"What's it matter?"
"You're good at these things! Always. You always help me."
"You need to go. Which you don't need me to tell you."
"But I
do
," I say.
I see now he's kept on his coat (Barney's sale), and the scarf Ben and Lola brought him from Arrezzo. He opens the door, goes out without saying anything. He could be going anywhere, but after a moment I hear him on the first few steps to the roof. Then, nothing.
"I do need you, George!"
I say. Which is when a siren goes by, followed by a burst of Henry, two floors down, singing something about pretty women. Then, when it's quiet again, I hear what happens next, which is the door to the roof as it opens, although I don't hear it shut.
11. Wesley
I
see the Rosens in the hall. They don't see me. Theo thinks they have a certain ludicrous aspect, but he determined, with the help of a spreadsheet, that their ludicrousness only made up about twenty-one percent of their essential selves. He wanted to be accurate, and fair. It's good that they don't see me, as right now, even though they're turned away, I know they're both crying and both trying not to. Mr. Rosen holds Mrs. Rosen, and she holds him. I wonder did my dad and mom ever look like that, to the casual observer, who would know, like I do about the Rosens, that they're together. The
re.
It's the word that comes to me. The
re.
Theo doesn't look good. Not that he should, as they're not letting him go home yet, or tomorrow, and maybe a day beyond that. He seems to be asleep and I don't want to wake him, but just as I'm about to go he opens his eyes like he's been waiting for me. He may be fucked up but he's still Theo, because while I'm deciding what to say he solves the problem for me.
"The cops were just here again," he says. "They want to talk to you some more, too."
"Okay, I guess."
"And they broke Fartemis. It turns out she's behind the unsolved murders in the American Girl Store. Which I knew."
I laugh, he sort of smiles, and I see this thing about him— a whole new thing— that I also see now isn't so new, that has always been there.
He likes it when I have a good time.
Even here.
"They were pretty nice, actually," he says. "They didn't do the Good Cop, Bad Cop thing, which was disappointing, in a way. Like whenever they do that on tv, I always think, I'd be on to them. I'd just laugh." His eyes close, for a moment, and I think,
Should I tip
toe out?
I start to, but then his eyes open again. "There's a bright side to all this, one might say," he says.
"Like what?"
"
Edge.
I mean like acquiring it. I do well in school. But that's not edge. I play lacrosse and soccer. That's not edge. I'm president of our class now—"
"And still no edge?"
"My college coach keeps going, 'Where's the edge? Brown likes fuckin'
edge
, Theo.' Now I've been gay-bashed. So?"
"Edge," I say.
"Providence, here I come." I see twelve individual lime Jell-Os stacked in a pyramid on his tray table. He picks up the one on top, hands it to me. "Have some," he says. "They keep bringing it. Maybe it makes you straight."
"I am straight."
"Well, you can always be straighter."
I eat the Jell-O; it makes me think of camp, and having colds, and is so good that I eat the next two on the pyramid right away, without asking. Before I reach for my fourth I tell Theo about everything that happened.
"You know what you should have told them?" he says. "When your mom asked if we were boyfriends?"
"What?"
"You should have said no. That we weren't. That we're just hooking up."
"At the Museum of American Folk Art."
"Excellent."
"She'd have been thrilled."
We both laugh at the same moment, and stop at the same moment, too. "So, how are you doing?" I say.
"Well, mostly I don't remember anything," he says. "I remember winning, pretty much, and Shannon's face when I made my speech, and thinking, So that's what it looks like when a face, literally, falls. And Fartemis's b.o., and most of Mr. Frechette's
pensées
." A
pensée
is a thought, in France; whenever Mr. Frechette makes one of his statements, the first thing he says is
"Pensée . . ."
"And as for the event? I don't question its reality— empirically, I mean— but mostly I don't remember it. Do you?"
I want to help him; I want him not to feel broken, or gay-bashed, or strange. I consider lying, but I know that he'd spot it, and no matter how fucked up his memory is now, he'd remember that; I know him. "Yes," I say, "I do. Is it weird not to remember?"
"They say it's normal. I said did that mean I wouldn't remember I was gay, either, but no one laughed or said anything. There isn't a Comedy Central wing or anything. So I've toned it down, because maybe they don't let you go home until you can prove to them that you're boring." His eyes close for a moment; he may have fallen asleep. "You can stay," he says, his eyes still closed. "I don't have a new daily Fact, though. Did we do flaying?"
"Yes," I say. "And I think we can probably skip today."
He opens his eyes. "May I perhaps offer you a lime Jell-O?"
"So, are you scared?" I say.
" About my head?"
" About going back to school."
"Yes," he says, at last, or what seems like that long. "You?"
"It's not school I'm scared of." I'm not fully sure what I mean by that, but he is, I can tell. So I know that he's still enough like himself to be himself; the guy, always, who gets it. "Where's your mom and dad?" I ask him.
"My dad went to get my computer. And my mom and Fartemis are getting me black-and-white cookies."
I wish he hadn't said this; it reminds me of how hungry I am. "I love those."
"We both do," Theo says. "That's something I remember. Maybe that's just there, permanently. Like other stuff. Like remember camp?"
"Of course," I say.
"I remember everything about that. All the teams, and the lanyard, and who seemed gay. Do you remember the Awesome Day?"
We both laugh; there's no way I could forget that.
"All those bluefish we caught," he says.
"Like nineteen."
"Dude! I'm Held for Observation Guy, and I know it was twenty-two! It
was
!"
It wasn't, but I let it be.
"I also remember," he says, or starts to say, because it seems like he's not going to say what it is. His eyes close again. "I'm okay," he says. "Don't worry."
"So you also remember—"
"Water."
"What about it?"
"How it tastes."
His eyes are still closed. "Wet, usually," I say.
But he doesn't laugh. I'm sorry I said it. "I mean how it tastes from a
stream.
From a tin cup."
I remember that, too, from camp. We loved camp. "A cup with pine needles stuck to it."
This causes him to open his eyes. " Water that you drink after you've been on a hike."
"And you're really thirsty."
"Fuck you," he says.
"Why?"
I see that he's crying. I wonder if he's been crying all along, behind his closed eyes. "I was going to say that."
"You still can," I say. But he doesn't. Tears stream down his face, but I don't mention them; some facts don't need talking about. This lady comes in to check on the Jell-O. Theo asks her to join us for one, but she tells us she just ate and the union probably would criticize her. She goes. Theo closes his eyes again, and I think maybe I should leave now. I start to tiptoe out, then I hear his voice.
"Hey, Wesley."
"Yeah?"
"You didn't have to do it," he says. "They wanted to get me, not you. You should have run."
"Yeah, right." I say. "I should have. Definitely. You're awesomely right."
"But you didn't."
"That was
irony
, Theo. Okay?"
"I know what irony is."
"I don't leave people who need me," I say, and as soon as I do I
think: W
ow. I know something about myself now.
And I think, at the same time,
I have to get home. Somehow. I have to get home.
He reads my mind, which reassures me that he's still himself. "So get started," he says.
And so I do.
12. Ben
P
rofessionally, at least, I'm a symbolic man, and only because of my field: eyes. If I was an ears, nose, and throat man I'd be, to quote my late Uncle Zell, just another Jew with a job. But that's not the case if you work with eyes in New York, or anywhere else, I guess. It goes back to Oedipus, probably, who had the bad judgment to blind himself. If I'd been there, then, with what we know now and if he hadn't eaten after midnight the night before, I might have been able to help a little. All right, a lot; I'm not a modest man. I know what I can do, and what I can't. And I find, although I try not to exploit it, that when people find out what I do their whole manner changes. Suddenly I'm a Someone, august, wise, Zagat-rated. This is mostly because, I think, everyone's afraid of going blind, except the blind themselves. They don't fear the going; they're already there. What does that mean? I don't know. I work with my hands, and from time to time like a piece of fish. Which Lola knows; she's become a fish expert, out of love for me. We even have a poacher, a gift from George. It fell off a truck, he said; we didn't ask questions.
"Ben?" She's in the kitchen, in the dark; she likes to cook in moonlight, like a witch. It helps her think, she says, and this is a lady who thinks all day. Which can cause problems for a person, but not her; like me, she's less smart every day, just one more reason why I love her.
"I'm here, my bride." She likes to be called that; it's the second or third time I've done it today, since we got home from the fun in the restaurant.
"Do you need anything?"
"I'm needless," I say. "I'm fine."
I join her in the dark, sneak my arms around her from behind as the water bubbling in the poacher sends up, in the steam, notes of salmon and dill. Saul Rapfkin, a colleague, is an oenophile who's always talking about notes; a finishing note of oak here, a sustained note of butter there; he's an idiot; we're all experts on the wrong things. And speaking of notes, I sing to Lola, quietly enough to still be a little bit musical, a favorite song of hers, ours: "Lost in the Stars."
"And we're lost out here in the stars . . ."
She joins me.
"Little stars . . ."
"Big stars . . ."
"How can we be hungry, Ben?"
"I'm always hungry."
"I guess I mean me, then."
"You have to eat."
"Do I?" she says. "I don't know w
hat
I have to do, honestly. Because it seems, on the evidence of today, anyway, that I don't know who I am."
Does she want to know from me? Her back is still to me; I could ask her to turn, but do I need her face for an impossible enterprise? Because how do you tell a woman in a kitchen the tale of her being and self, when she hates the Internet because it makes research too easy, helps others dig deep and deeper into who they are, when she's someone who can meet parts of herself she hates, as she did today, and still keep enough of the rest of herself in mind? She'll find out on her own, I'm sure of it; she's a brave girl; I am surrounded by brave people.
"Was that me today?" She turns to me now, and there's sufficient moonlight for me to see, easily, that she's been crying.
"She looked like you. She was an attractive lady."
"My God," she says. "How can you even look at me?"
"Easy," I say. "I like authentic people. I don't know why."
"How could I not know that I had that in myself ?" she says. "How could I never have seen it? And what else is there that I don't know, or see? I accept
everything
, Ben! I make sure of that, to have problems with
nothing.
I'm a
New Yorker
."
" There are a lot of ways of being that, it seems."
"But this way? I can't believe that I let Wesley see that."
"What I think," I say, "is that you didn't have a choice."
"Well, I do now. But so does he. And I wouldn't blame him if he never forgives me. Not to mention George. Or even Kenny. I
don't
know what goes on; that's true. But where I went with that, and what was so—
easily there.
Where it had probably been all along. Which is what I hate the most. That it was in there all along. No wonder Wesley won't look at me. Why should he? He knows all he needs to know." She gently pokes at the fish. "It needs more time."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"God, I wish the Frick were open," she says. "It's okay, you can laugh. I know w
hat
I am. I just don't know who."
I see him now, getting off the elevator; I've left the door open, just in case. From the way he looks at me I sense he's not quite ready to be announced. I wave to him; he waves back. I don't tell Lola, though. Not yet.
"We can figure that out later, babe," I say. "I'll take Branwell out to pee. I'll be back."
Branwell hears this and is already at the door; he's gotten his own leash, as always, which has never impressed me; if he'd gotten his own breakfast, or tickets to a show, trust me; I'd acknowledge, and acknowledge, and acknowledge.