Chapter 24 #2
“Kudos on the surgeon,” I said, “and the ladies say your products are revolutionary. They’re going to put them in the medicine cabinets of all their rental properties. And Reggie’s fine.”
“And…?” said Libby.
“And nothing. We’re friends. Although we did have a very nice time drifting across the ocean in the moonlight.”
“Oooo…,” said everyone at the table.
“Shut up. My other friend Luc LeMote just showed up in the city and now he’s available because he’s not dead.”
My mom held up her hands—“It’s not any of our business.”
“And this morning I got this on my phone.”
I held up my Samsung. Edwin had forwarded me a video that someone had filmed at the piano bar, of the two of us singing together. Edwin had captioned it “We should make an album.” As everyone watched, there was audible sighing.
“He’s super cute,” said Jenn.
“Your voices blend,” said my mom.
“And he’s the scientist, right?” said my dad. “So he’s got his master’s and a PhD.”
While Edwin and I are only work buddies, his sending me this video was provocative.
Was he rethinking our parameters, or flirting because he was drunk or bored, or did he only want to torture me, because he’d attached a shot of himself in a baggy cardigan worn over a faded T-shirt, with the insignia of his Oxford rowing team, and pleated gray flannels.
When I’d forwarded this image to Brock, he’d texted back, “We’re putting him in the window for fall. ”
“So let’s recap,” said Libby. “You’ve just completed some ultra-clandestine mission that you can’t talk about.
And you’re caught between Reggie, who’s an Irish Tom Hardy without the emotional problems, and Luc, who’s the guy from a Saint Laurent ad mixed with anyone named Alain or Thierry and who’s capable of wearing a dinner jacket over his bare chest, plus we’ve got Edwin, who’s a younger Benedict Cumberbatch swooshed with a less needy Tom Hiddleston and Daniel Radcliffe if he was full-on gay instead of just loving to do Broadway. ”
“Correct,” I said.
“How did this happen?” said my mom, before hurriedly amending, “Not that you aren’t a catch, and am I going crazy, or are you somehow two inches taller?”
“I noticed that,” said Jenn. “Did you have that surgery where they break your legs and lengthen them with aluminum rods? Or is there some new drug that isn’t on the market but will make a bundle, if it helps men get taller and keep their hair?
It would make Viagra look like those multivitamin packets that sit in your kitchen cabinet for years until you throw them out. ”
“So?” said my dad, very interested. “What’s your secret?”
I gave the same answer as any actress who’s not willing to own up to her weight-loss prescription: “It’s just healthy eating with a plant-based diet, exercise, getting enough rest, and plenty of water.”
Before anyone could comment, my mom interjected, “He’ll tell us when he’s ready.”
“Here’s my thinking,” said Libby. “Maybe this is only the first season of something on MAX or , where we meet everyone and superfans break the internet by rooting for the different love interests. They can call themselves the Reggie Heads or the Lucazoids.”
“I might be an Edwinner,” said my dad. “Because of his income potential and job security. If he’s affiliated with a university, he can get tenure.”
“So I don’t have to decide right now?” I asked Libby.
“Not until season three,” she speculated. “And maybe it turns into a polycule where everyone starts having sex with everyone else.”
“But wouldn’t that be jumping the shark?” worried my mom.
“Or fucking the shark and the porpoise and the manatee?” asked Jenn.
“We’ll see,” said Libby. “Or maybe a whole new bunch of guys will show up each season, to keep things crackling. It hasn’t hurt Bridgerton or Grey’s Anatomy. What I’m saying is, Andrew’s only just getting started.”
Another reason I cherish my aunt Libby: she’s great-hearted and uses her powers for the good of humankind, and especially me.
“And there’s one more thing,” I remembered. “Jenn, on the ship, you asked Reggie for the right revenge against Brayden.”
“I was joking!” Jenn insisted. “I was upset. Tell me everything.”
“Well, Marcus consulted with Elizabeth Grand, who’s a romantic supernova. And they came up with this.”
I held up my phone with Brayden’s current photo from a dating app, as I outlined, “Marcus hacked into every picture on Brayden’s social media and made the tiniest alterations.
They’re almost invisible, but Brayden’s head is now slightly asymmetrical and one of his eyes is infinitesimally lower than the other.
No one else would ever notice, but Brayden’s in crisis mode.
He’s already made appointments with two different specialists. ”
“That is a terrible thing to do to someone, even Brayden,” said Jenn. “Tell Marcus and Elizabeth I’m sending them gift baskets.”
The next day at the candle shop, as I was stacking jars into some version of a Christmas tree, the door opened, with the accompanying jingle, as Reggie entered. He’d never been here before.
“So this is your day job,” he said, picking up a sample and reading the label. “Talcum Honeywheat Caress.”
“That just came in,” I said. “And it won’t last. Do you want it gift-boxed?”
“Andrew,” he said, “you’ve surpassed all my expectations.”
“Which were pretty low.”
“Maybe, but you’ve done the Tuxes proud, and we couldn’t have brought Reese down without you. Come with me.”
My shift was ending, so Reggie and I took the subway to Gowanus, where we climbed three flights of a former ball bearings factory to the home of Chet Walker, the former Navy SEAL Reggie had once fallen in love with, and who he’d rescued years later from a spate of crystal meth and PTSD.
As part of his rehab, Chet had become a tattoo artist—he was the person Brock had mentioned after I’d admired the tiny bow tie on Brock’s chest. Chet looked older than Reggie, thanks to his misfortunes after leaving the SEALs, but he’d been clean for over a decade.
“So he’s ready?” Chet asked Reggie, pointing to his cart of tattooing implements and squeeze bottles of different inks.
“Andrew,” said Reggie, “what do you think?”
While most of my friends from high school and college are covered with Incan sunbursts and the Super Mario Bros.
and the Japanese characters for either “Good Fortune” or “I Got This When I Was High,” I’d resisted for the most humiliating reason: the physical pain.
Getting inked struck me as having dental work when your teeth are just fine.
But I’d come this far, and most of all, Reggie had given me the go-ahead.
I was worthy. And I could hear my nana asking, “A tattoo? What do you need that for? Are you in a prison gang?” I would tell her, “Yes. We’re called the Raging Grandsons. ”
“Um, where should I get it?”
“I’m thinking the head of your dick,” said Chet.
After a beat, Chet and Reggie laughed uproariously.
“Jesus,” said Reggie, “Andrew, you went as white as your mom’s guest towels.”
This was my role in life: to bring the gift of laughter at my own expense.
“Your right shoulder would work,” Chet recommended.
I rolled up the sleeve of my T-shirt, like a tough guy in an early Scorsese movie with a cigarette behind his ear, or a member of a 1950s cover band that plays at retirement homes.
I won’t say it didn’t hurt, or that I didn’t clench my face more tightly than when I got my third Covid booster, and maybe people who get multiple Covid boosters aren’t the usual tattoo demographic.
Before he injects me with a flashlight-sized needle of novocaine, my dentist inevitably says, “You’re going to feel a pinch,” which is dentist-speak for “It’s okay to scream like a hungry baby who’s being run over.
” But happily, unlike having a cavity filled, my Tuxedo Society ink was quick and only moderately uncomfortable.
Chet had swabbed my shoulder with alcohol and worked methodically while Reggie said things like, “Andrew, are you still with us?” and “Chet, I didn’t say a polka-dot bow tie, do it again. ”
“Take a look,” said Chet, spinning my chair so I was facing a chunk of unframed mirror. There it was: a small but not microscopic permanent bow tie. I felt both swaggeringly studly and as if I’d had a bar code stamped on me by someone in the produce department at Stop & Shop.
“It looks good,” said Reggie. “It looks right.”
I was smothering my grin, but couldn’t help confirming: my life had absolutely begun. I was provably a Tux. I was still a son, a brother, an occasional actor, and a candle shop employee, but—I was more than who I’d been only a few months earlier.
I thanked Chet, tried to pay him and was refused, tried to at least tip him and got snorted at, and had my ink bandaged so it would set over the next few days.
Before we left, Reggie recounted the Tuxes’ dismantling of Reese Dantine, who’d been responsible for Reggie’s and Chet’s forced departures from the SEALs.
Chet smiled, telling us, “When I saw his campaign ads, I thought that was him, even with the new name. He was an asswipe back then and he still is.”
“You should’ve seen his face, when he realized it was me,” said Reggie.
“Maybe we could try a little ink across his forehead,” said Chet. “Like, ‘Jesus Hates Me’ or ‘The Great American Fuckwad.’ ”