In Memory of Angel Clare Read online

  “You didn’t direct it?”

  Had Michael intended to give that impression? “No. I kind of codirected. Actually, I was more the screenwriter.” Which had some truth to it.

  “Still. That’s really something. Even a cheapo horror film. Some good people got started that way. Are you and Clarence working on something else now?”

  “A few possibilities. Nothing definite.” But saying that, Michael remembered there were no possibilities now, no future plans, no future. He released Tim’s knee and snapped his fingers at the waiter for another cognac. “What’s London like?”

  He pretended to listen while Tim talked about museums and plays. He let the glow of alcohol in his stomach and face fill up the sudden space inside him.

  The sensation of drinking while it was still light, combined with the parade of people on the sidewalk, made him feel as if he were already back in New York. Then he thought he saw Peter Griffith. Michael looked again. He saw a balding man with a red beard who looked very much like Peter. The man stood out on the sidewalk, looking through the smoky air and gesticulating hands of the café, as if at Michael. A stocky woman with iron-gray hair stood with her back to the café and furiously whispered in the man’s ear. She glanced over her shoulder, quickly looked away, and tried to haul the man down the street.

  “Livy!” Michael shouted, and jumped up. “Livy! Peter!” He stumbled around feet and chairs, hurrying out to the street.

  Livy Griffith slowly turned around and faced him. She set her teeth in a grin, crow’s feet spreading over her tanned face. Peter smiled more naturally and opened his arms to Michael.

  “Hey, hey. Small world,” he said with his Carolina drawl, and hugged Michael hello. “We knew you were over here. Never dreamed we’d run into you.”

  “Michael,” said Livy flatly when he hugged her, gingerly patting him on the back.

  He stepped away, looked at both of them, then at the street. “You’re in Paris,” he said. “That’s wonderful.”

  Peter wiggled his eyebrows. “Just for a few days. We fly home tomorrow. I’m doing the poster for a French film they’re distributing in America, and they thought I should see the thing here. Little junket to make up for what they’re paying me.”

  “I wish I’d known you were here!” Michael cried. “I’ve been here two weeks and don’t know a soul. We could’ve seen Paris together.”

  Peter gave Livy a sidelong glance and Livy said, “Oh, you see plenty of us in New York, Michael. We wouldn’t want to spoil your fun.” She nodded at the tables beneath the café awning. “And it looks like you know at least one soul here.”

  Michael saw Tim watching them, face propped on his fist, knuckles covering his mouth.

  “Just an American tourist I met today. Come over and join us and I’ll buy you a drink.” He grinned at Tim, gestured at Peter and Livy to follow him, and headed back toward the table, overjoyed to be playing host to the Griffiths.

  But when he reached the table, only Peter was with him. Livy stood out on the sidewalk, studying her wristwatch.

  “Livy can’t join us?”

  Peter gritted his teeth inside his beard. “Neither of us can, Michael. We’re having dinner with some business people tonight and were on our way back to the hotel to change.”

  “Aw,” Michael groaned. “I wanted to take us all out to dinner.” He noticed Tim frowning.

  “That’s very kind of you.” Peter glanced out at Livy. “If we had the time, we would’ve taken you out. But I’m afraid the pursuit of lucre comes first.”

  “I understand,” said Michael, deeply disappointed, faintly hurt. “Oh, this is Tim,” he remembered to say. “Tim’s an art student. Peter Griffith, the painter.” He could at least show Tim the kind of important friends he had.

  “More an illustrator nowadays,” said Peter, shaking the boy’s hand.

  “Peter did the poster for the film I was telling you about.”

  “Disco of the Damned?” said Tim.

  Peter snorted and shook his head. “Or whatever that fool producer ended up calling it. Yes, I did that. As a favor for a very close friend of mine. And Michael’s,” he added. He looked at Michael for a moment, then laid his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “So how you doing?” he said softly. “You having a good time on your trip?”

  “Of course.” But Peter was someone who understood. “There’s good days and bad days. It’s strangest when I go to places he used to talk about.”

  “He loved this place, you know.”

  “I know.” But Michael had come alone to the Café de Flore so many times he had forgotten. Would Peter and Livy think ill of him for bringing somebody else here?

  “You should enjoy yourself,” Peter told him. “You deserve it. He’d want you to enjoy yourself. Youth, freedom, and a bit of money in Paris,” he sighed. “I must say I envy you.” He gave Michael’s shoulder a squeeze and released it. “I better be going. Livy’s going to chide me for my long Southern goodbyes. I’m sure we’ll see you back in New York. Nice meeting you,” he told Tim. “All right then. Bye now.” He bowed sideways as he stepped back and didn’t turn away completely until he was halfway to the street.

  “Have a nice dinner!” Michael called out and waved goodbye to Livy.

  Livy lifted her hand and smiled, then took Peter by the arm and hurried him off, her long dark skirt beating around their legs.

  Michael remained standing, feeling confused, sad, and oddly content. It was as though he were pleased by the sorrow revived in him by Peter’s sympathy. Sorrow felt more genuine than all his petty doubts and anxieties.

  Tim looked bucktoothed and younger than ever after Peter and Livy. He seemed to be thinking something out.

  Michael sat down. “What a coincidence! Those are two of my very best friends.” Which was an exaggeration, but meeting anyone in a foreign place elevated them in importance. “Don’t let Peter fool you. He’s still a very good painter. The poster he did for us was as good as anything you see in SoHo.”

  “I was afraid at first they were friends of your parents. But they’re your friends?” Tim hesitated. “They didn’t seem very friendly. Especially the woman.”

  “No?” The thought had crossed Michael’s mind too, but he didn’t trust it. “They had to be somewhere,” he insisted. “You have to know them. And Livy’s that way. She plays the oboe.”

  “The guy you two were talking about? That was Clarence?”

  “Clarence Laird, yes.”

  “He was your boyfriend?”

  The question startled Michael. His conversation with Peter had given him away. He tried being very still and stoical. He nodded his head.

  “I know it’s none of my business, but—”

  It did not feel right to tell Tim about Clarence. It was too intimate and important a fact to waste on a stranger. And yet, Michael felt a sudden urge to be wasteful with everything he had been saving.

  “He’s dead now?” said Tim.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh God. I’m sorry. I really am. That’s really awful.” Tim contorted his face over it, grimaced and blinked, embarrassed at having asked something he did not know how to respond to. Then he said, “AIDS,” in a voice so reverent there wasn’t room for it to sound like a question.

  Michael nodded, finding it perfectly natural the boy already knew.

  “I’m sorry. Damn. When?”

  “Last October.”

  “Almost a year then.”

  He sounded faintly relieved, as if that were a long time ago. Time had stood so still since then that Michael could not believe it was almost a year.

  But the look Tim gave him remained full of embarrassed wonder and awe. He looked at Michael as if Michael were more real than anything he had ever seen. It was a strangely flattering look. He reached out and touched Michael on the arm, sadly, boldly, as if to prove he weren’t afraid of touching him.

  “I don’t have it,” said Michael. “Not even the antibodies.”

  Tim let go,
flustered to have his thought read. “That’s good. That must be a big relief to you.” He held his hand in midair a moment, then returned it to his lap.

  “He was thirty-eight,” Michael announced. “Everything was coming together for him. For us. Careerwise. But we were everything to each other. ‘Boyfriend’ wasn’t the right word for either of us. We were together three years, you see.”

  Michael began calmly, wanting the boy to think about Clarence and not him. But as he continued he found himself touching emotions he had kept packed down since he left New York. Sadness came back to him changed, more physical than he remembered it being. The rich, warm sorrow that had begun when Peter Griffith touched his shoulder grew until Michael could feel it in his eyes.

  “He was a wonderful person,” Michael declared. “He was the first man I ever loved. He was handsome, wise, and talented. We were going to go to Europe when we finished our movie. We were so close. His death is the most important thing that’ll ever happen to me…”

  He was crying now and couldn’t continue. He lowered his head, trying to keep the tears from running down his face, but his eyes only filled more quickly. He couldn’t breathe without sobbing, so he tried not to breathe. When he finally took a breath, it felt so good to sob and blubber he couldn’t stop. He let himself cry, enjoying the sensation of grief washing away everything.

  Then it was over. He tried shuddering up another wave of tears, but he was dry. He looked up and found Tim’s face next to his, pale and staring, the boy’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, the other hand gripping Michael’s beneath the table. Biting his lower lip, Tim looked sweetly helpless.

  “It’s all right. It’s okay,” he whispered. “You’ll be okay. Maybe we should—” He hunted around the table, then rummaged in his canvas bag, but all he could offer Michael to blow his nose with was a map of Paris.

  Michael smiled politely and shook his head. He sniffed his nose clear and looked around. The people at the nearest tables were silent, their eyes averted.

  But instead of feeling ashamed, Michael was proud he had cried in public. And at the Café de Flore. Grief was such a pure, honest emotion.

  2

  “WE REALLY SHOULD HAVE had a drink with him,” Peter moaned, “but Livy was adamant. And you know Livy.”

  Jack Arcalli nodded. He certainly knew Livy and her faintly nervous decisiveness, and he knew Peter too. He suspected Peter had wanted to avoid Michael as much as his wife did, but had been too much the Southern gentleman to admit it to himself.

  “She insisted she hadn’t come all the way to Paris to be trapped for another evening with Michael. So we made our excuses and snuck off. We had to sit inside Deux Magots for fear Michael might see us if we sat out front. We didn’t want to hurt his feelings,” Peter quickly added. “And it’s not that Michael’s really so terrible. He’s just not very interesting company. None of us were at that age. Poor Michael.”

  “Poor Michael,” Jack uncomfortably agreed. “You sure you don’t have time for a cup of coffee?”

  Jack and Peter stood in the lobby of the Brill Building, where they had run into each other, Peter on his way in to see a distributor, Jack on his way out after a screening. It was late afternoon outside and spokes of light spun through the cool, shadowy lobby each time another lawyer or messenger came through the brass-trimmed revolving door. They had been standing here talking for five minutes.

  Peter tapped the portfolio under his arm. “I have to get upstairs and show these sketches. But we really should get together sometime soon.”

  “We should,” said Jack, knowing it might be months before they did. Peter Griffith confused him. Warm and effusive each time they met, grinning in his friendly red beard, Peter seemed to promise friendship yet had never delivered on that promise. Jack didn’t know if he misread Peter because Peter was straight, or because he himself was single and had different expectations.

  In his usual dutiful manner, Peter still didn’t say good-bye. “You’re back in the city for good?”

  “I only got away for a couple of weeks,” said Jack. “The Jersey shore with my mother and aunt.”

  “You don’t look like you got much sun.”

  Jack gestured at his bulky body and smirked. “This isn’t a shape one parades around in a swimsuit.”

  “You’re not the only one,” laughed Peter, patting his own paunch and bowing his head to show Jack his pink bald spot. “The joys of pushing the big Four-O.”

  Peter had in fact a few years to go yet. Jack was thirty-nine but already felt like he was in his fifties. Jack protected himself by thinking ahead. He had felt forty when he was thirty and thirty when he was twenty. He had never felt twenty.

  “But Michael seemed in good spirits?” Jack asked.

  “Quite happy, yes. I was glad to see he’s enjoying his trip. He certainly deserves it.”

  “He does. Did he say how much longer he’s staying over there?”

  Peter couldn’t remember. When Michael left for Europe a couple of months ago, his plans were wide open. Jack hadn’t given any thought to the boy these past weeks and was annoyed to find Michael weighing on his consciousness again.

  “Well, I better get upstairs to fight the philistines in sales,” said Peter. “But we’ll talk. You seeing Laurie and Carla anytime soon?”

  “As always.”

  “Give them my love.”

  “My love to Livy.”

  They shook hands and Peter headed for the elevators, looking back at Jack with an apologetic grin, the courteous Southerner to the end.

  Walking toward the subway, Jack did not feel like going downtown to his apartment, where nothing waited for him except his cat and the chore of reviewing the movie he just saw. Chatting with Peter made him hungry for a real conversation, which he could have with Laurie. She should be getting home around now. He went down the steps to the uptown train without bothering to call her first. There was no feeling of duty or ceremony between Jack and Laurie. Today was Monday and he knew she’d be in.

  The train was crowded and Jack had to stand on the ride uptown, unable to look over the publicity packet from the screening or pull out the paperback of The Old Curiosity Shop that was his subway reading this month. He hung on a bar and found himself swaying beside his reflection in a darkened window. He still had a full head of hair, unlike Peter. Ben Slover was losing his hair, too, through politics or life with Danny. But Jack lived alone and kept his hair, although it was full of gray now. The reflection in the window was too weak to show the threads like steel wool in his full black beard or the permanent bags under his eyes, but Jack knew they were there. All of them were growing old, the women more gracefully than the men. It was still odd to remember that Clarence would never be forty. Jack wondered why Peter Griffith’s distance bothered him: Peter had been Clarence’s friend, not Jack’s.

  He got off at Ninety-sixth Street, walked down Broadway, then stepped briskly downhill toward the river, to the homey loaf of stone and windows near Riverside Drive. He pressed the button for Laurie and Carla’s apartment.

  “Who is it?”

  “Jack. Just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

  “Great. Come on up.”

  She buzzed him in, and Jack entered Clarence’s building. Even after a year he still thought of the building as Clarence’s. There were days when Jack barely noticed that fact, and days when it was very important to him.

  Laurie Frazier was waiting for him in Clarence’s door when the elevator opened. “Perfect timing, Jack-o. Just got home.”

  She still wore one of the suits with floppy bows she put on when she spent the afternoon at her investment service’s parent company. Overdoing the corporate look was Laurie’s way of staying ironic about her work. Her short blond hair was still brushed down in its executive mode, but her shoes were off, her feet blurred by nylons. She went up on her toes and Jack bent down when they kissed each other hello. Her grin was lopsided, as if she had something else on her mind.

 
“Don’t let me interrupt anything,” said Jack, stepping past her into the long front hallway.

  “Nothing to interrupt. I had a feeling you’d show up.” She closed the door and followed him down the hall.

  Walking by the bathroom, Jack glanced in and saw women’s things. Walking by the spare bedroom, he saw a suitcase and green garment bag sitting on the bed.

  “Oh.” He stopped and stared into the room. “Michael’s back?”

  “Yup. Buzzed us out of bed yesterday morning.” Laurie stepped around him and continued to the kitchen. “Tea? I was just about to put some on.”

  Jack pictured Michael still sitting in a sidewalk café in Paris. It was a shock to see his things on the bare mattress. He joined Laurie in the large, dark kitchen. “Peter told me they saw him in Paris just last week.”

  “Well, he flew back on Sunday,” Laurie said wearily. “Tea tea or herbal?”

  “I’ll fix the tea. You finish changing.”

  Jack wasn’t eager to talk about Michael either, and he knew Laurie hated remaining dressed like that at home. She padded out of the kitchen, already mussing her hair with both hands.

  Michael was back. So what? They knew he’d be back sometime. Jack tried telling himself it wasn’t important while he glanced over Laurie and Carla’s unopened mail on the painted breakfront. He put on water for tea, then rinsed out the teapot and set out two mugs. He looked in the refrigerator to see if they had something sweet for him to nibble.

  “Have an apple!” Laurie shouted from the bedroom.

  Jack took an apple, although he had wanted something artificial. “Where’s Michael now?” he called out.

  “Off to Connecticut. To see Ben and Danny.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Danny told him to come if he got back in time. And he wanted to see some letters Ben took with him.” She stopped in the kitchen door on her way to the bathroom, looking more herself in jeans and a bra. “Fine by me. It gives me time to decide how to tell him.”

  “You still want Michael out.”

  “Yes,” Laurie said firmly. “Back in a jiff,” and she went down the hall.