We laughed unabashedly. “A sage woman and you obviously took her advice to heart.”
“I knew you were ogling.” Evan rushed to my side and placed my hand on the sumptuous curve. Teasingly, he said, “Give it a squeeze just to be sure.”
I did. It was a fleeting grope but confirmed all its luscious qualities. I freed my hand quickly. “All right, enough of this,” I pronounced with an uptight laugh. “I’ve got work to do.”
I started upstairs to my office then turned back to Evan. “I’ve got a yoga mat you’re welcome to use.”
He gave me a glowing smile. “That would be great. Thanks.”
“And, Evan …” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I finally stammered “You really are a beautiful, beautiful man.”
He grinned wryly for a moment before giving a slight theatrical bow. “Thank you for noticing.”
We had leftover lasagna for dinner. It was delicious yet underscored our dreary confinement. We both made an effort to converse, but there was nothing new in our lives to relate. Each day was becoming indistinguishable from the others. Especially for Evan. The claustrophobia was becoming oppressive. The menace outside the door pressed the walls closer and closer and the anxiety was unremitting. The toll was becoming apparent in his eyes.
That night I insisted Evan pick the movie. The only stipulation I placed was that it be light, smart, and absent any gratuitous violence.
“That’s three stipulations,” he observed.
The challenge seemed to animate him. He picked a rom-com, as I suspected he would. It starred Lake Bell and Simon Pegg and was slightly campy with a happy ending and lots of laughs. Perfect leavening for our flat, monotonous days.
I congratulated his choice as the end credits began to roll. That pleased Evan. He jumped up and announced, “I’m going to have a glass of wine before bed. Can I pour you one?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I gingerly reached for the lamp switch without disturbing Lucy, who had spent the last act of the movie ensconced in my lap. With the lamp on dim, I resumed petting her neck, sending her purrs into magic finger mode. Evan returned with our wine and sat close beside me. He joined in petting Lucy Fur.
“I don’t want our custody battle to get ugly,” he teased.
“In the spirit of conciliation, I’ll settle for every other weekend.”
The moment felt convivial as I smiled back and reminisced for an instant about how horrible yet wonderful my world had become over the past few weeks. Life had crept back into my existence.
I found my gaze lingering in the green of Evan’s eyes. From this close, flecks of gold and a faint tinge of chestnut were revealed. Our fingers vied for Lucy’s favorite spot and she raised a blissful din. “This is good,” I said.
Evan chortled in agreement. His eyes drifted to my lips and then back again, with longing in his gaze. He leaned slightly nearer. “You can kiss me if you’d like.”
I was caught unprepared and felt ensnared by his closeness. Retreating a scant inch, I blurted “What?”
Evan enticed, “I really wish you would.”
I struggled to my feet, casting Lucy tumbling to her own devices. I barely registered her howl of alarm as wine sloshed from my glass. “What the fuck, Evan?”
“I know you feel it. Just give in.”
“No! That would be a huge mistake.”
“Why, Alan? Why do you deny yourself pleasure? I know you feel the urge. I’ve felt it in your embrace.”
“Hug. We hugged. Like friends needing support.”
“Okay, sure. Call them hugs. But sometimes those hugs went deeper. Admit it. Why are you so closed off?”
I started pacing. My eyes cast about for something to anchor on, some point of clarity. They found only the empty picture frame.
Evan pressed deeper. “I know your marriage fell apart. I understand you cheated with a gay man and your whole world came crashing down. But that was two years ago. Life goes on, Alan. You’ve got to start living again.”
At that, I froze. Just as in Poe’s story The Tell-Tale Heart, my guilt was moldering beneath my feet. It tormented me with its constant pounding. Evan’s wheedling was prying loose the floorboards. The pounding got louder. “You want to know, do you? You really want to know?”
“Yes, Alan. I truly care for you.”
The intimacy of those words struck me like a gut punch. I rejected the impulse to bare myself as quickly as it had arisen. No one was getting in. Not even Evan. “No.” I shook my head. “I’m not an open book like you.”
“Seven and an eighth.”
“What?”
“Seven and one-eighth. That’s my hat size, Alan. Seven and an eighth. Now you know absolutely everything there is to know about me. Can’t you at least tell me what’s eating you alive?”
“Once you know it, you will never be able to un-know it.”
“I’m your friend whatever it is.”
This is precisely why I kept to myself. People are exhausting. The rigors of being social, of knowing others and being known, wears a person down. The boundaries of me slowly crumble into “we”. The I is exposed and, for better or worse, becomes “us”. The effort was simply too much for me anymore. My exhaustion won out. I divulged what I could not even admit to myself.
“After Jenny kicked me out of the house,” my voice was wooden and flat, “I called her again and again. I just wanted to talk. To find a way through. She wouldn’t even pick up the phone. I heard from friends that she was a total wreck. The women were particularly concerned.”
Lucy was perched on a bookshelf across the room watching me with the eyes of the betrayed. She was right. I couldn’t be trusted.
“Three weeks after my ‘golf game’ with Matt, I got a call from her sister, Angie. I rushed to the hospital but, of course, they wouldn’t let me in to see Jenny. I found Angie in the waiting room. The whole family was there and they were not pleased to see me. Her father actually squared off with me. Angie walked me down the hall.
“She told me that Jenny didn’t have the right pills for suicide so she had taken a shitload of whatever she had. Luckily, Angie dropped by unexpectedly. Just checking in.”
I looked over at Evan. His eyes were wide as he realized the undertow of my sadness. His pity sickened me. I deserved denunciation, not mercy. I turned my back on Evan and confessed to Lucy instead. As I approached her, she leaped away.
“The pills were slow but would have worked eventually. Angie said she discovered Jenny just in time. Jenny would be all right.”
I strained to continue. “I was so relieved. You can’t imagine. The thought of the world without Jenny was just … well, unimaginable. She was too essential, too good. Whether we were together or not, Jenny belonged in the universe and, regardless of how much I hurt, I needed to know that she could find happiness again.”
Relief swept over Evan as his sympathetic smile returned. My impulse was to slap his mollified face. “Feel better now, do ya? Are you glad for a happily-ever-after story?”
Evan was startled by my sudden hostility as I took a step toward him.
“I’m just glad Jenny’s alright,” Evan offered. “The way it sounded I was worried…”
“Shut up, Evan! Just shut the fuck up.”
I loomed over him. He shrank away. I forced myself to calm down at least a decibel or two. I snarled at him, “That was when Angie told me that Jenny had lost the baby. Satisfied? That was the first I had heard that Jen was pregnant.”