All Stories Are Love Stories (9 page)

The car behind Gene beeped to get him to move into the six inches that had cleared between his Fiat and the Yukon XL in front of him.

He turned off the radio. Another pledge drive had interrupted the Ahmad Jamal marathon he'd been enjoying on KCSM. He forced himself to take a long, deep breath, realizing that he'd been holding it again. He hadn't factored in Valentine's Day traffic when he told Franklin he'd be home in forty-five minutes. That was ninety minutes ago.

He probably shouldn't have tested his luck and swung by the Stanford Shopping Center on the way. But in his rush to get home, he'd scrapped the idea of flowers from Nigghl's and chocolates from TCHO and just grabbed the iNfinity Franklin would be expecting for his birthday next month. Two birds with one stone, he'd figured, a minor detour and an unexpectedly luxurious surprise to smooth both their ruffled feathers. A lot of good the gifts would do, though, if stopping for them made him lose their reservation. Not that Franklin was all that pleased by eating at the geriatric hour of 5 p.m. But it was all Gene could swing last-minute on Valentine's Day. He cracked his neck, easing the tension there before reaching for the glove compartment to see if he had any aspirin. The driver behind him leaned on his horn.

Gene gripped the wheel, his stomach in knots. He should have taken 280 and wound his way around the city. It would have taken just as long, but at least he'd be moving. Instead, he'd been stuck in this narrow valley between the gorgeous relief of bay behind him and the familiar city in front of him for more than thirty minutes. Where
was
he, exactly? he wondered, looking at the tall green hills on either side of him. Suburbia? No. South San Francisco.

More horns. Whoever designed the city so Bay Bridge traffic from the peninsula had to go through downtown had clearly never had to do just that. And it was only getting worse and worse, the traffic piling up earlier and earlier. When was the last time he'd left Stanford in time to avoid it? It used to be that if you hit this section before rush hour, it wasn't so bad. But now it was always bad. Gene looked at his neighbors, frowning. What had happened to all those good old-fashioned worker bees, chained to their desks until five o'clock? Didn't anyone have a normal job anymore? He took in all the Volts and Teslas; the Google self-driving car he'd tried to race up to and study several miles back, before the traffic hit, hoping it really wouldn't have a driver—but it did, he saw now, a grungy twentysomething with a rabbinical beard and a white T-shirt. Plus there was always the ubiquitous parade of BMW sedans and shiny Escalades, broken up every now and then by an ancient, boxy Buick with bass so loud that you could feel it vibrating your inner ear; or one of those long, whalelike Pontiacs older than Gene, waving its fishtail in the slow line or the occasional VW van soldiering cheerfully on into its indefinite old age, faded rainbow
curtains in its rear window. One thing was for sure: there was no such thing as a normal car in California anymore.

He switched the radio back on, changing the channel to KFOG. He treated himself to their lineup of retro love songs from the '70s and '80s—Donna Summer followed by Foreigner and Carly Simon! When was the last time he sang along to Carly Simon in the middle of the afternoon? Thank God
he
didn't have a normal job. He found himself smiling.
Tenure track
,
Gene—tenure track!
He grinned and turned up the volume. He hummed along when he couldn't remember the words, his fingers tapping the steering wheel. It could have been worse, he told himself. It was probably less than a mile to the last exit by now, and he could have hit traffic much earlier—even if he had to sit in this mess for the next thirty minutes, he'd still be home in time. He'd better be. He doubted they could even get on a waiting list if they missed their window. Maybe he should give Franklin a heads-up, see if he could call and work his magic with the maître d'. Gene glanced down at his phone, wondering if he could risk a call. He needed to get a Bluetooth headset.

They'd fought about it, Franklin insisting that any talking while driving was dangerous, Gene insisting that emergency calls on the road were less risky than Franklin's not being able to reach him at all. Gene frowned.

KFOG went to commercials, and Gene opted for some quiet, turning the radio off. He eased his foot off the brake and checked his phone low on his lap, glancing around for the CHP as he did. He started when the man in the car behind him honked his horn again. He glared into his rearview
mirror, then back down at his phone. Damn! He couldn't text in this stop-and-go nightmare. Would Franklin guess that Gene was in traffic, or would he think he got caught up in work and left too late? Would he be upset? Any little thing could set him off these days; it was like he was trying to pick a fight with the world.

Gene sometimes felt the same way. Even before they had a diagnosis, the invisible foe of Franklin's illness struck fear and anger into both of them without warning. But the whole situation was probably far easier for Gene to live with than it was for Franklin, and not just because he wasn't the one who was sick. Gene's Midwestern, Germanic upbringing had made him adept at bottling up emotions of all shapes and sizes. Franklin, on the other hand—who was also technically Midwestern, but had been raised outside Chicago by a Jewish father and an even more Jewish mother—refused to hide even his darkest thoughts. In his worldview, anguish wasn't just something to be expressed—it needed exorcising.

But honestly, even Franklin knew better than to drink and pick fights at one of Rico and Jon's white-tie-optional dinner parties. Jon was a city planner, Rico a real estate agent, and together they loved to host small, if a little precious, gatherings at their gleaming Pacific Heights apartment. Rico was responsible for the invite list, and it was a well-known fact within their circle of friends that the guests were chosen for such an evening as carefully as the wine, which was always presented at the perfect temperature and accompanied by a hand-lettered card describing its provenance. Yet somehow Franklin's inebriated alter ego decided that after the game hen and before
the cheese was the perfect time to interrupt a civil discussion of city politics to declare, at a volume indicating he was well beyond paying attention to other voices, that
the San Francisco I've known and loved
was
in its death throes
. As if Rico's visible mortification at such indelicate behavior wasn't bad enough, he and his partner's professional identities and financial abundance depended on the very city Gene's lover was announcing so glibly to be on its last legs. Everyone had tried to underreact politely as Gene tried to shut Franklin up, but he kept going.
You can't silence
me,
Genie. I'm your elder. Show a little respect, dammit!
It usually wasn't a sore point, their age difference, but everything had become a sore point these days. Eventually, Gene had to excuse them both and leave the party early.

Franklin would never have pulled that kind of stunt if he were well. Which made Gene more tolerant, but also more resentful of how tolerant he had to be.

“You're all just a bunch of Pollyannas, you know, you and your friends,” Franklin persisted as Gene put him to bed, still upset, but Franklin looked too tired in the soft lights of their apartment to be upbraided. Deflated, Gene was glad to be home, ready to forgive. “Where are your pigtails, Pollyanna?” Franklin asked, tugging on Gene's ears. “Always thinking the best of people. Always so sure everything's going to turn out just fine.” Gene pulled his lover's shirt over his head, leaving him red-faced and mussed, like a petulant toddler.

But Franklin was unwilling to be soothed into submission. He grabbed Gene's collar, the way he might have to make
love: desperate, passionate. His lips, as he spoke, were moist and paler than they should have been.

“This used to be a real
place
, Gene,” he whined, turning his head to the side in despair. “It used to have a soul. People came here because there was nowhere else for them to go, and it took them in, and then the place and the people made something beautiful out of what everyone else gave up on. Now it's all about who's making the most commercial toy or who's going public or who's got a reservation at International Orange. It's a tragedy, Genie,” Franklin said, pounding his fist into the mattress, “a tragedy! And no one is doing a goddamn thing about it. Then you and your fancy friends”—they were always Gene's friends when Franklin was angry with them—“stand around telling me it'll all work out, it'll all be for the good. Well, it won't, Gene. Our city is dying. The soul's sucked out of her. And I don't care if speaking the truth makes me unpopular. It's a hell of a lot better than that crap you were dishing up. I mean, a twenty-first-century Gold Rush? Millennial prospectors? You kids are nothing but starry-eyed naïfs with overworked vocabularies,” he muttered affectionately.

“Isn't that funny?” Gene asked, drawing the covers over Franklin as his tipsy partner lifted his arms. “That the very idealism you're mourning is sitting right in front of you?”

Franklin rolled his eyes. “Stop blowing smoke up my ass,” he huffed miserably. “Those
kids
are ruining the best city America ever had the accidental luck to create. A city of artists and free thinkers and people willing to stick their necks
out for what they care about and who they love.” Franklin sat up again, the veins in his arms standing out against the pale skin. “A city for people who actually had the courage to live on the edge of the world. Where are
those
people, I ask you? You want to know where they are?” Gene waited patiently, sure he'd run out of steam sooner rather than later. “Oregon.” Franklin sat back, letting his coup de grace sink in. “They're in fucking Oregon.”

“It's time for bed.” But as Gene reached up to turn out the light, Franklin grabbed his hand.

“You don't get it, do you? These kids don't care if the city is
reinvigorated
,” he snarled meanly, “they just want it refurbished. And don't act all cool and academic. It's your city, too. You have something to lose if they take over. Don't pretend you don't.”

“I wasn't pretending,” Gene sighed, wondering if he should just turn in for the night also. “I'm just not sure I'd say it's as bad as all that.”

“Well, that's because you're from Wichita,” Franklin explained. “They're Gold Rushers, all right. Kicking out all the artists and runaways with their ridiculous paychecks and ridiculous pants, developing pie-in-the-sky apps they think are going to save the world. Well, what about our world, Gene? What about us?”

What
would
happen to them? Gene wondered, no longer thinking about the city. How bad would Franklin get? Things were going to get worse, they both knew that. But they could get a little worse slowly, or a lot worse fast. And what if something worse than getting worse happened?

Gene looked his lover in the eye. “The gold was all gone within a few years, Franklin. And the dot-com bubble burst.” Leaving a city full of shell-shocked twentysomethings, but at least rents plateaued, and a fresh-faced Gene got his first apartment at Parnassus and Stanyan, a tiny space in a cream-colored Victorian where, on the second floor, the fog was at window level, visiting him in lovely swirls every afternoon. Everyone was in recovery mode, which in San Francisco always came with an inordinate and exhilarating amount of honesty and hope. He pulled the blanket over Franklin's thin chest, tucking him in. “It's just scary because we're in the middle of it.”

“Nothing ever lasts, does it?” Franklin murmured. “Especially youth. The young are always the first to leave when the going gets tough, aren't they?” He was teary-eyed now, his lids drooping.

“I'm not going anywhere.” Gene kissed him on the forehead.

Franklin grumbled his response.

“Yes,” Gene said, turning out the light, “I know.”

They needed a vacation. To go somewhere warm for a weekend. Palm Springs. Or Arizona. Sedona would be beautiful in February. In fact, that was a great idea! He'd bring it up tonight. Wasn't that new resort down near Joshua Tree having an innkeepers' weekend soon? He closed his eyes, trying to visualize the brochure that had come in the mail. The Red Rock? Red Roof? Maybe he'd have more news on the job by then, something more solid, something more they could celebrate.

As Gene finally rounded the corner before the Vermont Street exit, the rain abated a little and the cityscape came into view. It used to be that a night together staying up and talking until morning was all he and Franklin needed to repair anything weak or broken between them. Toward dawn, they'd go up to the roof deck with blankets, watching the sun rise over Washington Square Park, as the bums and the regulars started the day shouting and teasing each other, opening for the larger act that would be that day's motley crew of tourists and locals and drifters swarming into the grassy oasis, one of several San Francisco spots where an urbanite's poorly repressed desire to connect to the earth concentrated and flourished.

The man behind him leaned on his horn again, bumping into the back of Gene's car.
What the hell
, Gene swore, cursing his neighbor as he glanced up into the mirror.

But the mirror wasn't where it had been.

And then it was. His gut twisted viciously, his eyes locked on the stuttering mirror. But it wasn't the mirror stuttering, he realized, fighting through the sudden and all-consuming haze of shock. It was the car, and all the other cars, and the ground beneath them all. He grabbed at the leaping steering wheel, the entire vehicle bucking under his hands, rattling and jerking as if in the jaws of some great cosmic dog determined to shake it to death. He held the wheel as tightly as he might a lifeline, his palms burning with the effort. All around him, vehicles slid and crashed into each other like bumper cars in an amusement park, the confused sounds of horns going off unwillingly and alarms shrieking and metal crunching metal and glass exploding piercing his ears, his
arms now in front of his face, over his head, his mind a terrified blank as the car jumped and jittered and finally bolted, smashing into a Range Rover driven by a small, white-haired woman whose mouth was open in a wide, inaudible
O
.