I JERKED AWAKE to the sound of someone in the kitchen. It took me a moment to orient myself to my new surroundings, as strange sunlight illuminated a foreign bedroom. Richard was beached on the opposite coast of his king-size mattress, snoring loudly, in no position to tackle an intruder. I shivered as I grabbed my bathrobe off the cold concrete floor and made my way to the kitchen.
It was just Evan. He stood by the sink, wearing nothing but a pair of tight briefs that contoured his cock with alarming precision. He shot me a lazy grin as he pulled a case of eggs from the refrigerator.
“Morning,” he said, cracking an egg in a bowl.
“What are you doing?”
“Making breakfast for you guys.” He tossed a shell into the sink.
“I’ll do it.”
“But Richard asked me to—”
“I said, I’ll do it,” I snapped.
Evan shrugged. “Suit yourself. He likes his eggs fluffy with just a little sprinkle of shaved cheddar on top. And whatever you do, don’t add chives.” He laughed bitterly but failed to let me in on the joke.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
“You sure you can handle him on your own?” he asked, clutching his chest in a parody of concern. He shot me the same smug stare I’d seen in that society-page photo. Jealousy constricted my breath.
“Yes,” I grumbled.
“Loosen up.” He swatted at me playfully. “I’m only offering a little help.”
“Next time, keep your mouth shut unless I ask you to open it,” I grumbled just loud enough for him to hear. Evan’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. A tense silence swelled between us.
Suddenly, he exploded into laughter. His rapid squeals echoed through the kitchen like a strange, strangled alarm. “Oh, honey, I don’t think that’s how you want to play this.”
“Sorry, that came out wrong.” Embarrassment flushed my cheeks. “I’m just—”
“Trust me,” he snapped, his smile flattening. “You want me as your friend.”
“Where’s Evan?” Richard barked. I wheeled around to discover him frowning in his bathrobe. “I told him we wanted breakfast this morning.”
“Relax. I said he could go. I want to make breakfast for you.”
“Did he tell you about my chive thing?” Richard asked with a wary, childish whine.
“Yes. I’ve got this.”
Richard loosened a little, though clearly the change of plans bothered him. He was not one to relinquish control lightly, even when it came to eggs.
But if there was one thing I knew how to make, it was breakfast. Growing up, I spent every Saturday morning in the kitchen with my mother cooking a pancake feast while my father worked on his sermon in the study. That was love—standing above the mixing bowl with my mother’s arms around me, both our hands clasping the wooden spoon as we stirred together, a pile of freshly washed blueberries glistening beside us. She always smelled like detergent. We’d stir the batter to the rhythm of laundry in the dryer, a gentle cadence to underscore our perfect, tender ritual.
I cooked that same meal for Richard, hoping to replicate the familial intimacy, hoping I was still worthy of love. I loaded the table with an unending supply of pancakes and eggs and hash browns and grits. The sting of coffee cut through the smell of butter in the air. Richard devoured everything I placed in front of him. After my work was done, I joined him, sweaty from the stove, bursting with affection.
“Dear Lord, that was good!” He slapped his belly in surrender and nuzzled me close. “You’re incredible.”
“No, you’re incredible.” I planted a kiss on his cheek.
“All right, I have dish duty.”
“No, you don’t have to—”
“Of course I do. You made our gorgeous feast, I get to clean it up.”
Richard cleared the table and I retired to the couch with my laptop. My cursor hovered over the file containing my play. I felt inspired to begin my revisions, encouraged by my discussion with Richard the night before. A concentrated silence fell over the house as Richard rinsed dishes and I settled into my work.
After about thirty minutes, Richard came hunting for me, dishrag over his shoulder. “What are you doing,” he whimpered playfully. “I miss you.”
“I’m working. Someone’s gotta make the money around here.”
“Fine. I’ll just go back to being the houseboy.” Richard threw his dishrag at me and tackled me with kisses. “You know, Charles is coming out this weekend. I’m sure he’d be willing to read your play once it’s finished. He’s looking for up-and-coming playwrights for this new programming initiative he’s working on for Lincoln Center. Might be a good fit.”
“Okay, cool. That sounds good.” I tried my best to sound unimpressed, but my voice wavered with excitement.
“He gets in tonight with everyone else. We’re all having dinner together.”
I showered before dinner, guts in a twist. These were Richard’s closest friends. My performance mattered. I toweled off and changed into a crisp Marc Jacobs button-down. Richard, still in his boxer-briefs, frowned at me.
“Where do you think you’re going? Le Cirque?” he snapped. “It’s just dinner at Ira and Ethel’s.”
“I’ll change,” I sputtered, embarrassed.
Richard shook his head and put on a loose beige T-shirt. “We’re at the beach.” He sighed. “Relax.”
I changed into a T-shirt. Richard laughed off the exchange, but a tense silence fell as we walked along the stone path that connected his house to Ira and Ethel’s. Dusk settled onto the field. Ira and Ethel’s glass-walled home appeared on the horizon, a sharp square of light cut into the encroaching darkness.
“You must be Richard’s new beau,” Ethel gushed when she opened the door. She swept me into a warm hug. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
Ira followed Ethel’s greeting with a more formal handshake, and the couple invited us into their home. Ethel was in her early seventies, though she could’ve passed for an eerie fifty-five, her face gored flat by the knives of well-paid surgeons. She wore a casual white linen pantsuit on her thin frame and a simple gold necklace dotted with four small diamonds. Ira was shorter than his wife—he couldn’t have been more than five six—and flitted about neurotically, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses with compulsive regularity. He wore a loose Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and tight gray ankle socks.
“If you don’t mind taking off your shoes . . .” Ira said, eyes widening as I approached the white shag carpet.
“Oh, of course.” I jumped back like the rug had bitten me.
“Thank you, dear,” Ethel said as she handed me a cocktail. “Campari and soda?”
“We guzzle them like water around here,” Ira chimed in with a conspiratorial grin aimed my way. “It’s the drink of the summer.”
The drink of the summer. It was the exact wording of my inane assessment of Charles’s beverage at Perdition earlier that week. Had Charles gossiped about our encounter? Was Ira’s comment merely coincidence, or was he mocking me? My thoughts became a muddled cocktail of anxiety, paranoia, and Campari. I downed my drink with a speed that led Ethel to raise her expertly plucked eyebrows.
“Someone’s thirsty,” Ethel remarked, pulling me away from Ira and Richard. “Shall I give you the grand tour while you still have the ability to remember it?”
“Sure.” I laughed. “I didn’t mean to down this so fast, it’s just delicious. I swear I’m not a budding alcoholic.”
“You’d be in good company if you were. Just wait until Charles shows up.”
Ethel guided me away as Ira and Richard huddled in the corner, deep in conversation. The house was a modern open concept with smooth concrete floors and the same lofted ceilings as Richard’s. A ten-foot-long table made of reclaimed wood and supported by thin iron legs stretched across the dining area. It was set with charming mismatched china, linen napkins, polished silver, and wineglasses. A marble island marked the beginning of the kitchen. Evan was hunched by the stainless-steel stove, laboring over crab cakes. He caught my stare and gave me a sarcastic thumbs-up.
I hated him.
“I hope you like crab cakes, dear,” Ethel trilled.
“They’re my favorite,” I lied. It seemed far too late to mention my crab allergy.
Ethel’s phone buzzed, and she excused herself. I lingered by the kitchen island, afraid to enter Richard and Ira’s discussion. They wore concerned expressions, frowning into their Camparis. Ethel paced outside, iPhone glued to her ear. An irrational fear gripped me: Everyone is talking about me.
Suddenly, Evan dropped a plate of crab cakes. The room fell silent as he crouched over a mess of broken china and chunks of fried meat.
“Help me,”he snarled.
I pretended not to hear him.
The remainder of the guests soon drifted in from their various corners of the compound. Charles arrived drunk, carrying a cocktail transported from his own property. Sandro was next to appear, accompanied by Kristen Sloan (“It’s Krissie,” she scolded me with an impatient smile when I accidentally greeted her with a full-blown “Kristen”). She was staying in Sandro’s guest room for the night but flying to Portugal via private plane tomorrow.
Several waiters appeared from nowhere and joined Evan in serving the guests. The waiters were all gay males in their early twenties and wore matching black T-shirts that accentuated their muscled torsos. They said nothing and circulated around the room with Campari sodas on metal trays. There seemed to be three of them, though it was possible there were four; their clean, pretty faces were difficult to differentiate. The staff-to-guest ratio seemed excessive, but lewd stares from Sandro, Charles, and Richard explained the superfluous manpower. I didn’t know any of the waiters personally, but I knew the type. In my parallel life, I was one of them.
But not tonight. Tonight, I was miles from Perdition, and I felt superior to the hired beef. I made a point to frown at each waiter as he approached with his tray and triceps and perfect teeth. I am not one of you, my nasty squint implied. I prayed the rest of the room thought the same.
When Richard and I were in New York, meals with his friends went one of two ways: good or bad. A Good Dinner meant that our dining companions asked me questions and took me seriously as a person. A Bad Dinner meant I sat in silence, unable to find an entry into the conversation, cast in the role of mute bimbo. Jokes would be made about my age, my silence, my appearance. If people were cruel, Richard would compensate with performative kindness afterward—he bought me ice cream, he bought me books, he bought me sweaters from Dries Van Noten. I almost came to enjoy the Bad Dinners; the dread I felt during them was cut with a Pavlovian anticipation of gifts. But tonight we were miles from the nearest Bloomingdale’s—if things went badly, my humiliation would go unrewarded.
Ethel clapped her hands, silencing the small talk. “Shall we take our seats?”
My throat was on fire. Failing to disclose my crab allergy had been a critical error; the single, polite mouthful I’d consumed had triggered a reaction. I chugged the water in my glass, hoping to cool my burning esophagus. Panic shortened my breath, making it difficult to distinguish anxiety from anaphylaxis.
Do I need a doctor? I wondered.
“You’ve barely touched your crab cake, dear,” Ethel cooed from across the table. “I thought they were your favorite.”
“Just . . . savoring . . .” I coughed.
Evan stood sentinel in a corner of the room, supposedly at our service. I motioned for him to refill my water glass. He stayed put, choosing instead to look directly through me. With no other recourse, I downed an entire Campari soda. The alcohol hit my oxygen-deprived brain with surprising speed. The room spun as I caught kaleidoscopic flashes of my dining companions: Richard’s lips greased with tartar sauce, Ethel’s dentures caked in succotash, the food jammed beneath Ira’s yellowed fingernails, the meat spilling off Sandro’s plate. Nausea roiled my gut as their piggish symphony crescendoed; everyone scooped and chewed and chugged until finally Richard interrupted.
“I have a bit of news,” he announced from his seat to my left. “Amy Pascal wants to adapt Flesh and Blood at Sony.”
“That’s great if you want Satan’s midwife to fuck your script to death,” Charles barked, gnawing on a crab cake as he spoke.
“She tears everyone’s work apart,” Sandro concurred. “Unless you’re Aaron Sorkin.”
“But aren’t I basically Aaron Sorkin?” Richard whined.
“Um, no?” Charles laughed. Meteors of crab meat rained onto his shirt, collecting in a greasy constellation on his chest.
“You know what I mean. I’m worth Aaron money. I deserve Aaron respect.”
A smear of tartar sauce hung from Richard’s waxen jowls. Sweat cascaded down my forehead as I assessed the mass of dried mayonnaise, weighted perilously by a green-gray caper. Was it my responsibility to say something? My throat constricted further at the thought of interrupting the conversation.
“Do you not like it?” Ethel whispered, glaring at my uneaten food like it was a dead rat. “I would hate to think our cuisine isn’t up to your . . . standards.”
“No! No . . . it’s delicious,” I wheezed, eyes watering.
“Then eat up,” she snapped. My heart pounded in protest as I placed another bite in my mouth.
“Well, I say you do it if Amy backs up the money truck,” Ira said to Richard.
“Beep, beep, beep!” Charles screeched, a string of saliva stretching between his lips.
“It’s more like a money minivan.” Richard sighed.
I discreetly spit the mouthful of crab into my napkin. It was too late, however; a fresh inferno blazed through my mouth. I felt dizzy, strangled anew. I turned to look for a waiter. And there was Evan again. Staring at me. I motioned for water as he approached my seat. He placed another crab cake on my plate instead. Murder crossed my mind.
“No . . . I . . . need water,” I whispered. But he just floated back to his corner.
“How much are they offering?” Krissie inquired, pushing uneaten chunks of congealed meat around her plate. Her fork issued small, spine-tingling shrieks as it grated the china.
“Eight hundred and fifty thousand.” Richard pouted.
“Holy shit.” I coughed, almost involuntarily. Everyone turned to me in shock, as if a houseplant had spoken. “That’s a lot . . . right?”
The room burst into laughter. Shame flushed my already burning face. My neck blistered. Fire ants crawled beneath my flesh. Where was the nearest hospital?
“How do you think Richard puts crab cakes on the table, darling?” Charles gesticulated with his Campari soda, spilling some on his shirt in the process. “He makes money.”
“Aaron Sorkin got two point five million for The Social Network, you know,” Richard grumbled. “Just for the script fee. Now he gets another million because it’s getting made.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so, so sorry,” Krissie said as if someone had died. “You’re a living genius.”
“Oh, stop.”
“You deserve so much more.”
My vision blurred; adrenaline raced through my system. Yes, I needed a doctor. But the thought of interrupting dinner to announce my medical emergency was almost as anxiety-producing as the emergency itself. Suddenly, a bowl of tartar sauce appeared in front of me. Perhaps a spoonful could quell the fire in my throat. A whiff of eggy vinegar stung my nostrils. My stomach churned.
“You’re right, Krissie,” Richard said. As he spoke, the chunk of crusted tartar sauce was dislodged from his jowl and plummeted into the sauce in front of me. I nearly retched but still forced a heaping spoonful into my mouth. The tepid dose did the trick; my windpipe began to cool as my panic receded.
I closed my eyes. Relief at last.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we seem to be putting our poor guest to sleep!”
My eyes snapped open. Charles aimed a bitchy grin in my direction. A hunk of meat glistened in the greasy tangle of his beard.
“Oh, no, I was just—”
“I’m so sorry, my friends are unbelievably tedious,” Charles slurred, a trace of acid in his tone. “Tell us, Jonah, what do you think about your poor boyfriend’s paltry script fee?”
Everyone looked in my direction. I coughed. “I mean . . . eight hundred and fifty thousand . . . it’s, like, not enough?”
Charles clutched his chest in mock horror. “Not enough? But it’s almost one million dollars, Jonah! That’s so much money.”
“But, I mean, everyone just said it wasn’t enou—”
“How could you be such a greedy little boy?” Charles roared, slamming the table with sudden, inexplicable violence.
“I . . . I’m not,” I stuttered, staring at my plate, clenching my jaw, determined not to cry.
An awful silence descended as the room waited for Charles to respond. But he refused, opting to snatch his tumbler and down the rest of his drink instead. We were all his hostages, forced to watch as he tilted his head back and chugged, his neck constricting like a snake’s stomach, his Adam’s apple the bobbing prey.
“Oh, leave him alone, Charles,” Richard snapped, coming to my rescue.
“I’m just teasing, Jonah.” Charles smiled suddenly, as if his outburst had never occurred. “You’ve been a delightful addition to the conversation.”
There was no doubt: This was a Bad Dinner. A Very Bad Dinner.
“I hope everyone saved room for dessert,” Ethel chirped.
“No one responded to my e-mail, by the way,” Richard complained later that evening. There was a brief pause as all the guests glared at their rhubarb crisp.
“Oh, this is about that GLSEN benefit thing?” Ira inquired innocently.
“Yes. I didn’t shell out a hundred thousand dollars for a table so I could eat alone.”
“Oh, my, that’s about one-eighth of a Richard Shriver screenplay,” Charles quipped with feigned alarm.
“Shut up, Charles.” Richard rolled his eyes. “You guys said you would come.”
“What’s it for again?” Sandro asked, bored.
“Homeless gay youth.” Richard pouted.
“Don’t you do enough in that arena as is?” Charles cocked his head toward me. Everyone let out an astonished chuckle. Each jab from Charles sent me spiraling further; the more he humiliated me, the greater my desperation for his approval. This was Richard’s best friend, his former partner, the man who could dramatically alter the trajectory of my career. Self-hatred raged through my mind: Say something, you idiot. You deserve a seat at this table, so fucking prove it.
“Richard gave me only a thousand bucks for rent,” I deadpanned. “Do you love these other homeless kids more?” I turned to Richard with a mock-pitiful look and everyone erupted in laughter.
“Richard, why so cheap?” Charles followed up, and they howled louder.
Victory. It was Richard’s turn to blush now. I felt a surge of relief as approving faces beamed in my direction. I was a gay phoenix, rising from the ashes of a Very Bad Dinner.
“Well, well.” Charles smirked, impressed. “Look who came to hang with the grown-ups.”
“Really, I admire the homeless for their sense of style,” I continued, on a roll. “I mean, actual garbage bags are preferable to the trash Rick Owens debuted at Paris Fashion Week this spring.”
As I said this, I had the disconcerting experience of hearing my own voice from outside my skull, as if my consciousness were separate from the strange machine of my body. The cumulative stress of the evening—the adrenaline and the booze and the shame and those poison crab cakes, that wretched meal—felt like a rush of helium. I was floating high above the room, hanging from the rafters, watching the group of people below. I made more jokes about homeless gay youth, and I wondered who this callous person talking was, this stranger who bore an uncanny resemblance to Jonah Keller. How quickly he threw those homeless kids under the metaphorical bus when recent events had left him precariously close to a similar fate. How easy it was for him to throw empathy out the window. What would his parents think? His mother would be disgusted. Her son had succumbed to the wicked homosexual lifestyle. And his father? His father would be unsurprised. He knew firsthand the evil of which Jonah was capable. His son was beyond hope, beyond the grasp of God’s grace.
His son was unworthy of love.
As this spell of dissociation grew stronger, panic coursed through my body, and I fixated on a memory of my father—that Sunday before church when he gripped my shoulders and shook my body as if he could exorcise my gayness with abuse, a one-punch cure, and then slapped my face and slammed me against the wall of framed photos in our foyer, knocking my third-grade school picture to the ground. I heard the glass shatter and felt my father’s hands on my shoulders; I was in Ira and Ethel’s home in Southampton but I could hear that glass shatter and I could feel my father’s hands on my shoulders. I fell silent and the conversation moved on and pain shot down my spine and suddenly Charles appeared, tumbler in hand.
“For you,” he barked, shoving a Campari soda in my face. “I like you.”
I grabbed it like a life jacket and let the cool glass float me back to the room and my body. I was very drunk but downed the bitter liquid anyway. Anything to stop the flashbacks.
“Sorry about before.” He giggled mischievously. “I can be a bit of a tease.”
“You can tease me all you want, baby,” I flirted drunkenly. Now that I had his approval, I was desperate to keep it.
“Be careful what you wish for.” Charles laughed as he pulled up a seat next to me. “Richard tells me you’re a playwright. A good one.”
“I am,” I slurred. “Well, I’m a playwright. I don’t know about the good part.”
“I’d love to read some of your stuff,” he said, placing a hand on my knee. “Richard says you’re revising a play?”
He massaged my thigh. A web of veins covered his fist. I looked down for a beat too long and came back up, blushing.
“I can definitely, um, send you the draft when it’s done,” I said dumbly.
“I’d like that.” Charles stared at me with an unnerving focus, moving his hand toward my crotch. My cock stiffened.
“Come on, I want to show you something,” Charles said, rising from his chair.
I paused for a moment, then followed him. I glanced back to locate Richard, who had moved to a couch with Sandro and Krissie. He laughed at something Krissie said, gave me a little wave, then returned to his conversation.
Charles was already out the sliding glass door, not even checking to see if I’d follow. I slipped out behind him and was suddenly hit by a hot cloud of honeysuckle air. I slid the door shut and caught Evan’s eye through the glass. He frowned and whispered something to one of the waiters.
I rushed to catch Charles in the darkness.
The rest of the night happened in sick fragments separated by stretches of black. It was like watching a movie while fighting sleep; I kept nodding off, unable to track the plot.
I was on the stone path several paces behind Charles. Small spotlights on the trail hit his feet as he jerked past them, drunk. Tall grasses scratched my legs.
Black.
Then: I was in the wildflower field. Charles was gripping my forearm, dragging me through dark brush. I tripped, but he didn’t slow or loosen his grasp. I stumbled behind as he marched faster, his nails digging into my flesh.
Black.
Then: We were outside a small, windowless building with steel siding that was dwarfed by the tall iron wall behind it. We must have been somewhere on the edge of the property. Charles stood several feet in front of me, sifting through keys in the dark. Another waft of honeysuckle hit my nostrils, but this time the smell was too sweet. I felt the sting of rejected Campari rise in my throat and I bent at my middle and vomited on the grass. Charles looked up from his keys, frowned, and stumbled toward me. I collapsed in the grass and let the earth cool my face as my eyes shut. I did not want to enter that building.
Black.
Then: Evan’s voice above me, arguing with Charles. Their feet planted on the grass directly in front of my face. “Don’t,”Evan insisted; the rest of his plea faded with my consciousness.
Black.
Then: my body floating through darkness, buoyed up by strong, male hands.