Miles. Part 11

I paused before telling him every detail of my trek to Irma's diner, and, afterwards, to Nicolasha's apartment. There was a lengthy pause before he spoke up again. We were sitting together under the same blanket, alone and half-naked, but, in the pit of my stomach, it felt like the Berlin Wall had been dropped down in between us.

"You spent the night there?" I nodded. He looked at me in a strange way. I couldn't tell what he was feeling. "Did he give you that photo alb.u.m upstairs?"

My heart sank. I closed my eyes and my fists, trying to escape the chill that began to smother my heart. Felix must have run across Nicolasha's alb.u.m while I showered. I shook my head slowly. "No. I brought it home the first time I went to his apartment." Stole the d.a.m.n thing, actually. "I just never gave it back."

I guess I never really tried, either.

"Did you...sleep...together?"

I took a long time before I nodded my head. Felix let out a pained breath through his mouth. Now I finally understood Uncle Alex's taste for unusual and exotic forms of liquid and narcotic restraint. I suddenly and completely regretted what I had said, and wanted to run clear out of the room, out into the snow, away, away from everything.

"Why?" Felix sounded like he was fighting back tears. "Do you love him, too?"

"No," I replied angrily, "it's not like that." My voice wound down to a peep. "It's not the same thing."

"Did you say you loved him, too?"

I stared at Felix as he fought for his breath while tears rolled down his cheeks. "No," I lied.

"Did you...?" I shook my head. I reached for Felix, but my friend bolted up and stood by the bar with his back to me, trying to catch his breath while he talked and cried at the same time. "You're the best friend I've ever had. We're so different, though. I knew that on the first night you stayed over at my house." What was it, four, five weeks ago? It seemed to me like an eternity ago, right then. "But I didn't care. You were my friend, and that's all that mattered. I didn't care if you were different." Oh, different. Separate development for me. Apartheid for the androphiliac. "You say you love me, but I don't know what that means." Who the h.e.l.l does? "I keep on wondering about what I really feel about you. I came here to be with you, but now..."

I chortled through my closed teeth. "But what? I'm the same friend tonight that I was the first night we spent together, except we're both still wearing clothes, and I'm down a few family members." The statement was fired like a missile, and landed like one, to judge by how Felix spun around with anger, guilt, and sorrow all burning in his eyes. "Nothing's changed, Felix." Just the temperature of my soul, that's all. I tried to put some effort back into my voice. "We're still best friends, right?"

He came back to the fireplace and knelt down beside me. I hesitated before reaching up to wipe a stray tear away from his lips, making him smile. "Will we still be friends after I leave?"

Now I understood a little more. "You haven't left yet."

"I will, when school ends for the summer."

Six months, and my best friend would leave. "Do you know where you're going?"

"Out west, someplace," Go west, young man. "I think New Mexico." I'd never been there. Uncle Alex told me it was gorgeous. Felix's voice took on another unusual edge. "Now Dad wants to be a horse rancher."

I tried to lighten the mood somewhat. "That sounds a lot more fun than commercial real estate, Felix. Look at it from his point of view."

Felix agreed. "I'd rather rustle doggies than schmooze a bunch of filthy rich investors and lawyers any day."

Lawyers. I liked Dad so much more when he was an officer and a gentleman. "Let's kill all the lawyers."

We giggled together. Felix sat back down next to me. "What is that from? Richard II?"

"Henry VI, dear boy." I mimicked our Mister James the Literature Fiend Granger's rich voice.

"I can't believe you read Shakespeare in your spare time." Felix looked at me with respect, and then, affection, mixed with lonely fear. I knew that lonely fear look. I saw it every morning in the bathroom mirror. "Will you still love me after I leave? As a friend?"

"As a best friend, you mean." A reflexive urge to reach up and kiss Felix mushroomed through me. The gesture came out in words, instead. "I love you now, Felix. I'll still love you after you leave. I just won't be able to say it to you in person. Not as often, anyway."

Felix braced himself visibly before speaking again. "Would you keep loving me, as a best friend, if we...did what you and Mister Nicolas...did?"

He spoke the simple little word "did" with the same awkward inflection all teenagers use as a tenderizer for a more explicit s.e.xual description. So, hey, Paco, did you do it with Betty? You bet your a.s.s we did it, Jack. We did it until my rocks hurt. I did it all over her face. I did it.

The fire crackled in the background. I ran my finger along Felix's lower lip, but he didn't move away. Slowly and without interference, I began to unb.u.t.ton his pajama top, while neither of us looked at the other. "Do you want to?"

"I don't know," he whispered, "I don't know." He bit his lip. "I feel so afraid, and I shouldn't, because you're my best friend." He laughed uneasily. "Maybe that's why I'm acting like such an idiot tonight."

I painted Felix's soft cheeks with the teardrops that dribbled out of him in the pause. "You're not an idiot at all. Believe it or not, I know exactly what you're feeling."

"I thought we'd stay best friends if I...if we..."

"We might not stay friends at all. Who knows?" I let out a tired laugh. "We might be dead before school ends."

Dead. I decided I didn't want a wake. I wanted the defector priest to perform the service in Polish at the gravesite, and I wanted "His cares are now all ended" inscribed on my tombstone.

"Did you ever think about it?" Felix kissed my fingers. He made my waist squirm beneath the blanket. Our eyes locked up, the same way they did the first day we met, sitting on Felix's bed making promises to each other neither of us really thought we'd have to keep. I was going to pretend he was talking about dying when he pressed my closed hand against his lips. "You know, with me?"

I considered how honestly I would answer Felix's question. "At first. Yeah. The first night, definitely." I was the first friend to look away from the other.

"What about after that?"

"A little bit." Ha, try nearly every day. "The more we became buddies, the less I thought about it." The more I tried not to think about it, which hurt. A lot, as I recalled.

"And now?" There was pressure and dismay in the soft tone of his voice, the same feelings I was aware of, deep inside again.

"I don't know." I sounded as unconvinced as I felt.

We sat in my family room's echoing stillness without touching or looking at each other, until the fire finally burned itself out.

My bedroom was freezing. I had forgotten that I closed the heat register when we were playing "Hazel". I left it that way. My heart needed company, and the cold would have to do. I switched on the radio in time to catch the beginning of Schumann's piano suite, Carnival.

Felix climbed into my bed first. I followed, still wearing my robe. We laid side-by-side in the dark for the duration of the deeply sentimental piano composition, before he rolled to his side and faced the wall, away from me.

The bedroom's chill began prodding my heart in the wrong direction. "I don't think I'm what you're really mad about. It's not us, either."

"I'm not angry," Felix mumbled.

"Oh, yeah? Maybe we're not so different, after all." I pulled my robe off and threw it across the room.

I couldn't even hear Felix breathe. I thought about kissing the back of Felix's neck in apology, or cradling him in my arms like Nicolasha had done with me a few nights ago, but I didn't. Instead, I pretended to fall asleep, and listened hard while my best friend used his pillow to keep his sniffling to himself.

I was actually happy someone else was doing the crying, for a change. I should have felt bad about that, but didn't.

Mom and Pop Radio moved on to their next selection.

X I V.

You have such a February face.

Much Ado About Nothing Lawrence the Laughing Lawyer was very businesslike and cordial. The office staff looked at me with over-solicitous pity. Dad's ex-partners each came out of their suites to say h.e.l.lo, shake my hand, ask how I was doing, and, of course, inquire if there was anything each of them could do.

Such was the glory of being reduced to the role of poor, lonely orphan.

The whole office, from the walls to the jewelry, seemed painted in a rainbow of conservative grays and blues to me. It always had. Felix and his trench coat fit right in. My blue jeans and hiking boots didn't. None of legal eagles made open notice of the fact I was wearing Dad's favorite greatcoat, a black tweed that would qualify me to play a vampire hunter in the next Hammer Film.

Uncle Alex waited for me in Lawrence's dull "Better Homes and Garden"-approved office. He was alone. He did, however, look refreshed and alert. Maybe it was the bracing cold he loved so much. Felix stayed in the anteroom.

Lawrence slid his large leather chair close to his tidy and empty desk, empty except for a single, open file, which he rested his hands over. "I'll try to be as brief as possible." He lit a short, unfiltered cigarette. "I'm sure none of us want to linger over this stuff." He cleared his throat with a smoker's cough and looked at me directly, without emotion. "You understand your parents arranged for me to look after their affairs, take care of things." I nodded and returned his vanilla stare. "We can have one of the other partners handle this, or any other matter, if either of you would prefer."

Uncle Alex winced with impatience, and turned to me for my decision. I could picture Aunt Hilly grinding Lawrence's knees over the phone, making him agree to ask such an inane question. I smiled thinly. "They don't give family discounts, do they?"

Lawrence smiled back. "No." The ice was broken. "Now, everythings yours." He indicated me with his cigarette. "There aren't any wills, but nothing ends up in Probate Court or creates a tax issue, because youre the only survivor. Your name is on the house, as you know, and it's going to be paid off out of the firm's bereavement annuity." My eyes widened. "It's one thing you won't have to worry about." He coughed again. Stop smoking, for G.o.d's sake! "You're listed on the bank accounts, so there's no problem there, unless you decide to run away in style."

Uncle Alex gave me a humorous look that said, "Thats what Id do!" I laughed to myself, even as a numbing sensation grew inside of me.

"It's kind of funny." Lawrence's voice was sadly ironic. "Your dad put all those utility stocks in your name, alone, right after he said 'yes' to that New York firm."

In a rare moment of emotional lucidity two anniversaries ago, Aunt Dutch had given Mom and Dad all her electric and gas company shares. I didn't know what they were worth, but I knew there were a lot of them. The whole family had come a long way from our decidedly working cla.s.s, immigrant background in Roseland. I used to think it was funny we weren't happier as a result.

"They're very conservative stocks. Our money man, Mister Nadell, could definitely do better with their cash value."

"What do you think?"

My lawyer cousin shrugged the shoulders of his light grey suit. "Utilities are slow and steady, but they get you there in the end. You can probably live on the checks until you're done with college." He gave me a quick, hard stare. "You are planning on college, aren't you?"

"My lit teacher sent a few of my poetry samples to some of his Ivy League friends back east. I guess they like them. They're interested in having me come visit them." Lawrence nodded approvingly. Uncle Alex rolled his eyes.

"Good. Good." He flipped a number of pages in the file. "Now, your uncle and I spoke last night..."

Uncle Alex was my G.o.dfather, and agreed to be legal guardian. He would sell his Minnesota property, and move in with me. No mention was made of Veronica. Once I made plans for college, Lawrence and Uncle Alex would help me decide what to do with the house. The water level of the conversation kept getting closer to my face. I was underwater by the time Lawrence told me about Mom and Dad's substantial life insurance policies. The payoffs would be put into a sheltered trust that I could access for college, and anything else, once I was twenty one.

"So I've got a lot of money now, huh?"

Lawrence waved his cigarette in the air. "It's not all liquid cash, per se, but you'll have to go on a terrific drunk to end up as poor as our great-grandparents were."

We both looked at Uncle Alex, a man well familiar with spectacular lost weekends.

"You want my advice? f.u.c.k the Ivy League. Go to the University of Hawaii."

"Why?"

"You won't have far to go to the beach when you skip cla.s.ses."

Dad's office was decorated like a Captain's cabin on an important s.h.i.+p. It was one of his very few childish indulgences, besides the Stingray. I realized I loved them both, for what they were, and what they represented, and Dad, for breaking down and having them in the first place.

His secretary, a large, grey-haired woman named Paula, was still shaken by what had happened. She had trouble talking to me as I showed Felix the office. She was on the verge of tears. Dad used to treat her like a dog. No, he treated dogs better. "I'll have one of the clerks pack up your father's belongings. I'm sure you'll want the photographs."

Dad had that irritating habit of lining his office of all the pictures he had snapped of me as the number one son, and us as the number one family, a desperate effort to shout down his own doubts about it all to the rest of the world. Felix was impressed. Paula got sadder. I got irritated. Look at them all, I carped to myself. My birthday parties. Christ, even the Bus-O-Fun! My Halloween costumes. It figures he wouldn't have proof lying around the office that I once chose to be "Blacula" one year. Ah, yes, opening presents every Christmas morning. There's my favorite: the motorized cable car and ski lift from the extraordinary F.A.O. Schwartz catalog. That was the year Mom became a nurse. All the Easter Sunday Ma.s.ses, in our sharp three-piece best. Stolen moments from all of our trips. I looked pretty funny falling, not diving, from the Fontainebleaus diving board in my zebra-stripe bathing suit. And how could I forget? Every single one of my school portraits, from Kindergarten (spot the dimwit smiling away in his checkerboard suit jacket and red bow tie) to this year, as a "tough" and detached Junior (white b.u.t.ton-down, black sweats.h.i.+rt, bleak "take the G.o.dd.a.m.n picture" sneer).

I handed Paula a 5 by 8 picture of me and Mom and Dad, equipped with hats and pennants, sitting along the upper deck railing of White Sox Park, bundled up for the ever damp and cold Opening Day, smiling like we might actually win the game. She began to cry and left the office.

I sat down in Dad's chair, swinging myself back and forth with my feet. "Can I have one, too?" Felix asked.

"Take whatever one you'd like."

He didn't hesitate. He reached for the shot of me as a little kid, floating in the middle of a Playboy Club life preserver. A scuba mask was propped up on my forehead, and I was wearing flippers. Two cute teenaged life guards, a guy and a girl, were each holding a side of the inner tube and one of my feet out of the sparkling indoor pool waters. I was grinning from ear to ear.

"I like this one." I don't know why I thought he'd take my most recent school portrait. "You look so happy in this."

I was.

Earlier that morning, me and my best friend entered the atrophied, suburban universe of talking without saying anything, listening without hearing anything, and carrying on without living. We were there together, clearing the driveway of snow, making breakfast, and crossing the invisible line that is drawn on a person's belongings when they die, sorting through Mom and Dad's remaining effects like busy little beavers, packing away Mom's stuff for anyone who wanted it, and trying on Dad's clothes, to see what I wanted to keep and Felix thought his dad might like.

The night before didn't happen. n.o.body cried. No conversation of import occurred. No hand or heart was touched, and n.o.body was killed, either.

We left the lawyers, laughing and otherwise, and returned to my home. We sat together inside Dad's Stingray. As always, the gleaming white fibergla.s.s body was polished and waxed like new. The red leather seats were cold and stiff from the weather. Felix picked up on the glimmer of excitement I felt, pretending to pilot the car. I already had my learner's permit. I would get the license before my birthday, this summer. Felix admitted he could hardly wait to take the car out for a test drive with me, but didn't say where. He didn't mention any place special, or far away, like New Mexico, for instance.

My only reply was a phony smile.

It was a pair of performances for the ages.

X V.