When You Don't See Me (29 page)

R
unning into Dennis Fagan on the street was intentional. I didn't think he cared whether anyone at Cutter's knew I was hanging around there hoping to see him, but
I
did. I didn't want to look pathetic if he blew me off or acted like nothing had ever happened between us. I reminded myself of a high school girl, like I'd gotten knocked up and was looking for my baby-daddy.

When Dennis saw me cut across his path to Cutter's entrance, he didn't walk past me or turn and go the other way. His pale blue eyes crinkled into that smile that didn't exactly warm them but let me know I wasn't about to be kicked to the curb. He reached over and gripped the back of my neck, shaking me like a bear playing with its cub.

“I thought maybe you'd moved away,” he said. “Or at least gone home for the holidays.”

“Nope,” I said. “This is home.”

He nodded and said, “What'll it be? A beer or—”

“Or,” I said.

Another nod from him and we started walking. Silent walking, since he made that comfortable. He also constantly scanned and assessed everything around him, leaving no energy for idle conversation. He wasn't checking out men, though, or even watching for danger to come hurtling out at him the way I always was. Again, he reminded me of a bear. One who walked through the forest like he didn't have much to fear and wasn't really hungry, but thought it was his job to keep watch.

The image made me smile, and he cut his eyes at me as if we shared a secret.

Later, we lay on his bed with my head in his lap, my knees pulled up to my chest, while we passed a joint between us. I spotted a duffel bag and a suitcase across the room and said, “Are
you
going out of town for Christmas?”

“For work,” he said. “My dumbass brother-in-law won a contract in Georgia, and he can't hold on to a good crew. I guess Atlanta doesn't speak Atlantic Beach, so it's the Fagan boys to the rescue.”

I didn't say anything while we finished the joint. When it got too small, he dropped it in an ashtray next to the bed. Then he rested his hand on my head.

“How long do you think the job will take?” I finally asked.

“Don't know.” He played with the spikes of my hair, flattening them, then fluffing them up again.

“Oh,” I said. I winced when I heard how forlorn my voice sounded. I'd morphed back into the high school girl. Any minute, he'd kick me out the door and tell me to come back when I grew a pair.

“People come and go,” Dennis said. “If you're meant to see them again, you will.” I decided not to say anything, in case it came out sounding needy. He ruffled my hair again. “I'll never live anywhere but this city.”

“She has that effect on people,” I said.

“The difference between me and most people? Manhattan's not a woman to me. What satisfaction could I get from that? My city's a man. His feet are downtown. Practical. Walking toward the future. His head's Uptown, exotic music filling him with crazy-good ideas.”

“And Midtown?”

“The best part,” Dennis said. He pushed my knees down and reached for the zipper on my jeans. “The heart and the soul and the gut and the sex.”

“I'm in bed with the poet of the Ironworkers Local 40.”

“Yeah. I write poetry with my tongue,” Dennis said and dove for me.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd spent all night with a man other than my roommate. Dennis made me feel safe the way Roberto did, but Dennis definitely came with benefits. Even though we were up half the night fucking and eating and fucking again, he was awake early. He didn't say anything about me getting up. I grinned when he sang along to his CD player while he took a shower. Just like at Uncle Blaine's apartment, the Pet Shop Boys served as the great equalizer between dissimilar gay men.

I dragged myself out from between the covers, peed without flushing the toilet in case his apartment had the same water issues that ours did, then waited for coffee to brew while I stared at the office building across the street. When the shower stopped running, I went back inside the bathroom and flushed.

“I could cook breakfast,” I offered.

“That'd be great,” Dennis said, emerging from behind the curtain with a towel around his waist. He kissed my shoulder, ran his hand over my tattoo, then lightly smacked my ass and said, “Only if you want to. But if you do, you'd better get moving.”

I hustled into my clothes. By the time I put scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast on his tiny table, he was dressed, too. As hot as he looked naked, he looked even better in his work boots, jeans, and layers of shirts.

“Hey, can I take a picture of you with my phone?” I asked before he sat down.

“Are you getting sentimental, young Nick?”

“I want to sketch you looking like this,” I said. “It helps to have a photo.”

“Fire away,” he said, picking up a slice of bacon and biting it in half. He was unselfconscious about getting his picture taken, but I worked fast in case he changed his mind.

After we ate, he wouldn't let me do the dishes. He filled the sink with hot water and left them soaking. We walked downstairs together and paused on the street.

“Let me see the picture,” Dennis said. I pulled it up and handed him my cell phone. “I guess I could have shaved,” he said, rubbing his face. Instead of handing the phone back, he scrolled through the menus until he figured out how to add his number to my contacts. “That's my cell. Now no matter where I go or how long it is before you see me again, I'm just a number away.”

“Are
you
getting sentimental?”

“Here's some more poetry for you,” he said. “You've got a nice cock, a sweet ass, a kind heart, and a good head. You're one of my kind. My brotherhood of buddies. It's basic, but it lasts longer than everything else.”

I nodded. He smiled at me and then started walking down the street. I went in the opposite direction. After a few seconds, I turned around to watch him, but he'd already vanished.

I looked toward the financial district. For the first time in so long, the empty sky didn't make my stomach hurt. I felt a little bit like a poet, too, when I thought of Dennis being there, rebuilding something. He was a witness to what was gone, he and the ghosts looking out for each other. Gretchen would respect him: a strong workingman like her father.

“See ya,” I whispered. I jammed my cell phone in my pocket, pulled on my gloves, and started looking for a subway entrance. I had to get home and fight my roommates for real estate in the bathroom. I was going to be late for work for the first time since taking the job. I'd probably still beat Bailey in, and I'd get around Eileen by pretending to eat her culinary weapon du jour.

 

Jisella took off her safety goggles, rubbed the bridge of her nose, then tossed the goggles to the workbench, saying, “Let's call it a day.”

“Good,” I said. I returned the belt sander to its home with the other tools and massaged my arms. We'd been working at a frantic pace all day because of a new high-profile client Mr. Wamsley had acquired while on vacation over Thanksgiving. Jisella and I were ordered to construct a platform bed. Every time we'd start to cut the headboard, Bailey would run into the workshop and make us stop because she'd changed her mind about which type of wood we should use. After wasting perfectly good planks of rosewood, white pine, birch, and cherry, Bailey went back to her original choice of walnut and acted as though we were degenerate subordinates for being annoyed that our production schedule was cut in half by her indecision.

“The longer I work with Bailey, and the longer I live with Morgan, the more it seems like the two of them have switched bodies,” I complained.

“I can't get over the fact that you live with her sister. It's so random,” Jisella said. “It's like a plot twist in English literature. Or one of those fairy tales where a member of royalty switches places with a commoner, and they turn out to be siblings.”

“Did you just call me a fairy?”

Jisella ignored me and said, “You're right, though. Bailey's getting more annoying every day. I think she's losing her
It Girl
status with the magazines and it's grating on her. Now she'll actually have to work and prove she's talented. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the best managerial skills.”

“I figured that out after the seventh time I found Susan crying in the supply closet.”

Jisella removed three drafting pencils from the knot of curls at the back of her head and shook the sawdust from her hair. She cracked her neck, then stared at me with a pensive expression. I avoided her eyes and started to clean the workbench. I brushed the wood chips and dust to the floor and brought out the broom. While I was sweeping, Jisella finally said, “Can I tell you something?”

“Can I stop you?”

“I'm serious. This is a secret.” I stopped sweeping and waited. She glanced at the doors, making sure they were closed, then said, “In four or five months, I'm out of here.”

“What?” I said. “You're quitting?”

“I'm moving on. I've been planning this for a long time. Putting it off, I suppose. It's easy to settle in to a job and get lazy. I've always wanted to make my own furniture and have a shop where I can sell it. My own place, my own terms. Ever since you came along, I've been wanting to get out of here more than ever.”

“Thanks.” I started sweeping again.

“That was a compliment,” she insisted. “We're a great team. You've made this job fun again. When you learn something new, you come alive. I know it sounds corny, but I see myself in you. The way I was when I was just starting out. It's nice.”

“Where's the dustpan?” I asked.

She found it where it had been kicked under the workbench and crouched down to hold it for me while I moved the pile of dirt and debris.

“I found the perfect space in SoHo,” she continued. “It's expensive. I may have to sell my soul, as well as a kidney, but it's just right for what I want. I can live and work there. There's a basement with enough room to work, a store, and a loft apartment behind it. It's perfect. You need to join me.”

“I already have a place to live,” I said.

“I mean I want you to work for me,” she said. Then she added, “With me. Don't say anything. Just promise me you'll think about it.”

I leaned on the broom and tried not to get swept up in her excitement. Even though Bailey was revealing herself to be a bitch in lamb-trimmed designer clothing, I still liked my job. However, since Jisella's proposal seemed to be in the planning stage, I said, “Sure. I'll think about it.”

Jisella stood up and grinned. She brushed sawdust from her jeans and said, “Great. I'll keep you posted. Want to grab a beer somewhere?”

“Maybe in a couple years.”

“Right. I keep forgetting that you're”—she broke off and wrinkled her nose, as if she'd just smelled something foul—“substantially younger than me. I'll see you tomorrow.”

As I was leaving, Eileen repeatedly rapped her knitting needles on her desk and called out, “Nick, wait! You need to see this.”

“Come on, Eileen,” I moaned. “I've had a long day. Can it wait?”

“No. Look at this blog entry. Isn't this about your uncle?”

I cringed, expecting her to show me baristabrew-dot-com. It was worse. Spread across the screen was the
LoDownBlog,
gossip columnist Lola Listeria's latest outlet for rumormongering. Judging by the various ads blinking and taking up space in the margins of the Web page, Lola was doing well for herself. I scanned the entry in the general direction of Eileen's knitting needle.

Instead of explaining the intricacies of my extended family to Eileen, I said, “Urkel isn't my uncle.”

“No, not that one. I know that item's about your uncle's boyfriend. Isaiah and I used to watch
Secret Splendor
on our lunch break. Look at the next entry.”

“All I want to do is go home, Eileen. Not read the meaningless meanderings of a mindless moron.” I cringed. “See? Now I'm talking like her.”

Eileen frowned, tapping the screen expectantly with the knitting needle.

“Whatever,” I said and continued reading. “Holy shit.”

“I thought so,” Eileen said smugly.

“Thanks, Eileen, I'll see you tomorrow!” I yelped as I made a dash for the door.