“Have you called him on it? Maybe he can be reasoned with.”
“I’ve tried. But I can’t really get very far, so I’m just staying kind of guarded around him.”
Shane stretches, removing his T-shirt, revealing his long narrow torso marked by pointy pecs that are starting to sag ever so slightly. He leans back, his face toward the sun.
“Seems to me,” he says, “you’ve been confronted with some rather obvious extremes.”
“Yeah, and it only gets more confusing.” I tell him about Evan and Curt. “Finally, a guy who seems to fit all the criteria, and he’s married.”
“Damn that Supreme Court for giving us the right,” Shane says, his eyes closed against the sun.
“Can you ever respond without a wisecrack?” I toss a pebble at him but he doesn’t react. “The fact is, Evan came the closest anyone has come in a long time to being my vision of Mr. Right. Okay, so I only had a couple of hours with him, but he was sweet, and gorgeous, and built, and smart, and sensitive, and reasonable—”
“You could always poison the husband.”
“But I learned something, Shane. Last night, when I was talking with this guy Martin—”
“Martin? Which one is this?”
I smirk. “Some guy who gave me a blow job at the dick dock.”
Shane opens one eye and peers over at me. “You
have
been getting around.”
I laugh. “It’s so crazy. I still can’t believe I let it happen. But I got to talking with him later. He’s a nice guy.” I hesitate. “He asked me out, in fact.”
“And?”
“He’s
forty-five
, Shane,” I tell him.
“And that tells me what?”
“Why I couldn’t go out with him. I’m not into daddies.”
Shane sits up. “Why is a forty-five-year-old automatically a daddy?”
“Okay, okay. I just mean—well, I’m thirty-three.”
“That still tells me nothing. What does Martin look like?”
“Well, he’s quite handsome.”
“For an older guy, you mean,” Shane says sarcastically.
“Shane, there is a huge difference in our ages!” But even as the words come out, I’m remembering that it’s basically the same difference between Luke and me, just in the other direction. “It just wouldn’t work,” I say. “I mean, we’d have nothing in common. He’s probably into disco music and Barbra Streisand.”
“Oh, Henry Henry Henry.” Shane gives me a weary look, then lays back down across the rowboat. “Whatever.”
“Look, I felt bad about saying no to Martin. Anyway, the point is, Martin said he realized that he’d been wasting time living in Pittsburgh, when he wanted to be living here. That’s how I feel now. That I’m wasting time.”
“So this Martin moved to Provincetown in order to
stop
wasting his time?”
I nod.
“Then what, pray tell,” Shane asks, eyes still closed, “are you planning to do?”
I’m quiet a moment. A decision is slowly forming in my mind. “I’m going to make right something I did wrong,” I say in a low voice.
Shane opens his eyes and rolls his head to his side to look at me. He doesn’t say anything.
“I’m lonely, Shane,” I say. “The last few months I’ve gotten to the point where I realize that I’m growing old alone.”
“Right,” Shane says quietly. “You’re thirty-three.
Ancient
.”
“Hey, thirty-three turns into thirty-four, and then you’re forty and then fifty.”
“Oh, is that how it goes?”
I move closer to him, resting my chin on the side of the boat so that our faces are no more than a few inches apart. “Yes,” I tell him. “That’s how it goes.”
Behind us a wave crashes up onshore courtesy of a speedboat out in the harbor. We remain quiet, looking at each other.
“Do you want to be alone forever, Shane? Wasn’t it better when we were together? It might not have always been fabulous between us, but we had each other. We weren’t alone.”
“No,” he says, rather dreamily. “We weren’t alone.”
“I was wrong to always be on the lookout for the next best thing, Shane. If I hurt you, I’m sorry. What I was looking for, I don’t know anymore. I had
you
. And I didn’t appreciate what I had.”
Shane says nothing. He just keeps looking at me.
“What I’m trying to say, Shane—”
“Don’t,” he whispers.
“I can’t help it. It’s just come over me. I realize now that—”
He sits up. “I said,
don’t
, Henry.”
“But I want to—”
Just then I’m aware of someone approaching us. I turn. A dark-haired guy with olive skin, shirtless in cutoff jeans. He’s carrying a brown paper bag and two large coffee cups. He seems vaguely familiar but I can’t place him.
“Shane?” the guy calls.
“Eddie,” Shane says, standing.
I watch as the newcomer approaches. His face breaks into a wide grin, and his lips pucker for a kiss from Shane. I sit on the sand speechless.
Shane has his arm around the guy now. “Henry,” he says, as the two of them turn to look down at me. “I want you to meet Eddie.” He pauses. “My boyfriend.”
Eddie—cute, about my age, lean and tight—reaches his hand down to shake my hand. With difficulty I stand to face him.
Shane’s boyfriend.
Is there no end to making a fool of myself?
“Hey,” Eddie says. His brown eyes shine in the sunlight. He looks to be Italian or Portuguese. Lean and hard with a strong handshake. Absolutely fucking adorable.
And he’s Shane’s boyfriend.
“Hey,” I say in return.
Eddie smiles. “I knew your friend Jeff years ago.”
That’s it. That’s where I’ve seen him. In photographs in Jeff’s album. Except then Eddie was younger. And Jeff knew him as Eduardo.
“I recognize you,” I manage to say. “Jeff has mentioned you.”
He carried a fairly large torch for you for a long time, too
, I might add. But I don’t.
“Tell Jeff I said hello, will you?” Eddie asks.
“Sure,” I say.
I can’t say much else. I’m struck by colliding emotions. The first is embarrassment: I had come dangerously close to suggesting to Shane that we get back together. The second is envy: Eddie is
hot
. Envy is followed very quickly by disbelief: this hottie is with
Shane
? Shane of the squishy body and average looks? And then I feel chagrined: how can I reduce Shane to such descriptions, this man who once loved me?
Finally, it is embarrassment to which I return: not so much for setting myself up for rejection, but for having allowed myself to imagine a reconciliation with Shane. It was an act borne of desperation—not because Shane is unworthy of me, but because I had thought him an easy catch, a quick fix to my loneliness. If I can’t have whom I want, I was reasoning, I’ll take Shane; having someone is better than having no one. Embarrassment mingles with shame. In truth, it is I who am unworthy of him.
Eddie is handing us our food and coffee.
“You are such a doll to do this,” Shane is telling his boyfriend.
“You okay?” Eddie asks me. “You had a bike accident?”
“I’ll live,” I assure him.
It’s what I told Joey, too, that day at the coffee shop when he said good-bye. I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now.
I watch as Eddie kisses Shane once more on the lips. “Well, I’ll leave you two to catch up. I’m up at the house with the guys. Remember we’re doing the bike trails in an hour.”
“I remember, sweetums,” Shane says.
“Good to meet you, Henry,” Eddie says. “Don’t forget to say hi to Jeff.”
“Good to meet you too,” I manage to say.
We both watch as he heads back up the beach toward the street.
“So,” I say, turning to Shane, who’s already sitting back down on the overturned boat unwrapping his breakfast. “How long have you two been together?”
“We just had our one-year anniversary.”
It’s like a knife jab. “Why did you never tell me?” I ask.
Shane smiles just before taking his first bite. He chews and swallows his food before answering. “Because you never asked,” he says.
I sit beside him on the boat. The pain is still quite sharp, but I want to be even with him so I can look him in the eye.
“So you love him,” I say.
“We’re getting married,” Shane tells me.
“Of course you are.” I laugh a little. “That’s what the gays are doing these days, isn’t it?”
“
Some
of the gays.” Shane looks kindly at me. “Eat your breakfast, Henry.”
I’m not hungry. I take a sip of my coffee instead.
“Sorry for being such an idiot earlier,” I say.
“To be quite frank, Henry, I’m used to you being an idiot.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He cocks his head as he looks at me. “I was with you for a long time, remember. I know how you can be.”
I make a face. “It wasn’t that bad. We had some good times.”
Shane grins. “Henry, I have a feeling that your memory of our time together is a bit muddled.”
“It is not. I remember it all very well.”
He scowls. “So why did we break up?”
“Because we realized we weren’t meant to be lovers.”
Shane gestures with his hands as if to say his point is proven. “No, Henry. We broke up because
you
realized you weren’t meant to be
my
lover.”
“It was mutual.”
He wipes his mouth with a napkin. “I accepted the inevitability of it. It was graceful. It was amicable.” He leans in close. “It was
not
mutual.”
I look at him. “So you wanted to keep trying with me?”
He smiles. “I would have kept trying with you until I was ninety.” He takes a quick sip of his coffee. “I may have given up at ninety-one, but until ninety, I was willing to stick it out.”
“But now?”
He shrugs. “You haven’t commented on my ring.”
I look down at his hand. Why hadn’t I noticed it before? A gold band set with a small diamond flashes on his right ring finger.
“An engagement ring,” he says, his voice thick. “Eddie gave it to me a few weeks ago. Can you imagine? A man like him giving an engagement ring to
me
?”
“Congratulations,” I say.
“I never imagined the possibility. A man like Eddie—with whom once even the great almighty Jeff O’Brien was besotted—asking me to marry him.”
“I said congratulations.”
Shane looks at me. “Certainly, after you, I couldn’t have imagined it.” For the first time, there’s some bitterness in his voice. “You haven’t changed, Henry. I can’t believe you still thought you could come traipsing back to me when everyone else failed you. How often did I feel that way? I was your port of last call, even when we were supposedly a couple.”
“I said I was sorry, Shane.”
“But then you tried to do the same thing today.” He laughs. “Not for a second did you ask me what was new in my life. It was all about you. You presumed I was right where you left me. You gave no consideration to the idea that I might have gone on with my life.”
I can’t reply. He’s right.
“From where I sit, Henry,” Shane is saying, taking another bite of his bagel, “you’ve had three hot guys in a matter of weeks pick you up, and a fourth has tried. God forbid, he was a decrepit forty-five! And I’m supposed to feel sorry for you? Henry, if you think you were an idiot out here with me, I’d suggest you look at the rest of your life as well.”
“Okay, Shane. I really don’t feel like being called names.”
“Sweetie, how can I take you seriously? How can I feel for you, sympathize with your loneliness, when you tell tales of all these men throwing themselves at you? Do you know how many guys would trade places with you?”
“But none of these guys are available for relationships!”
Shane makes a sour face. “How the fuck do you know? You don’t give them a chance! The way I see it, you’ve prejudged that poor little Luke boy. You’ve never been honest with Gale. And you’ve ruled out Evan and Martin for your own idiosyncratic reasons.”
“I am not getting involved with a married man!”
Shane shrugs again. “Lots of guys have successful three-way relationships.”
“Not me,” I insist.
“Then give me one good reason for rejecting Martin out of hand. And don’t you dare say he’s too old!”
“If you don’t want me to be honest, Shane, then there’s no point in talking.” I’m holding my ground. “I’m just being who I am.”
“Which is small-minded and selfish.” He finishes his bagel, crumbles up the wrapper and stuffs into the bag. “Sorry to be blunt, but you are. You say Evan fit all the criteria for your Mr. Right. Apparently I didn’t come close. And I’d bet my engagement ring here that the main disparity between Evan and me is the thickness and hardness of our pectorals and biceps.”
My eyes involuntarily drop to Shane’s saggy man-tits. I return my gaze to his face as quickly as I can reassert control.
“No, Shane,” I say, “it’s not like that…” But it’s futile to protest.
“You say it wasn’t always fabulous between us,” Shane continues. “You’re right. It wasn’t. But it
is
always fabulous with Eddie.”
“Well,” I say, “I’m glad for you.”
“No, you’re not.” His voice has softened. “And that’s okay, Henry.”
I make a move to stand, but the pain twists through my thigh again. I groan a bit and sit back down.
“You poor baby,” Shane says, and begins kneading my leg.
Without even realizing it, I start to cry.
Shane seems to pay no attention to my tears, but of course he’s aware. “You know that a part of me will always love you, Henry. Underneath all your frustrating outer layers, you’re actually a loveable guy.”
“Maybe you can write me a reference I can pass out to guys that I date.”
He laughs. “Stop being so afraid of what you want, Henry. I have a sense you may be making it all a lot more difficult than it really is.”
I don’t reply. I just close my eyes and allow myself to feel the sensations of Shane’s hands on my leg.
“I’ve got to run,” he whispers at last. “We’re all going on a bike ride…”
I open my eyes. Shane and his lover and his friends. He’s moved on, found his own world.