CHAPTER ELEVEN
Scott always had a hard time assimilating into a social event after he played a gig at it. People seemed to view him as either a beleaguered dancing monkey or a minor celebrity. “Hey, you’re the guy,” was a popular line, and they always pointed at him as they said it.
On top of that, no matter how many years he spent doing this, each performance still tired him out mentally. He knew guys who could turn it on and keep it on for the duration of an entire music festival, both onstage and off, and he felt like they were a different species.
Tonight, the only people he really wanted to talk to were Letty and Carver.
Letty so he could congratulate her and ask if he’d delivered what she wanted — but tonight she was a minor celebrity and almost impossible to get a second with.
Carver, so he could ask him… he wasn’t sure what.
Was last night real? Did you feel what I felt?
I know you felt what I felt, I felt you feel it, so what does that mean?
What’s the deal with you and your wife? Have you been thinking about me today?
Why did you look at me like that while I was playing, why do you keep looking at me like that?
Am I crazy? Are you crazy? Do you like me, yes or no?
He knew the answer to ‘am I crazy’: yes.
He couldn’t be once again entertaining fantasies about actually being with Carver.
He needed to take Carver’s resistance and ambivalence at face value.
He was a romantic, yes, but never delusional — if it were anyone else running this hot and cold on him, Scott would have written them off. He knew better, he did.
But he knew Carver better still. He could see how unhappy he was and he could see how happy he’d been last night.
He could feel that Carver wanted to be taken care of by him, he could sense it.
Scott could never take care of his material desires, he knew this, but he was sure he could take care of Carver’s soul.
He was sure he could love him in a way he’d never been loved before.
The issue was, how the fuck did you communicate that to a person?
Even if he could figure out what to ask Carver, he couldn’t get him alone either.
He was busy being paraded around by his parents, those sick fucks.
Scott liked Nora and Doug on a personal level, they had always been nice to him, but he knew they were a couple of sick fucks.
Carver was never good enough for them, but his success was.
It was so transactional, like the story of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, which Scott had found disturbingly capitalist even as a child.
So Scott went out on one of the balconies to smoke.
He leaned over the railing, looking out over the ghostly dark golf course, lit here and there by floodlights.
It was a new moon, and he could make out a few stars from here.
He dug his cigarettes from his pocket, then realized he didn’t have a lighter.
A young couple was standing nearby, also smoking, and talking in Spanish too rapidly for him to pick up much.
From what he could tell, they were talking about the country club’s gaudy architecture.
He sidled up to them, and when they glanced at him, he asked for a light in Spanish.
The woman laughed, and the man reached into his pants pocket. “We do speak English,” she said, “but that was nice, you were slick with it.”
He laughed too. “Thanks.” The guy lit Scott’s cigarette for him. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem,” the guy said. “I’m Alex, this is Serena, we work with Letty. You were good up there, you got a Spotify?”
Scott exhaled smoke. “Yeah, hand me your phone a sec?”
Alex obliged. Scott opened the app, navigated to Silk Tourniquet’s page and handed it back.
“Oh, shit,” Alex said, his eyes flicking around as he scrolled. Serena got closer and peered over his shoulder. “You’re like, an actual guy, not a wedding act.”
“Yeah, this isn’t my usual gig.”
Alex started to play one of his songs on low volume, holding the phone up between his ear and Serena’s. Scott looked away, waiting and smoking, feeling awkward. He never had any idea what to do with himself in one of these moments.
“This is good shit,” Serena said, glancing at him and smiling.
“Yeah, why haven’t I heard of you guys?” Alex said, lowering the phone and hitting pause. “You have a great voice, you need to get yourself famous.”
Scott ashed his cigarette over the railing. “Not everyone has your good taste, man.”
Alex laughed. “I’m gonna check your shit out though, for sure.”
“Thanks,” Scott said. “We sell vinyls.”
“Hey, we like vinyls.”
“Well, if you feel so inclined.”
They hung out and chatted for a while longer before Scott went back inside.
He felt braced by the night air and the cigarette, and resolved to find Carver and take him aside to at least get a read on him, but now he was nowhere to be seen amongst the two hundred or so people in the reception hall.
Scott craned his neck, using his height to his advantage, but no dice.
Conway walked by, and he stopped her to say hi.
“Oh hey!” she said. “You were great up there.”
“Appreciate it. Hey, is Carver around?”
She nodded. “He went to get a drink, he said.”
Scott thanked her and made his way toward the bar, but there was no one at it. He got the attention of the bartender, who stopped cleaning and came over.
“Have you seen a guy, like, five foot nine, thin, dark hair, green eyes?” he said.
“Uh,” the bartender said, squinting. “I don’t remember the color of his eyes, chief —” (here he gave Scott the classic Are you a homo? look) “— but I did just see that guy, yeah.”
“Cool, did you see where he went?”
“I know where he went. I sent him downstairs to the club’s cash bar, ‘cause my vodka selections weren’t up to his standards.”
“Great, thanks,” Scott said, and made his way to the hallway, then downstairs.
Underneath the reception hall was a lounge with glass walls that looked out onto the club’s patio.
Here there was another, much longer bar, and several televisions on the wall all tuned to ESPN.
It was mostly deserted down here, except for a couple of wedding guests tucked into the corner who were making out, two tired-looking club employees sitting at a table in their green polos, and Carver waiting at the bar.
Scott walked up next to him and touched him on the arm. Carver turned to him, then exhaled. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” Scott said. This bartender looked even less interested than the last one — she was standing at the other end of the bar, refusing to make eye contact with either of them. “How’s, uh, it going?” He felt flushed and clumsy, suddenly.
“It’s fine,” Carver said. He added, more loudly, “I’d love a drink.”
The bartender finally put her phone down and walked over. “Hi, what can I get you?”
“Double vodka soda with Elit.”
“Got it,” she said. To Scott: “Anything for you?”
“I’m good,” he said.
She walked away again.
“They didn’t even have regular Stoli upstairs,” Carver said.
“Whoa,” Scott said, smiling. “It’s like a third-world country in here.”
Carver snorted, then turned to face him, leaning against the bar. Scott straightened up and slipped his hands in his pockets. Carver’s face was stony, but his posture was seductive — he was so committed to being a walking mindfuck. Scott tried not to look at him, but couldn’t help doing so.
“I think we should talk about last night,” Scott ventured in an undertone.
“Here?”
“I don’t know when I’m gonna get the chance otherwise.”
Carver nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay. Well.” Scott cleared his throat. “Did it mean something to you?” he said, keeping an eye on the bartender, who was down at the end of the bar looking at her phone again.
“Good question,” Carver said, not looking at him and keeping an eye on the rest of the room. “Why don’t you tell me what it meant to you, first?”
“Why do I have to go first, man?”
Carver still didn’t look at him, but held up his right hand and subtly indicated his wedding band.
“Right. Yeah. Look, I think you know what it meant to me, ‘cause I think you felt what I felt last night.” Scott dragged in a breath, feeling prickly heat in his armpits. “It was real.”
Carver’s expression didn’t change, but he started to blink more rapidly. “Prove it.”
“Prove what?”
“Prove I felt what you felt.”
Scott leaned in and hissed, “I fucking felt you feel it.”
“Prove it,” Carver said, his voice raw.
“Oh, my God,” Scott muttered, gripping the edge of the bar and squeezing it in his fists. “Fucking forget it, you’re just — forget it.”
Carver snorted again. “So you were willing to fight for me for about, what, five seconds?”
“You don’t want it. You don’t.” Scott felt like he had a big hole through his chest that was sucking the rest of him in.
He couldn’t believe how stupid he was being, yet he also couldn’t bring himself to believe he was being stupid.
There was something real here, there had to be.
“You’re playing around. You wanted to fantasize a little, then go right back to your miserable life.
You can’t let yourself imagine happiness because you hate yourself so goddamn much. ”
“Like you actually want it?”
“You know what I want,” he snapped.
Carver blinked more, then swallowed and shook his head. “I do?”
“Fuck you, dude. You know I — you know I’m the —” The bartender started coming back over with Carver’s drink, and Scott cleared his throat and tried to act natural.
She passed the glass to Carver on a napkin and said, “Keep the tab open or close it out?”
“Keep it open,” Carver said. To Scott, he said, “You sure you don’t want anything?”
“No,” Scott snapped, sounding strangled. The bartender raised her eyebrows at them and went away again.
Carver drank half of the vodka soda in one sip, then set it down hard. “I know you’re the what?” he whispered to Scott.