In the apartment Fenn said, “Take that look off your face and do this for me. He needs our help. I told him you’re just that kind of person, so please, Tom, fucking be this kind of person.”
Tom, hands on hips and brow furrowed looked out the window to the courtyard where Dan was arriving.
“You’re a church organist at a Catholic college who works in religious music. You’re supposed to be a Christian.”
“I am a Christian.”
Fenn sighed, went toward the kitchen for a bottle of wine and said, “Then take your hands off your hips and quit frowning. I’ll still suck your dick later on if that’s what’s making you mad. It’s just you’ll have to be really quiet while I do it.”
“No, no,” Fenn said with honesty, “I don’t think they’ll ever be friends.”
“Well, consider this,” Tara said, “Most people’s exes never meet their current boyfriends, and you got yours to sleep in the same house.”
“What about you and Tonya?”
“Please don’t ask about me and Tonya.”
Fenn sighed. “I always thought it would be easier being a lesbian. I always thought it would be less drama.”
“Are you insane?”
“Well, that was my fantasy,” Fenn justified.
“Well, I wish I could live inside of your head,” Tara told him. “You know where my luck runs? Women who are much too old, and much too sad. Or women who have one leg, or are three hundred pounds, or cripples—and I know they need love too, but seriously! Or even, once, when I was working in a group home—a retarded woman.”
“You had a retarded girlfriend?”
“No, Fool. Well, I think in her mind I was her girlfriend. But when you look at what I’ve dealt with, then you understand Tonya wasn’t so bad at all.”
“Compared to them.”
“Well, there’s nothing else to compare her too. Except a vision in my head.”
Then Tara added, “You were lucky. And maybe you think with Dan you weren’t lucky, but it seems to me you were lucky twice.”
“You’re right,” said Fenn. “So lucky and so soon. It doesn’t seem fair or right. It makes me wonder when it will all fall apart.”
Tara looked at him.
“What?” said Fenn.
“Did you seriously just say something that depressing?”
“You’re my best friend. You’re supposed to be privy to all of my depressing thoughts, and then I go back into the light of day with a smile on my face.”
But it did not fall apart. What happened was Tara moved in with them. Tom was more than glad to have her, and life became a real party. Fenn and Tara went to work for the radio station, hosting the afternoon slots and a small call in show. This delighted Tom to no end, and then toward Christmas Tom asked Fenn: “Can you get a few days off?”
“I don’t know,” Fenn said. “I hope. I’ll ask. Why?”
Tom, in his black slacks, white shirt and red tie looked shy and pleased with himself. He put his hands behind his back then reached out one to touch Fenn.
“You’re passport’s in order, right?”
“I haven’t used it yet, but I was supposed to—”
“Shush,” Tom put a finger to his lip. “This winter I’m playing Bach. In Europe. You’re coming with me.”
“Well, damn,” Tara swore. “I am jealous as hell.”
“I feel very awkward,” Tom said. “You are part of our household, but I’m allowed only one companion.”
“Shut up, Tom,” Tara said. “Look,” she turned to Fenn, “this is a great trip for the two of you, and it means an apartment all to myself. Besides, someone’s got to work at the station while you’re gone.”
“It’ll only be two weeks,” Tom said.
“I can’t believe they let me go,” said Fenn.
“Of course they let you go,” Tara shrugged it off. “They knew you would quit otherwise.”
Fenn discovered that he liked flying well enough if he was doing it with Tom next to him. Tom had seen his fair share of airplanes. This was actually Fenn’s first.
“You come off as so cosmopolitan all the time,” Tom noted.
“And now I seem like a rube?”
Tom turned from the window overlooking piles of clouds, stuck out his tongue and said, “A little.”
“You’re sort of horrible.”
Tom kissed him quickly.
“You are the most—” Fenn began. “You really don’t care! When I met you, you didn’t know what you were, and now you just never care about what you do with me out in public.”
“Why should I?” Tom shrugged. “Why should I care what people I don’t know may or may not feel? They may look at us and say, ‘What’s that short man doing with that hot Black guy—’”
“I bet they never say that—”
“Or they may say, ‘What an abomination!’ I don’t care. And when I get to Europe and I’m playing all this classical organ that I know you don’t care about—”
“Of course I do.”
“Stop lying. But when I do it,” Tom said, “and then I walk over and kiss you, you know what? I’m still not going to care.”
In the face of that, Fenn just repeated, “Tom, I love your music.”
Tom rolled his eyes.
“You hate organ music. The only reason you sit through concerts is because you love me, and don’t you think I know that? And don’t you think that’s all I need?”
“And I’ll sit through every concert in Europe.”
“Please don’t,” Tom said. “Endless Bach and non stop fugues is just punishing yourself.”
“Well what else will I do in Vienna?”
“Are you kidding me?” Tom looked at him.
“Well, you just said it. I’m the rube.”
“Well, Rube,” Tom said, “there are museums, stores. The architecture. Opera, Fenn. And all the other music that’s not organ music. And if all else fails, well then your favorite thing.”
“I can’t do that without you.”
Tom blushed, grinned and said, “You could, but I’d rather you didn’t, sir.
“I meant your second favorite thing.”
“Oh. Sleep?”
Tom nodded.
“Um,” Fenn thought about it. “Going to Europe and sleeping through the whole trip. How decadent!”
But, in the end Fenn did not sleep through the trip to Europe. In fact, he attended all of Tom’s appearances. He didn’t want to miss a one of them. What was looking at a building he didn’t know, or sitting in a café talking to people he didn’t understand, compared to watching his Tom shine? And Tom had waited his whole life to shine. The church organist was the one you never saw, and now everyone was seeing him, and oh how good he looked. Tom Mesda, aged twenty-five.
But they came back to America soon enough.
They came into O’Hare, and from there took the long El train through the northwestern outreaches of Chicago into downtown. From there they caught the South Shore and headed home.
“The winter seems different here,” Fenn murmured, forlornly, looking at the white stubble fields of northern Indiana.
“Grayer,” he said. “Sadder.”
“Maybe you’re just grayer and sadder,” Tom said, placing a hand over Fenn’s.
“It’ll be hard for Rossford to live up to Europe.”
“What about for you?” Fenn said.
“It was nice to be a star,” Tom admitted. “Now I understand why you love the stage.”
They had caught the afternoon train, which was a quiet ride with few passengers.
“Love,” Tom said.
“Yes?”
“You have to go back on stage.”
“I will.”
“I mean it. I know you like the radio job, and God knows I love you having it, being near me. But I need to see you on the stage again.”
“I was thinking about taking a Masters. Then I’d definitely be around.”
Tom shook his head.
“It can’t just be about being here for me. If you want to take a Masters, fine. But you need to be acting.”
It was just like that.
“I’ll do it,” Fenn said.
Tom said: “I insist.”
There was something wonderful about seeing the light in the apartment when the cab brought them to the large brick building. There was something wonderful about the house smelling like life, like cooking and cigarettes and potpourri, and when they entered, Tara jumped up from the couch and ran to meet them.
“You have to tell me all about it!” she said. “I can’t believe you’re back. I can’t believe you went to Europe, and now you’re back.”
“And you can tell me all about what’s happened in Rossford,” Fenn replied, holding his friend as Tom shook out his great coat and went to hang it in the hall closet.
“You say it like nothing did happen while you were gone,” Tara said in an injured tone.
“Well…” Fenn shrugged.
“Which shows what you know,” Tara added.
“I love this place,” Tom began, “But… what possibly could have happened while we were gone?”
“Well, for one, Nell split up with her husband.”
“What?” Tom and Fenn said together.
“I mean, he was a prick,” Tom went on. “Like that crack he made about us being sodomites—”
“That I stabbed him in the hand for.”
“Yes, well played, brother,” Tom said.
“Well,” Tara said, “do you want to know WHY they split up?”
“Sure,” Tom said, smiling brightly at the downfall of his enemy.
“Because,” Tara said, taking Fenn’s hand with a sober expression, but obviously loving being the bearer of sick news, “Nell found him in bed with Todd.”
“Ugh!” Fenn pulled his hand away.
He heard Tom mutter, “I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.”
Adele was at the Meradan house so Fenn and Tara went there. Tom stayed home.
Mrs. Meradan answered the door, and though there was a real enough smile on her face, the marks of trouble were upon her as well.
“Did you enjoy Europe?”
“I can’t complain,” Fenn told her. “It was Europe.”
“Right, Right,” Mrs. Meradan nodded, distractedly. “Come in. Nell and Adele are in the kitchen.”
Layla and Dena were also in the kitchen, sitting on the floor gabbling to each other, and when Fenn and Tara entered, Adele rose and ran to her brother.
“I thought I’d never see you again!”
“Sis, it’s only been two weeks,” Fenn said, but he hoisted his sister up and then sat her down with a grunt.
“You got a big ole ass.”
Adele swatted him.
“Well, I’m done missing you now.”
Fenn, pinched his sister and then kissed Nell on the cheek and was going to sit down when Layla shrieked and, full of gabbles and googles, ran to her uncle who hoisted her upon his lap.
“How is my Layla?”
“Uncle!” she stated profoundly, and gave him a wet kiss.
He looked at Adele while his little niece, with her hair full of braids, looked up at him.
“She’s learning all sorts of words,” Adele informed him.
“Fenn!” Layla said. She swatted him with her hand, and then said, “Tar!”
“Oh, that is Tar,” Fenn said, grinning at Tara.
At this, Dena stood up and shrieked with pleasure, running to Layla and pulling at her chubby leg.
“I got you, Baby,” Nell picked her daughter up so that the two girls were now elevated and staring about the room.
Going to the refrigerator, Tara pulled out a beer, sat down and said, “Before you ask, I told Fenn about everything.”
Nell frowned and Fenn said, “I’m truly sorry.”
“So am I,” Nell told him. “I just wish you had let me tell him,” she said to Tara.
“Do you?” Tara said doubtfully. She was in a baseball cap with a ponytail pulled through the back, looking most lesbianical. “Do you really wish you had to tell that story all over again?”
“Point taken,” Nell assented.
“I should have known!” she continued, setting Dena squarely on her lap. “I should have known something was wrong with him.”
“I knew.”
“Fenn,” his sister reprimanded.
“Well, I did,” he said. “I just didn’t know that he was that wrong.”
“I still can’t believe what I saw.”
“How’s Todd?” Fenn asked.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” Nell said, frankly. She leaned in and whispered, “I can hardly look at him.”
“Nell, that’s harsh,” Tara said.
“Well, you know what, Tara Veems? When you walk in on your brother in bed with your spouse then come back and tell me about it.”
“When I walk in on my brother and my spouse,” Tara said, “there’s going to be a lot of explaining to do by all parties.”
Nell ignored this and continued, “Besides, I can hardly talk to him. He’s become so weird lately.”
“Yeah,” Fenn said, getting up and handing Layla to his sister, “probably because your husband’s been fucking him and he’s still a kid. Jesus Christ, Nell. Where is he?”
“In the library.”
“Jesus Christ,” Fenn repeated, and turned to leave the kitchen.
The TV was on in the somewhat misnamed library, and the gawky sixteen year old was sitting on the floor watching it. Fenn came and sat beside him. Neither one of them spoke a while.
“Did you see the Eiffel Tower?” Todd said, at last.
“I wasn’t in France.”
“Well, that sucks,” Todd said.
After a while the boy said, “So I guess you know?”
“Yes,” Fenn said. “I hardly got back into town without knowing.”
“Tara has a big mouth.”
“She does,” Fenn agreed. “But I would have found out anyway.”
“Nell hates me,” Todd said, picking at the sole of his sneaker. “Mom wants to send me to an asylum.”
“Do you feel crazy?”
Todd grinned and looked sideways at Fenn.
“Yeah. A little, actually.”
“Do you want to talk about it? About Kevin?”
Todd was still smiling. Slowly he stopped smiling and said, “No. Not really.”
Fenn felt around in his breast pocket and pulled out a crushed pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
“You want a cigarette?”
Todd held out his hand and Fenn gave him one.
“Straight from Europe,” Fenn said, while he handed Todd the lighter, and the boy lit his cigarette, took a drag, and then handed the lighter back to Fenn. “Funny because I’m sure the tobacco was grown in Kentucky. Export. Import. Export.”
Fenn took a large drag and blew smoke out of his nose.
“You’re the only grown up who would give me cigarettes instead of analyzing me.”
Fenn shrugged.
Todd turned and said, “Kevin is a tremendous asshole. I hate him.
“But I liked it. At first I didn’t. I felt… I didn’t like it, but I started to. I hated him, but I liked what he was doing to me.”
Todd shook his head and frowned. The boy looked a little angry.
“I still like it, Fenn.”
Fenn still said nothing. He just listened.
“But I would never want to date him,” Todd continued. “He’s evil, but part of me feels like… I don’t know if I can stay away from him.
“You’re not evil,” Todd said.
“Thank you.”
“No,” Todd said, not looking at him, but at his smoldering cigarette. “I mean, you’re cool. You never treat me like a kid. Which is what I liked about Kevin. But… you’d never do what he did to me. You’d never do that.”
Todd stubbed the cigarette out.
“Not Kevin. Never Kevin. I could never really love him. If I was ever going to be with an older man—with a grown up—it would be you.”
