Dream Lover (15 page)

He said he came home unexpectedly one Wednesday, and Pam had on a pink Valentino jogging suit with ballet slippers, perfectly coiffed hair, false eyelashes, and full makeup. She was standing on the extension ladder with a dust mop, trying to reach the cobwebs on the vaulted ceilings in their house. She could have hired live-in help if she wanted it, yet she did her own cleaning. Landscaping was another passion of Pam’s. She had a trailer hitch put on the back of their utility car and when she wanted trees or mulch, Jack said she drove into town and rented a trailer to haul the stuff back to the beach. She was always perfect for him, even when he wasn’t home.

We were sitting at a bar in the Village one night having a drink before he went back up to his apartment. He told me about how she was careful of every word that came out of her mouth because he had teased her once years ago, before they were married. She had grown used to his mother’s treatment of her, calling her silly and scattered to her face, and worse behind her back. But she broke down crying when, in frustration over stopped-up plumbing, Jack had once used the term “slob” to describe his pristine wife because she had accidently flushed a tampon down the toilet.

He always spoke of Pam in a soft voice, prefacing the term “wife” with words like sweet, gentle, wonderful, and beautiful. When she had their babies, Jack was mesmerized by them and by Pam. He couldn’t fathom how his petite and dainty wife could give birth to such huge babies and then a week later, be walking up to the grocery store in her pre-pregnancy capris and high heels, pushing a baby carriage.

In spite of her amazingness, Jack couldn’t stay faithful to her. That she never found any of this out until his death only served to strengthen my belief that you can live in denial and be happy. More people should adopt that philosophy.

I keep getting off the subject about Jack and me. We started out comparing genitals, as little boys will do. But when we got older, we really loved each other, making love whenever we got together. I fell deeply for him. We had to be secretive about our relationship because Mr. Smith would have killed Jack if he knew.

Jack wanted to date women. He loved women. I know it seemed like he was a misogynist, but he wasn’t. He just had to have continuous stimulation. The longest he was with anyone after me was Dale. He met Dale in college; she was one of his math professors. Dale was your proverbial old maid. She’d lived in the same Upper East Side apartment since she was twenty-two and when Jack met her, she was in her forties. During his freshman year, Dale was his advisor. He was a math major. He said he was intrigued by so much about her. She was innocent, he said. No matter what someone did or said, Dale would be able to rationalize it. She believed in the goodness of everyone. If a person said something bad, it had to have come from that person’s place of pain. Jack didn’t believe in it himself, but her entire aesthetic was based on love and forgiveness. She was rather unattractive, I thought. But Jack liked her look. She was plain, with colorless hair and skin. But she wore makeup and her taste in clothes was exceptional.

Jack was an authority on style for as long as I can remember. He claimed it was from reading the paper, but I thought it was an innate gift. He’d critique our classmates and teachers, giving out imaginary prizes for the best outfits, or the worst dresser, or the most outlandish suits. From time to time, you would hear one of the members of our group say, “Pass that one by Jack before you wear it in public.” Jack would give it the thumbs up or thumbs down. The kids in our group were known as the snazziest dressers in the school, and it was because of Jack. He confided that he would have liked to be a designer. But his father wouldn’t hear of it. “No son of mine is going to be a designer!” he hollered. So Jack got through school and he ended up being a designer of sorts, but of city blocks and neighborhoods.

Getting back to Dale, their relationship began by having coffee together whenever they had a free moment. Jack said he didn’t think about sleeping with her initially because she didn’t appeal to him. But coffee led to hikes in the park, which led to museum openings and art shows, and segued into nighttime gallery openings, and finally, since they were sort of “seeing” each other, sleeping together. When Jack started to date Pam, he told Dale and she was heartbroken. But since she had over twenty years on him, and she understood that Jack wanted children; their relationship would have to remain casual. Dale waited for Jack for weeks and then he would show up unexpectedly for an afternoon get-together. Even though it wasn’t ideal and she often felt like he was using her, eventually she grew used to their arrangement.

They weren’t able to meet in public anymore because Pam wouldn’t have stood for it, Jack said. He wanted a traditional family with her. Having a girlfriend that his wife knew about was never an option for him. It didn’t make any sense. Pam was desirable and very sexual. Jack said that in their youth, he was afraid she would hurt herself she was so wild in bed. Wild and willing. So why would he want to hurt her, shake up her security, by telling her that he was going to see other women? Jack was an enigma because he was the most immoral, perverted, upper-middle-class, moral man I will ever meet. He had exacting standards for everything else in his life—his finances, honesty (except for where it collided with his sexual appetite), kindness, and generosity.

Money was a big thing with Jack. He was born into it but he was driven, as well. He had ideas that he continuously put into practice. As some were more successful than others, he would phase out the less profitable ones. He often said the good thing about Peter Romney as a partner was that he never questioned Jack and supported every new idea he had. When Jack was sleeping with Peter’s Argentine sister-in-law, Peter pretended not to be aware of it. He brother was a reprobate, as well. Peter was as straight as an arrow. They were certainly odd bedfellows, that Jack and Peter. Peter was the male equivalent of Pam, I think. Did you ever notice his clothes? Oh my God, I think that the word dapper was made for Peter. Peter is so impeccably dressed that he makes Jack, who was a walking Armani model, look seedy.

Years ago, Peter’s brother got married in a Saturday morning wedding. I was invited because I do design work for their firm all the time. I sat with Jack and Marie, and so help me God, when the groomsmen walked from the nave up to the altar, Jack gasped, “Holy Christ, they are wearing morning coats before lunch!” Peter’s suit was complete with cutaways, waistcoat and striped trousers. I almost fell off the pew. It was so Peter! Later, he told us that he’d always wanted one and finally had a reason to buy it. We had no idea where the man would wear it again, but it made him happy. Peter was also an ascot wearer when the function was informal. He wore a bow tie that he tied himself every single day of the week. He had a collection of hand-woven silk bow ties. I had heard he also starched and ironed his own shirts. Why? Even Pam didn’t do that.

Dale called me last week, crying. She is having an awful time letting go since Jack died. She’s over seventy, but still looks exactly the same as she did when she was forty-five and teaching us math at NYU. I met her for lunch. She is slightly homophobic; that is something I couldn’t figure out for years. I wondered if it was my imagination but Jack confirmed it for me. She told him she was accused of being a lesbian because she never dated and didn’t get married, so she avoided the appearance of that lifestyle by keeping her distance from other gays. Maybe at age seventy-four, she can finally relax. It’s enough that she is willing to see me now, and initiates the meetings. I like having someone like Dale to talk to about Jack. I need to warn her, of course. It hasn’t escaped my attention that I know more of the players than almost anyone. I know the long-term ones. Believe it or not, I was the only man, I think. I could be wrong. And I knew he loved me. But that’s neither here nor there now. So I have a huge responsibility to Dale.

I wasn’t going to talk about it. But the truth is, Jack knew he was sick. We found out together years ago. The women before that time whom he stopped seeing are not safe. Everyone is at risk because he didn’t know when he contacted it or from whom. He was getting worse, using his ticker as the excuse for drinking less and trying to eat healthily. But it was too late.

Everything changed dramatically when he met Sandra. You realize I never met her. He wanted Sandra to have a certain illusion of him and the gay man didn’t fit the picture. He was madly in love with her. He told me that when she used to come to the office from the Bronx before her transfer, he’d watch her move around the office and have to retreat to his private bathroom for self-abuse. Just looking at her wound him up. He told Peter to get her downtown permanently and he made up some excuse to have her transferred. They were considering closing the Bronx office, anyway; keeping it open was a favor he was doing for his crazy old man who couldn’t afford it anymore. Jack didn’t want to fire the people, so they divided the staff among Jack and Peter and Jack’s old man. The people who were close to retirement stayed with the old man. It wouldn’t hurt as much when his company tanked.

Jack didn’t hit on Sandra. It was the first time I had ever seen him use restraint. He became her friend. She is very young; not much older than Brent. All through high school and college, she held down a job. A New Yorker through and through, she is the only woman I know who went to Marymount and didn’t get married right out of school and leave the city. Jack admired Sandra for who she was. Pam fit an image he wanted to uphold. The other women filled a need. But Sandra, well she only had to be herself and he was crazy about her. When I asked Jack what was so special about her, besides the fact that she was probably the most beautiful woman I had ever seen who wasn’t an actress or a model, it took him a few moments to gather his thoughts. “Where do I even begin?” he replied. “For one thing, look at her.” We smiled at the memory of her face. “She’s smart and funny, she’s independent. She’s not in awe of me! Give it a break, ladies! I’m flesh and blood, not a god.”

“Oh for god’s sake,” I said to him, “you are so fucking full of yourself!” We could talk like that together, him and me.

But then I had to ask the hard question. “Does she know about you? I mean, are you protecting her?” Jack’s eyes glazed over. I really think that he never took full responsibility for what he did. That’s why I say he was sick. He didn’t see the danger, or he was in such complete denial that he just fucked his way through the city of women and never thought there was anything wrong with it. He never took any medication, either, which is the most bizarre part of it. The drugs they have today will even help to keep your partner safer if you continue to practice safe sex. He wouldn’t even wear a rubber.

The thing about Jack that set him apart from your average player was his ability to make each one feel like she was special, that she was the only one. I know he had a few girlfriends who were simple receptacles for his sperm. Those poor women are the ones who I feel especially sorry for. They didn’t have any other connection to him, so when he died, they were abandoned. Women like Dale heard from me. I told several of his closest friends. Maryanne sort of slid through the cracks. I’m so sorry about that. However, I could never understand that relationship. He was with her for almost as long as he was with Pam. She wasn’t particularly attractive; she had wild red hair, I mean a bushel basket of it. And this odd little girl with a deformed face. I think Jack felt sorry for her so he risked his marriage for years. He slept with her just enough to gain access to the daughter.

During his final days, everything was coming to a head. He didn’t have the energy to hide his life from his wife and was starting to slip up. He’d spent the last year trying to make restitution for wrongs done, not by coming clean and being honest with people, but by giving money to those who were the most important to him. He wanted to make sure that they were taken care of. But during those final weeks, the stress with his brother—who is a real asshole—and a few of the women whom he had strung along started to pile up. During this time, he also started to see more of Sandra, staying in the city over the weekends to be close to her, raising suspicion even in his sister-in-law’s eyes, although I think Pam was okay with whatever he did. If he had to suddenly start working or be out of town for a few days, it was okay with her.

I keep thinking about one young woman that he saw the winter before last. She was a part-time researcher for another firm in town, a college student. She came into his office, he said, to drop off title work he ordered that had accidently gone to the firm she worked for. He swears she hit on him right away and he went with it. Well, she got pregnant. And she was a wild woman about it. I was afraid he would kill her to shut her up. She was making a spectacle of the situation. Even went up to his mother’s place. Oh my lord, I forget to tell you about that house, didn’t I? Another time. Anyway, they paid her off in big cash, like a million dollars. He said he forced her to get rid of the baby, but how can you force someone? Unless you do it yourself. The stress of the possibility of this girl showing up on his doorstep got the best of him. I saw a huge downward spiral then. Falling in love with Sandra was in the backlash of crap Jack did before he died. He was in his lawyer’s office more last year than he had been in all the years before. I know he did something to his will but he wouldn’t tell me anymore than that. Just that he made changes.

Jack gave me money before he died. I don’t need it; I am a successful designer. I do all the apartments on the Upper East Side for the big real estate firms. The warehouses I have around town, up in the Bronx and in Queens, are filled with props and furniture. I can tell you right now where the littlest piece of china is, where each piece of furniture is stored. My insurance bill for the contents alone is more than most people make in a lifetime. But Jack was worried about me. I think that if he had just been honest with himself, he would have realized that I was really the one who could make him happy, who could satisfy him in the long run. I used to cry on his shoulder. “We can adopt children!” I would tell him. We could have hired a surrogate. I think he wanted to make a home like the one he didn’t have. He’d be the “normal” father. I know he worshiped his children, too. He never spoke of them without reverence. So, yes, Jack gave me money, too. I put most of it into trust for his children; over a million dollars. The rest I am going to use to completely revamp my apartment.