Men and Dogs (8 page)

She showers, puts on a decent “look-I-am-not-crazy” skirt, and borrows Daisy’s car to go to her brother’s house. Palmer lives in downtown Charleston, near where he and Hannah grew up. Doing so, even for the moderately rich, is just barely affordable;
her brother only manages it by clinging to the very top of the peninsula, the increasingly fashionable area high above Calhoun
Street in a neighborhood near the Citadel. This neighborhood was strictly black when Hannah and Palmer were kids, but now ballooning prices have made it OK for whites and blacks to live together on the same block. If you’re young, and you don’t want to leave downtown, and you have a decent amount of money but haven’t totally made it yet because you’re sort of waiting on your stepfather to expire and leave you a fairly staggering inheritance, then a good-sized Craftsman off Hampton Park is just the ticket.

Though she’d never been here before, Hannah enters Palmer’s house without knocking. The house smells like warm bread, and Billie Holiday is crooning “Moonlight in Vermont” over the tastefully hidden speakers. They are of excellent quality; Hannah can actually hear the remnants of Billie’s last cigarette.

She’s always envious when she enters the houses of gay men. Perhaps it’s the unbridled self-indulgence; the gleeful spending of tens of thousands on oversize Jacuzzi tubs, flat-screen televisions, teak decks fitted with wet bars. Or maybe it’s the total lack of concern as to future developments. Gone is the half-decorated room held back from its full potential because it may—listen for the quiver of hope—“one day” be a nursery; absent is the basement-converted-to-in-law-apartment because a nanny or night nurse might have to move in. Nor does one tend to see taste clashes so often compromising shared heterosexual homes. No mountain bikes leaning on chintz Pottery Barn sofas, no framed photos of golf courses hanging above beds draped with floral sheets.

The theme in Palmer’s house? Functional yet Fantastic and Fun. The walls of the living room are dove gray, and the sectional sofa is beige with nice clean lines, but then the room is saved from predictability by a cluster of orange silk-and-felt pillows,
which match the very well-done painting of a rubber duck above the fireplace. The steel dining table is taunted by a vintage chandelier. The austere, requisite flat-screen television on the wall is framed by thin inset aquariums holding live saltwater fish.

Hannah ventures farther into the house.

“. . . can’t you just talk to me about it? Instead of stewing in your famous fucking silence?”

A fight. Normally, she’d eavesdrop, but she’s had it with battles for the moment.

“Hello?”

A small tan dog suddenly scuttles out of the kitchen to investigate her trespassing. It makes barking motions, but nothing comes out.

“Shit!” Tom runs out still wearing oven mitts and plants a kiss on both of her cheeks. Palmer’s latest lover—has it been nine months? ten?—is truly the cutest boy-man she’s ever known. About five seven, bright-blue eyes, yoga body, a sculpted little nose, all topped off by the most endearing mop of blond hair.

“It’s my brother’s house,” she says, poking at his perfect abs. “I’m supposed to barge in. What’s wrong with your dog?”

“Rumpus has no voice box,” Tom says. Upon hearing her name, Rumpus shakes with glee and rolls over, head cocked to the side.
Tom takes his gloves off and fluffs his own hair. His right hand lingers on his temple as he looks Hannah over.

“Ew,” he says. “Your head.”

“I know. But I’m not talking about it without a drink.”

“Come on.”

She follows him into the slate-blue kitchen and glances around. Look at the huge blown-up photographs of vegetables arranged to look like sexual organs! And those little lights hanging from the ceiling that make everyone look as if they’ve just had a facial!

“Do you love the house?” Tom asks eagerly.

“Love it, love it, love it.”

Her brother is seated at the kitchen island, with the newspaper in front of him and a glass of wine. Not for the first time,
Hannah is struck by her brother’s looks. It’s eerie how much Palmer resembles Buzz. If she squints—

They greet. He folds the paper and puts it aside. Hugs, how are you, you look good, you, too. Palmer is the type to edit before he speaks, but his eyes are talking, and Hannah understands every word in a way possible only between siblings:

But perhaps she doesn’t know what her brother is thinking at all. Who is she to presume she still knows what’s in his head?

“So,” he says, “are you going to bring up that same old shit about Dad tonight?”

“If you’re lucky.”

“Still the prodigal daughter. All it took was a nail in the head to get you home.”

“Whatever.”

“What was the story again?” He braces himself against the counter. “You got wasted and fell off your own house?”

“Oh, Palmer!” Tom says, handing Hannah a golden concoction in a martini glass. “Like you haven’t had your own wild nights.
Should I tell her what you did at Boys’ Week in Kiawah?”

Hannah never caught on in high school that Palmer wasn’t straight.
Though in hindsight she realizes she simply wasn’t paying attention. Palmer had girlfriends, lots of them, but no one he kept for longer than a week. Hannah remembers them lurking around the house, limbs magnificent in their short cutoff jeans. The specifics of his doings were never made clear to Hannah—Palmer didn’t interact socially with his sister—but according to the gossip, he was having sex, plenty of it. There was a story in the Charleston Prep halls about two couples going at it at once in her father’s old Volvo—the seats tipped back and the girls rising above, glorious as fooled angels.

“How’s work?” Hannah asks. “How’s Jenny Meyers? I still can’t believe you hired my ex’s wife.”

“Get over it. She’s an excellent technician.”

“She cries all the time,” Tom says. “Palmer can’t ask her to do anything without her starting to sob.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I think it’s her hormones,” Tom says. “The pill or something. She wants to double-date, but no way I’m going to dinner with that estrogen faucet.”

“Ha.” Hannah takes a sip of her cocktail. “Ginger?”

“Ginger, lemongrass, and vodka.”

“Should you be drinking?” Palmer says. “I thought the point of this trip was to clean up.”

“It’s all organic,” Tom says helpfully. “Very clean. Practically no alcohol at all. Do you love it?”

Beaming, Tom turns to the oven. Palmer may not be into women, Hannah muses, but he definitely found Charleston’s best wife.

Dinner is low carb and succulent, served on glazed rectangular plates. (“So you can serve at an angle, Hannah!”) Tom fills her in on the latest gossip while they eat. Daisy’s still running every charity board in Charleston and plays tennis every day. DeWitt is growing even more good old boy, in an endearing way. He’s talking about getting Palmer into a fund he likes.

“Are you going to do it?”

“We’re considering it,” Tom says. “Twelve percent a year can’t hurt. But we’ll have to wait on the real money. It doesn’t look like he’ll be dying anytime soon.”

“Would you please not talk about my stepfather that way?” Palmer says, carving another slice of pepper-encrusted skirt steak.
He does it the same way their father used to do it, brows furrowed with concentration, as if in lifesaving surgery.

“It’s OK, Tom,” Hannah says. “I’m wondering how much the death package will be, too.”

“God, Hannah. You’re so bitter,” Palmer says. “What did DeWitt ever do to you except move you into a mansion and then pay for your college and business degrees?”

“Well, he made the moves on our mother at our father’s funeral,” Hannah says, “but other than that, I guess he’s got a clean slate.”

“Can y’all not do this?” Tom’s voice suddenly cracks. “I’ve made a peach crumble.”

“Sorry.” He’s right, she thinks. Why can’t I just be nice?

“Seriously, he’s done a lot for us,” Palmer goes on. “He’s old school, I know, and obnoxious. But he’s family.”

“I’m not going to talk about DeWitt anymore. Tom has a crumble.”

“Fine.” Palmer pushes his chair back and crosses his arms. Hannah does the same.

“So what about Jon? Mom says you’re officially separated?”

“Yes,” she says. There is a sad pause. “I’m hoping it’s just for a little while.”

“Bet it’s nothing a week of blow jobs can’t fix,” Tom offers, getting up to don his oven mitts again.

“Stop it!” Palmer snaps, slapping his hand on the table. “That’s just—disgusting.”

Hannah decides not to press the issue. She doesn’t want to make her brother angry. She knows they have their differences,
but she loves him. She also loves that, after being so surly for so long, he’s managed to create this perfect life for himself.
The designer house. The loving partner. The organic garden. We came from the same place, Hannah marvels, and yet somehow he’s found everything he’s been looking for.

“We can’t all be as perfect as you, Palmer,” she says. “Christ, you even have a dog that can’t bark.”

“And there’s even one more thing he might get to have,” Tom says, beaming.

“A houseboy from Laos?”

“A baby!”

“What?”

“Why the hell not? She’s your sister.”

“We have not decided on this.”

“Please stop fighting,” Hannah says, leaning into Tom. “Tell me what you’re talking about.”

“We want to have a baby,” Tom says.

Hannah looks at Palmer. He says nothing, but Hannah can see everything: Tom wants to have a baby; Palmer most definitely does not.

“Huh,” Hannah says.

“But we’re finding that we’re challenged.”

“Beyond the obvious lack of uterus in the house?”

“Well, that’s a start.”

Tom goes on. Adoption won’t work; they don’t want another woman directly involved in the parenting process. Hannah nods and groans in the right places. She commiserates about how hard it must be. She crinkles the corners of her eyes with feigned understanding.

“I’m so sorry,” she says finally. “I wish there was something I could do.”

Which, of course, is when Tom slides a plate of crumble in front of her and asks if he can harvest her ovaries.

“What?” Hannah echoes.

“Look, I’ve been thinking all about it. Palmer, I’m sorry I haven’t told you. But, honestly? I just wanted to put it out there before you could shoot it down. Just think about it—we want a baby together. And using Hannah is going to be as close to having a baby together as we can get.”

“Using Hannah?”

“OK, sorry. I’m not exactly a wordsmith.”

Hannah turns to her brother, who looks as if he’s just been diagnosed with testicular cancer.

“You think this is crazy, right?” she says.

“Crazy?” Palmer says, wincing at the distaste of it all. He looks at Tom. “Sick is what it is.”

“It’s not sick!” The pitch of Tom’s voice now lurches dangerously toward hysteria. “Open your mind a little.”

“You want to sperminate my sister’s egg,” Palmer says. “You’re insane.”

Tom throws his knife into his crumble. It clatters off the edge of the table and onto the perfect bamboo floor. Hannah sinks down into her chair. She has never handled conflict well and will do almost anything to avoid a fight. She tells jokes, she makes inappropriate comments. Once she set fire to a napkin.

“I’m sorry,” Tom says. “I’m getting a little flustered here.”

“It’s OK,” Hannah says.

In a show of self-preservation that Hannah can only respect, Rumpus scuttles over to Palmer’s feet.