Josh stretched and yawned. “What if you don’t agree?”
“Then you have to say why.” I glanced at him. “That’s really the point of the game, the disagreements. You can learn a lot about someone that way. For instance, Larry and I argued all the way from Sacramento to Turlock about whether All About Eve was a classic or kitsch.”
Josh looked at me. “What’s All About Eve?”
“Are you serious?” I asked, turning my head to him.
He nodded. “Is it a movie?”
“Twenty-two,” I muttered under my breath, grinning. “I can see your gay education has been sadly neglected.”
“You mean there’s more to it than — “
“Don’t, Josh, I’m driving.”
He moved his hand. “No, really, the game sounds like fun.”
“Why don’t you find a radio station,” I suggested as it began to drizzle.
He fiddled with the radio until he found one that was audible above the static. He had tuned in the tail-end of a news broadcast and moved to find another channel. Then the announcer said, “… in other news, accused killer James Pears died today in an L.A. area hospital.”
“Turn it up,” I said.
The announcer’s unctuous voice filled the little car as he continued. “Pears, a nineteen-year-old, was accused of killing another teenager, Brian Fox, almost a year ago today. Fox reputedly threatened to expose Pears as a homosexual. Last October, Pears attempted suicide before he could be brought to trial and he had been in a coma since that time. He died today of natural causes. Closer to home…”
Josh clicked off the radio. I turned on the windshield wipers and tried to focus on the road, but all I saw was Jim’s face and all I heard was his voice, telling me he was innocent.
Josh said, “I can’t believe it.”
“This will make his parents’ lawsuit more valuable,” I replied, bitterly.
“What lawsuit?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“It’s my fault,” Josh said, miserably.
I glanced over at him. “Don’t be ridiculous, Josh.” It came out harder than I’d intended. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.”
“That’s not true.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
We drove on in an unhappy silence. Finally Josh asked, “Why are you mad at me, Henry?”
Without taking my eyes off the road I said, “I’m not mad at you.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” he said tensely.
I looked at him. He was staring straight ahead.
“I’m not mad,” I repeated, more gently. “It’s just not always easy for me to talk about what I feel.”
“Is that why you’ve never said you love me?” he asked, abruptly. His eyes left the road and he looked at me. His mouth was grim. “You never have, you know.”
“Joshua…”
He cut me off. “Don’t call me that,” he said irritably. “That’s what my dad calls me when I’m about to get a lecture.”
The rain had stopped. In the dying light of late afternoon I could see a smear of rainbow above billboards advertising motels and restaurants.
“We’re both feeling bad about Jim,’ I said. ‘‘Let’s not take it out on each other.”
There was a long silence from his side of the car. Finally, he said, “Okay.”
A few minutes later I looked over at him again. He was asleep.
“Will you be patient with me?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time but finally put his hand on mine.
The day before Christmas I was leaning against a post at Macy’s in Union Square watching Josh try on leather jackets. He had already gone through half a rack of them and had long ago stopped asking my opinion since I thought he looked good in all of them. This one though — dark brown in buttery leather — nearly inspired me to unsolicited advice but then I heard my name. I looked around. The man approaching me was smiling in the faintly supercilious way he used to disguise his shyness.
“Grant,” I said, embracing him.
Grant Hancock pulled me close, crushing his costly overcoat, smelling, as he always did, of bay rum.
We released each other. His yellow hair had darkened and there were folds beneath his eyes and deepening lines on either side of his mouth but, generally, time made him more elegant rather than simply older. It had been a long time since I had seen him last.
“This is the last place on earth I would look for Henry Rios,” he said, “so, of course, I find you here.”
“And, when did you start buying off the rack?”
A salesman rushed by and jostled me. Over the din, I heard the slow movements of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, a piece of music I had first heard in Grant’s apartment when we had been law students together.
“We just ducked in for the ladies’ room, actually,” he said, apparently not hearing the music. I caught the “we.” Grant had married two years earlier and was, I had heard, the father of a baby son.
“How is Marcia?” I asked.
“She’s fine. We’re parents now,’ he added, with a smile that ended at his eyes.
“Yes, I heard. Congratulations. What’s your son’s name?”
“William,” he replied.
“After your father?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m surprised you remembered his name.”
“I remember.”
We stood looking into each other’s eyes. The occasion — former lovers meeting after a long time — seemed to demand that something significant be said. But there wasn’t anything to say, really, except that I was glad to see him and hoped he was happy. So I said it.
Before he could answer I noticed that Josh was standing before the mirror watching us. He slipped off the jacket he was wearing, tossed it over the rack, and walked over to us.
“Hi,” he said, to me, and then to Grant.
“Josh, this is an old friend of mine, Grant. Grant, Josh.”
They shook hands, murmuring pleasantries.
Grant said, “Those are very nice jackets you were looking at.”
“Yeah,” Josh said, “but a little out of my price range.” Wordlessly, he shifted his weight so that our bodies touched and slipped his arm around my waist. “So,” he said with unmistakable hostility, “how do you know Henry?”
“We went to law school together,” Grant said, barely able to keep the amusement out of his voice. “And how do you know Henry?”
Josh said, “He’s my lover.”
“Well, you’re very lucky, Josh,” he said smiling. “Excuse me, I’d better go collect my wife. Give me a call sometime, Henry. Nice meeting you, Josh.”
After he’d gone, Josh said, “Was I a schmuck?”
“If that word means what I think it does, the answer’s yes.”
“I’m sorry,’ he said. “I was jealous.”
I put my arm around his shoulders. “Come on, I’ll buy you dinner.”
Outside the store I told Josh that I had to make a phone call and went back in. When I returned ten minutes later I was jamming a sales receipt into my pocket but Josh, who was talking to the Goodwill Santa Claus, didn’t notice.
Over coffee, Josh said, “I guess we should be getting back home.”
The waiter returned with m› change. I tucked it into my pocket and said, ‘‘We’re not going home.”
“What do you mean?”
“Trust me,” I replied.
The immense wreath on the door of the inn on South Van Ness was composed of aromatic pine branches twisted and laced into a shaggy circle and bound by a red velvet ribbon. From outside we could see the big Christmas tree that dominated the drawing room. A bearded man on a ladder was hanging gold ornaments on the topmost branches while a woman strung ropes of popcorn and cranberries around the bottom of the tree. Another woman, gray-haired and aproned, opened the door to let us in.
“Merry Christmas,” she said, smelling of cookies and lavender. “Are you Mr. Rios and Mr. Mandel?”
“Yes,” I said, as we stepped inside to the companionable heat. “Is the room ready?”
“Just come in and sign the register,” she replied.