In Skyville, the summer breeze smelled of jasmine and the moon shone like a crown over the mountains.
The water in Lake Lure was so clear, you could see twenty feet down to the bottom, where people had dropped shoes or sent flying a bottle of cola.
It was a waste not to be in love in Skyville summers, if only in love with love.
In the summer of 1959, Dillard Fox was in love with more than love.
He’d been working in the Catskills resort for two years. He finally quit in late May and came home to the little Skyville cabin his father had left him and where he hoped to settle down and recapture whatever was left of his soul. One Saturday night in June, he decided to go to a summer concert at the bandstand by the lake. He was walking barefoot when he stepped onto a broken Coke bottle. The bottle ripped open the bottom of his foot. As he hopped around searching for a place to sit, he left a trail of blood behind him. When he finally made it to a nearby picnic bench, a well-meaning man pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around Dillard’s foot. An older man stepped in and yanked the handkerchief off: “Don’t do that, it’ll infect it. I’m a doctor. I’ll take care of it.”
By then, a small crowd, including a woman pushing a baby carriage, had gathered around the table. The doctor pointed to her and shouted, “Do you have any clean diapers in there?” She rummaged around and turned up a neatly folded fresh cloth diaper.
“I’ll take it,” said the doctor, who quickly fashioned a tight bandage around Dillard’s foot then asked another man to help get him to his car. He drove Dillard to the Skyville General Hospital, where he lay on an examining table as the doctor cleaned the cut, sewed it up with five stitches, and wrapped his foot in a bandage. “You came yay close to nicking your tendon,” said the doctor when he finished. He patted Dillard’s foot. “You’re a lucky fella. But you got yourself a nice wound there; you’re gonna need to stay off it until it heals a bit. I’ll order up a pair of crutches for you. Come see me on Wednesday. In the meantime, keep that foot clean and dry. My name is Dr. Moore, and you are?”
Dillard said his name softly as the doctor put his arm around his shoulder and helped him off the examining table. He must have seen something in Dillard’s eyes—sadness, loneliness, fear—that made him keep his arm around Dillard a moment longer, then pat his shoulder and say, “Don’t worry, buddy, you’ll be fine.”
For the past two years, Dillard had been anything but fine. His work at the resort had been humiliating. He’d been made to feel the clown, performing for all those guests who couldn’t care less about the entertainment when they had mountains of food planted in front of them. Management treated him and the other musicians like servants, snapping their fingers to get their attention, calling them names like “tart” or “show boy,” and paying for room and board and little more. So, no, Dillard was not fine. Nor had anyone reassured him that he would be in a very long time.
Dr. Moore’s words and comforting touch stirred feelings that Dillard had tucked away for all those months. In an uncharacteristic gesture, he threw his arms around the doctor. “Thank you for taking care of me and for your profound kindness.”
Dr. Moore hugged him back: “Nothing to thank me for, son, you’ll be fine.”
“It’s been a long time…” said Dillard into Dr. Moore’s shoulder.
The doctor put his hand behind Dillard’s head and pulled him closer. “I know. Sometimes it feels as if we are the lonesome spot on this planet, as if we are a species unto ourselves. I really do understand. You take care, now.”
By Monday, Dillard’s wound was infected, so much so that two people who saw him hobbling down the street pointed to his red, swollen foot and said, “You need to take care of that.” One nun caught his eye and whispered, “God bless you.” His foot felt hot and achy, and at night he could feel it throbbing. Even Dr. Moore was taken aback the following Wednesday when Dillard limped into his office. “You’re the saddest sight I’ve seen all day,” he said. “Why’d it take you so long to come here?”
“I didn’t want to bother you,” said Dillard.
“Well, let’s have a look.” Dr. Moore unwrapped the bandage and lightly palpated the swollen foot. “That’s some infection you’ve got festering. Right off, I’m gonna put you on penicillin. I want you to soak it at least three times a day in a mixture of two parts water, one part hydrogen peroxide. And don’t you be shy about dropping by here if this thing doesn’t start healing up. Are you at a job where you can keep off your feet?”
Dillard half smiled. “I’m at no job right now.”
“What did you do when you were at a job?”
Dillard explained about his music and the Catskills and how he’d just quit.
“Are you in the market for something?”
“Anything,” said Dillard. “I’m in the market for anything that will pay a decent wage.”
“Just so happens my receptionist is going off on maternity leave. I could use someone who’s personable and reasonably organized.” Dr. Moore smiled. “Think you might want to give it a try?”
“Sure, that’s awfully kind of you. But I’ve never been a receptionist before.”
“Two things,” said the doctor. “One: This isn’t brain surgery. It’s sitting behind a desk, answering the phone, taking messages, scheduling appointments, and making people feel welcome and less nervous than they probably are. And two: You can call me Nick when it’s the two of us. Just throw in the doc part when we’re in front of patients.”
Dillard smiled. “I think I can do that. When can I start?”
“She leaves in three weeks. Enough time for you to be off the crutches and to memorize your lines: ‘Dr. Moore’s office. How may I help you?’”
Dillard was surprised at how much he enjoyed his job as a receptionist. He liked having a place to go to every day. He liked his oak wood desk and the leather chair that had wheels on it, so he could roll back and forth to the filing cabinet without getting up. He liked the window behind his desk that looked out onto a giant Douglas fir, a year-round Christmas tree. Having been so mistreated at the resort, he took care to treat the patients with sympathy and respect. He called the ladies “ma’am” and the men “sir,” and kept a large jar of gumdrops on his desk for the kids. He flirted back with the women and their daughters and bantered with the men and their sons. Sometimes, when Nick needed an extra hand lifting a patient or holding down a child, he’d call Dillard into the examining room to help out. For a time, Dillard even considered studying medicine. But that was before Mr. Axelrod, an older man who worked as a custodian in the high school, came in with a gash in his leg from a broken window pane and bled all over Dr. Moore’s table. While Dillard was able to hold Mr. Axelrod’s hand while Dr. Moore sewed him up, the moment it was over he ran into the bathroom and vomited. That’s when he realized he’d best stick to music.
Still, Dr. Moore said Dillard was the best receptionist he’d ever had. He remembered the patients’ names and reassured them when they called with their questions or worries. Dillard had been there six weeks when, at the end of the day, Dr. Moore stepped out of his office, took off his white coat, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “How ’bout you and I leave all this blood and gore behind us, pick up a couple of beers, and go sit down by the lake?”
“Sure,” said Dillard, who had no other plans.
Because of a morning thunderstorm, the air at Lake Lure smelled of wet clay. Their feet squished in the mud. Nick took Dillard’s arm as he stepped over a log: “It gets slippery around here,” he said. “Gotta watch yourself.” Dillard was aware of the doctor’s strength and how he towered over him with his six-foot-three-inch frame. They found a dry patch of grass next to the lake. Its metallic surface was regaining its composure after the rains. “This is where I learned to swim,” said Nick. “If you can call it that. My older brother pushed me into the deep one day when I was around three. Like a dog, I paddled back to where I could stand.” He shook his head. “We humans have more animal instinct in us than we care to admit. I suppose that’s why we survive the things we do.”
Dillard thought back to when his mother walked out and how he’d felt as if he would die. He remembered after, how he and his father slept in the same bed for a while, curled around each other like cats. He told Nick about that, about his mother insisting on his long hair, how she’d told his father that she’d never loved him, the abuse he’d felt at the resort. Stories spilled out of him, personal things that he’d never talked about to anyone. There was something about Nick’s arching presence that made him feel safe.
Two beers in, Nick told Dillard that when he was five, the boy next door named Judah and he were cutting out paper rockets when Judah suddenly turned to him and sliced him in the face with his scissors. “The only memento I have left is this one.” Nick licked his upper lip where a J-shaped scar bifurcated it. “It bled like a sonofabitch, my lip and my chin,” he said. “I was so proud of myself because I didn’t cry. I just got up and went home. Shortly after that, Judah and his family moved away, and we never heard from them again.”
“Why’d he cut you?” asked Dillard.
Nick shrugged. “Why do grown men climb mountains or hunt deer? Because they can. Judah was two years older, but I was probably twice his size. Maybe that was his way of showing dominance over me? Primal instinct? We humans are a funny species, don’t you think? Because I’m a big guy, people assume that I like to fight, I’m good at sports. And you? You with your handsome face and big blue ones? People must make assumptions about you all the time.”
Dillard laughed. “I never thought of it that way. I always thought that girls were nice to me because of my good personality and my immense intellect.”
“I’m sure that’s part of it,” said Nick. “You and I, we’re members of the same tribe, separated only by time and circumstance.” Nick had a way of talking that was circuitous at times, but Dillard found it intriguing. His largeness, his kindness, the way he took care—all of these things were an enormous comfort to Dillard, who’d never felt taken care of.
Nick patted Dillard’s hand. “Gee, your hand is cold. Lemme have a look.” He studied Dillard’s fingers, and rubbed them where they were bluish. “You have Raynaud’s syndrome. Ever hear of it? Not enough blood gets to your extremities. Gotta be careful in the cold.”
Dillard didn’t move his hand, and in the evening dusk, Nick leaned into Dillard and whispered: “I feel like kissing you.”
“Me too,” said Dillard, surprised to hear those words come out of his mouth.
Nick tasted of beer and the earth and Dillard fell into the kiss as if it were home. When Nick folded his arms around him, he didn’t have to say, “I’ll take care of you.” The tenderness of his touch and the way he held him made that clear.
A man with no memory of a mother’s caress or a father’s dependable hugs can only fantasize about what they might have been like. But once he feels that touch, he knows without knowing how that this is what he has longed for always.
Nicholas Moore was forty-three, fifteen years older than Dillard, and four inches taller. He had thick, wavy black hair and that scar on his upper lip, which made his smile at once lopsided and endearing. Because he was tall and muscular and dressed in the conservative fashion of the day—solid oxford shirts, khaki pants, and cordovan loafers—people took him for ten years younger. His house, on a bluff at the edge of town, was a simple log one with a sloping roof, a big open porch, and a year-round view of the Smoky Mountains. He owned an old turquoise Chevy station wagon, which had just enough room for him, his wife, three children, and one German Shepherd. Until he met Dillard, his only indulgence had been cashmere socks.
The two of them became as inseparable as it was possible for two men in Skyville to be. Sometimes they’d leave work early and take walks together at Lake Lure. They kept bathing suits in the car in case they decided to jump in the water and cool off. They’d swim to the floating dock in the middle of the lake and lie in the sun. They befriended the lifeguard at the lake, who called them Doc and the Kid and never asked any questions. After work, they’d duck out to Dillard’s cabin, where Nick would whip up pancakes or mac and cheese. Sometimes, Dillard would play his flute. On the rare occasion when Nick could get away overnight, they’d go twenty miles away to Asheville and stay in one of the big hotels there. Nick wrapped Dillard in a cocoon of safety and love. He wrote Dillard letters, funny quips, or love notes that came by mail at least four times a week.
Once in a while, Dillard went to Nick’s house for dinner with his wife, Sharlene, and the kids. Sharlene was an English teacher who spoke formally and in complete sentences. Everything about Sharlene was neat. Her long, straight brown hair was held back on both sides by tortoiseshell barrettes and nicely framed her vase-shaped head. Her small brown eyes were close together, but perfectly congruent with her thin, straight lips, like those on a ventriloquist’s dummy. She and Dillard had an easy rapport; she’d recommend books to him, then they’d have long discussions about them. When Sharlene was being thoughtful or rendering an opinion, she’d bite down on the knuckle of the index finger on her right hand before she spoke, a habit he found touching.
Dillard taught the Moore boy, Zeke, how to play the drums and the twin girls, Eve and Ava, how to harmonize. The dog, Lucy, took a fancy to Dillard and would roll over on her back waiting to get her stomach scratched the moment Dillard walked in the door. With the Moores, Dillard had found a family the likes of which he’d never known. Anyone looking through the picture window of the Moore home would see that family, a happy and handsome one, the kind that trouble tends to ignore.
And for a long time, trouble did just that.
In late November, as the weather turned colder, Nick and Dillard were in bed when Nick looked at his watch and realized it was nearly seven. He kissed Dillard on the forehead and sat up. “I hate to do this, but I promised Sharlene I’d pick up the girls from Scouts.”
Dillard kissed him back, not on the forehead.
“Every time I leave you, pieces of my heart break apart,” said Nick.
“Me too,” answered Dillard in a sleepy voice. “But I’ll see you in the morning, Dr. Moore.”
Moved as he was by Nick’s sentimentality, Dillard was also amused by how overwrought his words could be. Dillard was Nick’s first male lover. Nick said he’d always liked girls; he didn’t know he had it in him. He told Dillard that he and Sharlene had met as teenagers and become best friends. They stayed that way until Nick entered med school, when marrying Sharlene seemed a logical step. “She took care of everything and supported me through those years. Without her, my life wouldn’t have worked. She’s the reason I became a doctor. She’s the one who’s basically raised our kids and taken care of the house. I love her, I really do. Just not in that way. I assumed that was the price I had to pay for the life, the kids, the profession, the whole shebang. Then you came along.”
In one of the many letters Nick wrote, he said, “When I met you, my hands, my heart, and my head abandoned all judgment. They would not rest until they possessed you. Nothing in my body or soul prepared me for the happiness I would discover with you, my Dill. I can’t imagine life without you.”
Dillard stayed in bed and watched Nick get dressed. Methodical down to the last detail, he never threw his shirt and pants on the floor, but folded them neatly, placing them on the wicker chair in the corner with his shoes and socks tucked directly underneath. As he slipped his loafer onto his left foot, a look of concern fell over his face. “Dill, have you seen my sock, the gray cashmere one with the white trim?” Nick held up the other sock to show him.
Dillard looked under the covers and on the floor. Nick got on his hands and knees to search under the dresser and behind the door.
“Odd,” said Nick when he sat up. “How can a sock get away just like that?”
“It must have a mind of its own,” said Dillard. “I’d blame the dog, but I don’t have one.”
“Funny,” said Nick, slipping his loafer onto his naked foot. “Well, if a cashmere sock turns up somewhere, you’ll know it’s mine.”
“Okay, I’ll remember that. What’ll you tell Sharlene if she notices you’re minus a sock?”
“Hmmm, I’ll tell her I was in a hurry and forgot to put it on.”
Dillard laughed. “Nobody who knows you would believe that. You’re far too meticulous to do something like that.”
Nick came and sat on the bed next to Dillard. “That meticulous thing is just for show,” he said, stroking Dillard’s face. “When it comes to matters of the heart, I’m a goofy slob. You know that, don’t you?”
Dillard took Nick’s hand and held it to his cheek. “You’re my goofy slob, that’s all I need to know.”
Nick kissed Dillard on the mouth and stood up. “Always will be.”
Before he left, he put on the new brown tweed flap cap he’d bought and pulled it down to the middle of his brow. Dillard shook his head: “I hate to say this, but you still have that bald spot, whether you wear a hat or not.”
Although Nick wasn’t a vain man, he took pride in his hair: the thickness of it, the way it curled around his ears, how there were just enough strands of gray in his sideburns to make him look distinguished. It was Dillard who’d noticed how the top had started to thin out a tiny bit. No bigger than a coffee cup stain, he told Nick. Nevertheless, it was enough to make Nick check out the spot in the mirror each morning and put his faith in the cap. Nick made the case to Dillard: “Hair follicles tend to release when the air around them is cool. The heat is what keeps them closed and stabilized, so it’s important for me to wear the cap and keep my head warm at all times.”
“Is this a scientific theory?” Dillard had asked.
“It’s Dr. Moore’s scientific theory, is what it is.”
“Sounds like bullshit to me,” Dillard had said. “But you look pretty sexy in the cap, so who cares?”
Dillard never did find Nick’s sock, and Nick never mentioned it again, although he now kept his socks on in bed, claiming his feet got cold on winter afternoons.
Sharlene invited Nick to spend that Christmas with the family. “It won’t be anything fancy, just a traditional holiday dinner with us and the kids. Please, you mustn’t feel it necessary to bring us presents, we have more than enough.”
Of course, Dillard ignored Sharlene’s instructions and brought her a leather-covered notebook with her initials; a Mr. Potato Head for Zeke; the soundtrack to Oklahoma! for Eve and Ava, twins who were obsessed with the movie; and a bag of Milk-Bone biscuits for Lucy. When Nick opened his present, a pair of gray cashmere socks with white trim, he shot Dillard a quick knowing smile.
They ate turkey and stuffing, green bean casserole, candied yams, and pecan pie. They sang Christmas carols around the piano and opened presents. Sharlene gave Dillard Lolita and Doctor Zhivago, and Nick gave him a blue stocking cap with the note reminding him to keep his “hair follicles warm.” As Dillard left, Sharlene kissed him on the cheek and said, “Thank you for sharing this special day with us. Your presence has simply added to the festivities.” He thanked her and said her pecan pie was the best he’d ever had.
If there was anything awkward about that day, Dillard missed it.