“You’re so quiet,” Brendan said.
“Am I?” Kenny was sitting on the sofa, sketching. “Well, yeah.”
“I don’t think I am,” Kenny differed. “I think you’re just used to having our friends around for the last few days.”
“You always get like this,” Brendan said after a while. “When they leave.”
“Do I?”
“And you always answer everything with a question.” Kenny gave a ghost of a smile and sat up.
“I guess,” he said. “It’s only… Don’t you miss it?”
“Rossford?”
“Yes. Home. Don’t you miss it? Don’t you miss our friends and our family? What the hell are we doing here?”
“Making it. Trying to make it.”
“No, Bren, you’re trying to make it. You’re trying to be the great attorney. I’m just your wife.”
Brendan looked at him.
“Are you trying to tell me you don’t want to be in Chicago anymore?”
“I’m trying to tell you we’re not doing this for us, we’re doing it for you.”
And then Kenny added, “And I don’t know why you think Chicago is the place to make it. Lawyers are everywhere, and here you’re competing with Harvard grads and stuff. Back in Rossford: now, that’s the place.”
“So you’re saying I’m not good enough for Chicago.”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all,” Kenny sat up.
“Well, you know what?” Brendan said, “You may be right.”
“Bren.”
“No, I’m thirty. I’m an associate with scuffed shoes I have to re-polish everyday. I see a hundred of me every minute. Tons of gay boys with plum or lime green tight shirts, skinny ties, dress slacks and fierce shoes, all trying to be the power something. And they’re younger than me. Maybe they can’t tell it at once, but I can. You’re not saying anything I haven’t thought every day of my life here.”
“Bren,” Kenny stood up. “Bren I’m not saying that at all.” He gripped Brendan’s shoulders. “I’m saying I want to go home. I’m saying I love coming here to visit here, but I hate living here. I’m saying I haven’t found my place, and I miss Will and Milo, and all of our friends. And every time they leave I feel so sad and so lonely and… if you think you won’t make it as a lawyer, I know I won’t make it as a painter. I miss making music with Milo or watching Layla write. I miss home.”
Brendan, who was prepared to be angry, earlier, nodded his head and turned away.
“Kenny, maybe you should go.”
The roar of the El at the Fullerton stop filled their ears, and as it screeched around the block, Kenny looked at Brendan.
“I don’t mean it in a harsh way, and I don’t mean it cause I’m angry. I mean it because everything you’re telling me is everything I already know.
“I know,” Brendan said, “how you feel here. I know you came here to support me. I thought I’d have a good place for us. This is my dream, if it’s a dream at all, and… Is there a reason why you can’t go home to Rossford and just come to me every few days? Maybe on the weekend. Maybe…”
“The reason is a twenty dollar a day train habit,” Kenny said. “The reason is because we can’t afford two places. The reason is because I’m not going to be parted from you.”
Brendan nodded. “I think I’ve always hid from myself what I know. How much you miss home.”
“I do,” Kenny said. “But I couldn’t go back to Rossford without you. Thank you for offering, but we’re in this together.”
Brendan’s phone buzzed and he reached into his pocket. “Hello?” he started.
“Go to Bookmerchant Online,” Will charged.
“All right…?” Brendan said.
“Kenny, turn the computer on.”
“Type in Layla Lawden.”
“Uh…” Brendan ran his tongue around in his mouth. “All right.”
Brendan repeated the instructions to Kenny, and then a few moments later, Kenny said, “What the fuh… Naw. No. Get out!”
“What?” Brendan said, turning from the phone. “Get over here!” Kenny told him.
Kenny scooted over so Brendan could sit down beside him, and Brendan said, “Oh, my God! Oh… Get out! Oh… I’m all the way here in Chicago trying to make it big, and Layla didn’t even leave Rossford.”
“You wanna talk to her?” Will said. “Sure thing. Yeah.”
There was a link where you could open up the book and look through pages, and Kenny was busy at it now. Brendan got up and went into the kitchen.
“Layla, I can’t believe this. I mean, I can. I mean… I’ll be able to say I knew you when.”
“I guess you will,” Layla said, humbly. “This is the news you had for Will, huh?” “Better than the pregnancy scare?”
“I dunno,” Brendan said. “Everyone needs a good pregnancy scare.”
And then he said in a lower voice, “Kenny’s excited for you, and that’s a good thing because it’s the first time I’ve seen him excited in awhile.”
“Really?”
“He’s lonely,” Brendan said. “He misses you. He wants to be around other artists.”
“Well, he is in Chicago.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No,” Layla reflected. “Put him on the phone. I’ll talk to him… And, I’m going to see what I can do.”
“See what you can do? Well,” Brendan thought it was best to leave Layla’s plans to Layla. “Alright then. I’ll talk to you soon. Kenny, get over here. It’s out poet laureate calling for you.”
“And you haven’t answered yet?” Sheridan said.
“Well, it’s a big deal,” Mathan shrugged while Meredith began to look nervous.
“You are a very understanding man,” Chay said.
“Yes,” Meredith agreed. “And that’s why I love him so much. And that’s why if I don’t say yes today, I will say yes.”
Mathan gave his same gentle smile and Meredith said, “It’s a huge step, and its going to be very expensive. So I just want to do it right.”
“Really, I was just putting it out there,” Mathan said. “You want to put it out there.”
Sheridan turned from his place on the sofa and looked at his brother.
“Don’t start,” Will said.
“We’re happy the way we are,” Layla told Sheridan.
“I guess we all have news then,” Chay noted.
“Uh, Layla has a book and I’m only half engaged,” Meredith said. “I’m not entirely sure what your news is.”
Chay looked at Sheridan, and Sheridan looked at him. “Somebody say something,” Layla commanded.
“We’re moving in together,” said Sheridan. “We just decided it. I mean, Chay just said yes.”
Everyone else began to put their hands together, to applaud lightly, but it was Meredith who said, baldly, “What does that mean?”
“It means we’re moving in together,” Chay said.
“But… are you… Are you finally officially a couple? I mean, are you…?”
Sheridan put his hand on Chay’s knee and leaning across him he told Meredith, “We’re us.”
Meredith nodded, and Sheridan thought she looked unconvinced. But Layla murmured, “Well, hell that makes me and Will as solid as the Rock of Gibralter.”
“I thought we were as solid as the Rock of Gibralter,” Will said.
“I think people put too much on names,” Mathan said. “Love is what matters. Isn’t it?”
“And me and Chay love each other,” Sheridan said. “That’s what our friendship’s all about.”
His hip buzzed, and Sheridan touched it. “A call?”
Layla looked at him.
Sheridan shrugged. “I’ll worry about it later.”
“Worry about it now,” Chay told him.
He was never able to forget their friend Robin, and there were too many people in their lives he cared about to not want to be on call if something important was happening.
Sheridan nodded and Meredith noted that there was something very obedient and husband like about his compliance. When Sheridan pulled out the phone and looked at the number he said, “It’s not one that I know.”
“Companies are even getting into your cell phones these days,” Layla complained.
Sheridan nodded, but he was still frowning. Well, there was a message and he supposed he’d check it when he got back home. For now, it was still his home, and he would drop Chay off at Noah and James’.
Dylan Mesda had to admit that he felt more at home on Vesailles Street. Tom’s and Lee’s was the place to come for total quiet. Tom’s was the place to come to leave the nexus of family life, but to really be at the center of home life was to be on Versailles Street. The family was so huge and there were so many branches. Dena was family, Milo was family and so was Rob. And Meredith and Mathan, who was Lee’s cousin. Layla was family and Maia and Tara and Melanie. Adele. They all swirled into that house. Of course they came here too, but this was more like the vacation away from home.
Lee walked into his room without knocking and said, “The phone’s for you.”
“All right?”
More than anything, Lee was like the uncle you didn’t refuse. Todd was the uncle who always listened.
“Hello?”
“We need to talk.”
Shit.
Dylan took a breath and then he said, “Yeah.”
“It’s Ruth.”
“I know who it is. Why are you calling?” “Cause we need to talk.”
“No, we don’t. Maybe you need to talk, but I don’t need to talk. I need you to… do whatever you want to do.”
“Dylan, com’on. I messed up. I’m sorry. I mess up all the time. But… aren’t we best friends?”
“We were best friends. That’s in the past. You made that totally clear.”
“Shit, Dill.”
Then Ruthven said, “But don’t you miss me?” “I’ve got friends.”
“Who? That loser Lance?”
“Lance isn’t a loser. And he’s not my only friend.” “No… but… You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yeah,” Ruthven said, sounding a little testy, “you do.” Dylan felt more worked up than he knew, than he wanted to be.
“I’m not ready to talk to you,” he said.
There was a pause over the phone, and then Ruthven said, “Alright. I guess.”
“I mean, isn’t that fair? You didn’t want to talk to me.” “That’s not true. I did.”
“But you weren’t ready to. And now you are. Well… why don’t you let me be ready too? Alright?”
“All right, I guess.”
“Now… good night,” Dylan said, trying to sound as mature as possible.
“Good night,” said Ruthven.
Dylan sat on the bed, upset at the call, feeling a lot like someone who really didn’t know where they were, and then he picked up the phone again.
“Hello?” Fenn’s voice came to him. “Dad?”
“Son.”
“I need to talk to you.”
And then he heard Fenn settling down from whatever he was doing, and he knew that he was talking to his father, who would understand everything, and who would listen as long as he needed to. And his heart was easier again, and he began to unravel the phone call, and his feelings and why he couldn’t stop being hurt and angry.
