Missed Connections (10 page)

Rob stared at Charles. This was a weird confession for the eve of a man's wedding. Or was he lying? Was this really a boast, not a confession?

"So anyway, you know what happened afterwards—"
no I don't,
thought Rob —"She got pregnant, and had this fantastic kid, and made her way through the rest of high school and college with not much help from anybody. She raised Jack on her own—really, Constance raised herself on her own, if we're going to be honest—started her own business, and then about ten years ago, she met this guy, a fellow I'd say was almost adequate by then to be her boyfriend. That would be me."

Rob almost didn't hear the rest because he was busy calculating the implications of this sentence. He felt stupid for not having figured it out before. All the information was in front of him, and if he'd been in the least curious he'd have been able to tease it out. His mother had said that "Rab" went by a different name now. And all the elements of the story had been given to him in several combinations already.

Jack was Rab. Of course. And that meant Jack got that pissed-off look whenever he was dealing with Rob because they stopped being best friends back whenever that happened. But why would Rab-Jack remember it all clearly enough to be pissed off about it, while Rob had no memory at all?

To be fair, Rob's early memories were vaguer than most. Mostly he just had impressions, fleeting details, general feelings about mooching around doing kid stuff with his friends. Even his biological father existed in his memory only as an awkward phone conversation.

"When we met we didn't recognize each other at all," Charles was saying. "We had only been together that one night. I had grown up a lot. I wouldn't say I'm the perfect guy now. But we were getting along really well. Then after a few years it almost all fell apart. Constance had Jack's DNA done because she didn't know anything about his father's family history and couldn't tell him about any genetic disorders or whatever. That was pretty interesting, so I had mine done too.

"You can imagine our surprise when it came out that I was most likely Jack's father. It was not entirely pleasant. It was years of couples therapy, to tell the truth. I know most of you guys think couples therapy is a thing a man does to placate a woman. But me, I wanted to make sure that the thing we had wasn't tainted by the thing I'd done."

Almost remembering

Rob kept studying Jack in the rosy diminishing light. Rab—oh crap, his name was
Jack Rabbit
, wasn't it?
Rab
was short for
Rabbit
. He didn't laugh out loud, because Charles was still being serious about his crimes and his atonement, and also because Jack was studying Rob right back. And also, Rob's full name was Robin Hawke, so he didn't have much of a leg to stand on.

His mother's explanation for it was, "Well, I was young and it sounded cool, and my mother's suggestion was to name you after her grandfather and uncle and I don't think you'd have been any happier being named Profumio Jose-Maria. I don't even know what we'd have called you for short."

"Joe," Rob had supplied immediately, satisfied with his mother's wide-eyed
of course
reaction.

So this was the famous bestest friend he lost and couldn't remember. Obviously somebody he'd wronged in the past, because Jack couldn't stand him now and didn't want to explain it. In middle school? Weren't all kids in middle school jerks? What could he have done that was so unforgivable? And that he didn't remember?

He settled into a detailed rummage through his memory, looking for evidence of Jack. He had some. When he tried to remember being a preschooler, he did conjure up a presence, almost just a feeling—like an imaginary friend, he thought, more than like another child. But maybe there was no real difference when you were three?

Rob couldn't help grinning when it suddenly came to him that the imaginary friend-like presence hovering in what passed for his early memories seemed to have a cottontail bunny shape.

"Hey, space cadet, we're getting out," Jack said, and Rob looked around and saw that in fact they were the last ones in the hot springs. It was nearly dark and some of the men had dug out flashlights from somewhere. And the air had cooled so much that Rob's exposed shoulders were painful. Even in the fading light, Rob could see that Jack was flushed and his pupils wide. How many beers had he drunk?

Jack stood up, and oh right, he had taken Charles's advice and gone in naked. And why was he crossing the spring box to get out on Rob's side? He was practically waving his junk in Rob's face.

Jack slipped on his way out, and Rob steadied him, but he didn't look up—or down—and he made sure his hands stayed in neutral territory. He didn't move from his own spot until Jack was safely out of the spring box and pulling on his clothes. Rob wasn't going to let on how interesting this was, not with Jack's usual hostility and his drunken state and Jack's father saying over and over
"don't be that guy."
He was pretty sure
not being that guy
also meant not hitting on the drunk guy who normally didn't like him.

When he finally took his turn to haul out and find his clothes, he figured out why Charles had recommended nakedness in the hot spring. His underwear was not only soaked, heavy, and dragging on his skin, and not only did get uncomfortably cold as soon as he stepped out of the water, it was also nasty with mineral precipitates from the water and algae. He ended up having to get naked in public after all. At least it was dark now. And most of the men were gone. Only Jack was nearby, and he looked as if he was having trouble with his shoes.

"Want help?" Rob asked, though he had only gotten his shorts on so far.

"I don't know," Jack said. "Just point me at the right shoes and I'll walk down untied."

"Bullshit," Jack said. "Let me help you get them on right."

"Okay," Jack said in a small voice. "Once."

"Sure, once," Rob said, kneeling in front of Jack. "Your socks aren't even on right."

"Only one way to put socks on," Jack said. "They don't come in left and right. Or wait. Do they? Are you gaslighting me because I'm drunk?"

"No, I just mean they're crumpled up and crooked," Rob said. "But they're fixed now. Here comes your right shoe."

"I do know my left and right, you know. It was you who couldn't tie his shoes until third grade."

"That must be why I only liked velcro, then," Rob said. "Or was it the other way around? Did I like velcro so much that I never bothered to learn to tie my shoes?"

"You only wanted velcro after they put me into a different classroom and I couldn't be tying your shoes all the time. Second grade."

"I can't get over how you remember everything and I remember nothing. Here's your left shoe." Rob's hands were cold now and it was hard to tie this second shoe. Everybody was gone now but him and Jack.

"That's because you never cared about anything very much. So you never noticed anything. It's a wonder you even graduated. "

"Sorry."

"You don't have anything to apologize for, idiot."

"Your shoes are tied. Wait a minute while I get my clothes on and we'll go back together. They didn't leave us a flashlight."

"I have one. You don't need to put on anything but your shoes."

"What? It's cold."

"Yeah but it makes your nipples cuter."

Rob pulled his T-shirt over his head and paused. "Being drunk does not give you an excuse to be an asshole."

Jack looked stricken. "You're right. I'm an asshole all the time, though. Sorry."

"I wouldn't mind you hitting on me if you weren't drunk, if we weren't stuck in this freezing meadow, and if you didn't dislike me in general. But those conditions don't apply, so let's get back across the river and go to bed in our separate tents, and maybe have truce talks in the morning or something."

"Too busy with the wedding shit in the morning. After the wedding."

"Okay, after the wedding, we'll figure out what I did wrong and whether you've forgiven me or whatever and whether you still think I have cute nipples."

"Yeah, whatever," Jack agreed, putting up his arm for Rob to haul him up.

The way down the meadow and across the river was a bit treacherous in the dark, but the river was shallow, though freezing cold, and they did make it back safely. Rob figured Jack must have still been a bit drunk because he kissed Rob on the earlobe as they separated.

Or Forever Hold Your Peace

Jack was nowhere to be seen during the morning. Rob understood why that was, but it was still frustrating. As declarations of passion go, the kiss on the earlobe was not much, but it was something, and it was mysterious. Everything Jack had said and done since he had come to the mountains was mysterious, and Rob just wanted a nice long
sober
talk with Jack to clear things up. But Jack was the best man at the wedding, so he was entirely taken up with tending to his father's business. His weird and excessively confessional father's business.

Rob would have liked to spend some time reminiscing with his mother, maybe get some memory-jogging stories out of her. But she was busy with the bride. This left Rob on Stanny duty for the morning. If he wasn't a paragon of patience when Stanny got bored and wanted to try changing the topography of the tent, maybe Rob could be forgiven. Especially since, after undoing Stanny's failed origami project, he got him dressed up and headed in the right direction in time for the ceremonies to begin.

"What did you guys talk about last night, anyway?" Stanny asked. "Dad was being all gross about sex."

"Really? I thought George wasn't into that kind of stuff."

"Where did you think I came from? But I don't mean he was telling jokes and stuff. It was way too serious. Like he thought we were out of control."

"Well, you never know," Rob said. "I came from somewhere too."

"I don't want to think about it, really."

"I'm sure George just wants you to think about it before you do it."

"Like that's going to an issue anytime soon."

Rob refrained from pointing out that their mother had gotten pregnant about the age that Stanny was now, and instead said, "I hope this thing doesn't go on too long. It's going to be really hot again today."

"Also, lunch," Stanny said. "I'm going to need it soon."

The ceremony itself was rather brief, but it was eccentric. Baxter of the pith helmet and a few other older guys set themselves up with a variety of stringed instruments and started playing a medley of mostly "mountain" music, along with some more exotic, unplaceable melodies. Then Charles and Jack marched up through the folding chairs to the front where a woman in flowing blue glittery clothing stood along with a dapper guy with a touring cap and an impressive mustache.

Finally Constance and Sera arrived, in matching white sundresses, giving the impression that it might be a double wedding, especially since an older woman behind Rob muttered, "Damn, they're all
still
so young," which seemed an odd thing to say when it was his mother's best friend.

But she was under forty, and Rob was just beginning to see how people could see that as being youngish.

Then came some serious speeches, but they were short and mercifully oblique. And finally a couple of stupid jokes ("Speak now or forever hold your–peace—no, just hold your peace"), right when Rob had decided that nobody up here had a sense of humor about anything. Charles and Constance were declared husband and wife, and Baxter's guys started playing again, and the chairs were whisked away to the side and whoops, Charles and Constance, and George and Sera, and a handful more, were dancing on the grass. The onlookers seemed to think this was the most entertaining thing ever, and this was before the champagne was opened.

"Isn't the dancing supposed to happen after lunch?" Stanny asked.

"I don't know," Rob said. "I'm pretty sure they're just doing whatever they want, here."

The caterers came and got them and the other younger members of the audience to help set up, which cheered Stanny up immensely because "this means lunch is going to happen sometime this century." Rob looked for Jack, but he was never anywhere near. After a while he figured Jack was doing it on purpose, which was a depressing thought. It was just too bad if Jack regretted kissing Rob. It wasn't that big a deal. It wasn't like they'd fucked or anything.

What if they had? Back in middle school? It wasn't impossible, though according to Rob's memory, his first sexual encounter had been the summer after high school.

He needed to talk to Jack. And this might be his last chance. He kept his eye on Jack, and as soon as the last tablecloth was secured with the last clip, and the last bowl of flowers was set on the last table, he made a beeline for Jack, keeping him in his sight as Jack wandered away seemingly oblivious to his follower.

Jack Remembers

Whether Jack really didn't know that Rob was following him was questionable, because why would he be leading Rob on such a circuitous path away from the festivities? He didn't know what lay in this direction. It wasn't where they had gone on the hike, it wasn't towards the hot springs, and it wasn't towards the restrooms or the office. Rob almost missed the grandeur of the surroundings through keeping his eye on Jack. By now it was pretty hard to be subtle about the fact that he was following Jack. The path they were on was not one that he would have even discovered on his own, and there was nothing to hide behind here, no trees and no steep slopes.

The gravel crunched loudly beneath Rob's feet and he let it. He wasn't hiding and Jack wasn't apparently trying very hard to run away from him anyway. Jack stopped and gazed out over a wide vista. Snowy patches as white and blinding as the shirt Jack still wore from the ceremony persisted still on the saw tooth ridges that ran across the horizon. A couple of hawks were circling together lazily in the clear sky.

"Hi," Rob said. He had so much he wanted to ask, but words were not coming.

Jack gave him only a brief glance before looking away again. Rob didn't blame him. The mountain valley below them was a hundred times more appealing than Rob was. "You followed me up here."