TWELVE
THE BEGINNING OF ALL THINGS
They all sat around Layla on the sofa at the house on Versailles Street. She was still as a statue and every time Will opened his mouth, he closed it again.
Finally she said, “Goddamn,” in a very small voice.
“Layla,” Chad began.
“Why isn’t he here?” said Layla. “Why is everything wrong?”
No one knew what she was talking about. Did she mean Todd? He’d been called in to direct the end of a film out in Washington State. SHE was not here, Great-Grandma was gone, but who was he?
Julian, beside his wife, leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.
Layla shook her head, “Chad, I love you. You’re a good man, but… Life is so short. Life is short and Bryant is messed up and you love him and…” she looked up at Kenny, whose face was full of confusion. “You have a job here, and that’s great. And you have Chad, and that’s great. But Brendan is gone, and Brendan should be here.”
She patted the empty space right beside her.
“We’ve been friends since I was five. And he should be here.”
The front door opened, and a man came in that most people had to think really hard to know.
But the kitchen door opened at the same time and Adele came out, followed by her mother.
“Hoot,” they both said.
Tired and sorrowful, Layla and Julian turned to look at their father.
“I came as soon as I heard,” he explained.
Adele only said: “She always hated you.”
Ignoring his ex-wife, Hoot went to his daughter, sat down and said, “Baby, how are you?”
“Where have you been?” Layla said.
Then she said, “I can’t say you haven’t given me anything. You’ve given me a brother, a sister and a niece, not to mention life. I thank you for that. But where the hell have you been, Hoot?”
Her father frowned at her, and then Will said, “Sir, I need to talk to you.”
Hoot looked up at him.
“Don’t pull that look on Will,” Layla told him.
“He’s just the boyfriend who won’t give you a ring. Not a son.”
“Considering how you do by your actual sons…” Julian began.
Hoot looked up at him.
“But we both know,” said Julian. “So why do I need to continue?”
“Boy—” Hoot began.
“The time for ‘boy’ has passed,” Claire said to her father-in-law. “Will doesn’t have anything to do with you. He’s to do with your daughter, so listen to him.”
Claire gestured toward the library, and Hoot shook his head in frustration. But Will was already headed to the library. As he passed Adele, she touched his long hair.
“You’re my son,” she said, and pointing to Julian added, “And that one over there is, too. And that’s all that matters.”
Hoot closed the doors of the library behind him and Will said, “The only thing I know about you is that you’re a lawyer.”
“That’s right. Do you… need a lawyer?”
“No, that’s really the last thing I need.” Will dismissed this. “What I need is for you to do your daughter, and myself for that matter, a favor. You’re the only one I know who can do it.”
TOM AND DYLAN ARRIVED at the door of Rales and Sons, and Dylan catapulted himself into Fenn’s chest.
“What are you doing here?” Fenn said. “You should be in school.”
“I should be with you!” Dylan insisted.
Tom shrugged. “He called me from school and demanded I bring him here.”
“Dylan.”
“No, Dad. Todd isn’t here right now. So I am.”
Tom came closer and the three of them stood together, Tom with his hand on Dylan’s shoulder.
“You know there’s no stopping him when he wants something,” Tom told him.
“And we’re both here. Both of us.”
“What is going on?” Anne Houghton came out of the office with the mortician. And then she said, “Dylan.”
Dylan broke away from his parents and hugged her.
“Dylan,” she said, rocking him, and then she said, “You ought to be in school.”
“We’ve gone over that already,” Fenn told his mother.
“How can I stay in school now?” Dylan said. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Well,” Anne said after a moment of decision, “let’s all go in. I wish Adele was here.”
“Where is she?”
“Manning the house,” Fenn said.
As they all went back into the office where Mr. Rales was waiting with macabre magazines full of coffins, Anne stopped to look at Fenn and Tom with Dylan.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “because Lee’s my nephew and I’d be mad as hell if you left him, and Todd is like a second son. But… you all make a very beautiful family.”
“Yes,” Tom said, reaching around so that he embraced his son and Fenn, “We do.”
And then they all went into the office.
“I DON’T BELIEVE IT.” Barb Affren shook her head.
Then she said, “I do believe it. But I’m so tired of believing it.
“Everyone is gone. Everyone. One by one.”
She moved from the bay window and back to her chair to sit down. Nell and Bill sat on the sofa before her.
“It seems all I goddamn do is go to funerals now. Soon it’ll be mine, and it’ll be a relief.”
“Mom, don’t say that!” Bill’s voice was a little sharper than he meant it.
“Sometimes it’s better than hanging around here. And… the older you get the more people you know on the other side… Makes you sort of ready.”
Nell chose not to say anything. There was nothing wise she could say, and she wondered how she would feel in a world with no Adele, no Todd. No Bill. No Fenn, a world where she was the survivor. And what kind of survival was that?
“And she wasn’t young,” Barb said.
“Hell, she’s older than me. But… When Lula first came to town it was a step off of being a sunset town. Do you know what that means? Blacks… and that’s not what they called them then, had to be out by sunset or…” Barb ran a finger across her throat.
“I mean Rossford was never quite that. Too close to Gary and Chicago. But it had its problems. She was one tough old bitch, I’ll tell you that. That’s where that family gets its pluck from. And… my God…”
Barb became very quiet and folded her hands on her lap.
“Barb,” Nell said, at last.
The old woman looked at her.
“Don’t go. Not just yet…We’re not ready for that.”
Barbara Affren gave a long dry laugh, and when they thought she was done, she started laughing again.
“Go?” she continued laughing. “Nellie, you act like I have a choice, like I’m going to buy a train ticket to Glory!
“Well, maybe I do have a choice, I don’t know. And if I do, it will be to stick around a little longer. Things are about to get interesting.”
Nell raised an eyebrow and looked to her husband.
“What are you talking about, Mom?”
“Well, things are always interesting,” Barb said. “But what I meant is Dena is pregnant again.”
“How do you—?” Nell began.
“And not just that,” Barb sang, pointing to her wrinkled brow and winking. “So is Meredith!”
As he drove toward the airport, Casey Williams told himself that this was part of what made him who he was, what gave Casey Williams Live that special touch. He would be here to personally receive the new boys as they got off of their plane fresh from Florida. This was some risky shit. After all, they weren’t just passing through Chicago. They were tired of the other studios, especially Corby, and with expired contracts or no contracts at all, the three of them were arriving in the ass crack of the Midwest to enter into the Casey Williams Experience.
After taking the many swerves and in and outs that made the entrance into the airport more of a labor than anything else, he parked on the other side of the barrier from the little airport and stopped, surprised at what he saw.
Paul Anderson was getting out of Noah Riley’s car, and this was odd because Paul took his flights at Midway, usually. And then it was odd because why would Noah bring him? And then the way they were talking to each other, the way Noah put Paul’s hand to his hair and then, well, shit! Noah kissed him. Just like that. No, it couldn’t be. No, it was! Well that was the worst thing about being out, and gay rights. The real shit that never should be found out came into the light of day as well.
“What the fuck?” Casey said, and sat in his car, waiting for Noah to drive away, and Paul to disappear.
“What do you do?” Casey demanded, “when you don’t know what to do?”
“That’s the nuttiest thing you’ve said all day.”
Chay was coming into the house, and he dropped his messenger bag by the door.
“Of course I haven’t seen you most of the day, though. So what’s up?”
“Something fucked up is what’s up,” Casey said, sitting down.
A shirtless guy in jeans walked through the main foyer and out the door into the early autumn.
“New guys arrive? That’s great. Right?”
“Right,” Casey agreed, listlessly.
He was in his usual swivel chair before his computer, and he swung around.
“Chay, what would you consider to be cheating?”
“Are you thinking of cheating on me?” Chay’s look changed. “Casey, I’ve been so hurt, already—”
“No,” Casey said. “I just… No, a better question is… if you were being cheated on, would you want to know?”
“Yes,” Chay said at once. Then he said, “No. No, it hurts too bad.”
He grabbed a chair and rolled it beside Casey. “It just really hurts, but I know that I should know about it.”
“Well, then if someone was cheating on your friend would you tell it?”
“I think I’d have to,” Chay said, sounding regretful.
“That’s what I thought,” Casey nodded.
“Casey, what’s going on?”
“I’ve told you everything I can,” he said, shrugging miserably. “And maybe its all a misunderstanding, but… I don’t know how it could be.”
Casey was quiet for a while, and then he added, “And what if… you still felt like you were friends with this person, like you owed him a lot. Everything. But you hadn’t talked for a long time. You all had fallen apart. But… you still owed him.”
“If you owe him you owe him,” Chay said, simply. “You do the right thing.”
Casey frowned and nodded.
He said: “That’s what I thought.”
Nick Ferguson tapped on the door, then entered Bryant Babcock’s office.
“We can’t do it tonight,” Bryant said. “I have to be at a friend’s house. There’s a death in his family, and I am wrapping things up so I can be there.”
Nick nodded.
“That’s alright. We’re just having fun. Fun can wait.”
Bryant nodded this time.
“Maybe later tonight?” Nick suggested.
“I really kind of need you.”
“I…” Bryant said, ignoring his body’s response, “just feel that it might be disrespectful. I don’t know how to explain that, but… I don’t know how long I’m going to be over there. Or if I’ll be needed. I just… We’ll have to re-schedule.”
“Sure thing, Chief.”
Nick gave him a thumb’s up. Bryant nodded and exited his office.
Bryant wondered, if he had a wife and children, would he give thumbs up and say, “Sure thing, Chief?” Possibly.
He thought about Chad and Kenny as he drove on. Kenny was a good man and, if Bryant was having an affair with a good, out man who would stay the night, would he have said, yes, meet me later tonight? Certainly. But not Nick. Nick was just fucking. He’d have to totally put Fenn and his friends out of his mind to do that, and he didn’t want to.
At the red light he checked his phone and saw Todd had called. He called back.
“I’m on my way over there right now,” he said. “I just got off work.”
“I won’t be in till tomorrow, and I know he won’t say this,” Todd continued, “but he wants you there. You’re a part of our family, now, Bri.”
Bryant, often prone to attacks of emotion, felt like crying, but didn’t, and when he reached the house and parked on the curb due to the cars already there, that emotion faded upon entering the kitchen.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Fenn said negligently, not even turning around from the sink where he was washing dishes. “Wash your hands and help me finish the macaroni.”
“Macaroni?” Bryant began, taking off his great coat and hanging it on the hook.
“Mama used to make it,” Anne, who was sitting down smoking a cigarette, told him. “But now she’s gone.”
“And so I’m making it,” Fenn said. “And you are helping and—Bryant don’t spray water all over the damn place, here’s some towels for your hands—and this is her repast. Or our repast. I’m not sure.”
“Does anyone know where the paper towels are?” Chad asked, coming into the room. He started, seeing Bryant.
“Chad?”
“Hey, Bryant.”
“They’re in the pantry,” Fenn said. “Where any sensible person would put them.”
“Well… one sensible person marching off to get them,” Chad said with a placating grin, and as he walked off, Bryant watched him.
“Quit watching your ex’s ass and cut the Velveeta,” Fenn murmured, shoving the square toward Bryant.
“I wasn’t…” Bryant began, opening the drawer and pulling out a knife.
“You think I don’t stray and look at Tom? The only thing is I have twenty years of Todd and I look at him too. But what do you look at?”
“I’m going to start on the ham,” Anne stood up.
“Mama!”
“I need to be doing something.”
“Very well, start on the ham.”
Then in a quieter voice, back to Bryant. “So, what do you have to look at?”
“Can we talk about it after we finish the macaroni?”
Fenn said, “Sure.”
