But where had this morbid fantasy come from? He didn’t have to go home. He didn’t have to watch his parents remind themselves (through glances they’d exchange, thinking he didn’t notice) that they were liberal-minded, modern-day folks and felt not a mote of shame or disappointment that their only son was gay, and thank heaven he didn’t have AIDS! He was in a stable relationship with the kind of man they’d have killed to see one of Ira’s sisters marry. (Ruthie had married a dentist—not bad—while Joanna had become a financial analyst but couldn’t hang on to a guy for longer than a couple of months.)
Now Clover was saying, “Do you think I should just go ahead and ask Filo and Lee what they think about everything? And about this … stepmother? Risk hearing the worst so we can just go forward, so I can ask their forgiveness if I have to?”
Ira leaned the broom against a bookshelf. He sat next to Clover on the reading couch. “I don’t know,” he said. “That sounds pretty scary.”
“You’re right. I’d be terrified.”
Ira put a hand on her knee and sighed. He’d meant that it would be pretty scary to her children, but all he said was “I know.”
Saturdays, they worked out together at the fancy gym Anthony paid for. Or Ira swam while Anthony did his weights, and they joined up in the sauna. Usually, they sat side by side on the bench, sweating in silence. Ira loved this silence, especially when they had the sauna to themselves. They hardly touched, yet it felt wonderfully intimate. He imagined the week’s anxieties seeping from their pores, soaked away by the club’s enormous plush blue towels.
But that day, Anthony spoke. “Your pal Clover.”
“Mm.”
“So I saw her.”
“I know. She’s incredibly grateful.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Afraid of?”
“Ira, she’s living in a dream. Is anyone treating this woman like a grown-up? Telling her what’s what?”
Leave it to Anthony to ask the glaringly obvious question.
“You know, it’s not like she’s my best friend. And she has a therapist.”
Anthony laughed. “A therapist. Well. Therapists come in many flavors.”
Ira made a noise of amusement. He thought, No talk, please.
Anthony, no mind reader, continued, “Though it’s water way the hell under the bridge, I wanted to ask her why she hadn’t tried to reconcile. And I had to wonder why nobody else had pushed her in that direction. Or maybe they did. But the story she told—God, it involved one of those horrible conversations you have with a mate that linger between you like a cloud of poisonous gas. The kind you’d pay a fortune to take back. The kind that sits in a closet like a time bomb, just waiting to blow you up.”
Ira looked sideways at Anthony. Was he alluding to something about them? As Ira did too often, never voluntarily, he remembered the night he’d told Anthony about being fired; the night Anthony had called him spineless—and he, rather than turn the other cheek, had called his partner heartless.
Was that one of those “horrible conversations”?
“There are cases,” said Anthony, “where against the odds, some clever attorney convinces a judge that a mother’s place as the chief source of nurture is essential, that so long as she has a stable home and a means of support, she deserves primary custody. But the kids are usually little, and”—he laughed—“the judge is almost always a much older man, like the kind who got out of law school before the Beav was a glimmer in June Cleaver’s eye.”
Ira echoed Anthony’s laugh.
Anthony punched him playfully. “Hey. This is your friend.”
“She’s been extremely nice to me, but I hardly know her. For God’s sake, Anthony, I’ve been at that place less than three months.” Ira stood and secured his towel. “Let’s go to a museum. Want to have lunch in Cambridge? Let’s walk around and ogle the baby best-and-brightests, then grab a little culture.”
In the shower, he found himself thinking of Sadie for the second time in two days. Had his conscience hardened—or was it softening again? He realized that the children now in his care concerned him less, when they weren’t with him, than the kids he’d looked after in Lothian. His class was smaller, yes, but the main difference was that he had far fewer worries about these children. Marguerite was a little pushy, Rico tended to brood, and Lucian had been sent home with lice. And thanks to Lily, they used up twice as many art supplies in every shade of pink.
So had part of his brain opened up, posted a vacancy, into which a new batch of tenants (questions about friendships, old and new; questions about himself and Anthony) had moved?
Ira felt as if he’d contracted an all-over emotional itch, as if he’d put on a sweater made of spiritually abrasive wool—but to take it off would leave him dreadfully cold.
“This is definitely not fun,” he muttered as he took the shortcut through the local playground that Sunday, hunching into his collar as he passed the swings. If his arms hadn’t ached from the weight of the groceries, Ira would have skirted the park. He should have taken the car—but who knew there’d be a sale on OJ and the canned nuts Anthony loved so much?
How much nicer Lothian had seemed—and, face it, how much cooler Ira had felt—when he had walked to work at The Very Beginning, proud to be a full-time member of a community both real and colorful, struggling but on the rise. Once, he’d even had wispy notions of running for the local school board. He’d loved strolling the residential streets lined with working-class houses, plain clapboard or aluminum siding, painted white or gray or yellow. A few had been embellished with sun porches or ready-made arbors from Home Depot.
But there were still areas of town where a single culture asserted itself, where Ukrainians, Brazilians, or Italians held fast against the yuppie tide. In the four square blocks of Lothian called Little Palermo, the postage-stamp yards filled with grapevines each summer. In cast-off bathtubs, fruit trees blossomed as willingly as they would have done on a terraced Sicilian hillside. And from house to house, laundry lines crisscrossed these tiny vineyards and orchards, bedsheets snapping and luffing like sunlit sails. At Christmas, this was the neighborhood decked most sumptuously in blinking lights, inflatable Santas, and glowing Wise Men with extension cords trailing from the hems of their plastic raiments. “Ethnic snow globes,” Anthony called such pockets of charm.
But now, if Ira did venture out for a long walk or the occasional run, he shunned these folksy streets. Of the families he’d known through work, he still remembered which ones lived where, and he did not relish the idea of running into the parents (who knew what tale they’d been told about his departure?) or even the innocent children he’d taught (who would make him sad whether or not they recognized him on the street). Though he was ashamed of it, more than once Ira had turned away from walking into a store, or had crossed a street, when he’d seen such a run-in about to occur. (I’m sparing them too, he reasoned.)
Anthony had scolded him last month when he’d hesitated at the suggestion of going to Courgette, the one upscale bistro within walking distance of their apartment. Ira had tried to pretend he wasn’t in the mood for French, but Anthony had seen through him in a flash.
“You are worried about meeting up with that perv dad, I know it,” said Anthony. “But me, I’m just raring to confront the bastard. Bring him on.”
“Oh really? And what would you say?”
“It would come to me,” Anthony said. “I work best off the cuff. That’s how I win my cases, darling. I’m a pro at handling hypocrites. Rich ones? Fish in a California Chardonnay barrel.”
So they had gone, and of course they’d seen no one familiar at all. Yet every time the door to the restaurant had opened to admit someone new, Ira’s pulse had soared.
So here he was, passing a simple playground as if he were a fugitive, keeping his eyes on the asphalt path, moving as fast as the overloaded canvas bags allowed, when he did, after all, run smack into someone he knew—though not from The Very Begi
nning.
The shoes—severely worn work boots—had halted, facing him. Quickly, Ira looked up at the face that went with the shoes.
“Oh! Goodness. Hi!” he exclaimed. He set down the groceries. To his embarrassment, he was panting, even perspiring.
“Hello. You need help?” Celestino smiled. He held out a hand.
“What are you doing here?” said Ira, then realized how rude this sounded. “I mean, this isn’t—do you live around here?”
“I am walking home from Mass.”
“Goodness, are we neighbors?”
“I live several blocks that way.” Celestino pointed in the direction of the grocery store, the less gentrified side of the park. “You could use help with those,” he offered again.
Ira sighed. “Shows, huh? I am so totally out of shape these days.”
Celestino picked up the groceries.
“Oh no.” Ira took back one of the bags. “And I’ll only let you help if you have a bite with us. Really. At least a cup of coffee.” He’d done it before catching himself. Acted as if the world were this friendly, open-arms, homo-accepting place, the place he had naïvely believed it to be in the not-so-distant past.
Celestino seemed unsure, and for a moment Ira hoped he would refuse—but how could he? And Ira wondered how much of his eager invitation had sprung from the same place those dreams did: twice, he’d had a dream in which he was alone with Celestino in the tree house, alone and naked. The only impediment to their wild-horse passion (which was mutual—oh the wishes of dreams!) had been the presence of the Birches and Cattails milling about below, waiting to come up the ladder.
“Coffee, yes, thank you,” said Celestino.
Awkwardly, Ira stepped ahead, leading the way. For the next two blocks, they walked in silence, single file.
Please let Anthony be dressed, thought Ira. He might have phoned ahead, but he hadn’t felt like stopping again. As a compromise, he rang the bell. He waved at the video cam. “I’ve picked up a guest!”
Anthony had showered and dressed. Sections of the Sunday Times lay scattered across the kitchen counter, the Boston Globe untouched.
“Do you remember my mentioning this incredibly strong—talented guy who helped build the tree house? Turns out he’s our neighbor!” Ira explained.
Anthony shook Celestino’s hand. “Pleasure.”
As Ira hung Celestino’s coat in the closet, he noticed that the lining was torn in several places. He had a strange, squeamish sensation as he heard Anthony offer this man a cappuccino and then, as he probed the groceries, ask Ira, “Did you get Scotch or Novy? Oh look—nuts to last me all winter long! No foraging in the bushes this year!”
Celestino stood by the counter drinking from his tiny cup with care.
“Please say you’ll stay for a bagel,” said Ira.
Celestino smiled that smile again: was it shy, or simply aloof, maybe even contemptuous? “If you have enough, thank you.”
Ira set the table for three while Anthony cut bagels in half and asked Celestino to tell him about the tree house.
“You’ve seen photos,” said Ira. “For heaven’s sake, it has to be the most photographed tree house on the planet.”
Anthony shot him a furtive, halting look. Oh—the opening to small talk. The setting your guest at ease with the topic you hold in common. By example, Anthony was constantly reminding Ira about the art of conversing with adults. Adults who didn’t spend the majority of their time with four-year-olds.
“Juice?” Ira reached for the cupboard that held the glasses. He could have offered a mimosa, but this seemed too much somehow. What, chided Inner Ira, you don’t offer champagne to a guy who works as an itinerant gardener? What does that say about you, sweetheart?
But who said the guy was itinerant? He’d been working next door to Elves & Fairies as long as Ira had been around. Maybe Ira would become the itinerant worker, moving from job to job.
To make a place for the glasses on the counter, Ira moved the Globe. The front page showcased a color photo of a huge suburban house. Another story on the real estate market? He looked closer. The photograph had been taken from an aerial perspective. Across the vast lawn stretched an equally vast shape—a footprint. The footprint … sparkled. Ira picked up the paper and held it toward the light. He read the caption. The footprint had been constructed with hundreds upon hundreds of glass bottles. Prankster DOGS return to Ledgely, read the caption, directing readers to a story deep inside the paper.
“How do they know it’s not art?” he mused aloud.
Anthony and Celestino, whose conversation had not taken fire, turned to Ira. He held up the paper.
“Those people are getting tedious,” Anthony said.
“No lack of imagination, though. In fact,” said Ira, “they’d make great preschool teachers. I mean, wow, this took a lot of focus and creativity.”
“Which is leading to the waste of more investigative man-hours than you will ever know. A K A, our tax dollars. This is actually no laughing matter.”
“At least they haven’t hit Lothian.”
“Lothian, my dear, is not the home of people like that guy”—he pointed at the paper—“who happens to be the CEO of the biggest beer distillery in New England.”
Ira glanced at Celestino. He was watching them. He had finished his cappuccino. When their eyes met, Ira looked away and blushed.
“Sit. Sit!” he said, carrying the basket of bagels to the table.
Once they were seated, Anthony began to pass the various plates: bagels, salmon, sliced pineapple, tomato, cheeses. “So from what I hear,” he said, “you get to see all the best gardens of Matlock.”
Ira couldn’t have thought of a more tactful way to ask about Celestino’s work. Sometimes Anthony really did trump him in manners as well as intellect.
“Yes.” Celestino looked as if he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.
“You work for that guy with the red trucks all over town?” asked Ira.
“Thomas Loud.”
“I hear he has quite the monopoly.”
Celestino was eating. He did not nod or indicate that he agreed with this. When he’d finished chewing, he said, “He works hard. He makes us work hard, too. With some men like him, there is work in only the warm seasons. He keeps a lot of workers all year round.”
“So it’s a trade-off,” said Ira. “Work all year but work your butts off.”
For the first time, Celestino laughed. “You have it.”
Ira began to understand that Celestino might not be legal. There had been two families at The Very Beginning whose immigration status was, as Betty had put it, “in the gray area.” She’d been apprehensive when the annual inspections took place, the checking of children’s birth certificates and medical records.
Did Celestino have to worry whether any new people he met might denounce him in some fashion?
Now he was talking about the possibility of studying to be an arborist.
Anthony was the one who asked him questions: polite, never prying. It struck Ira, watching Celestino relax, just a little, that for all the things he shared with Anthony, he was unlikely ever to watch his lover do what he did best: make a case in court. For a brief time, Ira had been addicted to that Boston-based TV show The Practice. He loved the opening and closing arguments in court. Anthony (often prowling through the apartment as he worked on legal challenges all his own) would pass through the living room and snort at whatever scene was unfolding. “Ain’t fiction grand,” he might say, or, addressing the lead actor, “Dylan McDorable, exonerate that dude!”
Celestino left within the hour, thanking them warmly. Ira protested that it was his place to say thank you; he’d have had a premature heart attack carrying those groceries if Celestino hadn’t happened along.
As soon as Ira heard the downstairs door close, he said to Anthony, “You’re a million times better at talking to people than I am.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have all these
hang-ups about people, ideas based on who I expect them to be.”
“We all do, darling. I just deal with more strangers than you do. More surprises, many of them rude. You work in a family, a family that’s meant to be nice and cozy. I work in a social wasteland, an emotional war zone.”
That they did such different work was sometimes a blessing, sometimes a source of friction. Ira worried when they talked too much about their jobs.
Their friends Mark and Charles, mavericks who’d been determined to have children since their twenties (and had managed to make it happen with some costly, byzantine arrangement involving sperm shipped on dry ice, donor eggs, a surrogate mom, and legal papers up the wazoo), had told them that one of the best things about raising a family was how it took your focus off work.
“I don’t care how much you love your jobs, I don’t care if you’re the Dalai Lama and the head of the UN,” Mark had said. “It’s going to get stale, trading tales from the workplace.”
“Even diaper talk gets your mind off how much you’d love to poison that secretary who spends half the morning admiring her tacky nails,” said Charles, a partner at Anthony’s firm.
“To a point,” added Mark. “Charles, in case you didn’t notice, people are eating here.” Everyone laughed.
The classroom auction project was so quintessentially Matlock that Ira could hardly keep a straight face when Tristan’s mother, the self-appointed Class Parent, explained it to him.
There remained in Matlock one working dairy farm—or, more accurately, a dormant dairy farm had been revived by a couple who made their fortune young, the husband having designed a suite of video games combining medieval warfare with intergalactic travel. He was now retired from the virtual mass-murder business and, with his wife, had rebuilt the derelict house and barn, sent himself to “farm school” in Vermont, and purchased a small herd of picture-perfect, Ben & Jerry’s–style Holsteins. They sold their premium products at a handful of boutique grocers, but their true claim to fame was their clandestine supply of raw milk, available to a select group of Matlock families sworn to secrecy (or relative discretion) in exchange for the assurance that their children would have the very best, bacterially robust immune systems imaginable.