Chapter 68
68
Angelo was coming to M’town! With Ben’s blessing, I’d shown his paintings to Angelo, who wanted to see them in real life. The week before his arrival was spent reassuring Ben that Angelo was almost irritatingly moral, that he would not offer representation just because he thought Ben’s Oscar-winning name would flog the paintings. (Ben, like many creatives, once you’d scratched beneath the charming surface, was cripplingly insecure.)
On the night of Angelo’s arrival, Ziryan, Karina, Ike, Aber, Hal, Vivian, Ben and I took our places in the Spanish. Right on time, in he came, triggering an epidemic of dropped jaws. I’d gotten too used to his look, but it really was quite the statement. As usual he was all in black: black shirt, black tie, straggly black hair and black suit, got up like a John Wick tribute act.
The Spanish boasted the coolest demographic in town—it was why I’d chosen it—but every single customer looked nailed to the spot. Even Dr Drew, who had spent eighteen months living in Medellín, was transfixed.
Angelo looked around with his mild smile and I was on my feet, swept towards him in a tsunami of fondness. The other customers clicked out of their trance and began to inch nearer, like a pint-holding zombie apocalypse. Just before they made contact, I plucked him to safety.
The familiar acquisitive light had appeared in Vivian’s eyes: Angelo was in for some serious love-bombing. And if something happened with the two of them? Well, fine . If Angelo was happy, then so was I.
Vivian, however, was to be disappointed. Angelo spent three days walking the beach at Ben’s side where, from what I gleaned, Angelo was his most wise, philosophical self. Eventually Ben was convinced and I got to see Angelo for his final night.
I picked him up from Ben’s in Jimbo the tiler’s truck. (Jimbo was in Morocco for a week.)
“You cause too much of a sensation in town,” I told Angelo. “We wouldn’t be able to talk there. We’ll go to my house.”
“Sure. All good. Hey! Why don’t I cook for you?”
No! A flashback to the production he made of every home-cooked meal filled me with anticipatory tedium. Then I caught his eye. He knew and he found it funny.
“I’ll make something,” I said.
His look was meaningful and I cracked up. “It won’t be just apples and protein bars. I’ve a toasted-sandwich maker now.”
Over the months, the whitewashed cottage had become more me. “Nice.” Angelo studied it. “Really nice. Cozy. And you look great.” With his arms, he drew an arch around me. “Very—let me find the word— unwound .”
“That’s just because I haven’t brushed my hair in a week. Wait though, I do embroidery now! It’s so relaxing. Let me show you! I’m doing these napkins and—”
I was halfway to my craft box before I saw the—yes!—anticipatory tedium zip across his face. Suddenly so much was clear. “I was really boring about my weaving?” I couldn’t stop laughing.
“Passionate.” He was very kind. “You were passionate.”
“A monomaniacal looper, you mean?”
“Passionate.” He was also laughing.
Abandoning my show-and-tell, I sat, facing him. “Tell me how you are,” I said.
“I am…sad. And glad. Sad I’m not with you, glad that I am.”
So far, so Angelo. I loved it. There was nobody like him, anywhere.
“Life without you has been…” He thought about it. “…interesting, I guess is the word.”
“?‘Interesting’ is what enlightened people say when the rest of us would say ‘shite.’?”
He laughed. “It hasn’t been shite. Because it happened slowly, right? We grieved each other while we were still together, yeah? Well, hey, I did.”
“Me too. Listen, Angelo, what exactly went wrong with us? Should we blame lockdown?”
“Is there any need to blame anything?”
“But we were so happy together and then…”
“Then? Go on,” he twinkled. “Say what you want to say.”
“It felt like you were always cross with me and always washing the bed sheets. Like, every time I saw you, you were marching past, a bundle of sheets in your arms.”
“Yep. Fair.”
Most people would go on the defensive. No, I wasn’t! Twice! I washed them twice. But not Angelo.
“What was it about?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nope. Nothing. Forget it.”
“Tell me. I can take it.”
“It was when we were pretending you weren’t perimenopausal…”
Suddenly, I got it. “My night sweats?”
“You wouldn’t see your gynecologist.”
Now I remembered it all. My defiance, his concern and the many mornings I woke up, the sheets drenched.
“Important thing is,” he said. “What happened happened, and we’re still in that river, head above water, being carried forward.”
“So wise, Angelo Torres! Tell me, are you happy?”
“Heeeey, you know my thoughts on happiness.” Angelo insisted that every human remained forever incomplete. When we yearned for more status, money, love or stuff to make us feel happy, it was simply our empty place attaching itself to something tangible. Accumulating externals would never cure us. Instead, we should make peace with being unfillable.
“But my acceptance is pretty good right now. Tell me about you.”
“I think I’m in the right place. I like this gentler life. Less money, less stuff. Good people around me. Especially Jacqui, she’s only an hour’s drive away. Well, an hour if you go in the middle of the night.”
“Well, all right!”
I wondered if I should tell him about Joey. I settled for saying, “I’ve made so many mistakes in my life.”
“Same—”
“There’s plenty of regret and shame but none of it about you. But I feel sad that our part of my life is done. I’ll never be that person again, the one I was when I was in love with you and you were in love with me.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “But that’s the curse of being human. To be moved forever forward, with no control over our direction. To rephrase Emily Dickinson: Because I could not stop for life, she kindly stopped for me.”
“I don’t know if I understand that.” Quickly I held up a hand. “No need to explain!”
Another knowing smile passed between us. Angelo was a little explain-y . Or perhaps I wasn’t curious enough.
It didn’t matter though, because I loved him. For the briefest moment my body remembered the slow devotion he’d given me in bed, how he’d committed with every single part of himself.
But a time had come when I couldn’t be bothered with the lengthy, intense production. When all I wanted was a quick in, out, lovely, job done, thank you.
“And the thing is, Angelo, I’m so grateful that we met when we did, that you—what would you say?—walked that part of my journey with me. You are the best, best, best man.”
“Same. All of it. Back at you. Every single word.”