Hayden calls from rehab, collect. I accept the charges.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he says in that British lilt that I miss as soon as I hear.
“Really? What are you going to do, where are you going to go?”
Silence. Then, “Well, I really don’t have anywhere to go, except home to London, but I’m not ready for that yet. So I was wondering . . .” He drifts off. “Well, I was wondering if maybe I could stay with you, just for a little while, just until—”
I cut him off, unable to contain my excitement. “Yes, I would love it.”
“Really?” he asks.
“Come immediately. It’ll be like a minirehab.”
It’s decided that he will arrive tomorrow night, at eight. After we hang up, I walk around my studio apartment, grinning like a crazy person. It’s a tiny apartment, but no smaller than the rooms at rehab, and three of us fit into those at a time. Hayden can sleep on the sofa, like a pet.
He can curl up at night with the stuffed animal I will get for him.
At work the next day, we’re informed that we are finalists in the review for the Wirksam beer account. This means that instead of pitching against seven other agencies, it’s down to three.
“I have a really good feeling about this,” Greer confesses. Then, “It’s really too bad about Fabergé.”
Our perfume client has decided not to launch a new perfume. The account has gone into remission. I feel spared and am relieved that I don’t have to work on that account. I want to be as far away from Fabergé eggs as possible.
“Yeah, bummer,” I say sarcastically.
At work, Greer has a copy of Entertainment Weekly on her desk and I thumb through it. It’s amazing how many of the celebrities in there remind me of Foster from group. I’m hit by a pang. A pang of what, exactly, I’m not sure.
“I don’t like Meg Ryan,” Greer announces.
“Why?”
“I just don’t buy her ‘I’m so together’ bullshit. I think she’s really a very angry person inside.”
“Oh . . . kay,” I say. “We’re not projecting, are we, Greer?”
“Oh, fuck off,” she says.
Good. That’s the Greer I know and love.
I glance down at my desk drawer and there’s something sticking out, so I open it. The drawer is crammed with pages torn from magazines. “What the?” I say as I pull the pages out, unfold them. It takes me a moment to see that the pages were not just randomly torn out. They are beer ads. “Did you do this?” I say to Greer.
“Do what?” she says, leaning forward.
I unfold one of the ads, an ad for Coors, and show it to her. “This. Did you stuff all these in my drawer?”
“That’s weird,” she says in a way that makes me know she’s innocent. “Why would someone do that?”
I crumple them up and shove them into the trash can. I try to dismiss it as some sort of weird joke, but I can’t shake the creepy feeling. Somebody went to a lot of effort to pull those ads from magazines. Somebody put some real time into it.
It’s like something I would do myself in a blackout.
Hayden’s plane is delayed six hours. He arrives at two in the morning. We have a late dinner at a twenty-four hour restaurant in the East Village and then stay up until five, talking maniacally. Plotting, planning our sobriety. It’s amazing how drunk you can be without alcohol.
It’s unclear how long Hayden will stay. At least a couple of weeks. I’m thinking even a month or perhaps for the rest of my life. The only thing is, we made this agreement: if he relapsed, I have to ask him to leave. I can’t imagine him relapsing, because he’s so determined. And I know that I certainly won’t. Once I put my mind to something, that’s it. Of course, that was the whole problem in terms of cocktails.
I feel incredibly euphoric tonight. This must be that glorious Pink Cloud, God-rays shining through. With Hayden’s suitcases opened next to the sofa, and the sofa turned into a makeshift bed, the room feels highly occupied. I’m glad I’m not alone; instead of feeling cramped, I feel secure. At around five-thirty we crawl into our respective beds and sleep.
My alarm clock goes off at nine and wakes us both up. “Do you feel hungover?” I ask Hayden groggily.
“I most certainly do,” he admits.
“I don’t mean tired, I mean—”
“I know exactly what you mean,” he interjects. “I feel like I drank a bottle of wine. I even feel guilty.”
“Exactly!” I say, relieved that he feels it too. Relieved that I am not the only one who is so unaccustomed to happiness and the feeling of impending punishment that follows.
I climb out of bed and twist, trying to pop my back. “I have Group after work, so I won’t be home until like seven-thirty. If you want, we can go to the eight o’clock Perry Street meeting.”
“Great,” he says.
“What are you going to do today?” I ask.
He smirks. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe relapse.” He laughs. “Actually, I want to go speak to someone at Carl Fisher about perhaps doing some freelance music editing.”
I ask him who Carl Fisher is.
He tells me that they are a huge and famous publisher of classical music, that he’s worked with them before. I had forgotten that Hayden was not only a crack addict, but also a classical music editor. I think, Please don’t look at my CD collection: Madonna, Julia Fordham, one well-hidden Bette Midler.
There’s nothing to do at work but wait for beer news. So Greer and I make the most constructive use of our time by thumbing through magazines, making long distance calls and talking about other people.
“Is he cute?” she asks when I tell her Hayden has come to stay with me for a while.
I throw a pencil up at the suspended ceiling like a dart and it sticks. “No, it’s not like that at all, there’s absolutely no physical chemistry between us. We just click, you know, in other ways.” I tell Greer about what I heard at AA the other night, about the glass of water.
“God, that’s really insightful,” she says, trotting her paperclip pony across the top of the stapler. “It’s like really appreciating what you have, what’s in front of you.” She gazes out the window. “I need to remember that. I seem to fly off the handle too easily. And all my books say anger is really bad for your health.”
Aside from collecting crocodile handbags from Hermés and Manolo Blahnik slingbacks, Greer is an aficionado of self-help books.
“I wish I were an alcoholic. I mean, you’re getting all this really good therapy and all these insights from those alcoholic meetings.”
I do feel a little smug. But then my compassion kicks in. “You could be an alcoholic too,” I tell her.
“No,” she sighs. “I wouldn’t be a good alcoholic. I’d be the good wife of an alcoholic. I’m codependent. That’s why you and I get along so well.” She looks at me earnestly. “I’m glad you’re an alcoholic though,” she adds. “I mean, I’m glad you’re getting all this therapy, because I feel like I’m getting it too, secondhand from you.”
I smile at her like, You moron.
“No, I mean it, I’m practicing the same ‘letting go’ thing you are. I already feel like things are bothering me less. You’re really inspiring to me. I even have a sticky note on my refrigerator at home: LET IT GO.”
Then I realize what’s happening:Greer is shape-shifting. She is a puzzle piece who is reshaping herself to accommodate the newly reshaped me. More or less.
At Group, I talk about work. How it’s manageable, how I don’t feel obsessed with it. Actually, I explain, it’s the opposite. Then I tell everybody about how Hayden has come to stay with me for a while. I explain how we met in rehab. The group consensus is that this could be a very good experience, but to make sure we’ve established boundaries.
Foster speaks in sweeping, affirmative statements about how he’s going to ask his Brit to leave. He’s very confident, high-strung.
The group encourages him. “Yes, you should,” they say. It seems that Foster has been trying to get rid of the Brit for the six months that he’s been in Group. It also turns out that Foster has been in and out of rehab four times.
Three times I catch him looking at me, then looking away. I feel this strange, invisible connection with him. Like a current. I wonder if I am imagining it. I also wonder if there is any significance to the fact that last week, he was wearing a long-sleeved denim shirt and today he is wearing a tight white T-shirt.
Outside after group, I head off toward Park, walking quickly so I make it to Perry Street on time to meet Hayden.
Foster appears beside me. “Hey, Auggie, wait up,” he says, passing me a slip of paper with a phone number written on it. “I just wanted to give you my number, you know, in case you ever need to talk.” He winks. Or is it a twitch?
Alcoholics are always giving their phone numbers to each other. In fact, in rehab, I learned you’re supposed to ask for people’s phone numbers, in case you need to call somebody. And sure enough, I already have a collection of ten phone numbers from people I don’t know at Perry Street. I got six numbers my first night. “In case you need to talk, call anytime,” people say. Alcoholic friends are as easy to make as Sea Monkeys.
“Okay, great—thanks,” I say, slipping the number into the front pocket of my jeans. “I appreciate it.” I try to sound normal, casual. An experienced phone-number recipient, simply working the program.
“See ya next week then,” Foster says, smiling as he heads into the street, arm extended, a taxi stopping immediately, as if on cue.
As I walk to the Perry Street meeting I can feel the slip of paper in my pocket. It seems to contain a heat source.
Hayden’s waiting outside with two large cups of coffee. He hands one to me. “What happened?” he says, smiling, waiting.
“What do you mean?” I ask, taking the lid off the coffee, blowing some of the heat away.
“I don’t know,” he says. “You just look so happy.”
I laugh too hard. “I do?” Coffee sloshes over the edge of the cup onto my hand. “I don’t know, I guess it’s just the Pink Cloud. Wanna head inside?”
“I suppose. Oh, by the way,” he says casually as we’re taking our seats, “I never would have pegged you for a Stevie Nicks fan.”
I glare at him.
All through the meeting, I pay no attention to anything anyone says and instead sit there, silently concocting reasons to call Foster.
After Perry Street, we find a place around the corner from my apartment that has a Ping-Pong table, so we go there and play. We find a rhythm and actually keep the ball going for a good five minutes at a time.
Ping: Hayden thinks he’ll get some work from Carl Fisher.
Pong: I had a slow day at work.
Ping: Hayden went to the library and checked out some books.
Pong: I think I’m really attracted to a crack addict in my group therapy.
Dribble, dribble, dribble, the ball bounces off the table onto the floor. “What are you talking about, what crack addict?”
It seems best to play this casual. “It’s nothing,” I say, leaning over to retrieve the ball. “It’s just a feeling, you know. It’ll pass.”
He eyes me suspiciously. “You know better than this, Augusten,” he says, his British accent lending his words an extra helping of authority.
“I know, I know,” I say. “Nothing’s going to happen, it’s just this weird thing. He’s a mess, I would never get involved with him, besides there is NO WAY he would ever be attracted to me. He’s just friendly.”
We leave, head home.
“I’m going to keep my eye on you,” he warns.
When Hayden’s in the bathroom, I slip the number out of my pocket and stash it safely in my wallet. It gives me a little thrumming sensation in my chest knowing it’s there.
There’s a message on my machine. “Hi Augusten, it’s Greer. Listen, since tomorrow’s Friday and nothing’s going on at work, let’s just take the day off, a mental health day. Call me if that’s okay with you.”
Hayden and I spend the evening reading. He reads poetry. “God, I’m not sure reading Anne Sexton is such a good idea in early sobriety,” he comments.
I read a paperback novel, but must read each page twice because my mind won’t focus on the words. At ten, we turn off the lights and go to sleep. I lie awake for at least an hour, replaying the moment Foster handed me the phone number.
And then in a moment of shining epiphany, I realize I didn’t actually see him write the number down. Which means he must have written it down before Group. Which means at least once, he has thought about me outside of Group. Which means that whether consciously or subconsciously, this could have affected his choice of what to wear to Group. Which means that the tight white T-shirt could very well have been meant for me. Sometimes people compare gay men to teenage girls and they are correct, I realize. I think the reason is because gay men didn’t get to express their little crushes in high school. So that’s why we’re like this as adults, obsessing over who wore what white T-shirt and what it means, really.
“Are you asleep?” Hayden asks softly.
I mumble, as if I am half-asleep. Best to keep my obsessions to myself for now. Besides, nobody in rehab said there was anything wrong with having a little fantasy.
• • •
“I don’t know, I just feel lousy.”
I’m talking to Pighead on the phone. I called him to see if he wanted to do something since I have the day off. “Do you have a fever?”
He hiccups. “No, it’s just that these . . .” He hiccups again, midsentence. “Hiccups won’t go away.” Then he confesses, “I have a small fever, my head feels fuzzy.”
I’m at his house within fifteen minutes, and he looks awful. Pale and sweaty and the hiccups are almost constant. “I think you should call your doctor.”
“I already have,” he says. “She’s out of town, her message center is trying to get ahold of her so she can call me back.”
Virgil is hyperventilating, running from room to room, as if there’s about to be a thunderstorm. “Can you take Virgil out for a walk? I haven’t taken him outside yet.”
It’s nearly noon. Pighead always walks Virgil at around seven, before work. Even when he’s on vacation from work, like now.
I walk Virgil and the instant his paws hit the curb, his leg goes up and he pees. He pees for what feels like twenty minutes. I walk him around the block and I realize I am feeling a little bit of panic. And then I realize that the reason I am feeling this way is because I saw something in Pighead’s eyes that I have never seen before: fear.
Back inside the apartment, Pighead swears he’s fine and that he just needs to rest. He tells me there’s no reason for me to hang out. That he’ll call if he needs anything. I leave. The whole way home I have an uneasy feeling I can’t shake.
Hayden’s pouring boiling water into a mug when I come back to the apartment. “That was fast. Is your friend okay? Want some tea?”
I lean against the sink. “I don’t know Hayden, it’s strange. I mean, Pighead never gets sick.”
“But you said he has AIDS.”
“No, he’s HIV-positive, but he doesn’t actually have full-blown AIDS. I mean, he’s been positive for years, and nothing—not even a cold.”
“Well, it could just be a cold or something. But you need to not be in denial that it could be”—he hedges—“it could be something more.”
The word is heavy, leaden and falls on the floor between us making such a loud sound that neither of us say anything for a while. I don’t allow myself to even imagine that possibility.
Finally, I say, “They have new medications for AIDS now. It’s not like it used to be. People live with it.” As I say this, I recognize in my voice the same tone I use when I’m talking a client into an ad he doesn’t want. I’m selling.
Hayden smiles, blows on his tea.
“Too hot?” I say.
He nods his head. “Oh, by the way, your undertaker friend called you.”
“Jim? When?”
“While you were over at Pighead’s. Sorry, I forgot to tell you.”
“That’s okay, I’ll call him later.”
“He said he really needs to talk to you.”
A craving strikes. Before, I would have said I wanted a drink. I see now that what I crave is distraction. I don’t want to think about Pighead and his hiccups. I speed-dial Jim. “What’s up?”
“I met somebody,” he says. Jim is always meeting somebody. His somebodies usually last for a week. Or about as long as it takes for him to finally confess what he does for a living. Whichever comes sooner.
“Oh yeah, what’s she like?” I ask.
“She’s great,” Jim says. “A computer programmer. And she’s stacked.”
They met at Raven, a very dark and moody goth bar in the East Village that tends to attract people who are nocturnal and consider Diamanda Galas to be easy listening.
“Have you guys gone out . . .” I want to say, in daylight yet? But instead I say, “to dinner or anything?”
“Yeah, we’ve already made it past the three-date point. And guess what?” he says excitedly. “She knows I’m in prearrangements.”
“Jim, does she know what prearrangements means?”
“Yes,” he answers, annoyed, “she knows.”
I imagine a woman with pale skin, long black hair and black fingernails who wears black lace and is thrilled to have landed herself an undertaker. I see a black hearse sailing along a highway upstate, tin cans flying behind, a sign in shaving cream on the back window: JUST MARRIED! “Sounds great,” I say.
“We’re getting together tonight for drinks at this new place. I was wondering if you wanted to join us, so you can meet her.”
My first reaction is fear. I recall something spoken to me in rehab: If you walk into a barbershop, sooner or later you’ll get a haircut, Rae had said. So don’t go to bars. Don’t even think about it.
“Jim, I’d love to meet her. But I really don’t think I should be going to a bar.”
Hayden looks up from his book.
“Well, it’s not a bar really, it’s a restaurant. They have a bar, but it’s basically a restaurant.”
Hayden watches me, his eyes saying, whatsgoingon???
I’ll feel like a horrible friend if I don’t go. And as long as I’m aware of what I’m doing, I know I’ll be okay. “What time?” I ask Jim.
Hayden’s mouth opens, his eyes widen in disbelief.
“Eight.”
“Okay, give me the address.”
“Are you mad?” Hayden asks after I hang up.
“It’s not a bar, it’s a restaurant.”
“A restaurant with a bar,” Hayden argues.
“Look, I’ll be fine. I’ll walk in, meet this goth girl, have a seltzer and then leave.”
Hayden has turned into a mistrustful parent. He doesn’t even need to use words, he can use looks alone. There will be no drive-thru McDonald’s for me tonight.
The restaurant is in Soho, on Wooster Street. It’s easy to spot, because its fabulousness can be seen from a block away. Two huge French doors open out onto the sidewalk, and long, rich, red velvet drapes hang from each door and billow in the warm summer evening breeze. Inside, it’s so dark my eyes need time to adjust. For a moment I stand there in this unknown void. Gradually, it reveals itself to me. An expansive bar begins near the door and stretches back into blackness for what is probably miles. Low Moroccan tables are peppered throughout the converted loft space and the only light comes from small votive candles inside blue glass orbs on the tables and along the bar. Behind the bar, colorful liquor bottles are lit from below like fine art.
They look breathtakingly beautiful. Seeing them, I am filled with longing. It’s not an ordinary craving. It’s a romantic craving. Because I don’t just drink alcohol. I actually love it. I turn away.
Two women sit cross-legged on tapestry cushions at one of the tables, each with an exotic blue drink before them. Cigarette smoke curls up from their ashtray like a cobra. In the corner, I see a tall man in a suit whispering into the ear of a woman who looks like a young Kathleen Turner. Four gigantic, thick-bladed ceiling fans barely spin above my head. I realize that in Manhattan, this is the year of the ceiling fan. I could be in Madagascar, circa 1943, in a bar reserved for spies.
Jim is standing at the bar, talking animatedly with a woman, their backs to me. Relieved, I make my way slowly over to them, careful not to accidentally trip on one of the cushions, the low tables or some other unseen, impossibly exotic design element. This is the Kingdom of Heaven and I am only allowed to visit briefly. Sit on the floor, not a cloud.
“Hey, buddy,” Jim cheers as he sees me. “Holy shit, you look totally different, you look awesome.” His eyes are wide with vodka. I haven’t seen him for over a month. I have never seen him when I’m sober. In the hundred-watt bulb of sobriety, he reminds me of a train wreck.
He aims me at the tall, attractive blond woman next to him. “Augusten, Astrid—Astrid, Augusten.” We shake hands. Her hand is moist and cool, not from nerves but from the drink she is holding.
“Shit, man,” Jim says, giving me the once-over for the second time. “I gotta say, the way you look—hell, I wouldn’t kick you out of my bed.” He breaks into laughter and gives Astrid a playful wink. She laughs too, and takes a big swallow of her cocktail.
Jim forgets that two years ago, he in fact didn’t kick me out of his bed. We had been out until four in the morning when the bars closed and ended up at his apartment. When we woke up the next morning, we were together in bed, naked. We were both so horrified by the situation that neither of us ever spoke of it again. I am tempted to remind him now, but refrain.
The bartender glides over, as if propelled by silent jets attached to the heels of his Prada shoes. All bone structure and musculature, he’s a head shot that can also mix drinks. “What can I getcha?” he asks, using just one corner of his mouth. I am sure he has stood in front of his mirror for many hours saying this exact phrase, using this exact side of his mouth. If you asked, I bet he’d describe himself as A few degrees left of cool.
A Ketel One martini please, very dry with olives, I want to say. “Um, just a seltzer with lime,” I say instead. I might as well have ordered warm tap water or dirt. I feel that uncool. And suddenly, it’s like I can feel how depressing alcoholism really is. Basements and prayers. It lacks the swank factor.
“You guys okay?” the head shot asks Jim and Astrid, pointing at their drinks.
“We’ll have a couple more, same thing,” Jim says, giving Astrid a sideways glance that tells me he might have found his female drinking buddy after all.
“Done,” the head shot says with a polished kewlness that brings to mind images of nipple rings, Sudanese beatnik poets and quality nightlife.
Jim turns to me. “So I was just telling Astrid here about this family I’m dealing with at work.”
Thank God. A good undertaker story will take my mind off this place. “Yeah, what’s going on?” I ask.
Jim reaches for his glass, sees that it’s empty and looks at the bartender. I know exactly what he’s thinking. He’s thinking, Can’t you shake that thing any faster, Pretty Boy? “Anyway, like I was telling Astrid, I’m handling the arrangements for the daughter of this rich, snotty-fucking Park Avenue family.” He pauses while the bartender sets the drinks down on the bar. Both Jim and Astrid take immediate, thirsty sips. “And get this,” he says wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, “the mother actually asks me, ‘She will be safe in your building, won’t she?’ Man, I just looked at her like, Huh? I wanted to say, ‘No, I’m gonna dress her up in black fishnet stockings and red split-crotch panties. And then I’m gonna prop her up in my minivan and have her turn tricks for horny bums on the Bowery who are into girls with chilled and distant attitudes.’ ”
Astrid lets out a loud chortle and links her arm through Jim’s, sloshing liquid out of both of their glasses.
I laugh politely. I feel uptight, stiff. The phrase social lubricant comes to mind and I realize this is what I want, social lubrication. Cocktails. My mouth is dry and I take a sip of seltzer.
“I don’t get it,” he continues, shaking his head. “They’re just gonna plant her in a former landfill cemetery in Queens. And they want to know about her safety at the funeral home?” He contorts his features into a mask of disgust. “I mean, in two days this girl is gonna be under six feet of smelly earth with old Delco car batteries and used condoms resting on top of her. Shit. The stuff people worry about.”
I realize for the first time that part of what bonded Jim and me in the first place was that our jobs were a major reason we drank.
Jim turns to Astrid. “Hey, babe, you’ve been awfully quiet,” he says, placing his hand on her lower back.
I learn that Astrid is twenty-nine, Danish and once dated a guy who claimed he once slept with Connie Chung.
Jim kisses her cheek and then orders another round.
This is my cue: exit, Augusten, stage right. “I gotta take off you guys, I’ve got some work to do.” I turn to Astrid. “It was really nice to meet you.”
She looks at me as if she has just seen me for the first time. Jim looks stunned. “Hey, you leaving?”
“Yeah, I just wanted to pop by and say hi,” I say, resting my glass of ice and lime on the bar. I’ve gotta get out of this place now.
“Okay, well, thanks for coming, buddy. I’ll call you next week.” Then immediately he turns away from me and starts talking to Astrid.
“Cool,” I say, slap him on the shoulder. As I leave, I notice the head shot talking to an Asian model who is standing at the bar, probably fresh from a go-see. This makes me feel as cosmopolitan as skim milk. And I am somebody.
“I really wanted to drink. I didn’t. I didn’t even come close, but just being there, in that atmosphere, it was just like, powerful. It was the first time since I’ve been back that I really felt the alcoholic terrorist in my head.” It’s Monday and I’m sitting in Wendy’s office, confessing. Part of me feels guilty telling her this, like I’m breaking a confidence. Part of me didn’t want to admit that I wanted to drink with Jim and Astrid.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go to bars, but I’m glad that you’re being honest about how you feel, that you’re not just keeping this inside of you.” Then she asks, “Did you go to a meeting afterward?”
I tell her I didn’t. I came home and talked with Hayden about it until midnight.
“Next time something like this happens, it’s a good idea to force yourself to go to a meeting.”
Meetings are the Hail Marys of alcoholics. You can do or almost do anything, feel anything, commit any number of non-sober atrocities, as long as you follow with an AA chaser.
“After I cut off his penis, I sautéed it in rosemary butter and ate it.”
“But did you go to a meeting afterward?”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it, then.”
Wendy asks how things are going between Hayden and me. I tell her it’s great to have him around, how he takes his sobriety very seriously, how we’re both really good for each other. We spent the entire weekend going from AA meetings to movies to Ping-Pong.
She asks me how Group went last week. I tell her that I thought Group was very helpful. She says she thinks I’m doing well, that I’m “rising to the challenges of sobriety.” I nod and think, I’m actually getting away with this.
As I’m standing in the hallway, waiting for the elevator to take me downstairs, I hear behind me, “Auggie?” I turn to see Foster walking toward me. “What are you doing here?” he says.
“One-on-one with Wendy,” I tell him. I wish I had a longer answer. One that would take at least forty-five minutes to explain. In private.
“I just had my one-on-one with Rose. What a coincidence,” he says, shifting all his weight onto one leg and smiling at me.
“Yeah, funny,” I manage. My heart is racing in my chest.
The elevator arrives and we step inside. Foster breaks the elevator law by speaking. “So, ah, what are you up to now?” he asks.
I watch the numbers illuminate as we sink. “Oh, I don’t know, probably hit the gym.”
The elevator stops on the fourth floor, but nobody gets on. He sticks his head out, looks both ways, shrugs and pushes the DOOR CLOSE button.
We both look ahead and neither of us speaks until we reach the lobby. As we walk toward the main entrance Foster says, “You wouldn’t wanna go out for some coffee, would you?” Adding, “I mean, unless you gotta hit the gym right away.”
In as calm a voice as possible, I answer, “Yeah, sure, why not?” I don’t obey my first impulse, which is to jump up and down like a six-year-old and cry, Can we? Can we? Can we?
We walk to French Roast on Sixth Avenue and Eleventh. We take a table outside and order cappuccinos. There’s a light breeze that seems to have arrived via FedEx for this exact moment from a resort hotel in Cabo San Lucas.
“So, Auggie,” he asks me in his slow, thick drawl, “what’s your story?” He settles back in his chair like he intends to stay there for a while, like whatever I have to say is bound to be fascinating.
I love summer because the sun takes so long to set. The gold light is coming at us almost horizontally. I notice the dark chest hairs that peek out from the V of his shirt collar actually glisten. His eyes are so clear and blue that nothing but clichés enter my mind.
I smile, confident that the side lighting will accentuate the cleft in my chin.
He smiles. Cocks his head slightly to the right. Full dimples.
I look away. Look back.
Our cappuccinos arrive.
He’s surprised to learn that my Southern parents divorced when I was young and that my mother gave me away to her psychiatrist when I was twelve and that I lived with crazy people in the doctor’s house and never went to school and had a relationship with the pedophile who lived in the barn behind the house.
I’m surprised to learn that less than two months ago, he was in a crack hotel with a piece of broken bottle glass pressed against his neck. And that he knows, for a fact, he is unlovable. And he’s afraid to kick the Brit out of the apartment because he’s worried the Brit will kill himself.
“But in Group, you were saying how he hits you, screams at you all the time.” Even I wouldn’t put up with that shit. I’d deport his ass. “He sounds just awful.”
“I know, Auggie, he is awful. But I’m all he has. If I kick him out, where will he go?”
Fresh from rehab, I answer, “That’s his problem. He is his own responsibility, not yours.”
“Naw, he is my responsibility, in a way. He doesn’t have any money.” Foster scratches his collarbone and his biceps becomes the size of a large mango.
“Are you in love with him?” I ask impartially, sipping.
“No, I’m not in love with him. I never was. We were just two messes that got together and stayed together.” He laughs bitterly. “That’s me, a big ol’ mess.” He takes a sip from his cappuccino and asks, “So what about you? How’s your relationship going?”
“I’m not in a relationship,” I tell him.
“But . . . I could have sworn you said something about some guy named Hector living with you?”
“Hayden,” I correct. “And we’re not boyfriends, I met him in rehab. He’s just staying with me for a while before he goes back to London.”
Foster gives me a little smirk. “You sure there’s nothing going on?” He wipes some foam from his upper lip, then licks his finger.
“You think I wouldn’t know?” I say. Although in the past, it’s possible I wouldn’t have.
He laughs. “Sorry, it’s none of my business anyway.” He strains his neck to the right and there’s a crack, then he cracks it to the left. He looks at me. “But you are single?”
“Yeah, I am single. Unlike you.” There’s faint hostility in my voice and I regret it instantly. It gives me away.
He scratches his chin and smiles so slightly that a person wouldn’t notice unless that person were transfixed by his lips.
The waiter arrives with a book of matches and lights the candle at our table. I’m in the middle of horrifying myself, telling Foster all the details of my life. My crazy, psychotic mother, my mean, drunk father, my advertising career, how I used to have a wake-up service call me on my cell phone just so it would ring when I was out to dinner at a fancy restaurant in Soho with friends. When cell phones were new and the size of baguettes.
He flicks the light switch behind his blue eyes. “So what do you find attractive in a guy?” As he asks this he slings one arm over the back of the chair next to him.
I gaze at the arm like a dog watching bacon and stammer. “Oh, you know. Hard to say, really.”
“Gimme a hint,” he says.
“I hate this question—okay—I guess, somebody with a lot of substance; someone who’s funny and smart and reads and is crazy but not too crazy.” Then I add, “I sound like a really bad personal ad here.”
He laughs. “What about physically? What physically draws you to a guy, what qualities?”
I reach for my coffee, see that it’s empty. Foster catches this and he picks up his mug and pours the contents of it into mine. “So?” he says.
“This is embarrassing,” I begin. “I have this really shallow . . . attraction . . . to furry arms.” I space my words out so that the fact can be diluted.
He laughs in a way that reminds me of a huge, fragrant glass of red wine. His laugh is expansive. He nods his head. I feel like some straight guy on a date with Pamela Anderson who has just told her, I love big nipples.
As he laughs, he casually unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt, rolls up his sleeves and then rests his furry arms on the table in front me. “I’m not laughing at you,” he goes on. “I’m laughing because I also have this really specific thing I’m attracted to.” He’s grinning wickedly.
“What’s that?”
A breeze passes over the nape of my neck. I feel stoned, like I’ve smoked a joint.
“I’ve got this . . . thing . . . you could say, for guys with cappuccino foam on their upper lip.” He winks or twitches again.
Without taking my eyes off his, I swipe my index finger above my lip, then pull it away and look: cappuccino foam, of course. “Is that right?” I say, probably bright red. I’m drunk from the attention.
“That is very right,” he drawls in a way he has to know is sexy.
“Can I get you something else?” the waiter asks.
“No, that’s okay,” I say. I glance at my watch because I’ve seen people do it in movies. “I guess I should head home.”
“Okay, Auggie,” he says with something that my feeling chart might lead me to believe is hopefulness, sadness and disappointment. I get the feeling he would stay here all night.
I reach for the check, but he snatches it up. He glances at it and reaches into the pocket of his jeans. He pulls out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill and tucks it under the candle so it doesn’t blow away.
We get up from the table, go to the corner. We stand there for a moment just looking at each other. “See you at Group tomorrow,” he says finally.
I want more of him. In the same way that if he were a martini, I’d want a few more rounds. “See you tomorrow. Bye.”
We both wait to see who will walk away first. He does. But then he pauses and turns back. And it hits me that I haven’t felt this infatuated with anybody since Pighead. It was a feeling I never wanted to lose. And to feel it again, even in this tiny, embryonic form, is wonderful.
We leave in opposite directions. He goes home to his British alcoholic boyfriend. I go home to my British alcoholic/crack addict roommate. As I walk, I say to myself, These feelings are for Foster, right? They’re not still for Pighead, are they? I answer myself that the feelings are indeed for Foster. I’m certain of it. Almost one hundred percent certain.
I haven’t felt romantic toward Pighead for years. The way it started with us, you’d think we’d be a blissful, nauseating couple by now, finishing each other’s sentences and making our friends not want to be around us. I was intoxicated by his suits, his smell, the way he threw language around like it was a volleyball. Pig-head, the investment banker, always had an answer for everything and could argue you into believing anything.
We always had to have dinner at the “it” restaurant. We always drank the “it” drink. We went to clubs where extremely handsome people danced, and we danced with each other. We had sex, we went home to our separate apartments and then we had phone sex.
Pighead could never be caught, and this made me try. But then I got sick of trying. And then he got sick and all of a sudden it was like, “Okay, you can have me now.” Except I didn’t want him by then. It had been too much effort to get over him.
All I had to do was picture him on the beach at Fire Island, in those bright orange trunks, talking to the guy who was a dancer, while I stayed behind, walking the dog, letting him pee in the shrubs. Pighead actually had the nerve to get the guy’s phone number. “What’s the fucking problem?” he said. “We’re not married. We’ve had this discussion, Augusten. I love you but I don’t want to feel trapped.”
So naturally, I spent months trying to kill him with my thoughts.
And then he was diagnosed and suddenly, a new Pighead emerged who was unafraid of commitment, who said things like, “Let’s build a life together.” To which I responded, “Do you think I should wear the black jacket or the brown one on my blind date tonight?”
On Tuesday, I’m standing at the urinal at work taking a leak when I hear the door to the men’s room open, then Greer shouting, “Augusten, are you in there?”
“Yeah, what is it?” How annoying of her.
“You need to hurry up, Pighead is on the phone. He’s calling from the hospital.”