TONIGHT ON ROSSFORD
“Logan!” Casey greeted him. “You don’t come nearly enough. And I see you’ve brought someone,”
“I’m Jonathan Lodgrant.”
“There’s only one Lodgrant family I know,” Casey said, taking his hand, “and they are rich as Midas. And there’s only one rich Jonathan Lodgrant I’ve ever heard of so I’m guessing you’re him.”
“You’re guessing right.”
“Well, don’t leave them out on the porch,” Chay shouted from the living room.
“There go my manners,” Casey remarked holding the large oak door open.
Casey and Chay lived in a large brick townhouse on State Parkway. It was three stories and the last one and half stories were dedicated to what was left of the Casey William’s empire.
The living room was enormous, white carpeted and well appointed letting onto a dining room that Jonathan suspected was never used. Most incongruous, on the couch sat too very ordinary looking men with a brown baby they must have adopted.
“This is Sheridan Klasko,” Logan said to Jonathan as Sheridan stood up. He was tallish and thin and his brown hair was in a sort of military cut. He was nice looking, but not… Jonathan couldn’t explain it.
“And this is Brendan,” Sheridan and Logan said.
Brendan was almost a magazine excepting that his tie was over his shoulder because of the baby in his arms. There was something in him though that Jonathan had never seen in a model, had rarely seen in anyone, and he couldn’t quite figure it out, but he thought it was connected to happiness, or peace or something like that.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Brendan said.
“You look like Chicago,” Jonathan said.
“What’s that?” Brendan laughed.
“Jonathan is actually not from here,” Logan said.
“Who is?” Brendan chuckled.
“I just meant you look very businesslike, very marketing major in college.”
“Not even,” Brendan shook his head.
“Brendan is a great writer,” Chay enthused.
It took him a very long time to forgive Logan for taking Sheridan, but Brendan had taken Sheridan long after Logan and, what was more, both Sheridan and Chay had grown up with an almost reverence for Will Klasko’s slim, contained, best friend.
“I’m a decent writer.”
“No, Man,” Casey said. “I read that first thing you did. It was pretty bad ass.”
They all moved to take seats in the living room while Casey continued, “And how the Goodman Miller has undertaken a new novel where it’s gay, gay and more gay and he’s going to tell the good and the bad and the ugly.”
“Really?” Logan looked at Brendan.
In order of age Casey, around the same age as Chay’s admittedly still young father, was the oldest. He was forty-one, but still boy faced. Brendan and Logan were in their mid thirties. Sheridan hung on to the end of his twenties and Chay was twenty-seven.
“It will be a story,” Brendan said to Logan. “It’s not a tell all. I couldn’t tell it all. And if I did, then a lot of us might go to jail. But I think I could up the ante from my first story.”
“Jail?” Jonathan said.
“Oh, yes,” Brendan said to him, placidly. “You don’t know us yet.”
“Say,” Jonathan said, “I’m not a writer writer, not like you. I’ve just done things in my college news paper. I’ve wanted to be more open. More… gay I guess. Less apologetic—”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Brendan said.
“No holding back, no making the story less than it can be, no covering up unpleasant truths. And no, no, absolutely no apologies.”
And then Brendan added, “Except to the people who probably should get them.”
“So you think I should get an apology?” Dena Affren said while she was driving to Merton Street.
“Of course,” Brendan said. “You were the first person I wronged.”
“I’m sure I’m not the first person you wronged, Bren. And I don’t like to live in the past.”
“You love to live in the past.”
“Well, not about that,” Dena said. “Besides, I have my own brand of apologizing to do.”
“Really, you? I can’t imagine that.”
“You know, you’re just as much of a smart ass from fifty miles away as you are up close. When are you coming home?”
“I am home, when are you coming up here?”
“As soon as I… uh, hold on, I shouldn’t be driving and talking at the same time. And I’m at Maggie’s now.”
“What happened between the two of you this time?”
“The same thing that happens everytime. Only... Well, this time it should be the last time. And by the way, Bren, why in the world are you so into apologies and everything, lately?”
“I’m going to write a book.”
“Well, you already do that.”
“But this one is going to be more honest. It’s going to have everyone in it. Sort of. And everything.”
“Well, leave me the fuck out,” Dena said. “Or at least change my name. Hell,” she added, “You can even change my race.
“Look, I love you, I gotta go.”
“Alright, Dena,” Brendan said as she hung up.
Dena straightened her back and straightened her short dress. She pushed back her hair. Maggie was someone you had to get ready for.
Dena opened the door and went up the steps to the apartment. She tapped on the door and a few moments later Ed answered it.
“Hi… Dena.”
There was an uneasiness between her sister’s stepson—who had smashed out all of the front windows in her house three years ago—and Dena.
“Is Maggie here?”
“Maggie’s at class.”
“When do you think she’ll be back?”
“Oh, it’s hard to say.”
“Guess!”
“I’d say around four thirty.”
It was amazing how quickly Ed sobered up.
“Thank you, Edward,” Dena told him.
“Sure,” Ed said, still uncertain. “No problem.”
He looked like he really wanted to close the door. So she turned around and let him.
Maybe have her over at the house… But no. That was the scene of the crime. The whole reason Dena had decided to come here was to give Maggie some power.
“Doesn’t she have enough power?” the voice in her head whispered.
Dena whispered back: Stop being a bitch.
“Where’s Todd?” Elias asked.
“Upstairs with a nervous tick your brother gave him,” Fenn said. “He’s really no fun right now.”
In the living room, their bags before them, stood Dylan and Elias.
“Dad, I was thinking about Thackeray,” Dylan began. “I hardly know him yet. It’s wrong to leave.”
“What was your other option?”
“Maybe I should take him with me?”
“To live with you and Elias and Lance, who’ll be home in a few days? That doesn’t seem even remotely feasible.”
“It sort of does.”
“No it doesn’t,” Elias said, simply.
Dylan looked at him, but Elias said, “It doesn’t. You feel guilty. You feel like you should be raising him.”
“Yeah, a little.”
“But he’s your brother, not your kid. And the three of us have a ton of drama going on anyway. Then add your brother, who has never known a home, let alone a gay home, let alone a gay polyamorous home.”
“Don’t worry, Dylan,” Fenn told him. “We’ll take care of him like our own. Because he is.”
Thackeray bounded down the stairs, and then looking at Fenn said, “Oops.”
“Forget about it,” Fenn said.
Thackeray threw himself on Dylan, who clapped his back and held onto him, and then he hugged Elias for good measure.
“Chill, Thack,” Elias said, though he smiled and hugged him back, “we’ll be back this weekend.”
“And this time we’ll bring Lance,” Dylan said as if this were a big surprise.
Apparently, from the look on Thackeray’s face, it was.
Fenn yawned and reminded them, “You all need to go if you want to pick up Lance on time.”
“That’s right!” said Elias.
“And I need to go see Dad before we leave.”
“And I need to go to sleep,” Fenn added.
Still the leave taking went on a little longer, as if Chicago was more than fifty miles away and they didn’t see each other all the time. When Dylan and Elias were gone, Thackeray turned around and said to Fenn, “Well, it looks like it’s just us, Kid.”
MORE TOMORROW
