Everyday People (19 page)

He figured that if he got in his car, he'd probably take off, so he walked down to the convenience mart on Walnut, fending off a parade of eyes. How easy it would be to go with one of them and leave the Moët to explode, or retreat to his apartment and wait for Harold to show up and take him in his arms and make love to him. Or, better, drive right up to Harold's building and ring the bell till he came out,
then kiss him hard in front of his wife and children, the whole neighborhood, rightfully claim him for his own.

What would Julie London do?

Oh, no question.

The aisles of the convenience mart were blazing with men, a war zone. They peeked over the neat displays, lingered by the freezer, obvious in their thin T-shirts and ripped gym physiques. Please, Andre thought, I am beyond this. The cashier—strangely, an obese woman in a hideous print muumuu, a poster child for her entire gender—seemed to take forever with his change, and when he was finally out on the dark sidewalk again, he laughed at his panic. Last night he would have given in to one of them simply to rid himself of Harold for a few minutes.

It would have been awful, he thought, and he was glad he hadn't. That was the whole problem—all his solutions were short-term.

And what was this with Michel?

He never said it was a solution.

It could be. Clearly things with Harold weren't going anywhere. That left Michel or someone new, and right now he couldn't deal with someone new.

The man in the picture was just some rough island traffic, a cabana boy, high-priced sport for the tourists, nothing more. He and Michel would have a laugh over him.

Ahead, he saw the blonde still walking his dalmatian, looking forlorn. Oh God, shoot me if I get like that, he thought.

Was he any less desperate, running errands for his ex just for some Moët and a welcome-home fuck?

It was this city, he thought. It had run out of fun. He had to get out of here, go to Savannah and do the party circuit, maybe take a sublet in Charleston, New Orleans.

The blonde saw him and turned around, yanking the dalmatian away from someone's steps. Christ, Andre thought, now I've hurt his feelings. Sometimes he actually wished he could pass for straight. For seventeen years he had, more or less, but lately he seemed to have lost the knack of playing the Menacing Young Black Man. Living in Shadyside did that to you.

He walked past Gregory's and Lucien's and David Holtzman's and Rick Gary's old place, past Brendan the bouncer at the Raspberry Rhino's (yes, dead) and Alan who used to play tennis with them before he got beat up rollerblading in the park and moved to St. Paul. It had taken years, but it seemed to Andre that he'd woken up one day and everyone had left, the town emptied out. No wonder he was mooning over a married man; all the real catches were gone.

A spot had opened up in front of their building, and he was tempted to move his car, but immediately a van noticed it and signaled. He ducked inside before the driver could get out and proposition him, then on the stairs laughed at his paranoia. Below, the outside door squeaked closed. He told himself he wouldn't wait for it to click shut, but when it didn't, he stopped and cocked his head toward the lack of noise.

“Help me,” someone said matter-of-factly. “Goddammit,” the voice said with effort, “don't just walk away,” and he realized it was Michel.

He was struggling with his luggage, propping the door open with it. He still had his uniform on, the jacket with the gold stripes on the cuffs that made him look like a pilot. He'd gotten some color, his hair longer, tinted auburn at the ends, and Andre didn't know which annoyed him more, the fact that he'd been lying around on some beach in Thailand or just how very beautiful he was.

“You're early,” Andre said.

“Don't act so happy to see me.”

“Sorry.”

“Don't apologize,” Michel scolded, “just help me.”

Andre put the milk down and grabbed a rollaway suitcase. There were only three, but they each weighed a ton, and Michel was tired.

“Didn't you see me?” he asked when Andre brought the last one up.

“I'm sorry.”

“Stop saying that.”

“I must have been spacing out. It's been a long day.”

“Don't I get a kiss?”

He was standing by the mantel, and as they kissed, Andre noticed he'd replaced the picture. Turned the music off too. Michel surprised him with his tongue. Andre tried to respond honestly, then closed his eyes and thought of Harold, how over the months even his noxious cigars became endearing, a part of him.

“How about some bubbly?” Michel asked. “And I'd kill for a shower.”

“Go ahead, I'll bring you a glass. I just took one.”

“Don't you want to join me?”

“I'll be waiting for you in bed.”

“Playing hard to get, I see.”

“Never failed me yet,” Andre said.

He waited till Michel had the water on before taking the champagne out of the freezer. It was perfectly chilled, crisp. It gave him a deep satisfaction that Michel would never know. How petty he could be, like a child. He found the copper bucket under the sink and filled it with ice, plucked two fluted glasses off the shelf and carried everything into the bedroom. He poured a glass and took it in to Michel, the water drilling the stall. His tan was all over, no lines, and Andre wondered if there'd been any little Thai cabana boys. Michel liked to say they were pretty even if they didn't have anything in their pants.

“Thank you,” Michel said, taking the glass by the stem, utterly grateful, apologetic. He was always snippy after a long flight, and it was wrong to hold it against him. Andre thought it was his own fault; he was so wound up over Harold. It would be best to simply admit it, leave, tell Michel he'd be back when he knew what he was doing.

And when would that be?

The water cut off, and Andre retreated to the bedroom. The comforter on the futon was thrown back, the white sheets inviting. Michel would want the lights on, would think something was wrong if he turned them off. Andre didn't want him to see how he'd let himself go, so he pulled off his top and stepped out of his jeans and slid between the chilly covers. He poured himself a glass and tossed it back, poured himself another and left it untouched on the low night table, as if it were his first.

He could leave now, grab his keys and run for the Eclipse.

Michel came out in a mask, a red dragon with flames licking its face. He had on a black kimono, undone so Andre could appreciate him. He stalked over to the bed, hunched like a sumo wrestler, his package dangling. If only he could keep the mask on, Andre thought, not talk.

Michel took off the mask. “I got one for you too. Green dragon.” He turned and threw the kimono on a chair, and Andre could see the hardness of his long limbs, his sharply defined back tapering to his waist. Harold was no comparison, thick around the hips, and Andre thought it was unfair. Harold always called him beautiful, as if that was what he loved, not Andre himself, just his skin, the muscles underneath. He was equally guilty of lust, even now, when he thought he was immune to it. Wanted to be.

Michel lifted the covers and lay down beside him, his skin warm from the shower. His hair was still damp. He threw a leg over Andre, his thigh rolling his cock on his stomach, bowing it. Michel rose up, took a sip and kissed him, his hands roaming his chest, and Andre reached around to touch his strong back, pulling Michel against him, their tongues sliding together, wet. His scent was familiar, and Andre's body responded, filled with years of memory.

It was wrong, he thought. He could see himself from the outside, as if he were hovering in one corner of the room, not really there at all. He would not stay the night. He would save something of himself for Harold, keep some part of their lovemaking sacred.

Michel stopped to find a condom, tore the foil with his teeth, applied a dab of Astroglide. At least he was that considerate. He dug a hand beneath Andre and lifted his leg.

Not this, he thought, but his other leg obeyed Michel's touch, rose into the air until his heels were on Michel's shoulders, his knees nearly touching his own. He was hard against the hair of Michel's belly, and he could feel Michel prodding him. There was still time to stop, he thought. All he had to do was say something, ask about the picture on the mantel.

But there was not time, because now Michel had found him, was heavy inside him, rocking, plunging, and involuntarily Andre opened to him. He closed his eyes and pictured Harold above him, Harold sliding into him, his kind face shining with sweat, his kisses afterward, their shared secret an extra tenderness between them. He would be at home, watching TV, thinking Andre was in his apartment. What if he called? He could see Harold listening to the phone ring, standing on the sidewalk under his window, knocking on his door.

The frame of the futon creaked and shuddered, knocked against the wall, banishing Harold.

It's all right, Andre promised him calmly, it doesn't mean anything. Nothing at all, just sex. Yes, he really was being honest, or so he'd thought, because soon, with the two of them slapping together, his eyes tight shut, Andre realized he was actually talking to himself, and even he knew it was much worse than that.

THERE WAS NOTHING
wrong with Miss Fisk except she was getting old. Every day Vanessa told herself this, as if she hadn't heard Miss Fisk call her by her mother's name, hadn't seen the milk in the cupboard, the dish detergent in the frigerator.

She was still good with Rashaan. Vanessa checked to make sure he'd eaten, and he had—there was a smear of bananas on his collar, a bowl in the sink with Yogi Bear smiling up beneath a brown crust of something. And every day he was fresh, smelling of powder, his diaper light. Most days Miss Fisk was fine, dropping his big keys and soft blocks in the plastic laundry basket in the corner, going on about how they had a nice stroll over to the park and what they read together and how Rashaan didn't want to go down for his nap, but some days she said things that made Vanessa hesitate to bring him by the next morning, made her start giving him his pills at home.

“I remember when your daddy first came north,” Miss Fisk said, beaming, showing her stained lower teeth. “This was right after the war, because
his
daddy worked for the war department down to Virginia—he was a dentist—and the work was over, at least for our people. Even then everyone knew he was something special.”

Vanessa didn't correct her, say she was thinking of someone else—her mother's father, possibly (though he was from Texas and worked first in a sawmill and then a meatpacking plant, according to her mother, stunning dried-up Holsteins with a pneumatic bolt gun, coming home smelling of blood, his fingers shaking). Maybe she thought Vanessa was someone else altogether. Vanessa nodded as if she knew this history, as if they were just going over it again together, remembering for the sheer pleasure of it.

It wasn't that Vanessa wasn't interested. Even though their oral history was done (she'd gotten an A), she still came over to listen to Miss Fisk, lingered on the couch, sipping bitter lemonade. It seemed she held the entire history of East Liberty inside her, from the Great Migration all the way up to the present. She took Vanessa back to a time when men were natty dressers, church was the high time of the week, and white landlords hadn't bought up all their property for a song. She looked to the ceiling as if an angel were hovering above them, and Vanessa could see she was picturing the streets filled with fat Cadillacs, the sidewalks lined with businesses long gone bankrupt.

“And on the corner of Highland,” she would say, squinting as if to see it better, “there was a shoe shop, a cobbler. Little Jewish fella, name of … Goldblum? Goldberg?”

Sometimes she said things even she knew were wrong. She'd wave a hand in front of her face as if erasing them, sending away the messenger that served her memory.

“Some days are better than others,” she admitted.

“You tell me if he gets too much for you now,” Vanessa said.

“Never. Not my good boy.” Miss Fisk stroked Rashaan's smooth head.

Vanessa said she had to get home and start supper so she could study, which wasn't a complete lie. Her mother was making her famous haddock tonight, but she did have reading to do, and a quiz tomorrow on it.

“We'll see you two tomorrow then,” Miss Fisk said, and let her go.

Walking across the front lawn and around the porch to the side door of their building, Vanessa wondered what Miss Fisk would do for the rest of the day. The thought of her alone in that big house worried her. Vanessa didn't like the quiet. Even in their apartment, she was afraid of breakins, burglars holding a sharpened screwdriver to her throat. Miss Fisk didn't have any family around here, no pets, not even cable TV. How did she spend the hours until bedtime? She'd stopped getting the
Post-Gazette
because her eyes were only good enough for large print. Maybe she talked on the phone, wrote letters someone in another state would try to decipher. Bean's mother was her daughter. Vanessa couldn't imagine what they'd say to each other. She had a hard enough time talking with Chris.

They were supposed to be together again, a couple, just because they'd gone to the park twice. He called almost
every night, and patiently she told him about her day and then Rashaan's, her work waiting for her on the kitchen table. She wasn't being mean, she really did want to talk to him, but the timing wasn't right. They needed to be together for more than a week before they really started talking. And so every night they went on about nothing in particular, and when it was time to hang up, he said he loved her, just like in high school.

“I love you,” he said, and she resented being put on the defensive, having to come back with something. It wasn't a lie to say she loved him, because she did care for him, she'd known him since they were kids, he was important to her, the father of her baby.