Isle of Palms (28 page)

Despite the fact that I had yet to lay an eye on Arthur, I sat to the side a little so that my crossed leg was discreetly positioned against the white tablecloth. The one advantage of being born with a body like an asparagus was that I had reasonably decent, long legs. I was getting crow’s feet and I wasn’t too happy about the recently arrived creases on either side of my mouth, but I still had a few guns in my arsenal.

Our captain arrived, all starch and protocol, handed Jim the twenty-two-pound leather bound wine list, and said, “May I offer you a cocktail before dinner?”

“Yes! Why not? I’ll have a Gibson,” Jim said. “How about you, Anna?”

Okay, I’m not a cocktail person. I start to giggle thinking of cocktails with naughty names—Fuzzy Navel, Sex on the Beach, Screw Driver—realizing I had to say something, anything, except to ask for a beer. The captain was waiting with limited patience and Jim’s face was curious, wondering what was so funny to me.

“A Martini,” I said, just like I had them all the time, looking at Jim evenly.

“Why not have a Cosmopolitan?” Jim said.

“A Cosmopolitan,” I said, like a good parrot, wondering what a Cosmopolitan was.

“Very good,” the captain said, nodding his approval, and walked away, clearly thinking we were a couple of jerks.

We opened the menus and scanned them. Sure enough, there was a cheese course among the desserts. Maybe this was the right place after all. If not, I was wasting enough nervous energy to light a small city.

“Did you even
hear
what I said?” Jim said.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry, Jim. My mind was wandering. Tell me again.”

“If you’re not going to pay attention to me, I’m going to make you pay half of the bill!”

I closed my menu and smiled across the table. “Oh, please don’t be an old woman with me, just repeat it, for heaven’s sake.”

“I said, Gary left me.”

Gary and Jim had been living together since Jim and I broke up.

“Good Lord! Why in the
world?
When were you going to tell me?”

“He’s sick.”

“Oh, God. Jim. I’m so, so sorry.” I knew what that meant, at least I
assumed
it meant Gary was HIV positive. If Gary had it, there was every possibility that Jim did too. Before I could think another horrible thought, Jim spoke again.

“I’m not sick. I had blood work done and I’m fine. But, I can’t
stand
”—his eyes filled up with tears and his bottom lip quivered—“the
thought
of . . .”

I reached across the table and grabbed his hand, squeezing it.

The captain reappeared, sighed deeply in ennui at the sight of our joined hands, and placed our drinks in front of us. Jim stood.

“Excuse me,” he said, leaving the table to go to the men’s room and compose himself.

Poor Jim! Poor Gary! He hadn’t said much but what was there to say? His tears said it all. Over the years, just like the rest of the world, we had lost too many friends, men and women, all of whom contracted AIDS in different ways. In fact, I had arrived at the age where I had lost friends from all kinds of diseases. Breast cancer. Colon cancer. Early heart attacks. I knew that an insurance company’s actuarial table would show that the odds were that
x
amount of people died in their twenties and more in their thirties and so forth. It didn’t matter what statistics said, I had a terrible time getting my brain wrapped around the fact that young adults were dying left and right. And worse, who would raise their children and live their dreams? Never mind car accidents or suicides. Car accidents were arbitrary and suicides were another subject entirely. Anyway, true to form, I never went to the funerals but I always sent flowers and a card. Would I let Jim go to this funeral without me at his side? Would I always be a coward about seeing dead bodies? Probably.

I sat there staring at my glass, thinking that if I had my life to start over there was no doubt that my career would’ve been in medical research. How much longer would it be before we could stop these horrible diseases? The newspapers continued to report huge advances, but all around people still died way too young.

I wondered if Gary was taking the “cocktail,” that now infamous jeroboam of chemicals designed to sustain the lives of HIV patients. But the way Jim had revealed the news implied he was too far along. God, I was filled with such sadness, not only for Jim and for Gary but for all of us. I just hated death. I hated it.

I needed to cheer myself before I slid into a maudlin pit, knowing I had to give Jim the compassion he deserved. I took a sip of the pale cranberry-colored drink that I decided was wrongly named a Cosmopolitan. It was delicious, but it should’ve been named something like Pink Quicksilver because it was going to slip down my throat with alarming speed. Jim had been right to think I would like this and that’s how Jim had always been—the kind of man who thought about what you might like and then saw to it that you got it. I took a few more sips, thinking it didn’t appear to have any alcohol in it.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Gary. I wasn’t overly fond of him, because he was the one who I blamed for jet propelling my life back to Daddy’s house, but I most surely did not want to know the man was going to die a terrible death. It wasn’t right.

Anyhow, I knew that if it hadn’t been Jim and Gary it would have been Jim and someone else. Sometime after Jim and I broke up I had admitted that during the time we were together, my feelings for Jim had gone beyond friendship. I’d guess my heart began to change around the time Emily was born and we were playing house. Like pieces of a complicated jigsaw puzzle coming together over that first year, I fell deeply in love with Jim. I couldn’t help it. We lived together in such an easy and natural way, sharing everything except a bed. It may have been a celibate marriage but it was not a loveless one.

It wasn’t hard to make Jim happy. I kept things quiet so he could study, kept the house as neat as a pin, and I never nagged. The nagging part was something I had learned from my mother, who was the quintessential whiner, only to be outdone by Old Violet. Our domestic routine became more broken in and comfortable, much like a pair of shoes you never wanted to give up. On several different occasions after mucho beeros, I made attempts to show my affection and he gently declined all advances, peeling my arms from around his neck and directing me to my bed, tucking me in. When that happened, the next morning I would feel completely terrible inside. I knew he loved me. He knew I loved him. We were married. Why not give it a chance? No one would have blamed me for trying.

It just wasn’t in the cards. Between his declining comfort level with my romantic overtures and my mushrooming frustration, he eventually zigzagged his way to Gary. After a while, all I had to do was light a scented candle and he would announce that he was going out for the evening. Those increasing late nights proved that the original terms of our agreement were how things were and always would be. Something in me defied his sexual orientation. The same kernel of stubborn will bamboozled me into believing that Jim might come around someday. But Jim had never deceived me; I had deceived myself.

“Would Madam care for another?”

The captain’s eyebrows were somewhere in between the ceiling and the moon.

“Yes, Madam would, thank you.” I wanted to say, Bug off, bubba. Madam is having some dark thoughts here and this is no time to piss her off. Who was this idiot?

By the time Jim returned I had drained the first glass, the captain had brought me a fresh drink, and I was well on the way to finishing it too. They were so good and my morbid veil was lifting, giving way to mild inebriation. I was calm.

“Okay, we have to talk about this,” I said when Jim sat down.

“There isn’t much to say.” He took two sips of his Gibson and fished out the onions. “Thank God for vodka.”

“Amen. At least I think it’s got vodka in it. This is my second one of these babies. We had better eat something or else you’re going to have to carry me out of here over your shoulder.” I remembered that I hadn’t eaten a single thing since breakfast. I broke my roll and ate a small piece. “So, talk to me. Did he move out or did you?”

“He did. I still have the apartment on Union Street. He’s moved back to Ohio to be with his mother and his family. Funny thing is, I thought
I
was his family. Actually, not funny. I mean, we lived together for all our adult lives.”

“Look, Jim, I’m no doctor or shrink but I think that when somebody is afraid and terribly ill, they want to be with their parents, if they’re still around. And, not that it matters, but how did he get sick in the first place?”

“In the usual way. We had been fighting and sort of sulking around for a long time. Years, in fact. We probably should’ve gone our separate ways but for a million reasons, we just continued to live together as friends. But he was sort of shopping the market, you know? Anyway, he must have picked up someone and been careless. It’s unbelievable to me that this could even happen to Gary. But you know how he is. The bars were his thing, not mine. For once in my life my laziness paid off.”

“You mean, you weren’t into going out anymore.”

“Lord, Anna, the bars are stuffed with fierce young talent and tired old queens. What’s more pathetic than an old queen cruising young boys with fake IDs who are looking for free drinks and a sugar daddy?”

“You’re not even forty.”

“I know that, but in my mind nearly forty-year-old men are supposed to be settled down or something. Hell, I’ve been in my own business for twelve years! And Gary’s been in my life for so long, I wouldn’t even know where to begin anyway.”

This meant that Jim was coming back to me the same way Gary had gone to Indiana. He was here to fortify himself and my mission was to be his good friend. He would have to go back to San Francisco at some point to see about work. Jim, as you would imagine, had a very cool job. Maximizing his business degree and his love of all good things, Jim had become an expert on wine and ran a consulting business, buying domestic wine and importing wine for restaurants and hotel chains all over the country.

“Well, for the moment you don’t have to do anything except relax and bask in Emily’s youth, starting tomorrow. Have you called Gary?”

“Yeah, I called him. His mother thinks I’m evil incarnate and tries to monitor our phone calls.”

“Like that will change anything.”

The captain was returning to record and pass judgment on our culinary choices.

“Exactly. We’d better order.”

I decided on the salmon carpaccio with a citron wasabi drizzle to begin. Jim ordered She Crab soup, a Lowcountry specialty and a second appetizer of quail stuffed with foie gras.

“Hungry?” I said.

“Famished,” he said.

I didn’t have a freaking clue what carpaccio was or in what direction wasabi drizzled. To me, wasabi sounded like a performance of African folk dance. Remember, I was the girl who preferred her food fried, served in a basket. Not the one who regularly ordered food speaking in tongues.

Jim couldn’t decide between rack of lamb and the Chateaubriand so the captain stepped in.

“The seafood stew is very nice,” he said.

“Let’s have it, Anna, what do you say?”

I nodded my head and closed the menu, handing it to the captain. “Another executive decision made,” I said. I picked up my glass and finished off my drink.

Jim was reading the wine list with the glacier speed of someone savoring a good book.

“May I suggest a Cakebread Sauvignon Blanc? The 1999 is very popular and reasonably priced,” said the captain, with a repeat performance of high arch eyebrows, convinced that Jim didn’t know anything about wine.

He didn’t know Jim.

“No, I think not,” Jim said, scanning the list with a little frown. “Oh! I can’t believe you have this! Or do you?”

“Which one is that?”

“The ’97 Clos St-Théobold.”

“Would you kindly point out your selection?”

Warning! Eyebrows losing altitude and gaining speed. I suppressed major grinning by chewing my bottom lip. This was karma in action.

“It’s right here. The Domaine Schoffit, ’97, Rangen de Thann Vineyard, Grande Cru, Lot Number Ten. It has this residual sugar that’s perfect for the heat of wasabi or for foie gras. Perfect. Anna, you’re going to adore this wine.”

“I adore
you!”
Jim had taken the prissy waiter’s limbs apart by just being himself.

“I’ll be right back with your wine, sir.”

“Great! Bring a glass for yourself too!” he said and turned to me, flushed in excitement. “God, I was in Alsace last summer and found the Rangen de Thann Vineyard. It’s this speck of a town in Colmat-haut Rhin—oh, fine! Here I go rambling on! Sorry, Anna.”

“Please! I love it! I mean, it’s so great that you can work in something you enjoy and make money doing it! I can’t decide if I love you more for you or for squashing his grapes but good.”

“Doesn’t matter, as long as you love me.”

And there it was—the admission from the guy who could give but not take, that he needed me. No problem, I thought.

The attitude of our captain had been replaced by a sudden solicitousness. He uncorked the bottle with a sure hand and poured out a measure for Jim to taste, doing everything but presenting the cork on bended knee.

Jim drank, nodded his head, and said to him, “Pour yourself a glass. I think you’ll find this to be slightly better than the Cakebread.”

“I’m sure,” he said and smiled, revealing a mouthful of birdlike teeth.

The wine was delicious. I assumed it would be sickeningly sweet when Jim said it had a sugar residual but it wasn’t. We ate our first courses, neatly finished the bottle with the help of old Maurice the captain, who, practically salivating, had sidled up to Jim for another sample. Jim, generous soul, wound up pouring him two glasses and ordering another bottle for our entrées. This time it was another but very different Riesling, Domaine Trimbach, ’83, a Clos St. Hune. Yeah, boy, it wasn’t long before I was wondering how my fork was going to find my mouth. Must have been the Cosmos.