These Things Happen (23 page)

   "No, thanks."

   But George remains, his host's instincts flowering; Wesley is a customer, he decides, a guest, come in because he's heard good things from impossible-to-please friends. "And there's spinach lasagna," he says, knowing Wesley loves it and hoping he's telling the truth, just in case Wesley should spin around, light up, say he wants some. "With chanterelles—"

   "That make people fall in love with you," says Wesley, without turning, and startling George. "At first sight."

   "What?"

   He sighs. "You
said
that. This morning. Or yesterday morning. Or whenever it was." He turns now. "Don't you remember?"

   "Of course I do. And I meant the organic ones, by the way."

   Wesley doesn't look away, but he also doesn't laugh. And George wishes he hadn't said it, wonders if he w
anted
to crack the kid up, even though Wesley is hardly the Sammy/Liza spit-take type. He is, in fact, pretty stone-faced; George thinks back to the two months of mornings in the kitchen, the talks downstairs, all the times George has joined him, in grabbed moments, at the small back table in the restaurant where he has done his homework over a bowl of
pasta
alla Norma.
If there was laughter, it was usually from something Wesley said to
him
; never has he sought to be charmed, or
hosted.
Henry, on the second floor, opens his window and, accompanying himself on the piano, sings a little Sondheim, as he does all day. P
ack
up the luggage . . . la la
LAAA
. . .
Unpack the luggage la la
LAAA
. . . George thinks that the ideal location for this song to be performed would be at airports, at security lines. And, just as he thinks this, and wraps it and tucks it away, to be used later, he also thinks:
Oh,
yes, I'm delightful. Even after a day like this; it's money to me. And
this boy came back here, for something, tonight, and that's not it; he's
not here to be delighted. And that's all I know how to do.

   "Let me give you something," George says. "Anything."

   Wesley looks, quickly, at him; some might read what's come to his face, in a flush, as puzzlement. But not George; he reads what he has never read there before, which is disgust. "Why would you want to do that?"

"Because I'm good at it. I know what to do."

   Wesley turns away again. George wishes he had some magic, mushrooms, anything, to call him back. As he looks around, references to rooftops flood his mind. Brando and the pigeon coop, of course, in
On the Waterfront
, a film he shared with Wesley. A thousand terrible romantic comedies, where He wins She by surprising her with champagne and candles and what is always, George knows as a professional, a most impractical
al fresco
meal. And the Hunchback, on his roof, pouring hot lead on the mob come to tear him from his bells.
I should try that sometime
, George thinks. Y
es; pour
lead on Hal Prince; ring bells; cackle
. He could go on, but he stops himself there; he is, as always, a little ashamed of what he knows.
Oh, I am trivial
, he thinks;
my thoughts aren't those of a serious per
son, of any kind of man.

   "It would just be plain lasagna," George says. " There wouldn't be chanterelles, so there's no risk of magic. The guy at the Green Market was sold out by the time I got there yesterday. "

   "Hey, George?" Wesley says. "I don't want lasagna, or polenta, or anything
delicious.
I just want to be left alone. Okay?"

   "Okay."

   "I'll be gone soon."

   "Do you need anything?"

   "I already told you no."

   "You left your backpack."

   "Oh, I need that," says the boy.

   "You left it in the restaurant and I took it up with me."

   "Why did you do that? If you'd left it downstairs, I could just go get it. And Dad's there, right? I know he is. I heard him, talking to you. I wasn't eavesdropping."

   "I wouldn't have thought you were," George says. "You're not like that."

   "No, I'm not," says Wesley, slightly astonished and a little angry, as one is when a quality one knows one possesses is, finally, acknowledged by someone else.

   "So do you want to go get it?" George asks. He must ask this; he knows that. He knows that every moment up here is one that greatly counts. So he hopes that Wesley's answer will be no; he does not want to lose him now, before he has kept his question-answering promise, even though he has no idea what his answer might be. Does he even have an answer? And if he does, is it the right one? He has always been cautious, aware of the world as a vast map of wrong steps, and watchful never to take one; he has made a living out of his learned skill of intuiting what would please others and leading them to it.

   "I don't think so," Wesley says.

   "Well," George says, "that's understandable."

   "Why?"

   "I don't know."

   "And I think what I
really
want is to be alone. Up here. Not to be rude, or anything."

   "Well, that's understandable, too," George says. "You've been through a lot. And you're not being rude."

   "Dad would see it differently. He said, 'You've really gotten awfully rude.' You heard him. You were there—"

   "But I don't agree. Because I don't think that's who you are."

   "You don't know who I am!"

   What George does know, as Wesley's feelings scribble themselves across his face, is that he's got him now; he's his, for the mo ment, and however long he can make it last. "I'm sure you're right. I'm sorry."

   "You are?" Wesley says. He is so startled to hear this he comes close to asking George to say it again.
I'm sorry
; none of his Olders (which is what he and Theo call them) have ever said those words to him. And why would they? They're magazines, about themselves. They dispense opinions with the gravity of Justices at the Highest Possible Court. The words
I'm sorry
tend not to fly from the mouths of such people; such solid citizens; such New Yorkers. No.

   "I am," George says.

   "Well, like I said, I just want to be here alone."

   "Sure."

   " Thank you."

   He is never this crisp, George thinks. He is never crisp at all. He has agreed to leave, but he isn't going to, not yet. He has a promise to keep; Wesley might have forgotten about it, but he hasn't. "What's the book?"

   Wesley sighs, with a rear mezzanine– pitched largeness; he has learned, George can see, to be a bit theatrical in the time that he's been here.
Has he picked that up from me?
he wonders. He was always told he was that way by his father, and not as a father might note in a son an admirable trait or the promising glimmer of a future career path. So he has always tried not to be— theatrical, that is— even though he went into the theater. "Just a book," Wesley says. "So did Mom call here?"

   "No."

   " Really?"

   George doesn't say yes or no. Wesley is looking at him now. The reading display is over. He closes the book, puts it on the ledge, aligns it neatly. "And the book," he says, "is about this thing called the P
entagon Papers
. Do you know what that is?"

   He doesn't. He should, of course. P
entagon
; a serious word. "Ah," says George, "that must be Henry's. He's been writing a musical based on that."

   "That makes sense, then. He's written the word
Song
all through it."

   "I think he's on to something. Lenny thinks it's a terrible idea. He says the next thing you know, someone will want to write a musical based on
Pygmalion
."

   "What?"

   Once again, out here, in this place that, for George, feels a little too much like a stage; this seems to be the place to regret things, for George does regret what he's just said. He used to enjoy Wesley's puzzlement, not because it made him feel superior but because he so enjoyed filling him in, giving him something, useless, probably, in his life, but something of his, nonetheless, like encoding some minor entertaining gene that might, years later, provide him some mysterious joy in the world. But that's not how he feels tonight. "I'm sorry," he says, a different kind of sorry this time.

   "Why?"

   "I say too much, sometimes."

   "You do," says Wesley. "Sometimes."

   George sees what it has taken for Wesley to do this, to agree with George's own self-criticism but, at the same time, to not to make it
larger
, turn it into a condemnation; to let it stand. "I know that. Believe me."

   "But just sometimes." George knows that Wesley hasn't said this to make him feel good, or better, but because it is, genuinely, how it seems to him. Wesley, George sees, has added him up, or started to. "But like I said."

   "You just want to be alone."

   " Thank you," Wesley says, and George thinks this is the second time tonight that he has been thanked by a Bowman. Wesley turns away again, but this time he doesn't bother to pretend he's reading. Again, George could leave him here; he probably should, he thinks. Then again: or not. And he doesn't, in fact, know which of those choices he's made until a moment after he's made it. And then, there it is.

   "The thing is—" George says.

   "George—"

   "I owe you."

   "What are you talking about?" says Wesley. He's even laughing, a little. "What could
you
possibly owe
me
?"

   George understands, he just does, why Wesley has just stressed the words—
you
,
me—
and doubts he could have meant for George to hear them in any cruel way. But they have an effect; they bring him back to what he has been asking himself, again and again, since yesterday:
Who am I to this boy?
In Wesley's time here, with him and Kenny, that has never come up; the question would seem to have stepped out, with white-gloved jazz hands, from the darkness. But as Lenny said last night, when George came straight to work from the hospital and had to, in a flash, delight the room, how can the coming of that question have been a surprise? So there the question is. He came up with part of an answer, on his own, when trying to describe himself at the ER: T
here's no name for me.
And then the rest of that answer, the part with weight, evident instantly to others and so clear it hardly needs to be said:
Nobody. I'm no one.
But even with that, he still made a promise, and he is going to keep it. He doesn't know how, but he will still try. Which involves starting somewhere; somewhere, wherever
you
decide it is, is always next to somewhere else. Which is where the map begins.

   Start, then; something. "I can't answer that, Wes."

   Wesley, again theatrically, shudders a little. "I hate my name."

   But George isn't here to tell this kid he
should
,
shouldn't
, not about anything.
Don't think
, he tells himself; good advice, from acting school. But he is not acting now. " There are a lot of questions I can't answer," he says.

   These words explode Wesley. "That's fine!" he cries. "That's totally okay with me! So I can go now, because believe me, I don't w
ant
to be here. I made a promise to Theo, but he can call you himself."

   George ignores this. "Yesterday morning you asked your dad and me some questions. He answered. I didn't. And as I remember it— which I should, I was there!—I asked for time. I don't need any more time. Time's up."

   Wesley stands now, or, that is, his body does, as it seems to have acted without his agreement or knowledge; he's a puppet, pulled from its peg, limbs flopping and unfolding, heading in nine directions at once. "It doesn't matter about time. You don't owe me anything, George. You're just my dad's boyfriend. Okay?"

   This doesn't sting, which surprises George. And what surprises him, also, is that he hears the words but, at the same time, hears a voice dubbed over, giving the real meaning:
Stay. I will. Even if it's
just a moment more.

   "Okay," George says.

   
"Okay?"

   George has startled Wesley again, as he did when he said he was sorry. "That's right."

"So you should go, then," Wesley says.

"Because you 'just' want to be alone."

"Right."

   "But you also don't want to be here, if I heard you correctly. So which is it?"

   
"I don't have to tell you!" W
esley says. But George knows he wants to, or wishes he could. "So please:
just go
."

   "You can really be a brat, can't you?"

   A third surprise, now, for Wesley, possibly the biggest yet. He doesn't disagree, and he's grateful to have it pointed out like this; it's specific, and real, and it gives him the choice to be aware of it, to do something about it. "I can?" he says.

   "And I'm thinking that maybe the one who should stay here is—" A little moment makes itself, on its own, a pause to be filled; George hasn't been behind it. "Me. So why don't
you
go?" As he says this, and takes in Wesley's astonishment, he feels a shift in his center, a weakness in his knees, as if the roof was the deck of a ship, in a storm, listing. Will it tip him off, to send him floating down, like the
Angels
angel, to the street below?
Greetings, Prophet!
Thud. He was good in
Angels
, in the way you are when you know you are, which might not be that good, in the end. "Well?"