Day Forty-Five #3
“My relationship?” Jesse was appalled. Randall would be the last person he would turn to for relationship advice. “Randall, no offense, but you’re divorced and live in a tin can.”
Randall, to his credit, seemed to take none. “It looked from the outside like you guys were having trouble.”
Norman jumped in before Jesse could say something even more offensive. “What is the second alternative? What is the first alternative, for that matter?”
Harlan looked up, his interest suddenly piqued.
Jesse, however, didn’t see the need to get bogged down in the details; he was still stuck on Randall playing couples counselor. “It has to do with the planet, or something.”
Randall shook his head. “That’s an oversimplification, but yes. It’s a theory that a cabal of the world’s most rich and powerful already know that Earth will soon become uninhabitable due to global warming and overpopulation and that something needs to be done to prepare for that day.”
“That’s all a myth,” Gail informed them, pouring herself a second glass of champagne. “And those windmills? They’re killing the birds and the whales.”
Brian cocked his head. “The whales?” They were at least a hundred miles inland.
Randall continued, undaunted. “The first alternative is fixing the planet we currently inhabit, which, you know—good luck with that. Man’s excesses are well past the point of redemption. But think detonating nukes in space to let heat and pollution dissipate.”
Gail rolled her eyes.
“The second alternative is to go under the surface, build vast subterranean civilizations. The third alternative is leaving the planet to start anew. Colonize Mars. Jesse, you may have heard dig deep, but I meant within yourself.”
“WHAT?” Jesse barked, not believing his ears.
“It was a metaphor, friend. The first alternative would have been to work on what you had together, let off some steam and see what could be salvaged. It didn’t seem like Norman was around all that much, so that left the second alternative and that meant you dig deep inside yourself to see why.”
Norman could not believe his ears. “And the third alternative is we break up?”
Randall shrugged. If the shoe fits. He looked rather pleased with himself, the metaphor nearly perfect.
Gail, now tipsy on champagne, seemed delighted. “You told him to dig deep in himself, and he took that to mean dig in the yard?”
“It seems that way,” Randall confessed.
“And the only way to cover up this folly was to put in a pool?” Gail clapped her hands at the delight of it all. “Oh, that’s too rich.”
“I apologize if that wasn’t clear.” Randall turned to Brian for backup. “I thought writers were good with metaphor.” But Brian was looking over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen to see if that puttanesca might be coming.
“And what’s after that?” Norman asked.
Gail was confused. “You mean, like put in a hot tub?”
“No. What comes after the third?”
Randall ran his fingers over his flattop. “Then you’re out of alternatives, I’m afraid. You just have to stare down what’s coming.”
Norman felt defeated. To him that meant waiting to see what Jesse decided, if not just his marriage but his relationship was indeed over.
“Look on the bright side,” Jesse began. “Thanks to me, at least you can sit by a pool while you do.”
Norman grew red with anger. “I’ll bet that sounded cuter in your head.”
Jesse pushed himself back from the table and stormed outside to cool off. The rest of the party listened awkwardly as the sliding door to the yard opened and then closed. No one really knew what to say.
Except Gail, who said, “Maybe he’s going for a swim.”
“Should someone go after him?” Lally asked Norman. But Norman was in no mood.
“I’ll go,” Randall volunteered, and he politely excused himself. Another opening and closing of the sliding glass doors.
“Well,” Lally said after more tense silence. “I’ve lost my appetite.” Harlan took her hand and squeezed it. Gail reached again for the champagne and killed the bottle by pouring what was left into her glass. She downed it in a single gulp, and it was very clear it was not in celebration.
Just then, the egg timer dinged. “Say,” Brian said, changing the subject. “Does anyone here know what Jesse’s working on next?”
Norman cleared the soup course and retreated to the kitchen to salvage his puttanesca.
As he braced himself at the sink, replaying what had just transpired, he remembered the security cameras in the backyard.
He pulled the feed up on the iPad they kept on the counter.
Randall and Jesse stood still as statues by the pool’s edge, hands stuffed into their pockets.
They were awash in blue ripples made by the pool water as it circulated over the submerged pool light.
Norman fidgeted with the audio, but when he took the cameras off mute there was no sound.
Randall was not a man uncomfortable in silence.
Eventually Jesse spoke first. “You were really instructing me to look inside myself?”
“You tell me.”
On-screen, the blue light rippling across his face made Randall look not unlike the Force ghost of a Jedi master. “You know, I never really had a father,” Jesse confessed. This caused Norman to lean in closer, listening.
“I heard.”
“So I’m not really sure how these pep-talk things are supposed to go.”
Randall’s face softened as if he were taking pity on the younger man. “No pep talk. Sometimes things can have more than one meaning. That’s all. But you know that.”
Jesse stared into the pool. “Part of the appeal of Norman, at least when we met, was that he was older. He was stability personified. I would have vehemently denied it then, and probably every day until now, but I think not having a father—or specifically not ever knowing what happened to him, afraid the other people in my life might disappear into thin air—fucked me up more than I realized.”
Randall stood on his toes to put one hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “I think it fucked your mother up, too. You might want to go easy on her.”
Jesse said something in return, but the audio was garbled.
“Can you guess the common denominator for all the world’s problems?”
“Is it people?”
“Human beings,” Randall confirmed. “And you know, gay, straight, young, old, left, right, at the heart we’re not all that different. We all have the same root problems.”
Randall removed his hand from Jesse’s shoulder. The audio crackled again, before Randall replied, “I bet it’d feel good to tell him that and not me.”
Jesse looked up at the sky and pointed. “Oh, look. The nighthawks are back.”
Norman quickly closed the security camera’s app and stood there overcome with emotion.
The nighthawks are back. And Jesse noticed.
One of the last things he remembered was telling Jesse that mating season was over.
Perhaps their return symbolized renewal.
The start of a new season for them. Norman wiped the tears from his eyes when he heard footsteps behind him. It was Brian Leung.
“Give you a hand with dinner?”
“Sure thing,” Norman said, because he was too embarrassed to say anything else. He started plating the puttanesca and sent Brian to the table with two servings. When he returned for more plates to serve, Norman thanked him. “I’m sorry you had to witness all this.”
Brian laughed. “You should see my family. This is nothing.”
Just then, from the dining room, they heard Gail cry, “YOU THOUGHT HE WAS A SERIAL KILLER?”
Norman raced to the table in time to see Jesse whisk his mother away. “A word, woman.” He pulled her by the arm toward their bedroom.
Norman encouraged everyone to eat while their food was hot. “If you’ll excuse me, I should just…” But he didn’t say what just was. He then followed Jesse and Gail down the hall, watching as she entered the bedroom cautiously, as if she were afraid of what she might find.
“Problem?” he heard Jesse ask.
Norman snuck up to the open bedroom door and stood guard.
He could just make them out in the mirror that rested atop their dresser, positioning himself just so until he was almost certain they could not see him.
He promised himself he wouldn’t eavesdrop on their entire conversation, but he wanted to be ready to intervene if needed, or throw himself on a grenade.
“I’ve never been in a gay man’s bedroom. I was afraid it might be filled with apparatuses and lubricants. Or erotic art.”
“You’re not in a gay man’s bedroom. You’re in your son’s bedroom. Can you just be cool with that?”
“Oh my god, there’s a wolf in here.”
Norman had forgotten about Mafalda in her crate, she’d been so well-behaved.
“Mother, that’s enough.”
Gail fell quiet as she focused on the crate. “She reminds me of Snowball. Do you remember that dog? That was a good dog.”
“This is a good dog, too.”
That seemed to put Gail somewhat at ease. “Remember your bedroom when you were a boy? You were so into fire trucks. I brought so many home from the store.” Norman held his breath as Gail paused.
“Why do you keep me at such a distance? Why is it so difficult for you to just love me?” It was a question Norman could have easily asked him.
Gail sat on the edge of his bed, and Norman watched in the mirror as she stoically ironed her pants with her hands. “You’re the one having a child and keeping it secret.”
“I’m not having a child, Lally is having a child. I just happen to be…” Jesse joined her on the bed’s edge as if he no longer had the strength to stand. What a mess. He sounded completely depleted. “I don’t know what I happen to be. Life is not going as planned.”
Gail reached over and placed a hand on his leg. “It never does.”
They sat quietly, side by side, as intimate a moment as Norman had observed between them. They were quiet for so long, he almost crept away.
“Why is there a rolling pin on the floor? Or don’t I want to know.”
“It’s for my feet.”
“Your feet?”
“My feet. Any more questions?”
Then he heard what he assumed was Gail moving it with her toes until she was able to rest her own feet on the pin.
“Bad things happen to people, kiddo. That’s just the way it is. I don’t see any benefit in milking the situation. You need to understand that if you’re having a child.”
“I’m not having a chi—”
Gail cut him off. “It’s because you remind me so much of him.” And there it was, Norman thought. Jesse had spent so much of his life searching for his father, in his mother, in Norman, and once again all he had to do was look within. “Happy?” Gail asked.
“Yes, actually I am,” Jesse admitted. From the hallway, Norman knew why. It was so much better than the alternatives. “That Randall is really something.”
“Which one is Randall?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Norman watched as Jesse took his mother’s hand. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Being honest with me for once.”
“I’m always honest with you,” she said with a wry smile.
They fell quiet, and Norman did his damnedest to stifle a sneeze.
“Do you think Dad would have been happy being a father?”
“You asked me that before.”
“You didn’t answer me before.”
This felt too private. Norman wanted to back away, but was frozen, terrified to move.
“There’s really no way of knowing.” Gail sighed. “But honestly? I think he would have been thrilled.”
Norman watched as Jesse’s whole face relaxed. The pinched expression he’d been wearing for twenty-four hours softened, and he lowered his shoulders, which had been raised almost since Norman’s return.
Then, sincerity not her strong suit, Gail mumbled, “I don’t know what this is supposed to be doing for my feet.”
Jesse demonstrated rolling his feet back and forth and she tried it. She was not sold.
“Fix things with Norman,” she said.
Norman’s heart raced at the mention of his name.
“It’s not that simple.”
Gail shook her head. “It is that simple. Your husband came back.”
It knocked the wind out of Norman; he could only hope it did Jesse, too.
Despite her posturing, Gail was unfailingly human.
A woman whose anger masked disappointment and a long-broken heart.
He tried to read Jesse in the mirror. Indeed, he looked as if he were seeing his mother completely, maybe for the first time in his life.
“Yeah,” he agreed. Norman hoped more than anything that this was the yes he had been longing for.
It was enough to unfreeze his legs, and he backed away from the door.
He returned to the table and took his seat, followed a moment later by Jesse and Gail.
No one said a word, but they were all of them eating, appetites suddenly ravenous.
And while he was pleased with the sense of family he got from his table, found though it may be, the evening didn’t give him what he still desired most: A husband. Specifically his. Back.