Afterlife (2 page)

He forked onto a narrow lane and wound around a ridge that was tinder-dry, raw with the smell of sage and aching for the first inferno of autumn. Steven's house stood on a point of land, a bungalow faced with rosy stucco and a red-tile roof. Sonny swung into the steep driveway and parked in front of the garage. He flipped the mirror to check himself out, and the amethyst swung like a hypnotist's medallion.

He got out of the car and loped up the steps to Steven's landing, the unspoken agenda of the evening in his outlaw swagger. There might be somebody new in there, ready for the spin of fate, a man whose heart was tuned like Sonny's to the higher planes, who loved himself so purely that no bad energy would ever gain a foothold. A man he would know from an ancient place, unafraid and wonderfully evolved. A Pisces would be perfect. No question about it, Sonny was in the market again.

*  *  * 

From the kitchen Steven could hear his guests and knew it was going badly, even as he gaped at the salad bowl and the groaning array of produce waiting to be chopped. Margaret Kirkham, his copilot at the agency, was telling the others a merry tale about a tour bus lost in Costa Rica, and the trading of forty Mastercards for safe passage through a guerrilla skirmish. Margaret had brought along the over-divorced Lynn Heller, who laughed with aching abandon at everybody's stories. Also Ray Lee, the sleek Korean who ran the computer at Shaw Travel, up to his neck tonight in black Armani.

It sounded at first like any other dinner west of Laurel Canyon. What Steven was really listening to was the silence from Dell and Sonny, who were doubtless staring at Margaret with unconcealed contempt. Dell was still gnashing his teeth over the lady preacher on KLAX. How was Margaret to know that everyone straight had better duck? Sonny had clearly mistaken Ray for the half-blind date Steven reluctantly promised to invite. The real thing hadn't arrived yet, but meanwhile Sonny was outraged at the vast inappropriateness of the willowy Asian with rings on four fingers.

Steven wasn't going to worry about it. He had lately begun to notice—irritably—that meetings of the widowers' league always took place at his house. It was Steven who ordered the pizzas and Chinese takeout, Steven who always paid. He was sick of being the oldest, exceedingly put out just now because Dell had arrived with three cans of Coors, Sonny with nothing at all, and the two of them dressed like bums besides. The ripped knees of Sonny's jeans were not Steven's idea of a fashion statement.

He hefted a red cabbage, poised it on the cutting board, and whacked it in half with a cleaver. Neatly nicking the tip of his thumb in the process. It was scarcely a wound at all, and it didn't even hurt, but the blood bloomed and ran down his thumb, ghastly as Macbeth. He clutched his fingers around the thumb, made a seething sound, and suddenly felt queasy at the slipperiness of the blood in his hand.

“Don't ever get on a bus during a revolution,” Margaret observed from the next room. “They're too easy to commandeer. So, Dell, I understand you've seen a lot of Mexico.”

“You mean because I'm a spick?”

“Uh, no. But I thought … didn't your friend …?”

“Marcus,” Dell replied, softening a bit, as Steven ransacked a drawer for a Band-Aid. Damn them all for not getting along. The thumb was bleeding too much for the little strip of flesh-colored plastic. What he really needed was gauze and tape, but he didn't dare go to the medicine chest in the bathroom, for fear of confronting the ranks of Victor's prescriptions. Powerless to throw them away, he figured to use them once he got sick himself.

Now he wet a length of paper towels and wadded it around the clotting thumb. There was a burst of laughter from the living room as Ray Lee vamped, Joan Collins in high dudgeon. Fuck the salad, Steven thought, moving to sweep the vegetables into the sink. The doorbell rang.

Though Margaret would have answered, Steven bolted from the kitchen to get there first. Passing through the living room, he saw the five of them grouped about the fireplace. Margaret billowed in harlequin silk, while Lynn was tailored in white cotton, absurdly spotless. Ray refilled their wineglasses with effortless worldliness, more Blake than Alexis now. Side by side on the sofa, Dell and Sonny sat stiffly, as if they were waiting to see the dentist. Sonny should perk up in a moment, thought Steven, as soon as he saw Ted Kneeland.

Steven opened the door in the vestibule and grinned at Ted, unnervingly handsome as ever, tan as a Polynesian prince. “Long time,” said Steven vapidly as Ted threw a bear hug around him.

The next second was very “Twilight Zone.” Steven looked over Ted's shoulder and saw another figure standing under the porch light, a dark-haired man about Steven's age, with a hunted look in his eye. Of course he knew it was Mark Inman, but the name arrived a beat behind the face, since he hadn't seen Mark in two years. Steven flashed to the time before the nightmare, when he'd expended considerable energy avoiding the likes of Mark at parties. What was Mark doing up here? Had his car broken down in the street?

“Oh,” said Ted, unclenching from Steven and glancing in at the group around the fireplace, “I thought this was a party.”

“Mark, how are you?” Steven reached to grip Mark Inman's hand, then stopped because of the halfwit bandage on his thumb. Instead they locked eyes. Steven thought: Why is
he
in so much pain? He hasn't lost anyone.

“Look, Steve, I'm sorry. Ted said there'd be a lot of people—”

“All my fault,” purred Ted apologetically. “We'll just stay for a drink.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” retorted Steven. “There's tons of food. Really.” With his good hand he coaxed Mark over the threshold and watched as the two men exchanged a tentative look, feeling each other out. Suddenly Steven realized they were an item. He felt a curl of rage in his gut.

“Well, if I knew
you
were going to be here,” said Margaret, sweeping into the vestibule, “I would have brought your tickets.” She nuzzled the air beside Mark's cheek, then turned and held out a hand to Ted. “I book all Mark's reservations. He can't make a move without me.”

As she introduced herself to Ted, Steven realized he didn't even know Mark was a client of the agency. That wouldn't have happened a year ago. “Where are you going?” he asked Mark.

“London. Just for four days.” He grimaced, as if to reassure Steven he wouldn't be having any fun. Then Margaret put an arm around his shoulder and led the two new arrivals into the fray. As Steven lumbered back to the kitchen, he saw the laser look in Sonny's eyes, picking up on the unavailability of Ted. Steven let the swing door shut behind him and leaned his forehead against the refrigerator. He didn't want to hear about anyone going anywhere, which was why he stayed out of the office. Shaw Travel mocked him now with all its promise of freedom, the paradise beaches and Gold Card souvenirs. For Steven travel was over. He'd become a walking bad advertisement, like a misspelled sandwich board.

He was lousy at getting surprised too. Ted Kneeland had been a friend of Victor from the prehistoric time before Steven. Victor's furious loyalty had always kept a place for Ted, long after they hadn't a thing in common, save having been twenty-two. Ted cried the loudest at the funeral, practically writhing on the floor, offending Steven mightily. He'd been invited tonight only because Steven needed a man as ripe and simple as Sonny. Mark Inman was something else entirely—Steven's polar opposite, tough, superior, predatory. From the very first meeting years ago, the two of them had bristled and backed off for good.

The door swung open, and Dell slipped into the kitchen, vacant-eyed with boredom. Steven opened the fridge and tried to look focused on dinner. Dell laid a mild hand on his host's arm. “So who's the beauty?” he asked, squeezing Steven's biceps. Dell was the resident masseur, patting his friends like Labradors.

“Friend of Vic's. Used to be a model.”

Dell nodded. “Creep. And the big shot?”

“Mark's in television. Major heartthrob. Eats gorgeous men for breakfast.”

“Another creep. How come he's still alive?”

“Dell, don't wish it on people.”

The other man shrugged in his mottled shirt, a smile playing in his hawk's eyes. He ran a hand through the stiff brush of his black hair and sauntered across to the sink. He didn't seem bored at all anymore. As he reached for the phone, he said, “Gee, Steven, you'll have to give me this recipe.” Steven turned to see him staring at the mess of raw vegetables in the sink, blotched here and there with the crimson of Steven's blood. “HIV salad. Looks scrumptious.”

Dell punched in a number. Steven had a sudden vision of the women walking in, all their hard-won reasonableness collapsing in the face of a viral bloodbath. He walked over and turned on the tap, using the spray attachment to rinse the blood from the greens. Beside him Dell spoke into the phone in a surly voice: “Yeah, is Mother Evangeline there? Well, tell her there's a bomb in her church.” Steven stared at Dell. “It's set to go off in the morning. During the sermon.”

Steven reached over and slammed the cradle. “What the fuck are you doing?” he growled.

“I can't help it, I'm a phone addict. When do we eat?”

“It's not funny. Go be a sociopath in your own house. I'm not going down the drain with you.”

Dell was bored again. He bent to the oven and pulled open the door, peering into the raft of lasagna. Steven shoved the flat of his hand against Dell's shoulder, not even managing to rock him off-balance. Then he cuffed the younger man on the side of the head, so that Dell turned with a grin and hunkered into a crouch. They faced each other like stupid warriors, Steven having the weight advantage by thirty pounds. The oven was still open, pouring waves of Italian heat into the room.

“That's it, Steven,” taunted Dell. “Let's have a little rage.”

He started to bob in place, darting a hand for a quick slap to Steven's cheek. Then ducked and landed a soft punch to his belly, which set Steven to roaring like a grizzly. He caught Dell's head under his arm and wheeled them both in a circle, crashing against the counter. A crock of wooden spoons spilled over onto the floor. Dell yelped playfully, goading Steven on. They swung like a single beast, Dell grappling to yank Steven's hair. When Margaret glided in, Steven was trying to butt Dell's head against the refrigerator. Steven blinked at Margaret, panting now with exhaustion, and Dell slipped out of the armlock and stood up. He kissed Steven on the cheek and grinned at Margaret: “This is what we call safe sex.”

“I guess Victor did all the cooking,” she observed distractedly, pushing up her harlequin sleeves and making for the stove to rescue her casserole. “Why don't you both go out and … beat someone else up. I'll take care of this.”

“Steven says I should be nice to you,” declared Dell cheerfully. “Everyone's not the enemy, right?”

“Oh, so you've decided to woo me now.” She laughed with wonderful carelessness. “Really, it's not necessary. I actually sort of like you the other way. Now go play.”

She made a shooing gesture with one hand as she reached for a pot holder with the other. Dell beamed at her, blew another kiss at Steven, and headed back into the living room. The swing door swung like a saloon's, but Steven didn't follow. He stared at Margaret's back as she lifted the lasagna to the counter. He tried to block the thought of Victor, easy as a gymnast, charging around the kitchen cooking three things at once for a Monday-night supper, and tried not to hate Margaret for bringing it up.

He looked down at the floor and saw drops of red splashing like a bad Catholic joke. He held up the bleeding thumb and choked Margaret's name. She turned with a frown between her eyes to see her boss cocking his thumb in the air, forlorn as a hitchhiker. “Help,” gasped Steven, for the thousandth time. And she moved swiftly to cradle him in her arms, he who was so lost and far from home, unanchored and alone, who would never again want a ticket anywhere.

Mark Inman, former boy and TV star, thought they were all assholes, but he wasn't proud of the thought. Though he had enough perks to choke a horse—car phone, half-acre granite desk, personal trainer—he'd just had a whole day of being abandoned and unloved. This despite two dozen calls from people who fawned and kissed the hem of his garment, even despite the fact that the glittering Ted Kneeland was crazy in love with him.

Mark himself was good-looking in an offbeat way, with nothing studied about him unless
that
was the studied part. Ted Kneeland called him a Jewish jock by way of body type, but at thirty-eight Mark had lost a certain edge, so you couldn't tell anymore what sport it was he'd played. Not out-of-shape exactly, he had a sort of arrogant indifference to the Renaissance bronze his body used to be. He had been a boy so long—decades—that when he grew up at last it was with a vengeance. In any case Mark did not require himself to be beautiful at all, as long as he got his share from men like Ted.

Mark didn't simply work in television. He was much higher up than that: chief executive officer of a company whose sole product and brand name was one Lou Ciotta. Lou was the crown jewel of the NBC Wednesday lineup—34 share—and no magazine went to bed without an update on him. He couldn't even divide his coke into lines without the input of manager, lawyer, publicist, but all of these were so many phone calls stacked in the airspace over Bungalow 19 on the Burbank lot. The bungalow was Mark Inman's starship. Input was one thing; the decisions were Mark's.

On Saturday the ninth of September, Mark was invited to a screening at the Academy, two black-tie affairs in Beverly Hills, and a power dinner at the crenelated house of a great white shark. He had canceled all of them at four o'clock, so he was batting 0 for 20 on the week's invitations. Ted, of course, had not expected to attend a single one, since Mark was not permitted to be so openly gay. No couples in double tuxes. Ted was accustomed to seeing Mark only late at night, when love was all the business left to attend to. Yet Mark had canceled none of it tonight to be with Ted. On the contrary, Ted would have been on his way out even if this awful week had never happened. Regrettably Ted didn't understand the finer points: he still thought they were made for each other.