15. Billy
FIFTEEN
Billy
BILLY BOSTON AND THE SOURCE OF HIS STONES
“What’s with the Harry Potter costume? Didn’t you wear that, like, a decade ago?” Murph asks as we enter the party.
I am, indeed, dressed as sexy Harry Potter. The costume is not cut in some weird way to make it sexy, it’s just a normal black robe, black-rimmed glasses, and wand. I just can’t stop how sexy I am while wearing it. But Murph is right—this is a really old costume. I couldn’t completely remove the butt Donna drew on my forehead, so I’m saying it’s a lightning-bolt scar.
Of course the true reason I’m wearing a decade-old costume is that I couldn’t really care less about this party.
“It’s retro,” I say in a half-hearted attempt to defend it .
“Well, you look like you’re Harry Potter from the unreleased book Harry Potter and the Saddest Sack of Shit .”
Oh, is my face doing what my soul is feeling? Whoops.
The music kicks into another gear, and I don’t feel a need to respond. The party is at an abandoned building in the Fort Point district.
Just as a wine expert—or sommelier, if you’re fancy—can smell and swish and taste all kinds of notes in a single mouthful of wine, I’m like that with parties. I don’t need to experience the entire evening to know what’s up. A few seconds of sampling the vibe and I know the vintage of a soiree.
I’m a soiree-lier, if you will, and my expert opinion is that this is going to be a great fucking night. The vibe, the energy, the lighting, the costumes, the exact note of the drone of people talking all around me. All of that tells me it is going to be one of those epic nights. Like Las Vegas 2012 or Tampa Bay 2019. Halloween de Boston ’24 could be a very fine vintage indeed.
And I could give a fuck.
It ain’t what I want. But this is what I need. I need to get back to being Billy. Billy is fun. He’s a party. He’s not a guy you date. And certainly not a guy you marry.
I’m a little shell-shocked by what happened with Donna. I’ve never felt closer to another person. Coming inside her after our epic night together felt right. It felt like coming home.
I keep going over it in my head. Turning it into a role-play—was that not the right thing to do? I did it for her. I thought she’d feel what I was feeling and get scared. I didn’t want her to run away.
Instead she pushed me away. Pushed me here to a party I don’t want to be at to find a date for a bet I don’t even care about winning anymore.
“Oh, hey, Becky-Ann!” Murph says, trying to sound so chill that I know he’s into her. I look up and see two women coming toward us. One is dressed like a sexy French maid. The other is dressed as a sexy nurse. Their makeup is caked on so thick you could see it from the moon, and if I had to guess, it’s probably not only like that on Halloween.
“Heeeeeey, Murphy,” Becky-Ann, the one in the maid costume, coos, throwing her arms around my buddy. “Good to see ya!”
Murphy ends their hug but keeps one hand on her hip as he turns to introduce me. “This is my friend, Billy O’Sullivan.”
“Oh, very nice. Becky-Ann.” She offers her hand, and I take it.
“Nice to meet you.” I don’t even recognize my own voice.
“Well, this is my friend, Connie-Joy,” Becky-Ann says.
Connie-Joy slinks over my way and offers her hand. “Wicked pleased to meet ya, Billy Sullivan.”
“Likewise,” I say. I don’t care enough to correct her about my surname.
“You look good, Murph. I like the fireman outfit. Very sexy,” Becky-Ann says, eyeing him up and down.
“Not so bad yourself there, Becky-Ann. I got a knob that needs polishin’ latah,” Murph says, his body so close to hers that I don’t think it’ll be that much later.
“Your costume looks good too,” Connie-Joy says, not meaning a word of it. I can tell she’s confused. “Is that…a butt on your forehead?”
“No, it’s a lightning scar,” Murphy answers, at the same time I say, “Yeah. It is.”
“He’s Harry Potter,” Murph says, staring daggers at me.
“Oh. Cool.” Connie-Joy says, still not meaning a word of it.
I can feel everyone expecting me to comment on Connie-Joy’s costume. I clear my throat. “You look great too. Good choice going with the fun nurse costume. The sexy one. Not like a real nurse’s uniform where you’re prepared to lift a patient who can’t walk. Where you have to change their bedpan. Can’t do that in a skirt that short. Where you have to be mentally and physically strong enough to help people pass away as peacefully as they can. ”
There’s no way a space as loud as this should feel this silent. But it does.
“Thank you,” Connie-Joy says, continuing her streak of not meaning any of the words that come out of her mouth.
Murph looks at me and mutters, “What the fuck, Billy?”
I shake my head. “Sorry.”
Murphy claps his hands. “We need drinks. What do you say, Becky-Ann? Should we retrieve some libations?”
Becky-Ann curtsies and, in a terrible French accent, says, “Wee, sir. Whatevah you say, sir.”
Murph smiles and offers his arm, which Becky-Ann takes. They walk off together toward the bar, and he throws me a thumbs-up.
I turn back to Connie-Joy. She looks at me expectantly. I guess I should make conversation. “So, what do you do in real life?”
“Oh, I’m in finance,” she says.
I nod. “Nice.”
She shrugs, clearly disagreeing but not wanting to say so. “I guess.”
“You don’t like it?”
“Not really. But the money’s good.”
“I see. So what do you do with the money?”
“I…go on vacation. Save it in my 401(k).”
“So you can get away from your job someday?”
She looks at me like that should be obvious. “Yeah, that’s what most people do.”
“You’re not wrong about that,” I mutter. I look around the party. People wearing costumes so they don’t have to be who they are in their normal life. The normal life they don’t really enjoy. Drinking alcohol so they don’t feel like they normally feel.
That’s never been me. I didn’t drink to get away. I drank because it was fun. But so was not drinking. I didn’t do or wear or say crazy things to get away from who I was. I liked who I was. That was me being who I was.
But I’m not sure I like who I am now. Did Donna change me? Why am I not fun anymore? Why am I the saddest fucking-sexy wizard who ever lived?
Donna didn’t change me.
I changed me.
I realize it wasn’t the partying or the whimsy that made me Billy Boston. I wasn’t mysterious to people because of that. That was all window dressing.
The real reason people couldn’t understand me is that I do what I want to do when I want to do it for as many seconds of my life as I can. When I want to take care of my cousin’s wife’s niece, I do. When I want to go to Iceland, I do. When I want to have an epic night of debauchery and wake up in a place I don’t recognize, that’s what I do.
But I haven’t been doing that lately. Because for the first time in my life, I have something that I don’t want to lose.
We made this no strings because she needed an escape and I wanted to have fun. Hell, we were so serious about not making it serious that we weren’t even us half the time. We pretended to be other people so that Donna never fell for Billy and Billy never fell for Donna. I know that’s what she wanted in the beginning and what I agreed to. But I’ve been using it as an excuse.
Donna hasn’t asked me to change anything about myself or to be someone else. She’s been with me every step of the way. I stopped doing what I wanted to do and saying what I wanted to say.
Because I’ve been a coward.
I wanted to say that I love her. That she’s everything I want in a person. She’s fully herself too, and maybe we could be even more of who we are together—near infinite in the love and life and happiness that we could create as a team.
But I’m losing it because I’m not willing to be who I am, to go after what I want. I can’t pretend anymore. I can’t play the role of the guy who still has nothing to lose. I have everything to lose—the most amazing person I have ever met in my life.
I’m done pretending that I don’t feel the way that I feel.
Who I am, deep in my core, who I’ve come to be in these last few months, is a guy who’s desperately in love with Donna. Who needs her more than he needs air.
I’m in love with Donna Fischer. And she’s going to know it.
And maybe, just maybe, if she feels the same way, if she doesn’t get scared and run, I have everything to gain too.
I don’t want to party tonight. I don’t want to wake up in some strange new place with a new person.
I want my person.
I want her to want me.
I want strings.
It’s time for Billy to be Billy.
It’s time to do what I want to do when I want to do it.
Murph and Becky-Ann return with drinks.
“I gotta bounce,” I say to Murph.
“What? Already?”
“It was very nice meeting both of you. But I don’t want to be here anymore, so I’m not going to be.” I don’t say it in a cruel way. It’s just a fact.
“Nice meeting you,” Connie-Joy says, not meaning a single drop of it. That’s the Connie-Joy I barely know!
I clap hands with Murph. “ Have a fantastic night, brotha.”
“You too. Where are you goin’?” he calls to me as I walk away.
“I gotta see a girl about some candy!” I yell over my shoulder.
“Aww, hell yeah, dude!” I hear Murph say, completely misinterpreting that I mean actual candy. But I appreciate the positive vibes anyway.
I just might need them.