Now and Yesterday (24 page)

 

Valentine's Day caught Peter by surprise. Not that he didn't know it was approaching; he just didn't realize he was involved. Work was distracting him. The McCaw people had accepted the proposal that Peter and his team sent over. The gig had been secured! But then, the night before the holiday, as he was noting things to do on his calendar for the following day, Peter heard the beat-beat-beat of the tom-tom and realized he should probably use the occasion to say something to Will.

Valentine's Day had always been more of a couples thing than a dating thing, for Peter. Is anyone equal to the holiday other than the partners in a committed relationship—and even then, he wondered, does anyone feel loved enough to join in the yearly hoopla unequivocally, without quiet doubts about the significance of the other or secret regret about having possibly been able to do better? Established couples try to have fun with the day, gazing fondly on what the other has become, honoring each other for time served. New couples, toying with romance, make a game of the day, giggling, then maybe fighting and giggling, then making up and maybe giggling some more—all the while asking themselves, Is it really you, you, you? Nick once made Peter a meat loaf in the shape of a heart and presented it in a red-and-gold-foil, heart-shaped candy box. It was a cute gesture that was also a question about faithfulness. Yes, Peter answered, I love you and am yours till I die, but to sensitive ears—ears attached to an intelligent body that's forever in need of more information about love—there is a thrum of dread on Valentine's Day, hinting at loss, which is a natural condition of life, and isolation, its chief axiom.

At least, that's the way Peter looked at it—though he knew this was not the sentiment he should try to frame into a breezy note to a young beau.
Though Neruda does have a line somewhere about Death being the third party that's always in bed with two lovers. Couldn't that make a funny valentine—funny-smart?

The next day, at the office, Peter fussed with work for an hour before texting Will. There was a video call with McCaw to gird for, and some personal boundaries to get clear in his brain, before beginning to work closely with a man his friends called a demagogue. Peter had never been one to let a client's personality, even when insufferable, get in the way of a gig; and doctrinal objections were rarely a problem for anyone in advertising. Moreover, the thought of this assignment as a career-defining pinnacle was beginning to loom large in Peter's mind. So as he pondered all this he decided that the text to Will should not go first thing, as if he had been obsessing about the guy instead of tending to business; nor should it go as late as lunchtime, which would make the text look too unimportant. It should look third on a list, Peter decided, after God and country, so it was around eleven-thirty when he managed to thumb a few words to the man who was now never off his mind.

Hey, buddy! A shower of hearts for you today. Cheers! P.

He made it a point to use proper punctuation, to help give the message a more formal, less breathless feel, and he added a burst of shiny, little, red emoji hearts to the message, to connote light fun. For a minute he experimented with a second line—trying to say something about a text message being a poor substitute for “a handwritten note delivered by my man”—but it wasn't working, so he gave up and sent the shorter version.

Then he realized the text was dumb and picked up the intercom.

“Tyler—are you there? May I have a word, please?”

He should have asked Tyler for help in the first place. Ty would have known the right direction to take, if not the precise line to use.

Will's reply came immediately, much more quickly than Peter had dared hope:
Funny! Cheers! You too!

Peter stared at it for a second. The message seemed warm, but it was so short. Did it mean everything or nothing? Did it represent spontaneous thought or a measured
position?

“You rang?” said Tyler, appearing at the door.

“Read this, please,” said Peter, thrusting his iPhone at his young colleague.

Tyler read and chuckled.

“OK,” he said.

“Not too needy, right?”

“No.”

“And he's not being guarded or anything, is he?”

“Doesn't sound that way.”

Peter sighed in relief.

“How's it going?” asked Tyler. “Are you an item yet?”

“I don't know, I don't know!” bleated Peter.

“And you're tortured by not knowing.”

“Yes—like never before! We share constant surprise at the stupidity of other people. We share disdain for people who automatically require you to be
like
them. We share contempt for the wrong kinds of vulgarity, and delight in the right kinds.”

“Now that's what I call bedrock,” said Tyler.

“Everything seems to be . . . rushing at me!”

“Well, that's life.”

“I shouldn't call,” said Peter. It was a question.

“To follow up on a text? Not really.”

“Can I tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

“Ahhh!” Peter pretended to scream, in frustration.

“You could pray, boss,” offered Tyler brightly. “Didn't you say you were raised Catholic?”

“Raised but lapsed,” laughed Peter. Tyler was either being flip or truly open to any form of magic that might exist. “As a kid I could never pray for personal gain, let alone for a boyfriend. I was taught to pray for starving orphans and earthquake victims—things like that.”

“I dunno,” said Tyler. “This is turning into kind of an earthquake, if you ask me.”

 

“All set?” said Laura, dropping by Peter's office, shortly after Tyler left.

“For McCaw? Absolutely,” said Peter.

“I brought you this,” she said. “A little Valentine's Day present.”

Laura handed Peter a mock-up of the cover of
Advertising Age,
featuring Peter's face and the caption,
Agency of the Year.

“Cute, thank you,” said Peter. “For inspiration?”

“Just to keep in mind what we're aiming for. People are already buzzing, you know. And can I tell you something? Even the ones who are aghast seem to be jealous of us.”

“People are aghast?”

“Some people. You know—people who are bounded by their own prejudices.”

“Ah, well . . .”

“Thank God you're not one of those black-or-white types.”

 

“So we're off and running, eh, buddy?” began McCaw, an hour later, on the video call. It was just the two of them.

“We're poised to do some great work,” said Peter.

“I'm sure we are.”

“You know, I do think we need to explore this ‘take back America' thing a little more, so we know what it is, exactly, but we'll discover this together. . . .”

“I know what it is. And it's time. That's all any of us is saying.”

McCaw cocked his head brightly and raised his eyebrows in emphasis, and the screen lit up with likable. Video calls were still not all that common, but McCaw was known for using them and Peter saw why. The man who cannily controlled his media image was positioned in the middle of a perfectly composed, and thus perfectly seductive, video shot. Someone had made sure that the picture was professionally lit and contained a family photo, a shelf of books, and a bit of American flag. Peter knew that so much information was being emitted from the shot itself, and received subliminally, that McCaw's words themselves were only part of the call.

“Hendy, let me say this once again,” said Peter. “I know it's in the proposal—I just want to be clear. We have to be open about the use of language like ‘taking back.' It may come with freight we don't want.”

“Sure, Peter, of course,” said McCaw. “But I love that you get the underlying imperative here. I mean, look, we both inherited traditions, didn't we—you growing up in the fifties, and me the sixties and seventies? And we both lived through all those transgressions of the seventies, right? We
got
the change. We tore down what we thought was decrepit, fine—that had to happen. But, so far—and be honest—what have we created, beyond freedoms and license? What are we going to bequeath to our successors that's more substantial than what we ourselves inherited? A nation keeping up with the Kardashians? You must ask yourself this, as a gay man.”

“I . . . do.”

“Then let the great work begin.” McCaw beamed beatifically.

Peter knew the last line was a quote, but not, until after the call, from what:
Angels in America
.

Afterward, despite concerns that still lingered in his mind, Peter felt exhilarated. He could manage McCaw, maybe even move him in a good direction, with some smart thinking. The idea of big money was savory, for sure, but Peter had never been much of a careerist, having drifted upward from success to success. The exciting thing for Peter was this opportunity to be a real player, to see his clever little ideas and understandings and mental tricks finally mean something big—get some traction, draw some fire—and push things somewhere on a global scale. Wasn't wanting this, too, like panting for true love instead of boy toys, about being almost sixty—a fruition of the process of constantly opting out of small and meaningless effort, that starts in one's thirties, or should, to afford a steady ascent into bigger realms, toward higher levels, where both love and work are sacramental?

That night, Peter stayed home and ordered in Thai food. He watched
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
on Netflix and found himself remembering the time he and Harold had once found the movie starting on television and were so excited to see the thing from the beginning that they blew off plans to see a zombie version of
Giselle
at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Meanwhile, that same night, Will was attending a little Valentine's Day get-together at Enrico's. The tiny jewel-box apartment was packed with stylish young men—they were clumped around the table in the foyer-dining area, where a buffet had been laid under a fall of red crystal hearts, suspended from the chandelier, and jammed into the black salon, which was so full that people could barely move. As a mix of “bitter love” tracks played in the background, compiled by a DJ whom Will had featured in the magazine, Will was explaining to a trio of strangers that he and Enrico weren't boyfriends.

“Oh, we thought you lived here,” said one.

“You seem to know where everything is,” said another.

“Well . . . everything's, like, two steps away,” said Will.

Will was annoyed that Enrico was behaving as if they were cohosts—asking him conspicuously to find the corkscrew or fetch more ice. Will was attending the party just to be nice; he hadn't wanted to go. For another thing, he was bored with Enrico's crowd, which was comprised of pretty boys Will found markedly superficial, including Olivier, the magazine's fashion director, who had arrived at the party with a small claque of dandies who looked like they were all within three years of each other's age, three centimeters of each other's height, and three pounds of each other's weight.

“Hi, there,” said Will, when Olivier squeezed past.

“Hello,” burbled the Parisian, looking mildly perplexed.

“From the magazine—I'm Will.”

“Oh, yes, hello,” said Olivier, producing a slender hand.

They chatted for a moment, about city traffic and the town car Olivier had waiting outside, about Enrico and the party decorations, but it was clear that Olivier's interest was elsewhere. Then Will found himself astounded when Olivier admitted he didn't know that the music track then playing, Femi Kuti's “Sorry Sorry,” was a bloody valentine to Nigeria.

“He's lamenting the rape of his homeland,” said Will.

“I have this song on one of my Buddha Bar mixes,” said Olivier, nominally to Will but for the amusement of his claque.

Pathetic,
thought Will. Olivier had never really listened to the song. Wasn't an editor supposed to know more about the world he lived in? It happened to be a song that Will and Peter had taken apart recently, one night after their dinner at Peter's place.

They'd been talking about the course of civilization since World War Two, and the song came up in the mix they were listening to.

“Let's see what won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1945,” said Peter, Googling the answer:
Appalachian Spring
. “Great, terrific piece. But just listen to Femi. Does
Appalachian Spring
contain one-tenth the pathos of ‘Sorry Sorry'? Don't tell me that civilization has declined.” They'd had a few drinks, but Will was impressed. Peter was right. And since then Will's ears had been a little more open.

Suddenly, at Enrico's, Will realized that he was at the wrong party. Enrico and his friends were as insistent that Will vacu-form himself into their mold as Will's parents had been to theirs. If he stayed too long with this crowd, he would turn into something like the gay men his parents knew, who had always seemed too decorous, too tame, too self-edited. Maybe that was why Peter was so optimistic about the future, so ready to party, for an old man: He was unbounded politically, socially. And that led to happiness. What a goal to point your vectors at!

Will found Enrico and made an excuse, then bolted from the party. On his way to the subway he texted Peter an invitation to dinner at his place.

Can we say next Friday? Luz and I will make something at our place. Please come. Maybe a few other friends. Easy, relaxed. Say yes!

D
uring the week leading up to dinner, Peter thought constantly about Will. He had to make an effort to avoid adding Will-this and Will-that gratuitously in conversations with friends, and was careful, too, to show restraint in contact with the young man himself, texting him only now and then, with a perky thought about some cirrus clouds or a crowded party. He didn't call, because there was little to say that could be said, at this stage. They hadn't yet reached the stage of daily check-in—though that would come soon enough, if they really were becoming close friends. So Peter's plan, for the moment, was to allow the right amount of interest to filter through to Will and hope he would feel something midway between cherished and abandoned.

Filtering was a new mode of behavior for Peter. He had always been quite direct, emotionally, and had used bold, romantic displays to win Harold and Nick—like falling to his knees in the middle of Lincoln Center plaza, one evening before an opera, to beg Harold's forgiveness for being twenty minutes late; or showing up at Nick's office, on their first anniversary, with a bottle of champagne, two glasses, and tickets to Amsterdam. Yet that was then, and Will was now. It was because of his unprecedented age that Peter felt he should commit to a course of second-guessing. He hoped that that would make the infatuation of a fifty-nine-year-old man with a twenty-eight-year-old man a little less ridiculous. This was, after all, the first time he was lovesick as an old man, he told Jonathan, at dinner one night that week, and he didn't know if the condition functioned the same way it had done decades ago. He wanted to explore it a little, before either playing by the rules or breaking them.

“That's a strong word, ‘lovesick,' ” said Jonathan.

“Yeah, but that's what it is,” said Peter.

They were at Jonathan's place, alone in the living room, chatting quietly over pre-prandial drinks. Above them, over the sofa on which Jonathan had installed himself, loomed an epic diptych by Connor Frankel, in pulsing blues, greens, and yellows. The room looked larger and more formal than it did when filled with guests, and seemed better able, when empty and still, to articulate the designer's intended balance between settled and surprising. Beyond, in the dining room, Aldebar, Jonathan's new live-in assistant, hired in lieu of the hospice option, was setting the table and plating the elaborate meal that had been ordered in from a nearby restaurant. Jonathan had invited Peter over as an opportunity to hear his friend gush about his new infatuation. “I want to hear everything,” Jonathan said—though it was clear, too, that he didn't want to dwell on his failing health. So Peter gushed.

“I'm fucking lovesick, as much as I ever was with Harold or Nick,” said Peter. “I can't stop thinking about him and I can't explain why. And you know how hardly anybody holds my interest nowadays.”

“Charming,” said Jonathan, whose deteriorated physical condition was hard to overlook. The flesh under his jaw had gone slack, his smile brittle and eyes sunken. He was gaunter than ever and looked lost inside his black cashmere sweater. A day's worth of silvery stubble frosted his normally clean-shaven head. Around the house, where he spent more and more time, he could move about on his own, but in public Jonathan was now using a wheelchair. In order to better focus on his film, he said, he was planning to move upstate, Aldebar and all, to the house in Hudson. There, he would continue working for as long as possible with Connor Frankel, who lived in a nearby town.

“But tell me, Peter, why this one?” said Jonathan. “And yes, maybe it is the documentarian in me who wants to know. What does this one have that your friend Tyler, for instance, doesn't have? Why not any of the men I have set you up with or your friends have set you up with—men so much more, shall we say, suitable?”

It was a good question. Even with men who “looked good on paper,” which invariably meant close to Peter in age or salary, there were variables that always got in the way. Peter thought about this for a second.

“Well, darling,” he said finally, “damage aside—and you know how many men our age are damaged goods—I need someone who is both decorous and a renegade. You know? I have all the solid citizens wanting to date me, and all the young renegades wanting daddy sex, but each type is boring, in itself. Will is somehow both these types in one, which is absolutely fascinating.”

Jonathan chuckled.

“And cute isn't a marker for that, is it?” continued Peter. “I happily register cute boys I see out there, but I don't feel like pursuing them anymore, because it never leads anywhere.”

“Except that this one
is
cute . . . ,” said Jonathan.

“Well, yes. So I'm told.”

“OK, so you plan to go on pursuing. Good for you.”

“But that's precisely what I
don't
plan,” said Peter.

“What?”

“No-oo,”
whined Peter. And then he whispered, “I think old age has made me shy.”

“Shy,” repeated Jonathan.

“I'm trying not to clobber the kid with my old tricks.”

“C'mon. The way you wooed Harold was no trick. You just showed him how a romantic hero operates. And since then you have only gone from that prime to the prime you were in when you landed Nick, to the prime you're in now. The kid probably wants to see some of that star stuff.”

Peter picked up his glass and sat back.

“Well, thank you, darling, but age has made me very specific in my needs,” he said, taking a sip. “I want to be known exactly as who I am—not as an operator. Will and I tell each other that we're trying to do something new with our friendship, unprecedented for each of us. We're both promising to go beyond our usual tricks—you know, the cute young man stuff he falls back on, and the older guy stuff I always trot out.”

“Hmmm.”

“I mean, he gets all the guys he wants, but nothing serious pans out because it's always about the tricks. If, through me, he really owns for the first time how much there is to him besides all that, then that's awesome—even if he does take this new understanding and go find someone his own age.”

“Really?”

“Well, you know—I hope not. Anyway, aren't there tons of examples in history of younger men digging older men?”

“I guess.”

“The funny thing is, Jonathan, I love being lovesick.” Peter shook his head, suppressing a grin. “This damned fever itself is exactly as, I dunno . . .
useful
as love. Very entertaining for an old man. The fear that usually comes with lovesickness, the feeling that you're gonna die, unless you get the kiss—forget about it! At this age, I know I won't die.”

“How convenient.”

Peter suddenly realized that Jonathan was looking tired.

“I'm boring you, dear friend,” said Peter. Jonathan waved away the comment.

“You're sure it's really love, then?” pressed Jonathan. “Even if there's no possibility of suicide?”

“I'm not sure what it is. I'm not sure I ever knew what love is. No—I
am
sure: I have never known really what love is, though I know I have been loved.”

“Fine. But wouldn't real love be better than what you have? I'm just asking.”

“I don't know. What can I do but identify it as love and play it out accordingly?”

Jonathan laughed weakly, and Peter sat forward again, putting down his drink.

“I like his tonality, Jonathan,” he said. “I like his goofy face, the way he combines grace and klutziness. I fantasize about where Harold and I would be right now and I want to be there with Will.”

“Uh-oh,” said Jonathan, with a little signal to Aldebar, who had appeared to check on the drinks. The new aide was a good-looking, muscular man in his thirties—a trained nurse, Jonathan had said, but commanding a smile as seductive as a porn star's.

“Sure, I fantasize about him sexually,” said Peter, “but I also think about gardening with him and napping with him in the seat of an airplane, the sun pouring through the window, as we're flying off to Rio.”

“You and your child
lovah
.”

Peter smiled and took a breath.

“I almost did have a child lover once,” he mused. “Did I ever tell you? Dylan Zeleski. He was twelve—a very grown-up twelve. His parents were in a rock band and brought him to dance class, three times a week, on the third floor of Carnegie Hall, near my office. Remember when I had that office at Carnegie Hall? They used to dress him in a little leather biker jacket, with a tight little T-shirt and tight little jeans. Off the hook! And he had blue eyes, and black hair, and, ooh, white-white skin. That kid knew exactly what he was doing, Jonathan. He'd come in and ask for candy, and put air quotes around the word “candy.” Twelve years old! And this was precisely the point in my life when I would have had my own twelve-year-old, if I were straight and a parent, my therapist pointed out. We never did anything, Dylan and me, though I talked about it for three years. I thought it went away, but maybe it's here again.”

“Boy love?”

“Whatever it was. A certain nostalgia for the kids one doesn't have.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow.

“Have you always wanted kids?” he said.

“Yes—but I probably won't, now,” said Peter. “Unless Will wants them.”

It was partly a joke, and Jonathan rolled his eyes.

“I'm having dinner there tomorrow night,” added Peter.

“Does he know how you feel?”

The question stopped Peter.

“No,” he said.

“Ever made out?”

A pause.

“Not really.”

Jonathan shook his head.

“Well, protect yourself,” he said.

“I know,” said Peter.

“What if he's just not into you?”

“I know.”

“You have to ask the question and get the answer. That's my advice.”

“Even if it's no. I know. And I don't want to abandon him as a friend, if it
is
no. I don't want him to think I've been lying about seeing so much in him and finding him unique among men. I think I could just get through the crisis of his not loving me, if it meant bestowing on him some new sense of worthiness. . . .”

Jonathan closed his eyes, then opened them.

“Girlfriend, you're a mess,” he said.

“Oh, how did we ever get this old?” sighed Peter. “Weren't we just twenty-seven and marching in the streets and making history and showing the world how to wear a blazer with a T-shirt? Whatever happened to the timelessness of being twenty-seven?”

“Don't look at me,” said Jonathan.

Peter tilted his head.

“Am I ridiculous?” he said.

“No,” said Jonathan. “You deserve love and you always will.”

“Because we're boomers and entitled?”

“Because you're a human being.”

“Thank you, dear friend.”

“And speaking of dinner, let's have some,” said Jonathan, twisting in his seat and calling toward the dining room. “Aldebar, if you would?”

 

Winter days had been feeling oppressively dark and short, and Will and Luz had been talking about how trapped they felt in New York. Unable to fly somewhere south for a little vacation, they decided to make “sunny” the theme of their little dinner party. They bought new dinner plates and place mats in shades of yellow and orange, on sale at Crate and Barrel, and created a menu they called “Mexiterranean” that combined a grilled fish with lemon that Luz had learned from her mother, who was Mexican, and a spaghetti puttanesca that Will was creating with Greek olives and Santorini tomatoes he found at a local specialty shop. At six o'clock on the day of the dinner, the two were in their kitchen, busy with final preparations.

“I just remembered: We don't have any coffee,” said Luz, zesting lemons for the fish. “You think they'll want some? I could run out and get some, or ask Mrs. Lavris.”

“Eh, let's not bother,” said Will. He was slicing the tomatoes and arranging them on a sheet pan, for a pre-roast. On the stovetop was a pan in which capers, olives, anchovies, and garlic were sweating in olive oil. “If people want, we can have tea. More likely, we'll just keep going with wine.”

“I hope we have enough,” said Luz.

“Oh, he'll bring some, I'm sure,” said Will. “And speaking of alcohol . . .” Will danced over to the freezer and, with a flourish, took out a bottle.

“Limoncello!” sang Luz.

“A bottle of sunshine!” exclaimed Will.

“Shall we have some?”

“Why not,” said Will, opening the bottle and pouring them each a glass.

“We never felt this depressed in L.A., did we, in February?” said Luz, after taking a sip.

“We didn't, did we?” said Will. “But the days are just as short there.”

“Was it the latitude?”

“The climate?”

“Something about the desert?”

“You really suffer from this oppressive winter thing, in New York, don't you? Everybody's complaining about it. You see it on their faces.”

“We had kitsch, actually—right? That's like sunshine in architectural form.”

“Oh, Luz, you're right!”

“I mean, driving into a Mayan palace for a corn dog . . .”

“Dropping off your dry cleaning at a Chinese temple . . .”

“Kitsch against the winter!”

“Kitsch against the blues!”

Finishing the tomatoes, Will threw the pan into the oven and wiped his hands.

“You know what we need?” he said, dashing out of the kitchen.

“What?” shouted Luz.

He reappeared instantly with a pair of sky-blue Havaianas, still new, with the price tag dangling.

“A centerpiece!” said Will.

“Eww!” said Luz.