Faking It (22 page)

His hand still in mine, he sat frozen for a few seconds; then he blinked and shook his head slightly.

"What did you say?"

"I accepted a teaching position at NorthamptonUniversity. I'm moving back to Massachusetts."

"When?"

"Next month, after the semester ends."

"When did this happen?"

"I interviewed back in January."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't tell anyone. Not even Maggie."

He looked past me at nothing, bewildered. Then he darted his eyes back to mine. "Did you also say you love me?" he asked.

"Yes."

My voice was shaking; my heart pounding.

"As in, you're in love with me?"

"Yes."

"Since when?"

"Since the day we met. I just didn't admit it to myself until that night of the final."

He looked into his coffee cup, slowly and silently. "I don't know what to say," he barely whispered.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to drop both bombs like this. They just sort of fell out of my mouth at the same time."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"That I was in love with you? Because you forbade it, remember? We signed that fucking contract. And then, when the contract expired, I didn't think there was any chance of it working out. I mean, you were right, Dev. I could never fully approve of what you do for a living. And that's totally hypocritical of me to say, considering I used you. You were right about that, too. I was no different from any of your clients."

"I was way out of line when I said that," he said.

"But you weren't wrong. We used each other."

"To better ourselves. We both benefited from it. You taught me a lot, Andi."

"And you taught me a lot, and I am so grateful to you for that."

"But why do you have to leave?"

"I'm ready for more. And less, too, I suppose. I'm ready for a more challenging position as both a writing program director and a published textbook author. I wanna publish a collection of memoirs next. And I'm ready for a more fulfilling, stable relationship, too. I met someone at the conference back in January."

He stiffened. "Really."

"His name is Sam. He teaches at EdmundCollege, and we've been emailing and calling each other. In fact, he's the person I went to see during spring break. We're going to start seeing each other seriously once I move. I think I'm--I really, really care about him a lot. And you know, that's something else that's changed since meeting you. I never got to really
know
a man before. I was always so preoccupied with the sex thing and whether I was satisfying him and terrified of being rejected. By spending all this time with you, I got to know you. And I got to know and be myself--my real self. I just sometimes wish we could've started it this way and not as a proposition. And yet, in its own way, it's the most honest relationship I've ever been in, I think. And I guess now I wanna try that with someone else."

I paused, but not long enough to let him speak before sheepishly adding, "I should've told you sooner, I know. I'm sorry about that. I don't know why I didn't."

He looked straight into my eyes, fully absorbing everything, as always.

"And the less?" he said meekly. "You said you were ready for more and less."

"For as long as I can remember, I wanted to live the life of a single New Yorker. I wanted to be a part of the city, part of a scene--coffeeshops, bookstores, galleries, dating, whatever; knowing my way around, riding the subway fearlessly... All those years in New England, I passed myself off as that New Yorker. But I never was. I faked it. I was just a sheltered girl from the Long Island suburbs. This past year, I lived the life I always wanted, and you know what? I was still faking it. I was trying to cover up so much: my body, my sexuality, my insecurity, my fear...

"But not anymore. I'm still a suburban at heart; I'm just not a sheltered, frightened girl anymore. Strange, I'm neither a New Yorker nor a New Englander. Or maybe I'm both now. I don't know. But I don't need the city streets and the train and the noise anymore. I don't need the crowds or the skyscrapers or Junior's or Heartland. I don't need to take cover."

Devin drew in a breath. "Well, sounds like you've made up your mind."

"What about
you
, Dev?"

"What about me?"

"Aren't you ready for more? You once told me that I'm more than my body. So are you.
You can do
so much more
. Don't you want more...and less?"

A steep sadness overshadowed the color of his eyes from sienna to charcoal gray.

"Why don't you go all the way with your clients?" I asked.

The question loomed in the air as he looked away, eyes dark, searching for words. Then his eyes met mine earnestly.

Before he could answer me, his cellphone rang. He took the call when he saw the number, spoke abruptly, and ended with, "I'll be right there." He looked alarmed.

"Is everything okay?"

"I gotta go." He got up, grabbed his coat, and headed for the door while I jumped up to follow him.

"What happened?"

He turned to me. "It's my father."

He then ran out the door without saying goodbye.

Chapter Twenty-three

I
DIDN'T HEAR FROM DEVIN FOR A WEEK, AND HE didn't return my calls. What's more, he wasn't at his apartment when I went there and spoke to the doorman, who knew me well by now. When I tracked down Christian, Devin's business partner, he told me that Devin had canceled all his clients' dates indefinitely.

"Why?" I asked. "What happened?"

"You know I can't discuss it with you. You're a client."

"Past tense, Christian. The contract expired a long time ago. We're friends now."

"Which I've never understood--Devin's never gotten personal with any of his clients, past or present. Besides, if you two are such good friends, then how come he hasn't told you himself?"

Good question.

"Seems to me like he doesn't want you to know," he said.

I huffed in exasperation.

"Christian, please. I know you're cautious and distrusting of my intentions, and you have every right to be, given the nature of your business. But you also know I was never your typical client."

Silence.

"Look, he's your
friend
, isn't he?"

Christian paused. "Yes, he is."

"Well, he's my friend, too. Sometimes our friends don't ask for support when they need it. I think Devin needs me. What do you think?"

Although the silence lasted only a second or two, in that eternity I felt my heart sink in defeat. Just as I was ready to hang up the phone, Christian spoke.

"His father died. The funeral is tomorrow. I don't know where, though."

"Thank you, Christian," I pushed the words past the lump in my throat, and then I hung up.

Despite the relief of knowing, my insides swirled with sickness; I had sensed this truth all along.

Chapter Twenty-four

T
HROUGHOUT THE TIME THAT DEVIN AND I SPENT together, he rarely mentioned his family. What I knew about his father I had learned through his writing:

He was a former construction worker who had to quit at the age of thirty because of an accident on the job. The injury resulted in a lifetime of chronic back pain and disability checks. He went back to school and got an associate's degree in accounting, and kept the books for several construction companies, while mom worked in the town school district as an administrative assistant. Dad was a gruff, burly man who preferred beer and boxing to Bach and Bottacelli. He read little outside of Car and Driver, the sports section of Newsday, and an occasional trade magazine, although he always loved World War II stories...

He saw Devin's passions for art and music and film as "fag-stuff." He was resentful when Devin was accepted to Parsons, and could only afford SUNY Binghamton. He was disappointed when Devin majored in art history ("You'll be lucky if you get a job as a goddamn tour guide," his father once said. Then Devin told him that docents don't even get paid...). To placate him, Devin changed his major to business and picked up a minor in art history. And when he moved into the city and eventually started the escort business with Christian, his father practically stopped speaking to him altogether, unimpressed with his son's knack for business and promotion and selling.

"I tried to raise you to be a man with self-respect and decency,"
his father had once told him.
"I'd rather see you cleaning toilets than being some sissy-boy who wears nice suits and goes to fancy restaurants with some broad who's too stupid or ugly to get it for free."

Thing is, Devin's father never respected him. And I couldn't help but wonder if Devin became an escort in an attempt to prove to his father that he
was
a man.

***

His eyes widened when he saw me coming up the church steps, just before the service.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I had to drag it out of Christian, the rat-bastard."

"How'd you know where to come?"

"I looked in the obits under 'Santino' and remembered you telling me that you were from Massapequa."

He looked at me, his eyes filled with remorse.

"I'm sorry I never called you back," he said.

I gave him a smile of reassurance, and then hugged him. "You had more important things to do."

He squeezed me and took a deep breath.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Dev," I whispered in his ear, squeezing him back. He reluctantly let go.

I didn't sit with him during the funeral mass, but we made eye contact a few times, and I affectionately smiled at him, feeling a strange kind of warmth, more like something one would feel at a wedding than a funeral. I'd never seen this side of him. He looked so reserved on the outside, dressed not in his usual Versace, but black slacks, a finely woven, white button-down shirt without a tie, and the Helmut Lang sport jacket he wore when he showed up at Heartland with Della Mason. Not the charmer, the crowd-worker, the man who always knew how to make a woman feel special and safe. Rather, he looked as if the wheels were spinning in his head, fighting to keep composure. He looked
vulnerable
.

After the funeral, he invited me to his parents' house, and rode with me in my car. We were silent during most of the drive. As we got off Sunrise Highway, he spoke.

"It was cancer."

I had suspected that. I kept my eyes on the road, following the procession of limos.

"When did it start?"

"A year ago. They told him he had six months."

"Where was it?"

"It started in his pancreas, but spread to his lungs. He was a two-pack-a-day smoker before he quit fifteen years ago."

"Did you know he had cancer?"

"My mother told me when he was first diagnosed. He's been bad these last couple of months--in and out of the hospital--that's why I wasn't around much. When I got the call at Junior's, he was at the end. He died two days later."

"Did you get to say goodbye?"

He didn't answer me. We pulled into a long, narrow driveway leading up to a tan, colonial house.

Inside the house, Devin introduced me to his family; his mother and two sisters greeted me warmly. I expected judgment from them, expected them to wonder:
is she one of "them"?
The living room and kitchen were crowded with relatives and friends of Devin's father. I looked at family photographs on and above the mantle: Disney World in '82--barely smiling. High school graduation in '86--hair moussed and layered and practically down to his shoulders, those same sienna eyes sparkling. I'll bet every girl had a crush on him. Next, his sister's wedding photo, all of them standing in a row, distinguished, with Devin standing next to his father--then healthy and proud and commanding--both dressed in tuxes. They looked alike, albeit his father a bit more rough around the edges.

I studied the photos, and slowly the revelation came into focus: none of them was of Devin. I was really looking at
David
, who, despite his model looks and popularity, lived in lonely solitude and needed to be loved by his father.

This wasn't the man I'd spent the last year with. This wasn't the man I knew.

And then, it became stunningly clear to me, when I saw him standing across the room, talking to his Uncle Larry, shy, almost awkward, plain:
he's
been faking it all this time
. Then, I saw him--
really
saw him. Not on paper. Not in a bathtub. Then, I knew. And in that moment, I felt very out of place in this house, with this family. I felt like a stranger, an intruder, a voyeur.

"So, how did you and David meet?" Devin's sister Joannie asked me as I helped wrap up and put away leftovers. I froze: I wasn't used to hearing him referred to as "David", and had been consciously making an effort all day to not call him "Devin" and be found out. Perhaps they were, in fact, wondering whether I was a client (an escort for the escort, I thought; how ironic). My mind raced for an answer that wasn't a lie, but rather a re-interpretation of the truth.

"We met at a cocktail party and became friends soon thereafter," I replied, my voice shaking a bit. I was sure they were convinced I was lying--and wasn't sure they were wrong to think so.

"And what do you do?"

"I'm a professor and an assistant director of college writing at BrooklynU."

Joannie probably knew nothing about Devin's business, and assumed, as I once had, that a professor wouldn't seek out an escort's service. She leaned in a bit and spoke in a low, hushed voice.

"You know what my brother does for a living?"

"Yes, I do."

"And you're
okay
with it?" she asked, appalled.

My insides tightened. "Well, I think I'd be less tolerant of it if we were dating, but otherwise, it's his choice."

That sounded plausible.

"Makes me sick," she said, her voice now turning somewhat venomous. "Someone so talented, cheapening himself. Did you know that he had a scholarship to Parsons? Have you ever seen his paintings?"