Every Time I Think of You (10 page)

A phone number and a mailing address followed. Even though Everett said I was already invited, I figured this was a formality, it being a formal event. I cautiously checked the ‘Yes, I Will Attend’ line and inserted the tiny reply card into its tiny envelope.

That had been a few weeks before my trip downtown to try on a rental tux. Everett had sounded a little snippy when I’d again asked if I could just wear my dark suit. “No, a white dinner jacket. You can get one at Troutman’s downtown.”

Fortunately, Mom agreed. She’d also eventually agreed that on the night of the benefit, she and my father would decide to have other plans.

Troutman’s was out of white dinner jackets, there being a rush on them in advance of the gala. The polite saleslady on the phone suggested Lapels, “A Fine Men’s Clothier,” on South Pennsylvania Avenue. I’d been to the Sears down the block several years before with Mom to buy my black suit. I discovered upon trying it on that it had become clownishly short on me.

With five crisp twenties in my pocketed running pants, I donned my hooded sweatshirt and headed out to take Mom’s car downtown. Her enthusiastic cheerfulness took an annoying turn.

“Are you sure you want to wear that?”

“Mom, I’m renting a tux, not interviewing for a job.”

Like a lot of mid-sized Pennsylvania towns, Greensburg is nestled around a set of hills that give it a cozy feeling, while also making for frequent flooding. Several days of early spring rain had let up, but a clammy dampness clung to the wet streets.

Almost every building, from the train station Clock Tower to the rows of shops, and most of the department stores and banks, were made of red brick, with fixtures done in Romanesque or Italianate Revival style. It’s actually quite pretty, like a middle-aged librarian who might still someday get a date.

My mother had been right, in a way. The stout clerk took a glance at my tracksuit, a bit too quickly greeted me inside Lapels, almost determined to shoo me away to the Sears down the road.

That changed his attitude. He must have assumed I was the indolent son of one of Forrestville’s wealthy locals. I more clearly understood Everett’s behavior, how he just expected things to go his way, and how they usually did.

After taking a few measurements of my arms and shoulders, he sorted through his rental tuxedos from a rack toward the rear of the shop. I tried on a few of his suggestions, not knowing what to look for.

“The cuff is still a bit short. Here,” he fussed, and a third was offered.

While it looked a bit odd over my grey T-shirt, as I glanced at myself in a full-length mirror, I began to see the illusion of elegance taking place on my lean frame.

“Yeah, this is good, right?”

“Certainly.” He fussed about me, brushing off my shoulders, tugging the sleeves down just so. I felt a flush of embarrassment at his touch, and made a sudden realization that there were quite possibly other gay men in Greensburg, other people who longed for a guy with a charming smile. While certainly I had wondered, I’d never clearly realized the actual possibility.

“Will there be anything else?”

“Yes,” I said with a newfound assuredness. “Some black pants, a white shirt, and a black bow tie.”

My parents had made good with their ‘other plans’ by hightailing it to a movie. Everett had called the night before when he arrived from school, more concerned about my apparel than making plans to meet before the gala (“Sorry. Family time.”) or on Sunday afterward (“Hopefully”).

Finally dressed for the night, alone in the house, I felt awkward, like an albino penguin, afraid to lean back in the chair. Why was I doing this, just to please Everett? To impress his parents as he had done mine? Couldn’t we just sneak off to the woods?

The doorbell rang. I nervously jumped up to open the door.

Everett looked absolutely dashing in his own white dinner jacket, perky black bow tie, and a smile that dazzled. I finally understood why girls at school became so starry-eyed over a prom date.

With the introductions and handshakes made in the car, Everett and I sat in the back as Carl and Diana Forrester behaved most unlike a divorced couple, in fact downright cheerful. My ‘date’ and I furtively held hands in the back seat, occasionally finger-fighting like mating spiders.

“I’ve been planning this event for simply months, and this little detour isn’t a bother, but still, if I can allow myself a moment of immodesty, it is the event of the season. Do you dance?”

“Excuse me?”

Everett rolled his eyes.

“Dancing. There are so many young ladies your age who would so appreciate it. It is the thing to do, especially since you’re without … female escorts. Have you been to the club?”

“Uh, just in the winter, Ma’am; sledding.”

“Oh, yes. It’s so nice that the staff shares the property on occasion.” As she continued on about the event’s history, she turned back to check her appearance in the passenger seat visor’s drop-down mirror.

I felt a playful finger poke at my side. Everett’s comically contorted face forced me to stifle a burst of laughter.

The event proved to be everything Everett described, a somewhat old-fashioned wedding reception, but without the wedding.

The white tux made my black-rimmed glasses more noticeable. Some older guest told me I looked like Buddy Holly. That probably had more to do with the movie about the singer having been released the year before. When I decided to joke, “Actually, I was going for Elvis Costello,” it fell flat, and the gentleman turned away with a vague smile.

Grandfathers danced with young girls and mothers danced with their sons, but mostly the kids hung around the edges of the ballroom while their parents cautiously partnered through rumbas and waltzes. Fragrant floral displays at each table gave the room a festive air and a heady scent.

As dinner was served, the band on a small stage in the ballroom took a short break, leaving one lone pianist. He tickled out a medley of songs, the tunes of which were all familiar but unnamable to me.

“Actually, this is the fifty-third Spring Fling,” Mrs. Forrester said with a hint of familial pride after we settled to our table at the center of the dining room. Two other older couples were also at the table. Everett and I were briefly introduced. I promptly forgot their names, and they politely ignored us.

A small army of waiters appeared with plates, serving our table first. My limited experience with formal dining (a cousin’s wedding in Scranton and our grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary) told me that this meant something. The Forresters, divorce or no, still had status.

Everett’s mother led our table conversation with more of a historic lecture from across a floral centerpiece which, compared to my woodland preferences, was almost psychedelic.

“Carl’s great-grandfather Isaac Forrester inaugurated the gala in 1926 by celebrating the completion of the original club, a much smaller building, but set on the same property.”

“Which burned to the ground in 1937,” Mr. Forrester added with a sardonic grin. “Kitchen grease fire.”

Mrs. Forrester shot her ex-husband a glare as Everett and I stifled laughter over our plates. She continued her lecture to the others.

Everett leaned in and muttered to me, “Start scoping out a girl to ask to dance once or twice.”

I gave him a quizzical stare, then discretely glanced about the room. A few girls our age sat alertly at their parents’ tables. I heard a laugh behind me, and saw one girl with braces and glasses. Yes, definitely. As I had for those few school dances, I could do this again, this little lie, the pretext of heterosexuality, with him.

“Target acquired,” I nudged to Everett.

He glanced, withheld a snort, and muttered, “Ellen Hodge.”

After a smattering of applause amid the light clatter of dinner plates being removed, a few people resumed a place on the dance floor.

“That’s my favorite Cole Porter song,” Mrs. Forrester announced. “Did you know, he fell off a horse and was paralyzed for a great part of his life.”

“I did not know that,” one of the other guests said.

“He wrote some of his best musicals after that. Remember when we went to see that production of
Kiss Me, Kate
?”

“I do,” her ex-husband chimed in.

“And then, he didn’t,” Everett grumbled. He and his father shared mutual silent glares.

Fed up with the entire situation, Everett abruptly rose and announced, “Well, we’ll let you all stroll down Memory Lane,” then nodded for me to accompany him. “As requested, Reid and I are going to see if a few of the young ladies might like to dance.”

“Oh! How nice of you,” Mrs. Forrester said, in a tone that made me wonder if this family ever spoke to each other without an undercurrent of sarcasm.

The girls were surprised and giddy. Ellen kept glancing past my shoulder to see who was watching her dance with me, as if one slow dance with a boy might solve some unspoken self-esteem problems. We chatted in between my clumsy footwork. When I mentioned that I was Everett’s guest, she seemed impressed, and perhaps a bit jealous that he’d chosen her friend.

After our one slow dance, Everett and I were about to thank our partners and excuse ourselves, when the bandleader stepped up to a microphone and announced a “kids only” dance. “Let’s shake it up a little,” he said, attempting a sort of joke.

The band’s rendition of “Stayin’ Alive” was an even greater joke. The girls attempted to shake their hips and get into it, but were clearly unprepared, as was I.

But then I noticed Everett’s arm nearly poking me, and he turned to me with that mischievous grin, some rather suggestive hip thrusts, and a hoot of, “Get it goin’, Reid!” A sort of disco dance-off ensued, the girls stepped back, and before I knew it, he and I were sort of dancing together.

That the band proceeded into “I’m Your Boogie Man” only got more kids onto the dance floor, and my duet with Everett became less obvious. I sought out Ellen and waved her back, but she smiled and held up her hands in surrender.

As the song reached its end, Everett dragged me to the girls for a thank you bow, took me by the elbow, sweat beginning to glisten on his brow, and led me toward a back exit beside the stage. On the way, he grabbed an open bottle of red wine from a serving tray.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Under the stars, for our real date.”

Traipsing off into the expansive back lawn of the club’s golf course, Everett stopped by a cluster of trees, gulped down some wine, and gestured for me to follow. His dares were taking on a different tactic. I wasn’t sure how much a part I was playing in it all, other than as an accessory.

Huddled in our newly found hiding place, Everett handed me the bottle. I took a swig, careful not to spill any wine on my tux, but less concerned when he casually leaned against a tree trunk. His jacket wasn’t a rental.

“Come ‘ere, handsome.”

“That was so fun, dancing with you,” I said as we drew closer. We took turns kissing and finishing off the bottle before I set it on the ground.

Everett’s hand dug inside my jacket. He stroked up and down my torso, then abruptly pulled my shirt up. His cold hands made contact with my stomach, my chest, inducing shivers as we kissed. It was sloppy, urgent, sweetened by the wine, interrupted by a few burps and resultant giggles.

“A lil warmer this time, huh?” Everett smiled as he reached down into my pants to grasp what had been jutting against his thigh. I returned the gesture, dug into his shorts, kissed him from his lips, chin, jaw, and down his neck to just above his bow tie, which I also kissed.

I parted my legs to keep my pants from completely falling to the moist lawn. Everett yanked my shorts down, letting my dick spring free, and was about to kneel, or crouch, probably, when we heard a voice.

“Okay. I get it. Sorry.” Everett’s comic glance lightened me up enough to accept his rushed apology kiss. “But remember; you came with me, willingly.”