Max and Julie
A Novella
Jon Rutherford
Copyright 2012 Jon Rutherford
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Prologue
Is there anything more melancholy than December dusks?
Looking out the window behind my desk, I can barely make out heaps of dirty snow, one or two pedestrians, and little or no motor traffic on Parvenu Street. The only color I’ve seen in the past hour was a Yellow Cab. Well, that, and the little green glass frog sitting on my desktop. Thank God for Yellow Cabs—I guess. And frogs.
As I sit here, I’m fondling a little carved, inlaid wood box from Czechoslovakia. Inside it, there's a note written in blue-black ink with a fountain pen. I know the words by heart. They don’t mean much in themselves, but because of the circumstances associated with them, they mean—
Damn it, I really should stop doing this. I’ve been doing it every afternoon for at least a week. And I started doing it almost a year ago. It’s become addictive, and it amounts to self-punishment.
I ought to stop. Yeah, I know.
Chapter 1
One fine December day a year ago, Max and Julie Ventnor went out shopping in their old Saab. They needed “a few things” for their penthouse apartment—Max had mentioned the shopping when he called to see if I’d be home and if it’d be okay for them to drop by.
Now, “penthouse” may be misleading. It sounds fancy and rich. Max and Julie had a comfortable existence owing to Max’s thirty-year writing career, and he was still at his peak now, in his mid-80’s. But rich? Hardly? Fancy? Ha. No way. Tasteful? Yes. That’s a different matter.
Technically, yes, it is a penthouse, a suite of seven rooms perched atop Grandjean Tower, the once fashionable address of dozens or perhaps hundreds of yuppies. These vulgar capitalist parasites deserted the place with the dot-com bust and subsequent financial wipeouts, in search of other garish but less costly living quarters.
For several years now, Grandjean Tower has been the residence of people of modest means, largely from the arts and academic communities. Some are even minor, mostly regional, celebrities: a few authors who go about giving book signings over a four-or-five-state area; even fewer, Max included, regularly invited to one or another of the coasts (usually the east). With the death of most bookstores (one thing our country still excels at is finding all sorts of ways to promote illiteracy) these have been more stay-at-home lately. Still, their names would be recognizable by most people who still know what a book is, and how to read one.
Several painters and at least one sculptor live at The Grandjean, as its occupants usually refer to it; unless they’re feeling hostile to the penny-pinching owner and management, when they apply other names not requiring initial capitals but a good deal more colorful than “Grandjean”—the name, by the way, belonged to one of the original French settlers of our city, one of the more honest ones.
Julie and Max had lived at The Grandjean for a good deal longer than I’d known them. Max, now 84, always walked with a cane, even indoors and at home in the penthouse. He’d needed it since something brought about a vestibular disorder resulting, among other things, in a precarious and sometimes almost non-existent sense of balance. It came upon him suddenly eight years ago in Bruges, during one of the couple’s increasingly rare vacations abroad. Luckily whatever caused the dysfunction seemed to have no effect on Max’s other faculties, and he’d been able to turn out—though some critics would prefer “churn out”—a novel every year, as he had during more than twenty years before the incident.
Before he turned to writing detective fiction exclusively, Max had written “literary” novels which won hearty critical approval but not enough money to live on. The situation was reversed with the birth of the detective series. Most critics failed to see the sly quasi-cryptic “literary” content of these, though a tiny handful did, and gushed over it. Most important to Max and Julie, now 81 herself, the predictably good crime fiction served as a reliable source of income and a guarantee against the ravages carried out against people of all ages, but especially the old, in a society where being rich and young is really all that matters, unless you’re a politician.
Julie became a registered nurse just after Max met her at a wild boating party in Cambridge when he was finishing up his doctorate at Harvard and she was about to graduate from nursing school. As soon as he’d fished her out of the water, beating a trained lifeguard to the privilege, they knew they were destined for each other.
Her preference was always to work in psychiatric hospitals, and she never had trouble getting her wish. It proved handy for Max, as, within the confines of confidentiality, she was able to supply a wealth of information about the behavior of psychiatric patients, grist for the novel mill that had by now produced at least seven thrillers in which homicidal psychopaths played key roles. She’d been retired for a bit under fifteen years now.
The penthouse apartment was comfortable, but like the other tenants Max and Julie experienced frequent breakdowns and contretemps due both to the age of the building and to its neglect in recent, leaner, non-yuppie years. They all just kept their fingers crossed that the elevators—three of them, but only one that goes all the way to the roof—would keep working.
I wondered what the “few things” were that my two old friends were aiming to acquire on their excursion. I might have been expected to be concerned about my 84-year-old friend’s being behind a steering wheel. But Max’s condition in no way affected his ability to drive, and both he and Julie were skilled, careful drivers. I think I would have trusted Max’s driving, or Julie’s, more than my own.
A few minutes after five, there came a familiar knock, and I found Max and Julie, Max carrying a store’s plastic bag and Julie, a small string-tied brown-paper parcel, at my apartment door. I live on the second floor of a building similar to theirs but built on a smaller scale, five blocks farther down Parvenu Street. There had been an obvious joke at one time associating the street name with the Grandjean yuppies, but as with the Ventnors’ building, our street bore the name of one of the founding families of the city. The Parvenu clan stemmed from Marseilles and had been heavily engaged in illicit trade, including human trafficking of several particularly appalling kinds, from the fifteenth century through at least the early nineteenth. Their descendants have turned out to be bankers, for the most part, suggesting that some genetic flaw may underlie the Parvenus’ choice of occupations.
I was always glad to see Max and Julie. And I was especially glad that afternoon, actually nearly evening, as the December daylight had already dissolved into somber violets and grays.
Here’s why. I’d made the mistake of setting my own latest work, still barely begun, first in the Provence of the Troubadours, then, when I realized I was hopelessly out of my depth, in the Tuscany of the Medici. I’d had to give up on that, too, and I was now frantically wondering what other colorful venue might serve the narrative without breaking the bank of my knowledge and requiring months, even years, of research I was simply unable to afford at my age, even if I’d had the money to support it. At 64, I was twenty years Max’s junior, but even so, I could see with increasing acuity that my life did not stretch out endlessly before me.
My advance had hinged on the Provençal schema, and I hadn’t yet had the nerve to break the news of its abandonment to my publisher, let alone mention the Tuscan fiasco, which I would probably just kind of keep under my hat. I hoped that during our visit today, the Ventnors could give me some ideas.
We settled into, me, my armchair; Max and Julie, the big soft sofa into which you could almost disappear, and drank Darjeeling tea as night fell. By delightful coincidence, Max had bought, on a whim, a package of Irish shortbread cookies in an import store down the block, and we polished those off in no time.
They bid me open Julie’s brown-paper parcel. It contained a beautiful little pre-Soviet cloisonné box they’d found “for virtually nothing” in the antique shop around the corner, to add to my informal collection of miniature boxes from around the globe—none expensive or rare, all pretty and soothing to look at and fondle as I grappled daily with self-contradictory chronologies, misleading tenses, countless typos, and the hundred other pitfalls of a story under construction.
There was never a lack of things to talk about when we visited at either of our places, or when we ate together at some good but not too dear, usually Italian or Vietnamese, restaurant.
Max brought me up to date on his current novel. Almost thirty years’ experience had abolished any reticence to discuss his works in progress, which flowed from his word processor with a fluency that had always been my envy. Not a bitter envy or covetous, though. I had long ago resigned myself to being a plodder. Max was a kind of speed genius. I was not. We were both comfortable with our own ways.
Max’s new detective thriller sounded really exciting and as usual I asked if I might read the galleys. “You know you don’t need to ask,” said Max. “At the rate I’m going, I should be getting proofs in seven or eight months. That’s assuming my editor finds no unusual problems. I don’t foresee any right now.”
Eventually our talk turned to my own work. I told Max and Julie about my quandary regarding the location of the main action.
“Why don’t you just set it in your own hometown?” said Julie. “Would it be hard to update the story so it took place, in, say, the ’50s or ’60s?”
Julie’s brilliantly simple idea had never once crossed my mind. I felt a surge of excitement in the vicinity of my heart and tummy, or possibly the gallbladder, anyway the same place you’re most apt to feel the first pangs of romantic love, if you’re susceptible to that kind of thing.
“Julie,” I exclaimed, “that could be just the ticket. I don’t know that it would ever have occurred to me to shift the action to the present day; well, what seems like the present day to us three, at any rate. I must say the notion tickles and even excites me. In fact, I think I’ve just pissed my pants.”
They laughed. “But what about your publisher?” said Max. “You mentioned that your proposal was for a story set in Provence in the era of Courtly Love.”
“I don’t know what he’ll say,” I admitted. “But since I’ve definitely abandoned my original idea as completely unworkable at my age, I have nothing to lose. Or maybe I should say nothing more to lose.”
“If Jimmy gives you a hard time, you know I’m more than willing to exchange a few encouraging words with the man.”
“I know, and I appreciate the gesture, Max.”
Max had known my publisher, Jimmy Marsden, since he, Jimmy, was a second-year pupil at the Rhode Island prep school where Max had been his English lit teacher one year. Many years later, I knew, Max had confessed to Jimmy how passionately, and how hopelessly, he’d fancied him at the time. That made no difference to Jimmy now (or then, for that matter). The two men were today just shy of being best chums; if distance and a too-often exhausting work pace hadn’t so effectively separated them, they probably would have been.
“I doubt it will come to that, but believe me, I’ll keep your offer in mind. I really can’t afford to give up my advance. I’ve spent about a third of it already.”
“Tell me about it,” said Max. “If I were a belle-lettriste like you, Ced, I’d probably be out on the street, or begging Aaron to let us come mooch off of him in Evanston.” Aaron was his 46-year-old son, a tenured professor of Romance Languages at the University of Chicago. “It’s only being a certified hack that saves my skin—our skin, I guess.” He gave Julie a squeeze. She patted his thigh, smiling that beautiful warm smile of hers. “My favorite hack,” she said.
A siren wailed in the distance, under the frigid, moonless sky. I felt I wanted Max and Julie never to leave. Often I wondered how common, or how rare, friendships such as ours might be. I poured more tea and put on one of the LP’s of Serkin and Casals performing the Beethoven cello sonatas.
Max had once come this close to taking up a musical career, and he was still no slouch as a pianist. I happened to know that he had, long ago, played this sonata with Gregor Piatigorsky, a sheer spur-of-the-moment performance at a party in New York. The great cellist was going straight from the party to the airport, and had his cello with him.
Most of the party-goers were professional musicians. Copland was there, and Samuel Barber, along with several members of the New York Philharmonic. After the final notes, there had been a long moment of stunned silence followed by exuberant cheers and applause. Lenny Bernstein, not yet in his forties, proposed a toast to the two of them.
Now as the lovely old recording played I could see tears in Max’s ocean-green eyes. Finally he had to take out his handkerchief and dab at them. “Would you like me to stop it?” I asked, afraid the memory was making my friend uncomfortable.
“No, no!” he said, whispering in order not to insult the music. “It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. Thank you.” He leaned over and pressed my knee with his hand. Julie was rapt, eyes closed and head back against one of the large throw pillows I keep on the sofa. Her right hand oscillated ever so slightly, in step with the music; the large star sapphire ring she always wore, a gift from Max on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, shimmered in the soft lamplight.
When the music ended, there was a silence, just as there had been all those years ago at the party high above the incandescence of Manhattan. Only this time it was broken by no applause. There was only the patient, repetitive whish and thud of the phonograph stylus in the lead-out groove as the great gift Beethoven had left us almost exactly two centuries ago echoed on in our consciousness.
Christmas was only two weeks away.
One afternoon I was working on updating my plot to 1953 Ohio, following Julie’s suggestion, writing longhand on my lap, half stretched-out on the sofa. I was painstakingly transforming one troubadour character into a nascent rock star when the phone rang.
I reached lazily behind me at the risk of dislocating my shoulder and picked it up. It was Julie. Aaron had just phoned to tell them he was flying down from Evanston for a week or so, arriving on the 21st. It was quite a surprise, as he’d never been a frequent visitor and in fact had not seen his parents for at least the last two years.
As incredible as it might sound, I’d never met the man. By sheer coincidence, I’d been away, once or twice to Europe, once in Mexico, and another time on an extended stay at a writers’ conference in Pennsylvania, during some of his rare visits. Two or three times, he’d only been passing through and it had been impractical to schedule any kind of meeting.
I knew Aaron only from one fading Ektachrome photograph, taken when he was only twenty-two, on a trip he’d made with Max and Julie to Cairo. All three of them soon came down with dysentery, which practically confined them to their spacious but uncomfortable hotel rooms for all but two or three days. In the photo they were still disease-free, though, and looking right into the camera, the great Sphinx crouching aloof in the near distance. As far as I could tell from the disintegrating print, Aaron had been quite handsome, even beguiling. He looked like a ladies’ man in the movies, only an intelligent, albeit very young one.
Still, he was the only one in the photo not smiling.
Max still had the beard he’d worn from the 60s on through the 90s. He looked positively dashing. Julie was her always ravishing self, her appearance reminiscent in those days of Vanessa Redgrave.
In addition to the three Ventnors, there was a young Egyptian man, a student Max told me he had met at the Cairo museum and whom he and Julie had practically adopted during their stay.
Yousef was slender, about 20, and looked shy, good-natured, perhaps a bit naïve, as well as very handsome, you might even say beautiful. He was wearing casual Western clothes—I suspected the Ventnors were responsible for his Levi 501’s—and held a book. Max had his arm around Yousef rather than around either his son or Julie.
I wondered if Aaron at 46 would look much as he had in Cairo in ’87. His parents were the epitome of graceful aging so if genetics held sway he might be even more handsome now. It seemed odd he’d come to see Max and Julie so few times, odd that chance had consistently denied me the pleasure—I assumed it would have been a pleasure—of making his acquaintance, and odd also that he had not at least sent along a more recent photograph of himself since way back then. But life has a way of turning out odder than even novels. Few of us have not experienced events in our lives that, if served up as fiction, would seem very poor fiction indeed, because so improbable.
Aaron made it plain he did not want to inconvenience his parents by staying with them. Though they had seven rooms, they’d never got around to making one into a guest bedroom, and indeed they still possessed only one bed. The “spare” rooms were in use as Max’s studio for writing; Julie’s for weaving with its big shuttle loom and walls hung with dozens of hanks and spools of subtly colored yarns; a kind of informal gym where they both exercised daily; and a catchall for two lifetimes’ worth of miscellany: the kind of things you know you’ll never need or use again, but cannot bring yourself to part with.
Aaron planned to take a room in a downtown hotel if one was still available with Christmas around the corner. And while there probably would be one, Julie had asked him not to make his reservation just yet but to let her call him back in a few minutes. That’s when she called me.
Max, Julie, and I stood on no formalities, ever. Julie asked me outright if I would be willing to put their son up in my spare bedroom. It would not only be more comfortable, it would save Aaron and his parents a lot of annoying and time-consuming commuting, as I lived only five blocks from my friends.
It was years since I’d used my spare bedroom for more than storage. Getting it ready for a guest, though, should be the work of only a few moments, and without hesitation I said I’d be happy to do it. She said she’d call Aaron right away with the news.
I already felt excited as I hung up the phone. My eagerness to put up a guest served to underscore the humdrum nature of the rut I’d sunk into years ago when Stewart and I finally parted ways, and had never bothered to climb out of. Apart from visits with Max and Julie and with a couple of other local writers, my social life was effectively zero. Getting ready for a guest was, then, a big deal for me, and I immediately jumped on the project. It also served as a convenient rationalization for abandoning, at least for a couple of hours, the perplexed tinkering I’d been engaged in with my novel since mid-morning.
By evening, I had crisp, fresh bedding on the guest-room’s double bed, the floor and rugs vacuumed, the desk and its swivel chair, the night stands and chest of drawers that comprised the rest of the room’s furniture not only dusted but sprayed with Pledge for that extra shine, and had hunted up an appropriate vase to put some flowers in that I would purchase the morning of Aaron’s arrival. I’d even dusted the blinds.
Aaron’s visit was still eight days away. Those eight days passed with me in a brighter mood than I’d experienced in ages. I realized that the prospect of having a guest to fuss over was working better than any antidepressant I’d ever been on—and I’d tried just about all of them. I found myself actually humming or whistling as I tided the rest of the apartment—not knocking myself out, but doing an adequate job. The nicer it looked, the cheerier I became, up to a certain point. I only hoped Aaron would be comfortable and enjoy his stay with me, as well as his daily visits with his parents down the street.
The night before Aaron’s scheduled arrival by plane on the morning of the twenty-first, Max, Julie, and I dined at our favorite tiny Italian restaurant. It had got bitterly cold and there was half a foot of snow on the ground, but inside La Fiorella it was cozy, intimate, and cheerful. We had a grand evening, dining leisurely while talking over some of the old times as well as about work in progress—and Aaron’s impending visit. I asked if their son had any special needs or preferences I should know about. They weren’t aware of any. As far as they knew, it was clear sailing as to diet and everything else. “He was always so easy to please as a youngster and even all the way through college,” said Julie.
It seems they had started losing contact—regular, frequent contact—with their son when he entered graduate school. This would have been just after the Cairo trip. Of his personal life they no longer heard anything. They noticed on the two or three occasions they did get to see him that he seemed uncharacteristically distracted and melancholy.
One day they found out he’d been admitted to the university hospital for depression. He made a point of asking Max and Julie not to come see him. He apologized for “being a burden” though he’d never been anything of the sort. Within a couple of weeks, assisted by a little outpatient cognitive-behavioral therapy, he was his old self again, or so it seemed.
Max and Julie had the impression that Aaron really loved teaching. He’d made it plain early on that the scholarly, research-heavy side of professorship was and always would be anathema to him. It was teaching itself that he loved— dealing with his students, watching their progress, sharing their enthusiasms and offering to provide comfort and support in time of distress. He said teaching kept him young.
Maybe this was not surprising. His father also had detested the formal, political, and scholarly side of academic life, and relished teaching. Max had never felt he could reconcile the imbalance between the ossified world of bureaucracy, political maneuvering, and meaningless “publish or perish” scholarship on the one hand, and teaching on the other. Finally he had made the decision in ’81 to devote himself to writing full-time.
He had never, he told me, been sorry about his decision. His sole regret was that he no longer got to associate with his students, to whose lives he hoped he’d made some meaningful and useful contribution over the years.
On the morning of the 21st, I woke early despite having hardly slept. I wasn’t sure if I was nervous about entertaining a house guest after being so long out of practice, or if I was excited at the prospect of Aaron’s arrival. Finally I decided I was both. I was aware of having dreamed when I’d fallen asleep briefly now and then despite all, but I couldn’t recall any of the dreams. My impression was that they’d been been unusually troubling.
I made coffee as usual and drank it and ate a bagel with raspberry preserves while I scanned news headlines online. As usual, I wished afterwards I hadn’t looked at them.
By the time I was ready to go out, I knew the florist’s shop over on Versailles Avenue would be open. I decided to walk rather than drive, as it looked nice out. It was well below freezing, but the sun was brilliant and it was one of those days when the damp streets and sidewalks yield a strange and invigorating smell.
I bought dyed carnations and some big chrysanthemums, and a cute little green glass frog figurine I couldn’t resist. It was for keeping me company at my desk—though since starting to write on a laptop I found myself less and less often using it, and more and more slouching on the sofa. Its top was now so cluttered with papers: bills, abandoned story drafts, research notes, old pizza-delivery receipts, and other stuff, that if I did actually want to write at it, I’d have to clear room for the laptop first. Well, I thought, seeing the little frog there will encourage me to actually write at my desk again. In any event, I should straighten up the desktop some before Aaron got there.
I did that after placing the flowers in water using the Mexican vase I’d found and set out the first day in Aaron’s room. There was a small off-white chip in its rim, but I just turned that side to face the wall.
By now it was 10:30. Aaron was due to arrive by plane from Chicago O’Hare at eleven. I thought it would be better if Max and Julie met him without me, in case he might feel odd having to confront a stranger under the circumstances.
At 11:45, Max, Julie, and Aaron showed up at my door.
The first thing I saw was that Aaron was extraordinarily handsome. But more than that, he emanated some quality that, the instant I saw him, made me literally weak in the knees. I don’t know if they noticed, but I had to catch myself with one hand on the door frame.
Perhaps an inch shorter than me, Aaron had close-cropped, raven black hair, with the faintest touch of gray at the temples. He shared his father’s green eyes and Julie’s playful smile. He appeared, with his erect yet relaxed bearing and bright-eyed looks, a good deal younger than his 46 years—maybe it was true that, as he’d said, teaching kept him young. Had I not known his age, I would have guessed 35 at the most, or maybe even thirty. He had one of those beards that are more like three days of stubble. It looked really sexy.
But none of that began to explain the overwhelming effect his presence had worked on me.
We shook hands warmly as Max introduced us. I noticed Aaron never once took his eyes away from mine. And, to my sudden dismay, I discovered I didn’t want to take mine from his. It was then that I realized I was blushing.
We somehow got his suitcase and supple nylon carrier bag and briefcase put in his bedroom, and made plans to go have lunch at 1:30. Max and Julie and Aaron would pick me up.
Then the three of them left for The Grandjean.
Several minutes after they left, my phone rang. I was surprised and delighted to hear Aaron’s voice, which I’d already committed to memory: It was as lively and energetic as his appearance. He asked me to go into his room and open the carrier bag, where I’d find a parcel inside addressed to me, and to go ahead and open it. He said he looked forward to lunch. And that was all.
I followed his instructions and found a little gift-wrapped box bearing a card with my name on it. He’d said to open it, so I did.
Inside was an exquisite old Czechoslovakian inlaid wooden box, about 3.5 x 5 x 1.75 inches in dimension. I recognized it as a real collector’s item and an expensive one at that. Inside the box lay another card, which read:
Many thanks, Cedric, for your offer to put me up. I promise to try to be as little trouble as possible. Thanks also for your friendship with my parents all these years. You’ve been a far better son than I! I look forward to our time together.
It was signed “Aaron.”
I was, naturally, more than pleased by both the little box and the sentiments so nicely tendered on the card, but I couldn’t help wondering why Aaron had not chosen to hand it to me himself, later in the day. I wondered if that was an indication of shyness Julie and Max had never told me about. I was to learn why that evening.
The Ventnors arrived right on time. I was waiting at the curb. Max and Julie were seated in the front of their reliable old Saab, and I got into the back with their son. I wasn’t sure if I should mention the extravagant but welcome gift or if—in keeping with my conjecture about shyness—to do so might embarrass Aaron. So I managed to speak almost in a whisper to him, as soon as Max and Julie began discussing the way to take to the restaurant. Despite the onset of winter, road work started in early autumn continued to make changes in familiar routes necessary, and there was no improvement in sight.
“Aaron, what a lovely surprise—that little Czech box. I will treasure it. Thanks so much.”
For answer he placed his hand on mine and said, also in a near-whisper, “You’re welcome. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you. More tonight.”
That sounded mysterious. I tried to conceal my curiosity. I just placed my other hand on his briefly. He didn’t remove his hand for several seconds, maybe even half a minute. I thought I was probably blushing again. I was definitely aroused.
Eventually, after a couple of wrong detours and a fair amount of colorful language from Max, we reached the Vietnamese restaurant near the riverfront where we had reservations for lunch. There was little conversation on the way there, in part because it was necessary to pay unusually close attention to the road due to all the re-routes. But also in part, I sensed, owing to some indefinable uneasiness hovering between Aaron and his parents. I finally decided to put that down to my imagination.
Lunch was wonderful, as always at Saigon Hideaway. A big gilt statue of Bo-Dai, the chubby “Laughing Buddha,” sat on a shelf near the cash register. Framed ink drawings hung on the walls with their gold brocade coverings. The place was always filled to capacity, often with a waiting line out the door, and usually the diners numbered about half members of the local Vietnamese community, and half non-Vietnamese college students, teachers, and professional people.
The plump, sweating restaurant owner, Pham Van Thuon, as always present and serving his customers alongside his employees, had long recognized Max, Julie, and myself, and I always looked forward to his warm friendliness. In his late middle age, Mr. Pham bore an uncanny resemblance to old Bo-Dai, and wore a jade-beaded Buddhist rosary around his left wrist. He guessed that Aaron was the Ventnors’ son, and in his broken English wanted to know where he lived, his occupation, how many children he had, and so forth. He responded to every answer with vigorous nods of his bald head and contagious laughter. Mr. Pham’s childlike enthusiasm was always winning, and we spent three or four minutes chatting with the man before taking our leave. I noted with gratitude that he’d even succeeded in putting Aaron, who had been appearing increasingly on edge, at ease. He struck the charge for Aaron’s meal off the bill.
One advantage of Vietnamese cuisine was that none of us got sleepy after eating. Aaron wanted to see a traveling exhibit of pre-Columbian statuary that he knew was at one of our museums, so we took advantage of its nearness to go visit it. The exhibition was free, despite being a traveling one, with no tickets necessary. We were able to get right in.
As usual when I went along to the museum in Max’s company, he seemed better as a tour guide than, probably, all the volunteer docents put together. I always suspected a certain amount of improvisational bravado in these performances, but his commentary was so thought-provoking and entertaining that strict accuracy seemed beside the point. Besides, he really did possess an encyclopedic knowledge of all the arts.
We visited a couple of the regular permanent collection rooms while we were at the museum. I noticed that throughout our visit Aaron stuck close to my side, and I got the feeling he was trying to avoid his parents. I didn’t know what to make of it, and hoped it didn’t seem rude or feel hurtful to the elder Ventnors. In any event, I was enjoying Aaron’s constant attentiveness, and even just standing near him—often so close we could feel each other’s warmth—or walking alongside him. He seemed hardly willing to take his eyes off me. I felt flattered and excited.
After the museum, we went for a little shopping downtown. Max and Julie had already taken care of what little Christmas buying they needed to do, so we had no particular agenda. We asked Aaron if he had any last-minute gift buying to take care of (which in retrospect was kind of silly, as anything he might purchase would have been for us, after all) and he said no, that he’d got his holiday chores out of the way, too. That left me. I’d picked up the week before a couple of books and some food items for Max and Julie, and a few utilitarian trinkets for writer friends. I suggested we just browse here and there.
Then I realized with a jolt that I might be expected to give Aaron some little thing as well, but it hadn’t entered my mind till that minute. I couldn’t very well purchase anything for him while he was present and practically attaching himself to me, as he was now, so I made a mental note to shop for my new friend during the next couple of days while he was busy with his parents.
We looked in at the one remaining bookstore besides the used-book ones; at a men’s clothing store where I watched to see if Aaron was especially drawn to anything (he wasn’t); and at a kitchen-goods store where everything cost as least twice what it should. (Even so, I craved a certain teapot I saw there, and resolved to buy it for myself when I went shopping for Aaron.)
Finally we dropped by the box office of the city ballet company to see if any good seats were left for Giselle, which was being danced with revised choreography that had attracted reviewers from The New York Times and The Boston Globe. They’d praised it; the Times reviewer even said our company should now be reckoned one of the premier troupes in the nation.
There were four good box seats, for the night of the 22nd, the next day. They were outlandishly expensive, but I knew we all four loved ballet, and insisted on treating us to that performance. So we walked away with a hefty chunk gnawed out of my Visa credit but with tickets to one of the masterpieces of dance.
Aaron then offered to stand us dinner before the ballet. He used his cell phone to call a restaurant he knew by reliable word-of-mouth and which enjoyed a high Zagat rating, but was ridiculously outside the limits of my or even his parents’ eating-out budgets, and booked a table for four.
I knew that Max was accustomed to an afternoon nap, and it was now almost three p.m., so I suggested calling it a day at least for downtown, and returning home. We got back about 3:30; I got out in front of my place and Aaron said he’d call when he knew more about his evening plans. He kept looking out his side window at me, and he waved as the Saab drove off.
Back in my apartment, I sagged into my easy chair and thought over the day so far. I couldn’t recall when I’d last felt pleasure as visceral and exciting as Aaron’s presence had given me. But it worried me that I might be enjoying my pleasure at the expense of Max’s and Julie’s feelings. Aaron’s uneasiness and reluctance to associate with them had bothered me perhaps more than I’d realized.
Suddenly I felt depressed. I made myself some coffee instead of napping, which was too often the way I attempted to cope with the onset of depression. I looked over some of my notes for the change in my novel as suggested by Julie. I glanced at some newspapers online. I read a couple of poems of Robert Herrick and then some by James Schuyler. Schuyler won.
I cradled carefully the little Czech box. I turned it in all directions and examined it. I sniffed at it. It was old and the wood had long ago lost all its scent. But I liked knowing that Aaron had touched it and held it in his hands.
I re-read his note five or six times, memorized the look of his loose-jointed but legible handwriting. He’d used a fountain pen and blue-black ink. I read the note over again. Then I carefully refolded it and closed it up in the box again.
I was visited by a brief temptation to rummage through his luggage, and immediately felt deeply ashamed. I drank more coffee.
For the first time in eight days, I was unhappy.
Despite the coffee, I must have dozed off. It was so dark I had trouble finding the switch for the table lamp beside my chair. I was relieved, once the light came on, to see I had not let my cup fall from my hands as I had done once or twice before. It was sitting safely on the table, half empty.
The blinking light on my answering machine caught my attention. I realized I’d had the ringer off while working on my novel notes, and neglected to turn it back on. So I hadn’t heard the phone ring when Aaron called. It was now 6:30. The machine told me he’d called at five till six. I heard his recorded voice say, “Cedric, hi, this is Aaron. I imagine you’re out somewhere. Will you call my cell phone when you get the chance? It’s...kind of important. Thanks. Talk to you later.” He had included his cell-phone number, and I dialed it, but only after replaying the message twice just to hear his voice again.
“Hello?” he answered after only one ring. He spoke softly, the way you speak trying not to wake someone, or when others are carrying on a conversation nearby.
“Hey, Aaron, this is Cedric. Sorry I missed your call. I was asleep.”
“Oh, no—I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“You didn’t. Are you enjoying yourself?” It seemed an asinine query as soon as it left my mouth, but there was no recalling it. If Aaron thought it was amiss, he gave no indication.
“Oh...well, we’ve been chatting a little and have had the TV rattling on for an hour now and—actually, if you want the truth I’m already really, really tired of it.” I could hear him attempt to chuckle and fail.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know it can’t be easy resuming contact after an absence. And...well, I remember I always had a pretty tough time establishing common ground with my own parents, especially at holiday times. These are just damned stressful days anyway you look at them, aren’t they?”
“I think you’re right.” He sounded distracted. I sensed he wanted to say something but either was unsure of how to go about it, or was afraid to say it. The continued silence from his end strengthened my suspicion. I said finally, “Listen, Aaron, is something wrong? I realize we don’t actually know each other yet, but I promise you I can be discreet, and if I can somehow help, I’d like to.”
“Cedric, would you mind if I came over right now?”
“Of course not. But what about your parents?”
“I’ll think of something. What if I see you in about fifteen or twenty minutes?”
“I’ll be looking for you,” I said.
At about 6:50 Aaron knocked at my door. I’d started a fresh pot of coffee brewing in the meantime.
He looked tired and discouraged. Even so, standing beside him again made my heart almost stop. It was annoying, but it also felt wonderful.
I could tell that something was indeed wrong. “Thanks for having me,” he said. “I know you didn’t expect me this early, but—well, I just didn’t want to be with... them any more, at least for a while. I said I was going out for a walk and then to bed, and I’d see them in the morning. They know I’ve always liked long walks.”
I brought us coffee and we sat on the sofa where we could use the coffee table. With the help of the big pillows we were able to sit comfortably, facing each other at an angle.
“Do you want to tell me what went wrong?” I said.
“I’ve just never got along all that well with my parents,” he said. “It’s a long unhappy story and one I hoped I wouldn’t have to get into. But there may be no avoiding it. For now though—will you be offended if I don’t try to explain? For one thing, I’m not sure I have the energy or...or the guts right now.”
This was sounding worse than I expected. But of course I would not mind his remaining silent, and I told him so.
“Thanks,” he said. His eyes met mine briefly as he said it, and I again felt something tug inside me.
“How about some music?” I suggested, more to avoid awkward silence or making Aaron feel more uncomfortable than he already was, than for any other reason.
“That would be wonderful,” said Aaron.
I put on a CD of some Renaissance dances and other music played by the Julian Bream Consort.
“Ah, that’s so good,” said Aaron, as though a burden had been lifted from him by the sound of the graceful music. “You can’t know how glad I am to be here with you.”
I wanted to tell him the same thing, but thought better of it. The last thing I needed to do was to make him think I was in any way trying to pursue him.
We listened without a word for several minutes. After about five minutes, Aaron rested his hand just above my knee and left it there. I can’t say I was stunned, but I was surprised and didn’t know how to respond. Finally I shifted positions so that I could sit beside him and put my arm around his shoulders. But then he surprised me again by resting his head on my shoulder.
None of this displeased me—in fact very much the opposite—yet at the same time I had no idea how to proceed. I decided to stay put till he did or said something. I was pretty sure it was my over-zealous imagination at work again, and nothing more. Maybe he just needed comforting for whatever reason.
I couldn’t help wondering what Julie or Max might have told him about me. Surely not much, given their limited opportunities through the years for conversation with their son—but maybe enough. I thought of something to say that struck me as fairly innocuous yet friendly.
“We seem to be getting along really well for having just met, don’t we,” I said. I gave his shoulder a little squeeze; that was what my father used to do sometimes.
“For sure,” said Aaron, not moving.
There was a long pause. Really long. Julian Bream’s gracious, meticulous music played on.
I got up to bring more coffee. I’d taken two steps towards the kitchen when Aaron said, “Cedric, I’ve fallen for you. There. I hope you’ll forgive me for being blunt. And I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m crazy.”
I couldn’t think of an immediate response, so there was another pause, but I didn’t keep walking, either.
“And if you want me to, I’ll leave.”
“Hey, Aaron, it’s okay. And no, you don’t sound at all crazy. And I most certainly don’t want you to leave unless you want to. Let me get us some more coffee. I’ll be right back.”
My mind was spinning like a snapped clock spring as I continued into the kitchen. I knew one thing: If he was crazy, then I was too.
I poured coffee into an insulated carafe, and as an after-thought opened the cookie jar and stacked some oatmeal cookies on a little plate. I grabbed a couple of paper napkins, too. I felt relieved I was able to move at all, let alone perform these everyday actions, but I could not begin to think what I was going to say when I returned to the living room.
Seated again, I poured coffee and handed Aaron his mug. He held it in both hands and pretended to study it. Without looking up, he said, “I’ve been wanting to say what I said just now since this morning and searching for a way. I was afraid to, but I wanted to so much.
“That's why I phoned and asked you to open that little present. I just couldn’t wait to try to please you, to see if I could touch your heart somehow. If that sounds corny, I can’t help it. Damn it, I was simply head over heels. I still am.
“I feel ashamed,” he said. Then, “This is no way to treat my host. Please forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Aaron,” I said. To my surprise, words came naturally now where a few moments before I’d felt panicky. Being beside Aaron had the opposite effect of what I would have expected: It was calming to me. It was one of those situations where you’re suddenly calm because you realize there are no alternatives, and that you’re in the grip of the inevitable.
“I couldn’t fail to notice how you stuck close to me every minute today. I’m only sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk. But maybe it was too early, anyway. Maybe it’s better this way.” I put my arm around his shoulders again. I wanted to make certain, if I could, that he understood I was not rejecting him. I could feel his heart still beating too rapidly, and a faint shiver running through him. I wished I could relieve his anxiety. I knew he was suffering. I’d experienced the same thing, years ago, more than once.
“It’s funny we never met before, in all these years, isn’t it,” I said. It was a rhetorical question, of course.
“Yes,” said Aaron. “I’ve heard so much about you, I felt almost as if I knew you already.”
“I only knew you from a photograph. The colors are all going blue or red with age now, the way some of those photos do. I imagine you remember Cairo, 1987?”
An odd look passed over Aaron’s face. It was gone in an instant but unmistakable. It was a look of alarm and—to my astonishment—revulsion. But surely this was my imagination gone haywire. Why should he react that way?
“Oh, yes, I remember Cairo. It’s pretty well...unforgettable.”
“Well, you looked great. And if anything, you look even better now, but I think I would have recognized you if it had been me meeting you at the airport, even so.”
“I wish it had been you, and I wish we could have just got on another plane and flown away together,” said Aaron. Then, “Sorry, that’s a silly, inconsiderate thing to say.”
“Well, it may be silly, but it’s still a compliment, and one I doubt that I deserve,” I said. “Aaron, you wanted to touch my heart, as you put it. Well, you certainly have. But for God’s sake, you’re so much younger than me, and...and we’ve only known each other for a few hours: This is preposterous.”
Once again I knew too late I’d said the wrong thing—and this time, maybe a very wrong thing. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Look who’s being inconsiderate now. I didn’t exactly mean what I said. I—”
“I know,” he said. “But give me some credit, Cedric. I think I’m old enough to recognize infatuation, and that’s not what this is. Believe me. If you knew more about my life—I mean, when you do—”
“Okay,” I said, “I admit there’s such a thing as love at first sight. I’ve experienced it. It’s more common than a lot of people think. And since you’re being honest, I ought to be, too, and— the fact is I had the same reaction you did today. You haven’t been out of my mind for one second since I first set eyes on you. Except when I was asleep, of course.”
He laughed. “See? Now you know why we should just fly off together.”
“Try to be rational,” I said. “Regardless of how you and I feel, how can pursuing this lead to anything but hardship? Let’s call it a transient mutual infatuation even if that’s not what it is. It’s the only reasonable way to go. Isn’t it?”
He said, so quietly I could barely make out the words, “You know better than that.” And he was right. I did.
The CD just then finished playing. I didn’t have the remote handy, so I couldn’t make it play again from the sofa. I walked over to the CD shelves.
“What would you like to hear next?” I said. The question sounded ludicrously out of place. My mind was starting to race again.
“Well, since we’re being honest with each other, I guess what I’d most like to hear is, ‘I love you, Aaron.’ Do you have that handy?”
I laughed this time. “You’re hopeless. This is turning into an evening to remember, if nothing else.
“Yes, I could play that one, but what good would it do? For pity’s sake, Aaron, try to be pragmatic. I’m impressed by your honesty as well as by your—well, your good looks, and your ardor, and everything else I’ve observed so far. And by something I don’t even have a name for. And yes, it gets into the territory you’re talking about. But, my God, it’s—it’s—”
“Shh.” Aaron held a finger to his lips. “Enough. Since you didn’t fulfill my first request, do you have at least have some Schubert?”
We heard all the Schubert piano sonatas and a couple of the quartets while we debated pointlessly about loving each other.
I was no stranger to love. I’d had two long-term partners; the first had died with AIDS, the second had left by friendly mutual agreement, and we even still corresponded now and then. With both men, it had been love at first sight, on both sides. Instantaneous, potentially enduring. Yes, it happens. The French refer to it as the coup de foudre—the lightning strike. A good name for it.
But the present situation, even though I knew now, and, really, from the first instant, that it was the real thing, seemed none the less completely untenable. I tried to get this across to Aaron but he kept shushing me or, worse yet, countering with some unassailable argument of his own. He should have taught, not Italian, but law.
Finally, during the last movement of the “Death and the Maiden” quartet, we somehow found ourselves sitting there in each other’s arms, weeping without letup. I couldn’t tell if it was from happiness, fear, or frustration. I know I was feeling all three. Maybe he was, too.
By now it was past midnight, and we had evening engagements, so, unable to agree on how to sort out our feelings and future action using words, we simply agreed it was time to go to bed. We held each other a little longer while all kinds of thoughts raced through my head, and probably his as well. Then we got up, hand in hand, to re-enter the world of the mundane. He nuzzled up against me and would hardly let go of me. I finally broke away as tactfully as I knew how.
“It’s ironic,” said Aaron as I turned out lights and switched off the stereo and checked the lock on the hallway door. “If this weren’t so serious, we’d probably sleep together tonight. As it is...”
I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to contradict him and agree to sleeping together. And of course a part of me did want to do that. But I knew that somehow that could, and probably would, be disastrous. And so, I suspect, did he, on a deeper level.
I walked over, stood behind him, and put my arms around his chest. He reached behind him in an awkward, backwards embrace. My chin was on his shoulder. I managed to stand so he wouldn’t feel my erection. We rocked softly side to side.
“Well, as you said, it’s serious. It’s damned serious, Aaron. Please be sure you recognize that. I think the best thing to do right now is to sleep on it, separately.” I had to chuckle. “And yes, it’s fucking ironic. You got that right.”
We started down the hallway that leads to the two bedrooms with the bath between them. Aaron had effectively taken the lead in our lengthy discussion, as well as having been the first to broach the issue of what we both now acknowledged to be the love we shared. But it might just as easily have been me that had done it.
He was walking ahead of me. I reached out and stopped him with both hands on his shoulders. He turned to face me. I drew him to me and kissed him on the lips and refused to let him go.
He responded by fairly melting in my arms. If I’d been permeable, I think he would have dissolved into my flesh. I’d felt surrender before, but this was way beyond anything I’d ever imagined.
If there remained the slightest doubt about his sincerity—or his sanity—it got dispelled in that embrace. And if there had been any uncertainty about the bond that now existed between us, that, too, was laid to rest.
The kiss must have lasted at least a minute, and after that we remained embraced for what seemed like an hour: I have no idea how long it really was. We just stood there, wordless, motionless, in each other’s arms. It was a long, long moment and for me it was a revelation. I briefly reflected, “Now I know what those enlightenment experiences feel like that you keep reading about in Buddhist books.” I understood now what they meant by comparing the experience of awakening to a homecoming.
Finally Aaron and I stepped slowly apart as though by mutual accord, and without a word—since words were no longer needed—got ready for bed, lay down in our separate bedrooms, and even slept a little.
Chapter 2
I hadn’t felt such certainty in years, in fact since Anthony and I had met for the first time by pure chance in a Chinese restaurant, and walked away, after sharing our first dinner, sharing also the certainty that we’d be together at least till one of us died. We’d laughed as we threw away our fortune cookies, unbroken. We didn’t need them.
I was so excited and happy about Aaron that I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I felt unsure I could believe in the reality of what was happening. I knew I was awake and not dreaming, but otherwise I was so disoriented that nothing seemed quite real.
Somehow, though, I did fall asleep; I think it was around 1:30. The last thing I remember was hearing faint snores from the other bedroom. Well, that was nothing I couldn’t live with.
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