard to his physical well-being, but to a gay man, it held another meaning altogether. Maybe Ann meant it both ways. But he knew safe as much as anyone should. Last night, nothing had even approached DEFCON 5 unsafe. Nothing in the past six years had. He had told the few post-John men with whom he’d grown physically familiar that he’d once had an HIV-positive boyfriend, and for most, no further explanation was necessary for why their intimacy never progressed beyond a certain point. But one, whom he’d dated several weeks, challenged him. “That’s in the past,” he said. “We can play safe. If you don’t like it, just say so. Don’t use your ex as a crutch.” And Ted told him that he liked it but wasn’t comfortable with it. He wasn’t ready. And the guy said, “See? Just say what you mean,” and dumped Ted soon afterward.
But John was not a crutch. He was a first love and had therefore taken on mythic stature. They had met their senior year of college, both of them in the generation for which HIV was not a surprise, but for which it was an unfolding mystery. In high school, he’d hear one thing, and then its exact opposite. Wear gloves, don’t wear gloves. Kiss. Don’t kiss. Beware of mosquitoes and toilet seats.
At that age, it was easy to believe in things, like forever and The One.
What had happened last night simply felt right. He couldn’t explain it better than that. At one point, he woke to find Dev’s head resting on his upper arm. There was no lost circulation, no tickling of fine hairs. His arm didn’t tire or cramp. It was meant to support the weight of Dev’s head, as if the muscles and ligaments had been preparing for this moment. Maybe this too was a permutation of safe.
As he walked to Dev’s room, he thought about sightseeing. What were those places the cabbie mentioned on the drive into town? He could consult the Fodor’s or, better yet, ask Dev. Dev could show him the hidden byways of Delhi: sights that couldn’t be captured with a camera or with a story. The secret heart of Delhi itself. Ted kept thinking about what John had said. A closed door! What was this, then, if he wasn’t throwing himself open to adventure? With his own doctor, as influential in Delhi as anyone could be.
He knocked on Dev’s door, his hand shaking. Dev called, “Just a second.” Did Avartis have a Delhi branch? If they didn’t, how difficult would it be to find a position here? How quickly could he learn Hindi?