Manning didn’t know what reaction to expect, but this wasn’t it. Rising, he sets his drink on the table and takes a single step toward Neil. Astonished, Manning tells him, “I violated your trust, but I didn’t intend to deceive you. I thought you’d prefer to know about this.”
“Well I don’t!” He takes a single step toward Manning. “All right, you made a slip. All right, you’ve got a guilty conscience. But then you dump it on
me
? You decide to feel better by making it
my
problem?” Neil throws his glass on the floor—“You son of a bitch!”
Uh-oh. That unassuming little rocks glass was Baccarat crystal. Fifty dollars’ worth of shattered glass attests to Neil’s anger more eloquently than any soap-opera clichés he might hurl. Manning tells him, “What I did was inexcusable, but there
were
extenuating circumstances.”
“I’m sure. You were alone in the woods with a twenty-four-year-old. Now
that’s
extenuating.”
“Seriously, Neil, listen: It was your idea to send him up there with me—”
“I don’t recall telling you to fuck him.”
“But you did tell me to get a look at his body. You’re never going to believe this, but the kid’s got
pierced nipples,
and when I—”
Spinning his back toward Manning, Neil tells him, “
Spare
me the sordid details. I already have a perfectly vivid picture of what went on.”
“I don’t think you do, though,” says Manning, stepping up behind Neil.
“Stop
talking
,” says Neil, turning to face Manning again. “You’re only making this worse. Can’t you understand that it’s pointless to discuss what happened that night? Right now, I’m considerably more worried about the future—our future. And this is the worst possible time to clutter our lives with emotional uncertainties. Christ,
I’m
up to my ass in this damned festival,
you’re
at loose ends over your murder mystery, and now we’re
both
stressed to the max because you can’t keep your dick in your pants. There’s really not much else to say, is there?”
Manning puts both hands on Neil’s shoulders. “I can ask you to forgive me.”
Neil brushes his hands away. “That’s easier said than done, so don’t count on it. We’ve both got a lot of thinking to do.”
P
INK CLOUDS DRIFT THROUGH
Manning’s brain as his feet trod the barren surface of a faraway planet. Mechanically, without thought or will, one clean white shoe springs ahead of the other, tramping in the dust a path that meanders across a patchwork of his footprints shooting toward the horizon in all directions. There is no order to this run. He circumscribes no Zarnikal equator. The remote daystar scribbles random patterns in the black sky.
Pink clouds hang low to blur Manning’s vision, stinging his eyes with their glowing cosmic gases. This isn’t pretty. It isn’t fun. It’s a frustrating excursion through a bland, passive world made hostile by its sheer desolation. The dream ensnares Manning with its pointless drudgery, goading him onward to a new morning in the real world that never dawns.
Pink clouds swipe past his naked body, whirling round his legs, slipping past his genitals, keeping him constantly aroused. But it doesn’t feel good. His erect penis slaps from side to side in rhythm with his gait. It hurts.
Exhausted by his nightlong run—he can’t even remember when it began—Manning finally slows his pace and stops. His chest heaves as he gulps the clouds into his lungs, not knowing whether they will nourish or poison. He must lie down.
Supine on the desert floor, he feels its powdery grit against his calves, buttocks, and shoulder blades. He wags his head, grinding his hair in it. His mind becomes focused on the starry noonday sky, lost in the levels of infinity that separate innumerable layers of lustrous pinpricks. One of those dots, the one shining brighter than all others, is the sun, seven billion miles away, commanding the movement of the planet beneath Manning’s body. Somewhere near the sun, but hidden in darkness, is planet Earth.
There, people go about their lives, waking, breathing, talking, eating, working, fighting, loving, sexing, lying, sleeping, dreaming. Still dreaming.
But here, all is silence—except for the tick of the tips of the laces against the leather of his white running shoes. Here, nothing moves—except the jerking of his hand between his legs and the drifting of the lifeless clouds above him. He shuts his eyes, concentrating on the tension that builds in his groin.
Stroking himself, Manning waits to feel the presence of those muscular visitors who always seem to join him at this stage, bringing him to the brink of orgasm. There were two of them. Lately, only one. Where is he?
Who
is he? Where are they? They should be here. He needs them.
Manning opens his eyes, hearing music (that’s odd) but seeing no one. He is totally alone in the sands and the clouds—there is no faithful lover, no secret trick—but there is music all around him now, lovely and familiar. What is that? Name that tune. Mozart, surely. A later symphony, maybe the fortieth, or is it the forty-first? They’re easily confused, those middle movements. Yes, the forty-first, the “Jupiter.” Strange venue, Jupiter on Zarnik. …
Manning opens his eyes, hearing the radio at his bedside. He has overslept. He normally awakes the second it switches on, during the early-morning newscast, but that’s long finished, and the Mozart grinds toward its finale. He took a Xanax before bed and still feels groggy. The memory of the fight, the car, rushes back to him and knots his stomach. At least he slept.
He squints at the clock. It’s nearly seven. Why didn’t Neil wake him when the radio switched on—didn’t he hear it either? Manning rolls over to nudge Neil on the other side of the bed. But Neil isn’t there. And the knot in Manning’s stomach tightens, secreting something acidic.
Not the least groggy now, Manning sits upright in bed, peering about the balcony. Then he switches off the radio, holding his breath to listen for any evidence of activity. There’s an unremarkable background noise from downstairs—something mechanical, probably the refrigerator—but otherwise the loft is dead quiet. When at last he exhales, the sound of air rushing up his throat and past his teeth seems magnified in the silence, like a metal rake dragged across concrete.
He swings his legs to the floor and stands. Grabbing a seersucker bathrobe, he slips it on and flaps it around him, padding to the bathroom for a look inside. The lights are on. All is in order. But then he notices that the toiletries near Neil’s sink seem different. Neil normally groups them precisely and aesthetically, composing something of a miniature skyline against the back-splash, but some of the items are now missing, and the ones that remain are askew—not a promising sign. Although last night ended on a terrible note, Manning fears that this morning is beginning on a worse one.
So he heads downstairs, determined to learn what has happened, but dreading what he may find. It doesn’t take long.
First he notices that the broken glass has been cleaned up. Crossing to the kitchen, he sees that there is still coffee warm for him in the pot. And then he spots it—a folded sheet of paper propped on the counter next to his usual coffee mug—a very bad sign indeed. Stepping closer, he reads the word
Mark
written in Neil’s distinctive hand on the letter’s outer flap.
On the one hand, he wants to grab it at once and read what’s inside. On the other, he wants to postpone it as long as possible. He at least needs to pour a cup of coffee first, which he does. He lifts the paper, still folded, and carries it with his cup to the center island. Plopping himself on a stool, he takes a first sip of coffee. Then, bracing himself, he opens the letter.
Dear Mark,
Last night really threw me. I need some time to think about what’s happened. Suddenly I don’t know where we’re headed. It’s ironic that I should feel this way just as we’ve finally gotten settled into the loft. Maybe I was naive in equating the completion of our home—its physical structure—with the stability of a relationship that I assumed was unshakable. But I’m an architect. It’s a mind-set.
You may have noticed that I packed a few things and took them to the office. I’ll go to Roxanne’s tonight and stay there awhile. It’ll be better for us.
(Actually, I have no idea what’s better for us, but I just don’t care to face you right now. You’ve hurt me terribly, I feel nothing but anger at the moment, and I don’t know if I can forgive you. If I can, I don’t know how long it will take. Like I said, I need some time to think.)
You’re sleeping soundly as I write this. I don’t know whether that’s the result of your cleansed conscience or simply the benign effect of champagne and Xanax. In either case, I resent it. You did what you had to do, then drifted off to dreamland—while
my
night was sleepless because my life had been turned upside down.Because of the festival, the weekend that lies ahead would be, even under ideal circumstances, the most anxiety-ridden of my life. And now the whole situation has become infinitely more complicated. Though many things confuse me right now, I can say this with absolute objectivity: Your sense of timing is atrocious.
So, where are we? You act as though nothing has happened, yet the fact that you felt the need to “confess” your dalliance shows that you understand the gravity of what’s happened to us. I do believe you when you say you’re sorry. I’m also willing to believe that you truly want to put the incident behind us. In other words, I think your head is in the right place. Even so, I feel as if
my
brain has been fucked and fried. Sorry, but that’s where I’m at.Please do not phone me. We’ve both got plenty else on our plates right now. Let’s just get through the weekend. Maybe next week we can talk. Let’s hope that the love we’ve found and the “home” we’ve built (the life we share, not the loft) will be sufficient to see us through.
But I have to tell you, Mark—I’m just not sure.
Neil
Manning hasn’t touched the coffee. He stares at the letter as if it’s not real. Surely he is dreaming now—this is one of those dreams that haunt the predawn hours with specters of death or missed exams or bowel movements in public places. He shakes his head, hoping to wake to a bright, normal morning of his everyday life. But no—this morning, this letter, this cup of cold coffee are real.
Neil may have packed little more than a toothbrush and razor, but that could signal the beginning of the end. Toiletries today, but what about tomorrow? There could be a U-Haul sputtering at their loading dock.
Neil has packed very little, but he’s gone. It may not be forever—Manning can’t even fathom such a possibility—but the cold, hard fact remains that Neil has left him.
Activity in the
Journal’s
newsroom is more hectic than usual as the city gears up for the festival’s opening, the visiting pantheon of cultural and political celebrities, the presidential address, the human-rights rally, and the counterdemonstration by the CFC. With the approach of the late-morning deadline for the afternoon edition, the commotion intensifies with ringing phones, scurrying copy kids, and conversations shouted over the partitions of reporters’ cubicles.
Manning, however, is assignment-free this morning. Nathan Cain had made it clear that his time should be dedicated to the Nolan and Zarnik investigations. When Manning arrived today, he talked to his editor, Gordon Smith, volunteering to help with one of the festival stories, but Smith only reiterated Cain’s orders. Since there’s nothing Manning can do with his assignment until his five-o’clock meeting with Zarnik at the planetarium, he’s been spending his time on the phone arranging for estimates to get his car repaired. As he feared, the procedure is shaping into a bureaucratic hassle, but at least it keeps his mind occupied with something other than his situation with Neil.
In spite of Neil’s request that Manning not phone him, Manning has called Neil’s office several times already. There’s always some excuse—he’s out, he’s in a meeting, he’s on the other line. While Manning can assume that Neil is truly swamped today, he suspects that the receptionist at the architectural firm has been instructed by Neil to screen Manning’s calls.
While scribbling another note to clip to his insurance policy, Manning hears something that catches his attention through the hubbub of the newsroom. Daryl’s voice lilts above the others, saying, “What’s the big rush, David?”
But David doesn’t answer. Instead, it’s the unmistakable voice of his uncle, Hector Bosch. “Get out of my
way
,” he snarls, and there are sounds of a struggle with something that clatters against the wall—possibly Daryl’s mail cart.
Manning rises from his chair to see what’s going on. He hears David say, “Wait, Uncle Hector—don’t!”
Manning has barely stuck his head from around the partition to look into the corridor when Hector rushes into the cubicle, slamming Manning back into his chair. With fire in his eyes, he yells,
“You reprehensible scapegrace!”
Stunned, Manning watches David and Daryl rush up behind Hector. David claps an arm over Hector’s shoulder; Daryl keeps his distance, gaping from the hall. Heads bob up from behind the partitions, wondering what the uproar is about. At a loss for words, Manning says lamely, “Good morning, Hector.”
“Don’t ‘good morning’ me, Mr. Manning. There are times when civility is but a mockery of decency.”
“Hector …” says Manning with a calming gesture of his hands, trying to rise from his chair.
But with a jab of his fingertips, Hector forces Manning down again, telling him, “Quiet! You’ve said enough—God knows you’ve
done
enough.”
People are gathering in the corridor, straining for a look inside the cubicle. David leans over his uncle’s shoulder. “Please, Hector. Not here, not now.”
Brushing his nephew’s hand away, Hector turns his head to tell him, “When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it. You certainly didn’t heed
my
counsel, and now it’s led to this.”
Hector returns his attention to Manning, but now David is angry. He tells Hector, “It’s only ‘led to this’ because
you’ve
chosen to have a cow over it. I’m an adult. Mind your own damn business.”