Almost Like Being in Love (12 page)

“Recovering with a double chocolate mocha at the Greenhouse.”

“Nonfat?” I asked weakly.

“And decaf.” By now his little finger was somehow stroking my chin too. God only knows why. I must have looked like shit and stunk like ketchup.

“Schmuck,” he said, in the quietest voice I ever heard him use. “See what happens when you shoot off your mouth?”

“
Somebody
has to do it,” I replied, feeling for broken teeth and inexplicably tasting pineapple.

“Then leave it to the other guys. You’re too short to make waves.” I pushed his hand away and struggled to sit up.

“You know what?” I shot back, letting him have it with both barrels. “In case nobody clued you in, there’s a war going on and we’re all soldiers.

Anita Bryant kicked us out of Dade County and John Briggs tried to pull the same crap in California and if we don’t start covering each other’s asses—”

So Clayton did the only thing he could think of to shut me up. He kissed me.

‚Hey.‛

‚Hey.‛

‚You look great.‛

‚So you do.‛

‚Have coffee with me?‛

‚Are you going to ask me to move back in?‛

‚Only if you don’t ask first.‛

After that, it all happened pretty quickly. By Christmas it was so unlikely that you’d see either one of us without the other, we were known all over campus, at various times, as the big one and the little one, the agitator and the bruiser, and (my own personal favorite) the prince and the pea. Fortunately, we’d gotten the falling in love part out of the way during the eight weeks we’d been ignoring each other, so we were able to save a little time and cut to the chase: (a) who buys more Rice Krispies when we run out; (b) who turns off the alarm clock when it rings; and 'c( who says I’m sorry first. It was usually 'c( that gave us the most trouble, because you just don’t put two hard-headed guys together and expect the Cleavers to happen. Charleen was the only one who could spot the primary warning sign: If I wasn’t wearing Clayton’s Cornell sweatshirt, it meant there were typhoons in Paradise.

“
Princeton
?!” she’d shriek in mock horror. “What are you fighting about now?” But nobody needed to be loved more than my boyfriend did.

When the father he’d idolized had found out his kid liked men, he’d thrown him out of the house bodily. '“You make me sick,” he’d said, slamming the door on his only son.) Clayton never sufficiently recovered, especially after the old man died. Instead, he inherited a legacy that became his trademark:
If it looks like they’re going to dump you, beat them
to it. It saves a lot of wear and tear on the heart
. So I never allowed our skirmishes to get in the way for long. Bundled up against the cold, we’d walk along the Charles River at 1:00 in the morning holding hands.

(Bashers tended to stay away from Clayton. One “faggot” and they’d be hunting for their teeth in the dark.) After moving into our microscopic two-room apartment on Concord Street, we’d spend hours at a time painting the walls and each other— initially by accident and then deliberately. (It was a
great
excuse for taking a shower together at 1:30 in the afternoon. And 2:15. And 3:05.( And even on Princeton nights, I’d always fall asleep curled up in his arms.

Our routine was established pretty quickly: he’d make the coffee and I’d watch. I’d drop off the laundry and he’d pick it up. He’d insist on HBO

and I’d switch to the Red Sox. I’d put on “Subterranean Homesick Blues”

and he’d groan. He’d go to class and I’d write a brief. 'Once in a while, he’d call me at lunch time if he couldn’t decide between a shrimp salad sandwich or a turkey on rye, but mostly he just felt like hearing my voice.( At night, after we’d made dinner together, I’d read him what I’d written and he’d tell me what needed work. Then I’d stop speaking to him for two days until he dragged me to Pogo’s for a burger. 'Note: Pogo’s is where we always made up, 33 Dunster is where we celebrated his birthday, the Union Oyster House is where we consecrated mine, and Grendel’s is where we had dessert on our anniversary. These establishments were off-limits at all other times.( Once I’d gotten him to apologize for hurting my feelings, I’d wait a week and then make every change he’d suggested, hoping that by then he’d have forgotten it was all his idea. He hadn’t.

So except for a three-and-a-half-year misunderstanding that we got out of the way early, we haven’t had to look back since 1986. When Charleen and I decided to go into practice together the same week that Clay found a bankrupt hardware store and 125 available acres in Saratoga Springs, it was a done deal. And for some reason, I couldn’t help thinking of Travis—because whenever he was really happy, he’d always quote Ethel Merman:

“Who could ask for anything more?”

‚I don’t want you marching on Washington. What if something happens to
you?‛

‚Clay, nothing’s going to happen to me if you come too. We’ll stay at the
Shoreham in Room 626, and we’ll have dinner at Pierre’s and you’ll hate the
Cajun shrimp so I’ll eat it instead, and then we’ll go for a walk by the Tidal
Basin so I can sing something dopey from ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ and you can tell me
to shut up.‛

‚I’m trying to pick a fight here. You’re not making it easy.‛

‚That’s my job.‛

It was platinum. And he paid retail.

(Grin.)

4

Travis

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

UNIVERSITY PARK • LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90007

Doheny Library

Faculty Research Request

DATE: May 4, 1998 FROM: Travis Puckett

DEPARTMENT: History

BUILDING/ROOM: VKC/223

MATERIALS NEEDED

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

Julian: I’m sorry. Please please please please please try dinner with me again. I promise that no matter what happens we’ll at least make it to the restaurant. See, it’s an old Toyota and the manual says a 50,000-mile tune-up and if we hadn’t been lucky enough to find a garage that stayed open late, the timing belt could have gone out at 50,001. Actually, it’s pretty amusing when you think about it.

No, Travis. Bette Midler is amusing. Lea DeLaria is hysterical. Handling a
grease gun in a $129 Armani shirt doesn’t even come close.

By the way—a kiss might have been a good idea. Even narcissists have
feelings. (I can’t believe I’m leading you on….)
FROM THE JOURNAL OF

Travis Puckett

Our first real date—after the preliminary Starbucks let’s-pretend-we’re-not-thinking-about-each-other-naked summit—was a casual lunch that only took me three days to get ready for. He chose an open-air café on Santa Monica Boulevard that specialized in avocado-and-cilantro sandwiches, two ingredients that, even individually, render the concept of induced vomiting obsolete. But Julian was so dazzling in his snug white T-shirt and one-dimple grin, I ate a pair of them and actually managed to stay away from a bathroom for almost an hour.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

Two days later we went to Our First Movie, where we held hands and let our feet play with each other and I bought him more popcorn when he tried to eat mine before the previews started. (Incidentally, the three-fifths-of-the-way-back-on-the-aisle rule suffered its first veto in twenty-three years: Julian won’t sit anywhere except the middle row, smack in the center—but I could learn to love that if I had to.) On our third date, I took him to Dodger Stadium during a home stand with the Mets. By the top of the ninth, New York was leading 2–0, Benitez was pitching a no-hitter, and we’d both decided we’d rather have sex with Eric Karros than Todd Hundley.

Date Number 4 was an unmitigated disaster, and by mutual consent we agreed that we’d never mention it again.

But the fifth date was the charm. We were on our way to Dan Tana’s for seafood risotto and another two hours of shameless flirting, when he suddenly leaned over the hand brake and kissed me. Happily, there were no pedestrians on the sidewalk when I jumped the curb and rammed a gas pump—and after I’d paid $300 for the cracked hose with my Shell credit card, Julian put his hand on my ass and asked me to turn the car around. That’s when I learned that it’s really not a good idea to drive a stick shift while you’re hyperventilating.

“
Move the car, you fucking asshole!‛

Oh, yeah. The seafood risotto never happened. We had bigger fish to fry.

Hours later, his head was resting blissfully on my shoulder as we bathed in the scarlet glow of a red lava lamp manufactured a good year before he was born and at least nine years after I was.

“Travis?”

“Mmmmm?”

“We aren’t really going to fall asleep like this, are we?”

“Don’t you want to wake up in my arms?”

“Do I have to?” Not that it matters, but Julian hates being held. Instead, he turns away and curls himself up into a little ball, just like a cuddly hamster without the cuddling.

I could learn to love that, too.