17 Brandon
Brandon
Brandon is relieved that Ollie believed him.
He knows that if he’d shown the text and photo to Ian or Nicole, they would have told him Jon was married and closeted, that’s his wife in the photo with the oversize sunglasses and pink lipstick, his baby in the dinosaur onesie.
Brandon was a dirty little fling, they’d say, and tell him to forget Jon.
But Brandon knows it was something else.
Or at least, he’s pretty sure. None of this makes any sense, and he’s aware that at this point, he’s very far into lovelorn-fool territory, maybe further than any other time he’s been here (pursuing a guy even after seeing someone murdered is probably worse than the three months he spent dating a guy who wouldn’t even kiss him because it might distract from his tuba career—probably).
He needs to understand what’s going on. Not just with him and Jon but with the tattoo guy and the dead guy, and if he and his friends are in trouble, or if Jon is in trouble.
Brandon needs to save everyone. That’s what Prince Charming does, right?
Slays the dragon and hands over the glass slipper—or phone in this case.
Those might actually be two different stories, he realizes. But the principle still applies.
“Just trying to understand what’s going on.”
Ollie bounces on his toes, holding the pole, a grin spreading over his face like a flood. “Yeah. It’s fun, right?”
“I don’t know. I know you think it is. This is the happiest I’ve seen you in ages. Which is kind of concerning.”
Ollie scrunches his face. “Why?”
“’Cause normally people would be worried, not happy. It’s like you’re rushing into this, like you don’t”—Brandon leans in so the people around them can’t hear—“care if you get killed.”
Ollie shakes his head. “No, no, it’s not like that.” He pauses, like he’s trying to figure out what it is like. The train stops, people get off and on. Ollie still doesn’t say anything.
“Well, I’m glad you’re coming with me anyway,” Brandon says. “I mean, if we are going to”—he leans in again—“die, then at least I’ll be with a friend.” He straightens up, spinning back a little on the pole. “And it’ll be for love.”
An old woman on the train behind them snorts a laugh behind her sunglasses. Brandon ignores her.
“For love,” Ollie says with a nod.
****
It’s noon by the time they make it to the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park.
They decided to walk from the west side, Brandon forgetting the statue is on the East, so he’s a little sweaty under his fall wool coat and a little hungry, too.
None of which is aided by the shrieks of the children running around them.
The statue is large, bronze, and swarming with children like bees on a honeycomb.
Around that is a walkway lined with benches on which various parents and nannies sit, watching either their kids or their phones.
Grass and trees spread out beyond that, more people lying on them, even in the fall, with blankets and juice boxes as needed.
Brandon takes out the phone. He saved the photo, and now the two of them huddle close to stare at it. Most of it is the baby. The woman holding the baby is half hidden behind them and her sunglasses. She’s white, with long, straight brown hair, but so are a lot of the women around here.
The baby is also white and looks to Brandon like…
a baby. He’s not even sure how old the baby is—newborn to two years old, Brandon can never tell.
Only when they’re walking around and talking a little.
Then they’re moved from baby to kid , which is a whole new category of confusion where he can’t tell their age until they’ve hit puberty and acne marks them as teens.
Ollie looks up, scouring the area of the park. “Okay, the baby has a sort of oval face, brown eyes, a little hair on top, sort of blond. I’m guessing boy, or at least has been assigned boy, from the blue onesie, and probably like eight months?”
“Yeah, that all sounds right,” Brandon says, hoping he sounds convincing.
“The photo was taken from a little way away—” Ollie zooms in to make the photo larger.
“See, they’re on the grass, not a bench, and there’s a tree, so from the angle…
” He turns around, watching. “I’m going to guess it was taken over there.
” He points at a shady spot. “Think moms have spots they always go to?”
Brandon shrugs as a small child runs into his legs, not looking where she’s going.
She’s one of the ones who seem unsteady on their feet, just learning to run.
She’s got one tall pigtail on top of her head, and as she tumbles backward, her purple dress falls back over her face, and she lies there on her back, crying.
“You okay there, little one?” Brandon asks.
“Pepper, are you all right?” a woman asks, running over to sweep the child into her arms. She turns on Brandon, glaring. “You should be more careful.”
“I was just standing,” Brandon says, taking a step back. The woman’s energy is terrifying.
“Yeah, looking at the kids,” says another woman behind him.
Brandon turns, startled. She looks like someone copied and pasted the other woman and applied a filter: same sunglasses, same puffy-sleeved top, same blowout, just all in different colors.
“What are you two doing here anywhere? You babysitters?”
“Um, no,” Brandon says, just as Ollie says “Yes.”
Both women cross their arms in unison.
“Oooooh, that’s Mommy’s mean face,” says a little girl behind the second woman, her hands on her cheeks.
“Harpo, go play with Zoey. Mommy is dealing with predators,” the woman says, eyes still locked on Brandon.
“Whoa,” Ollie says, “not a great word to throw at queer people!”
The woman turns pink. “I’m not homophobic!” she declares quickly, defensive. “My dog walker is trans!”
Brandon looks at Ollie, afraid to say anything to that, wondering if this woman somehow doesn’t recognize her own dog walker, but Ollie shakes his head.
“We are looking for a friend,” Brandon says quickly, his concierge instincts kicking in. He’s dealt with unhappy customers before, and he’s good at it. He’s good at making people happy. He takes the phone and holds it up like he’s on a game show. “Here she is. Avery.”
The first woman leans forward to study the photo. “Weird for you to have a photo of a baby like that.”
“I’m sure you have photos of you just like this on your phone,” Brandon says, voice soothing. “Who could resist showing off their kids, right?” He smiles widely.
The second woman sighs. “Just stop staring at our kids.”
“We didn’t mean to,” Brandon says. “They just looked like they were having such a great time. It made us feel like kids again.”
Both women soften at that.
“Any chance you know where Avery is?” Brandon tries.
“She usually sits down there,” the second woman says, waving in the direction of the trees Ollie pointed at.
“Thanks,” Ollie says warily and starts to walk over.
Brandon hurries to follow, feeling happy he de-escalated.
He looks again at the photo on the phone.
White woman, straight brown hair—but that could be any of the four women in the shade of this large tree.
They’re all in pale puffy-sleeved tops and jeans, too. Is that a uniform?
“You handled that really well,” Ollie says.
“Thank you.” Brandon feels a little warmth.
“But let me do the talking with Avery. I have an idea.”
“What—”
“Avery?” Ollie shouts before Brandon can finish his thought. One of the women looks over, confused. Ollie trots over, Brandon following, amazed at how easily that worked. They’re really going to find Jon, and they just had to endure some angry white women to do it.
“Um, hi,” the woman says from her blanket. The baby is asleep next to her, and she’s scrolling through her phone. “Do I know you?”
“This is so awkward,” Ollie says, squatting and speaking in a low voice. “But my friend here, he hooked up with your friend Jon the other night, and they accidentally traded phones. Jon said he was meeting his friend Avery by the Alice statue today, so we just thought…let’s hope, right?”
The woman peers up at them over her sunglasses. “I don’t have any friends named Jon.”
Well, fuck. He shouldn’t have let Ollie charge ahead.
“Really?” Ollie reaches up, looking at Brandon. “Phone?” Brandon hands it to him, and he shows the woman the phone. “That’s not you and this adorable baby?”
She smiles slightly. “Yeah, but I sent that to a lot of people,” She glances up at Brandon, then does one of those full-teeth awkward half smiles that Brandon knows he does all the time. “Oh.”
“What?” Brandon asks, shaking out his hands, which have formed fists in his pockets without his realizing.
“I think…” Her shoulders hunch, awkwardness flooding off her. “I think maybe my friend Connor gave you a fake name. Sorry.”
Brandon feels something like a hangover suddenly grip his body; he’s sweaty, nauseous, sounds too loud everywhere—the birds, the babies, the gossiping moms, all of it is too loud, and he wants to get away and go cry somewhere. “Oh,” he says. “That’s fine.”
She shrugs again, still shrinking into her body. “I’m really sorry. He’s just in town from Brussels, where he works. Or worked. I don’t know. Connor is always all over the place. Don’t take it personally. He, like, falls in love with people for one night and then never speaks to them again.”
“It’s fine,” Brandon says. The grass feels like it’s sinking under him. That would be nice. To be swallowed whole by the earth.
She takes a deep breath, and her body seems to unfold again, the discomfort over, dissipating, or maybe transferring from her to Brandon, who wishes he could fold up into a square, a sandwich without a crust, and be eaten by one of these children.
“But he’s not here. I told him my schedule, so I thought he’d come by this week, but he’s probably drunk at Deep Dive. ”
“Deep Dive?”
“Gay bar we used to go to in college. So trashy. I loved it. He always wants to go back there when he’s in town. But I told him I can’t just hit a bar in the middle of the day.” She nods at the baby. “I’m a grown-up now.”
“Yeah,” Ollie says, voice wary.
“You can leave me the phone though, and your address, and then maybe he can send you yours.” She holds out her hand, and Brandon takes a step back, not wanting to give up yet, no matter how awful all this is.
“We’ll try the bar,” Ollie says. “I don’t want to know how much it costs to mail a phone.”
“True,” she says. “Well, sorry. If he shows up, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him…” She looks at him.
“Brandon,” Brandon says. He feels like a shadow on the grass at this point. He’s surprised he still has a name.
“You’re so his type.” Her voice walks the line between appreciative and mocking.
“Thanks,” Brandon says. He stares at her for a beat longer before Ollie takes his arm and leads him away.
“You okay?” Ollie asks, when they’re far from the screaming children and cackling parents.
“I’m so confused,” Brandon says. “I know we had a moment. Why would he lie about his name? He checked in under it, we joked about—” Brandon shakes his head. “Wait, he had an ID with that name! He couldn’t have been lying.”
“It could have been a fake ID,” Ollie says.
“To check into a hotel? Why? It’s not like he knew he was going to seduce the concierge.”
“Maybe he’d seen you from afar and made a plan,” Ollie says. “To have one perfect night with you.”
Brandon smiles. He knows Ollie doesn’t believe that—Brandon doesn’t even believe it, as much as he wants to.
It would be nice to believe, right? That this was all some fantasy of Jon, or Connor or whoever, to create this night with Brandon, to have him—but then why leave the phone?
Unless that’s part of it…like a scavenger hunt…
that this woman could be in on…to find Heimweh.
That’s too crazy though, right?
“I just felt like we had a real connection,” Brandon says, instead of letting the crazy fall out of his mouth. “I know we did.”
“You’ve said that.”
“I know. Let’s just find him. I’ll show you, prove to you we do.” He feels something in him straighten out, some firmness in his spine that wants to show Ollie he’s right. Jon is special.
“Okay, but—” Ollie starts.
“If it was all some quick thrill, fine. Then I can move on.”
“I was going to say we should also find out about the guy who got shot.”
“Right,” Brandon says, remembering. “That too.”
“And I believe you,” Ollie says suddenly. “I think you had a connection. Maybe it was like she said and he just fell in love for one night, but there was something there, and he’s worth finding to figure out what it is. Even if someone hadn’t died.”
Brandon looks over at Ollie, who is beaming at him. “Thanks.”
“You believe in love,” Ollie says, squeezing Brandon’s shoulder. “It’s one of my favorite things about you, so don’t give it up.”
Brandon smiles. Yeah, it is one of his best traits. Then he narrows his eyes at Ollie. “Is this about your date this morning?”
Ollie grins, but Brandon feels his phone buzz, and Ollie takes his out before he can answer.
NICOLE
Tattoo guy is dangerous. Ex special forces turned freelancer.
“I could have told her that,” Brandon says. They’re walking through the middle of the field by the pond but stop to text.
NICOLE
Also I think my boss is hitting on me.
“Ooooooh,” Ollie says.
IAN
That’s terrifying and hilarious
I mean the ex-special forced thing is terrifying and the boss hitting on you is hilarious.
NICOLE
I figured. Why is it hilarious?
IAN
Because you sound like Brandon
“Rude,” Brandon says.
brANDON
Hey! A guest isn’t the same thing as my boss!
OLLIE
Is she hot?
I assume she
NICOLE
She is
Brandon meets eyes with Ollie. They’re both thinking the same thing: Nicole needs some love in her life!
brANDON
Go for it!
IAN
Do not take relationship advice from Brandon
Brandon sighs.
“They’re just teasing,” Ollie says.
“No, they’re right.”
brANDON
Fair
NICOLE
I won’t
I’m just shocked
OLLIE
Why? You’re amazing and beautiful
“Should we tell them Jon’s name might be Connor?” Ollie asks.
“Not yet,” Brandon says quickly. The teasing is going to be bad, and he wants to find Jon—or Connor, whatever—first. Ian and Nicole do not think Brandon’s belief in love is one of his best traits.
NICOLE
I gotta go
IAN
Have fun fucking your boss
NICOLE
Shut up
“So,” Brandon says, “want to go see if Jon is at this gay dive bar?”
“Already found it online. Let’s go.”