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The houses in rossford

I am glad that Brendan is getting more sure of himself. Coming out is never easy and he has a girlfriend so that makes it more difficult. Great continuation as usual and I am looking forward to reading whatever happens next!
 

THE HOUSES IN ROSSFORD

CHAPTER
THREE CONTINUED

LIFE IN THE CAYMANS

“Okay, so did you kiss him?”
“None of your business,” Layla told her.
“How long have I been your best friend?” Dena said, pulling her legs up on the bed.
“Since we were infants,” Layla said, poetically.
“And you’re not going to tell me if you kissed him or not?”
“I didn’t kiss him,” Layla said.
“Oh.”
“He kissed me.”
“Layla!”
“Listen to you, all ‘Layla!’ Are you gonna ask me if it was “Dreamy” now?”
“Was it dreamy?”
“It was wet,” Layla told her. “He did it right as I was getting out of the car. Just slammed one right on me. I almost punched him.”
“What for?”
“Just…. On principle.”
“I don’t get that.”
“You just don’t take advantage of a woman like that,” Layla said. “You just don’t invite yourself to kiss someone.”
“What was he supposed to do? Ask?”
“Is there something wrong with asking? Yes. He damn well could have asked.
“But then,” Layla admitted, “I realized I wanted to be kissed, and I was just getting worked up for no reason. Then I wanted to kiss him back.”
“You kissed him back.”
“No. I’m a lady,” Layla told her. “I said I wanted to kiss him back. And I will.”
“You will?”
“Oh, yes,” Layla said, sagely. “On our next date.”
“So there’s love!”
“No,” Layla said. “There’s a second date.
“Why did I give Will such a hard time? Why didn’t I just go out with him when he asked? I mean, he’s a really nice guy. A bad kisser. But a really nice guy. Why did I give him such a hard time?”
“Cause you’re a cantankerous old bitch.”
“Well, yeah,” Layla allowed. “And he is white,” she added.
“What?”
“Well, you know that factored into it,” Layla said. “I had to look around and see if there were any Black folks around before I settled on some white boy who was not going to understand me.”
“You think that?”
“You don’t?”
Dena was silent for a moment. She took a breath and said, “Well… You have a point. But you think Will won’t get you?”
“No,” Layla said. “But I thought Will wouldn’t get me.”


“IT’S HOT AS HELL in this house,” Todd said.
“That’s right,” Fenn took a puff from his cigarette, and exhaled a gush of smoke. “And one of the first things we can do with that money is get central air. Get central air,” he added, “after we’ve paid for the house out right. And then…”
“And then what?” Todd reached for Fenn’s cigarette pack and his lighter.
“And then we can do whatever the fuck we want to. We can you know,” Fenn added, taking another drag.
“Fenn,” Todd said.
“Yes?”
“What if I said… What if I said it was the money or me? That you’d have to choose between us?”
“I would say that you’re a fool. And I’d ignore you. Cause you know me too well. And, I think I know you.”
“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”
“You know I am.”
“I really, really, can’t get you to turn this in to the police?”
“Todd, I have a question for you now.”
“All right.”
“If… in your heart of hearts, you really, really believed that I was thinking of turning this into the police, would you fight me so hard? Or is it the fact that you know I’m not going to do it that gives you the ability to feel… better about yourself by casting yourself as the innocent party?”
“Fenn!”
` “Don’t Fenn me. Be honest with me. I’ve known you since we were kids. Or at least since you were a kid.”
Fenn sucked on his cigarette until the cherry glowed bright orange, and through the smoke his gaze was unrelenting.
“I don’t know,” Todd said, at last. “I’m really not sure. But… if you’re in I’m in. That’s what being partners means, right?”
Fenn nodded.
“When I fell in with you,” Todd told him, “I knew what I’d signed on for. I knew I didn’t want to be married. I knew I didn’t want a wife. And there were those really lame gay couples, you know the ones who hide out at church or a social club and they’re so pretty and dull. Maybe they adopt a Chinese kid and give back something to the world. You see them on Oprah. Or those trailer trash folks that have threesomes and get high all the time and think they’re exciting but… they’re just trash. They’re just pathetic.
“I mean, when I knew what I was I started to think my options were pretty limited, that there really wasn’t a guy I could do anything with beyond… you know, screwing occasionally. I actually almost thought regular marriage would be better. And then there you were, like you are now, with that… cigarette in your hand, and the devil in your eye—”
“Devil in my eye!”
“Looking so… bad! Like you would get me into all sorts of trouble, like we would never, ever be bored.”
Fenn grinned and said, his foot reaching out to tap the bag, “You’re in?”
Todd nodded his head and smiled, grimly. He threw up tired hands and, walking toward the kitchen said: “Fuck, yeah, babe. I’m in.”


“ARE YOU READY to go?”
“I’m ready, but I’m gonna get out of this wheelchair.”
“Bup bup bup!” said the nurse who was pushing him.
“You better stay, Noah,” Paul said. “It’s hospital orders.”
“Where are we going, anyway?” Noah asked him.
“Well, Todd leant me his Land Rover. And then, well, we’re actually going to stay at Todd and Fenn’s house.
“God, Noah, this day has been really amazing.”
The elevator door swung open, and Noah said, “Amazing, but not in that good way.”
“I don’t know, Noah. Amazing in that really, really interesting way. There’s so much, and I don’t know how much to tell you.”
Noah frowned. He was really a very pretty boy. It was always easy to shoot scenes with him. The elevator was sucked down to the mezzanine.
“Is it something bad?” Noah demanded.
“No, Noah. It’s absolutely good. It’s really some of the best news in the world.”
“A’right?” Noah said, suspiciously. “Well… can you tell me a little?”
“No. I absolutely can’t,” Paul told him.
Noah shrugged.
“What are we gonna do on Monday? Is Guy getting out of jail or what?”
The elevator doors opened, and as the nurse bumped Noah out of the elevator and began rolling toward the door Paul said, “I’ll tell you everything. I just need to get the car.”
He ran off, feeling stupid for not getting it earlier, and Noah murmured, “I might have to go back to California.”
“California,” the nurse said. “I always wanted to go. My brother says it’s wonderful. What’s it like?”
“Hot,” Noah said, feeling ungracious. “Hot and full of earthquakes, Mexicans and gullible Midwesterners. Stay in Indiana.”
The nurse said, “Um.”


She stayed with Noah, waiting for the approach of the Land Rover, and then when it came, Paul hopped out, a very handsome man in cargo shorts and a striped Polo shirt. Innocent looking.
“Is he your brother?”
“No,” Noah said. “He’s a… co-worker.”
“Oh, really?” she said.
“All right,” Paul said. “Get up carefully.”
“I’m not a china doll. I was just a little screwed up. I can get up,” Noah said.
Paul laughed and said, “Well, get up, then.”
The nurse said to Noah, “He must be a really good friend, too.”
“Yes,” Noah said, suddenly feeling a little ashamed of his attitude. “Yes, he is.”

“Look at that sunset,” Paul said. “Look at that. It’s like… I know this sounds silly, but it reminds me of this lollipop I had once, where all the red from the strawberry was swirled in with the yellow from the lemon. It’s just really deep color. You know? It’s like you could put your hand out into the sky and take some out and eat it.”
“A delicious sunset?” said Noah.
“Exactly,” Paul said. “Now that’s just what it is. A sunset so… wonderful you could eat it.”
They sped southeast down Route Two, a large unoccupied road with stretches of farmland, and the occasional barn in the distance. Now and again a bridge crossed overhead, stretching out to road in either direction.
“When I was a little kid,” said Paul, “And I was in the backseat of the car traveling with Mom and Dad, I used to imagine all of these towns that the bridges went off to. What were the people like? Would they be my friends? Did they… Did they think like me? I was so curious about all that.”
“You talk a lot,” Noah said.
“I know,” Paul said. “It’s a fault.”
“Actually, it’s kind of a comfort,” Noah said. “It sort of takes away the pressure of me having to say anything.”
Noah sat back in his seat and yawned.
“Did you and your parents used to travel, Noah?”
“Only my Dad. He was a trucker who fucked my mom and left. She never went anywhere. That’s why I got as far from home as I could. That’s why I travel.”
“Do you ever visit her?”
“No.” Noah’s mouth snapped shut like a lid. Then he said, “Well, I guess that tells you just how I feel about my family.”
Paul didn’t say anything. He gave a hooked smile to the road and continued driving.
“Rossford. Ten miles.”
“Good,” Noah said, putting the back of his hand over his forehead. “I hate to impose on these people but… I really want this trip to be over. Only… I don’t know that it will be over. You know? I feel like I keep on waiting for the trip to be over, but I really don’t know the destination. Or, for that matter, even where the fuck it started.
“I read this article…” But he stopped talking. He was quiet a while, and then when Paul made a turn south, suddenly Noah continued his sentence.
“On the Net. About this porn guy. Like famous. Even more famous than you, Mr. Mellow.”
“All right,” Paul said, making a face and laughing.
“And he said that he loved his work, and that this is what he always wanted to do. So, I looked for some of his shit.”
“And?”
“It’s nowhere as good as mine.”
Paul burst out laughing.
“No. It’s not. It’s… sloppy. And he’s either stupid as fuck or high as fuck.”
“Or both.”
“Or both,” Noah agreed. “No matter what we were off screen, when Guy shot us we were never fucked up. I was never fucked up in a scene. But when this asshole wrote he’d always wanted to do porn I knew he was full of shit.”
“But Noah, isn’t that the party line? I mean we’re all here because we all really want to make great porn movies. No one ever asks anyone else… how the fuck did you end up here… Doing this? But… we’ve all gotta wonder it about each other.”
“Well, look,” said Noah. “I was pretty much out on the streets and thought doing some JO shots for some lonely closet pervs was a better way of making money than other shit. And Burt honestly told me that he was curious. He had to find out. I’m not saying I’m ashamed of what I do. Or that I feel abused or… whatever. But in this article this guy acted like it was a dream job and he was proud of himself. I’ve never walked away from a filming and felt… proud,” Noah made a face and laughed. “Can you imagine feeling like dressing up as a milkman, knocking on all the doors in the neighborhood and blowing my customers in a cheap movie is just like… Gandhi freeing India? Another proud moment in history.”
“Yeah,” Paul murmured after a moment. “I get what you mean. Not really ashamed. Not the way some people act like you should be. But I’m damn sure not proud about it. But… That’s just it. When I was younger if someone had said, ‘You do porn!’ I would have been really ashamed. I think at the beginning I was. But now if someone says it, I think—”
“You think he’s a hypocritical fuck because he’s going right back home to download it.”
“Right!” Paul said. “That’s just how I feel. But… I don’t want to feel that way. Jaded and cynical. Superior. What do I do to make me feel superior?”
“You don’t kid yourself about what you are.”
“I don’t kid myself about what I do,” Paul said. “I don’t even know what I am.
“But you know how you said… you’re not ashamed, but you’re not proud?”
“Um hum.”
“I want to be proud. I want to… do something that… doesn’t make that little, cynical person inside of me smirk.”
 
I like the way the story is progressing! I am glad Layla and Will had a good first date. The behind the scenes of porn stuff with Noah and Paul is interesting.
 
THE HOUSES IN ROSSFORD

CHAPTER
THREE

LIFE IN THE CAYMANS

CONCLUSION

“Well, who is the kid?”
“I can’t tell you who he is,” Dan said, “It was a confession. And stop blowing smoke in my face.”
Turning away from Dan Malloy, Fenn exhaled.
“It was not a confession,” Fenn argued. “Not exactly. It was a conversation in your office.”
“It was the same thing."
“And did you even offer a penance? Did you? Because it seems to me like it was just a chat, in which case you can tell me.”
“I’m pretty sure the boy did not expect me to be sitting at a kitchen table with you, telling his deepest secrets.”
“Then I know the boy?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But I do know the boy?”
“Fenn, in a town this small, at our parish, of course you know him.”
“Is it Brendan Miller?”
“Fenn! I don’t know what you’re talk…”
But through the cigarette smoke, Fenn gave a fierce and triumphant smile, and the priest kept trying to dissemble, but finally said, “How did you know?”
“Well, see, that’s my secret, and unlike you, I don’t give my secrets away.
“So what are you gonna do?”
“What do you mean, do?”
“Unless the word changed its meaning in the last twenty-four hours, I mean just what I said. He’s dating Todd’s niece, Dan. I mean, you can’t just let him go on being gay and dating Dena.”
“Says the man who stole a million dollars.”
“I don’t know how much is in that bag,” Fenn said. “And I didn’t steal it. It sort of disappeared off the gird, and I’m capitalizing on it’s… non gridness.
“I should count it. We really ought to count it right now and decide who’s in and who’s out.”
“Who’s in and who’s out?”
“Of our money plan,” Fenn said.
“We don’t have a money plan.”
“Oh, Dan, of course we do. I have a money plan, and the moment you looked in that bag was the moment you became a we.”
“I don’t think—”
“So it would be you. Me, Todd, Paul. The four of us. It won’t be split equally. You have a poverty vow and I was the one who found it and kept it when everyone said give it back. Tom will have to know, and that’s too bad. I’m going to take us out of the red, and he’s going to want to know where the hell the money came from. And then Tara. Can’t leave her out. Adele… I would like to leave out, but—”
“I can’t believe you’re—”
“Dan, if you say I can’t believe you’re going through with this one more time—”
Todd came down the stairs in his boxers, and acknowledged Dan with a nod.
“I’ll say it to you, then,” the priest turned to Todd.
“Hey,” Todd threw up his hands. “I’m in with Fenn now. I already agreed not to stop him. I was just wondering if you ever planned on coming to bed.”
“Eventually. I wonder,” Fenn turned to the whirring air conditioner in the kitchen window, “Would central air be a cheaper move, or not?”
“I think the cheapest unit is five thousand dollars. If you want something good.”
“Well,” Fenn shrugged with a little smile. “We can probably handle it.”
Todd chuckled and rubbed his unshaven face when he heard the Land Rover coming into the driveway.
“That must be Noah.”
“The other pornstar,” Dan said.
“You said that with a touch of excitement. You’ve always been excited by badness.”
Dan shrugged and Todd said, “I think I’ll throw some clothes on to welcome our guest.”


When the phone rang, Fenn said, “Hello.”
“It’s Tom.”
“You do know people like to sleep.”
“Oh, please. It’s not even ten o’clock. Plus… I hear a party going on.”
“It’s just a little gathering. We’ve got indefinite house guests. It’s very… Gone with the Wind.”
“Are you picking cotton?”
“Bitch, shut your mouth. What’s going on?”
“I had decided, and then decided that you should make the decision too… since you’re co owner—”
“That’s generous.”
“We’re just going to have a rehearsal to get a new lead roll since Chris isn’t coming back. We won’t practice tomorrow.”
Fenn turned from the phone to Paul and said, “You still wanna act?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“Scratch that, Tom.”
“Huh?”
“Practice is at eleven a.m. as usual.”
Fenn hung up and said, “Things are going to change from now on. This is going to be the playhouse I wanted. This will be like… the Royal Shakespeare Company of the Midwest.”
“You do Shakespeare?” Paul said.
“We will do Shakespeare,” Fenn said. Then he said to Noah, “What are you doing? Are you going back to Port Ridge?”
Noah looked at a loss. He turned to Paul, who had no answers, and then said, “At the moment… I guess not.”
“Well, we’ll find something for you too. What are you good at?”
“Having sex with other men on camera.”
Dan coughed on his water, and Noah said, “Scuse me, Father. Just… I’m not good at anything else.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“I’m sure you’re just saying that because you’re sort of obliged too. No offence.”
Dan didn’t say anything because, in fact, Noah was right enough. But Paul said, “Whaddit I tell you? Everything’s gonna be all right.”
“You said that already. In the car. But I don’t know how you know that.”
Paul looked at Fenn, his eyes questioning, and Fenn nodded then said, “All right.”
“What?” Noah looked from Paul to Fenn.
“Well, he’ll be the fifth person in on it.” Fenn announced.
“Keep this up and all Northwest Indiana will be in on it.”
“I found what looks like about a million dollars,” Fenn said flatly. “Actually, I don’t know how much it is. But I do know we’re all going to have a really good time with it.”
Noah looked amazed.
Paul ran upstairs, came back a few moments later and said, “Here,” tossing a pile on his lap, “have ten thousand dollars.”


“WELL, I DON'T KNOW,” Noah said when they were all sitting in the living room and Father Dan had left. “We were all… you know… Getting messed up. I was getting messed up really badly. And I remember being in the room, and I remember some of the Chicago folks were making large transaction, but…. “
“Fenn, we should count that money.”
“That’s a good idea.”
He got up, but Todd raised a hand and jogged up the stairs himself. He came back a few seconds later, and they spilled it on the floor.
“God!” Noah marveled.
“Amen,” said Fenn, gazing at the piles of money.
“Each pile is about…” Todd murmured.
“Ten thousand,” Fenn said.
Paul took his piles and Noah’s to add to the stash and began counting, stacking them up in rows, murmuring to himself.
“My God,” he murmured, counting softly as the pile grew.
“Forty times ten-thousand is…”
“Four hundred thousand dollars,” Todd said.
“How much is that?” Noah turned to Fenn.
Fenn, who was an English major and not a mathematician, furrowed his brow. But Todd and Paul murmured, “A little shy of half a million dollars.”
“A million dollars must be a lot,” Noah murmured, and Fenn nodded his head.
“Well, it’s no doubt, guys,” Fenn said, still entranced, “if we don’t screw up we’ve fallen on our feet.”
“But we can’t just leave it a pile on the floor,” Todd said. “We’ve gotta do something with it.”
“Well, we can’t very well just drop it off at First National either,” Fenn noted.
“We could put it in a private account in the Caymans,” Noah said.
They all looked at him.
“That’s what they do on TV,” he elaborated. “Whenever the government takes some bad guy’s money away, he always smiles because he has a private account in the Caymans.”
Fenn shrugged, and piling the money back into the valise said, “All right, so first thing in the morning I guess we find out how to get to the Caymans.”
“Where the hell are the Caymans,” Todd wondered.
“I’ve never heard of the Caymans said Paul.”
“I only watched Dallas when I was growing up,” Fenn said. “I doubt the Ewings ever had anything to do with the Caymans.”


What might have been the guest bedroom was usually the trash room or what Fenn called the “Clean Up” Room. When things became cluttered around the second floor and he didn’t feel like folding clothes or opening envelopes, Fenn just tossed them in there and shut the door. To Todd this was a bad habit and one he’d tried to break Fenn of before, one day, in the middle of a very long explanation about why this was a bad thing, he’d caught a look in Fenn’s eyes that warned him to shut up. There was a large closet downstairs that served the same purpose as the Clean Up Room.
When it was clear that they would end up having two houseguests, Fenn and Todd spent the afternoon emptying out the Clean Up Room and they’d taken a futon mattress and a few cushions from the outdoor furniture to make something like two beds. Todd set a lamp up and said, “Well, now that just makes it look a lot cozier than an overhead light.”
“I agree,” said Fenn, looking around. He wasn’t completely satisfied with the result, but he was satisfied enough.
Now, in the darkness of midnight it hardly mattered, and Noah on his bedpile was so bone tired that he could have slept on a trash heap.
“How are you feeling?” he heard Paul’s voice.
After actually thinking about it awhile, Noah said, “Overwhelmed.”
Then he said, again, “Overwhelmed! I mean… My God… That’s… a couple of days ago I was doing porn for Guy McClintock and now…. We’re all sitting on top of four hundred thousand dollars.”
“At least.”
“And you…”
“What about me?” Paul said.
“I always… I always thought your name was Johnny.”
Paul burst out laughing.
“I mean, my name is Noah. It really is. But… I never ask questions. You’re not really supposed to, I don’t guess. I mean, I don’t know you at all. And you’ve been a really, really good friend. I actually didn’t think I had any friends. Not any real ones. Everything’s so changed.”
“Well…” Paul said, at a loss. “Yes, I guess it has. You know… I actually forgot my name was Paul. Well, not forgot, but I had stopped using it. Johnny Mellow’s a lot more popular than Paul Anderson ever was.”
“I need a new name,” Noah said, “if I’m going to go back and really be a pornstar.”
“You’re gonna go back?”
“You aren’t?”
“I don’t know,” Paul said. “I was thinking that part of my life might be over.”
“What’s that?” Noah sat up. He’d heard noise downstairs.
“I don’t…” Paul got up, and pulling his tee shirt on went out of the room to look down the stairs.


In the living room, Adele Lawden was standing in a panic with Tara Veems beside her, and Fenn was putting on shoes while Todd ran up the stairs and Paul leapt out of his way.
“What’s going on? Can I help?”
By now, Noah was out of the room too, half dressed, hair wild.
“Uh…” Todd tried to decide. “Right now just sit tight. That's Fenn’s sister, down there. I have to go with them to the hospital.”
Paul and Noah waited for an explanation while Todd came out of his room with a pair of crocs hanging from one hand, and a shirt in the other.
“It’s their grandmother,” Todd explained. “She had a heart attack.”
 
THE HOUSES IN ROSSFORD

CHAPTER
FOUR

RAIN



“I was thinking we could run through the music one more time,” Brian said.
Tom Mesda looked at him.
“I mean, now that the show is going to go on. Now that Fenn says he found a new star. We might as well just give this another run through.”
“Well…” Tom said, looking distracted, “You can give it another run through if you want. I’ve gotta go, though.”
“Where?”
“Didn’t you hear? Didn’t I tell you? Fenn’s grandmother is in the hospital.”
“Yes, I know that,” Brian said, a little impatiently. “But she’s not your grandmother.”
“I want to be with Fenn. Is that the strangest thing to understand?”
“A little. Yes. When Fenn must have Todd and his sister and half of that family. I’m not sure why you think you have to show up too.”
“Brian,” Tom said, slipping on his jacket, “I’m gone.”
Brian Babcock was tall, and dark haired, with high, defined cheek bones and a dark complexion. When Tom thought of him, the old time word swarthy came to mind. Brian rose from the piano and stepped across the bench, toward Tom, in one, easy stride.
“You love him,” he said.
Tom made a noise and turned around.
“Of course I love him. Fenn’s my best friend.”
“No, you love him,” Brian went on. “Just like you always did. And that’s too bad because it’s over. It’s been over for years only you can’t see it. You think one day he’ll come back to you.”
“And you think one day I’ll come back to you,” Tom returned.
The two of them looked hard at each other a long time, and then Tom turned around and left.


It had rained all last night. The splashing, constant rain of early spring. All through the night it had grown colder and colder, but Tom had resisted using the furnace. He woke up freezing, and the phone was ringing. While goose bumps rose all over his body, Fenn told him that he had just come back from the hospital and was going to rest a little while.
“I’ll go back there later,” he had said. “After breakfast or something. Sit with Mama. She sounds mean as ever, so that’s a good sign.”
“Yeah,” Tom had said, halfheartedly, trying to laugh. “I’ll be over.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to,” Tom said, twisting the phone cord around his finger. This was one of those times he was glad he didn’t have a cell phone. “But I want to be there. For you.”
“All right, Tom,” Fenn said in that voice as if he were pushing Tom aside.

Tom turned on the heat, giving in, comforted by the snick snack and the whir that prophesied heat in the middle of a cold night. He went back to bed thinking they could do read throughs with Tom in Chris’s old parts until this new actor came in, and then he would do music with Brian for a while. When he woke up he realized he’d had one of those half dreams where the more you tried to recall it, the more it slipped away. He still felt Fenn’s presence and knew he’d been dreaming about their time together.
Tom poured coffee and sat on the edge of the bed. He wished he had a cigarette but he’d never been a real smoker. He resisted the urge for a little while before getting up and going to the cupboard he transformed into a sort of graveyard for retired knick knacks. He tucked his head behind a box and pulled out the picture of Fenn. They had no pictures together. All of those pictures turned out bad. And Fenn was not photogenic. He always moved around. He hated having his picture taken, as if he were one of those primitive people who feared their soul might be stolen. But then that made sense, for there was something utterly primitive about Fenn.
Tom held the picture for a long time, not really looking at it. It was a good one. The fact was they fought so often over little things, over the theatre, that Tom forgot that Fenn was his best friend. No, that old phrase his dearest friend was more appropriate. It hurt. It was a sweet sort of ache. Right now in this bedroom, hours before Brian had hurled it at him like an accusation, he knew he still loved Fenn.


WILL KLASKO FOUND LAYLA before lunch. She hadn’t been herself through history class and he hadn’t dared to pass her a note.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“Oh,” she blinked. “Oh, hey, Will.”
Before she could open her mouth, Dena was coming down the hall with Brendan tagging beside her.
“Do you wanna use Brendan’s cell to call the hospital?” Dena said.
“Hospital?” Will began.
“Oh, yeah,” Layla said, turning to Will. “My great-grandmother had a heart attack. They took her to Saint Mary’s last night.”
“Oh, no,” Will began.
“I don’t see a point in calling,” Layla said. “It’ll just bother everyone, and they’re jumpy enough.”
“You mean your mom and your grandma,” Dena said.
Layla nodded.
“You could call Fenn. He never gets jumpy about anything.”
“Fenn doesn’t believe in cell phones,” Layla was saying, but Dena had reached into Brendan’s grey trouser pocket, and was dialing a number.
“Todd? How are things over there?”
Dena nodded and nodded, murmured, “Uh uh,” and then told Layla, “She’s fine. She’s asking for a cigarette.”
Layla covered her mouth and chuckled.
“She’s not getting it,” Dena added, unnecessarily. Then she said to Todd, “Um hum, Um hum. All right. Thanks, Todd,” and hung up the phone.
Will looked at all three of them, and Dena explained, “Me and Layla’s family are pretty tight, and my uncle is actually with her uncle.”
“With?” Will said.
“They’re a couple,” said Brendan.
“Oh,” said Will.
“They always knew each other, but Fenn is older than Todd,” Layla explained, finding solace in storytelling. “One day, years ago at a barbecue, after they had both left someone else, they sort of looked across the table at each other or something like that. And then they fell in love, and the rest is history.”
“Wow,” Will said.
“Well, it’s a little more to it than that,” Dena said. “But that pretty much is the story. Or I guess it is. I don’t really remember how the whole thing happening, or at least, I didn’t really understand it. I just thought they were roommates. I mean, I was about ten or eleven. Not twelve, right?”
Layla nodded, counting on her fingers.”
“I still don’t get it,” Will said. “I mean… I don’t know anything about it. I’ve never known a gay person.”
“No,” Layla said. “You only think you’ve never known a gay person.”
“It’s not like it’s that simple,” Brendan said all of a sudden. “People are just people. And I don’t think you should categorize them by the way they feel.”
“Amen,” Layla said.
“And,” Brendan added, “just because you feel… that way, one day, doesn’t mean you’ll feel that way all the time. So… anyone could be gay at any time.”
“Could you be gay?” Will said.
“What’s that supposed to mean!” Brendan snapped.
“Hey, ease up. I was just saying… You said anyone.”
“Well, then maybe you could be too,” Brendan said.
“Maybe,” Will agreed, fearing the return of Brendan’s wrath.
“I was just saying—” Brendan said, straightening the strap of his book bag.
“And I was just saying,” Dena cut in, “or I was about to, that we should all go over to the hospital after school. Or, at least, we should take Layla over there.”
“Which means we should take my car?” said Brendan.
“Is that a problem, Mr. Miller?” Layla asked him.
Brendan cocked her a smile.
“Not at all, Miss Lawden.”

“Oh, Will it was terrible when I heard about it last night.”
“You could have called me,” he said.
Layla looked at him.
“I could have?”
“Of course. I mean,” Will folded and unfolded his hands, “I know we’re not… a couple yet… But I’d like to think we will be. And… I’d like to think we’re friends. I hate that I’m the last person to know. I hate that I’m not any help.”
“You are help,” she told him. “You’re help now.
“But you know, she’s old. She’s in good health, but she can’t last forever. And apparently she’d passed out in the house and was unconscious for a while. A neighbor just happened to stop by. I was so scared, Will. And I know my grandmother was too.”
“Does she live by herself?”
“Well, she used to. But now that she and my grandmother can stand each other, they live together. Only my grandmother was out that night. And I guess it must be hard to be old enough to be a grandmother and still have your own mother to take care of. I can’t imagine what that would be like. I’d be so afraid she’d die. Isn’t that horrible? When I think about my grandmother or my great-grandmother, I think about how horrible it is to get old and die, to lose someone you’ve always had.
“Sometimes I stop in the chapel and I pray that my mother won’t go until I don’t need her. Until I can let her go. And I hope that’s not until I’m at least my grandmother’s age.”

 
ChrisGibson said:
Sorry for posting so late. I got caught up in some things. More tonight.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about it! With the time difference it doesn't bother me. Also, I am liking the new chapter! Brendan isn't as open yet about his sexuality as I thought he was. Guess it will take some time before he comes out.
 
THE HOUSES IN ROSSFORD

CHAPTER FOUR

RAIN

DAN MALLOY HAD a religion class he taught in the middle of the day that was dismally disappointing and constantly made him shake his head over the academic and eternal fates of students. After this he took a little lunch and retired to the church for a while. At a young age—for a priest—he had been made assistant pastor of Saint Barbara’s, and now he ran the parish outright. One of his privileges, and a necessity due to the lack of priest and mounting responsibilities, was stealing as much time as possible to sit quietly in the church, collecting himself in its silence.

He was doing just that when Brian Babcock arrived to practice organ. He played at the evening mass. Maybe today he was giving organ lessons, or maybe he was practicing with a soloist for Sunday. Sometimes he had kids over from the university where he was doing some teaching now. It was nice. And Dan would hum to the song if he knew it. That was his form of prayer.


Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free
Rolling as a mighty ocean
In its fullness over me
Underneath me, all around me
Is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward
To Thy glorious rest above


The truth was Dan did not understand God. He always felt he should understand him or talk to him better. But really he just felt sort of stupid around him. He felt like he half got whatever the stain glass windows meant, whatever the Stations of the Cross were trying to tell him. Saint Cecelia, smiling pacifically from the window above him, with the western light coming through her, and painting the stone floor, surely knew something. If he could learn it, maybe one day he could wear that smile too.

Oh the deep, deep love
All I need and trust
Is the deep, deep love of Jesus

Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus
Spread His praise from shore to shore
How He came to pay our ransom
Through the saving cross He bore
How He watches o’er His loved ones
Those He died to make His own
How for them He’s interceding
Pleading now before the throne

The music had stopped for sometime and Ban stirred when he heard the hard soles of Brian’s feet walking closer to him. Brian was a man in charge, a man Dan wished he could have been, handsome with dark eyes and a planed face, possibly Portuguese, curly dark hair, a commanding walk, always impressive clothes.

“Brian, that was wonderful music. You always make the church such a nice place.”

“Thank you, Father,” that short tight bow, the one Brian always gave. Brian was so in control. “Do you have time for a confession?”

Confession always shocked Dan because Dan, who was always sure of his own incompetence and personal sin, could never believe that other people felt the same way.

“Of course,” he said, nodding quickly. “Do you want the confessional?”

“I think so. Today, I’d like tradition.”

Dan nodded.

“Bless me father, for I have sinned.”

“I bless you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” Dan made the sign of the cross through the lattice.

“It has been… six months since my last confession.”

“What do you have to confess?”

“Hatred, Father. Evil…” Brian said. “Deep inside of me.”

Dan remembered saying something like this, long ago, and the priest saying, “Surely not, child.” Dan resisted the urge to repeat that to a man his age and said, “I can’t believe that.”

“I hate someone,” Brian said. “And I hate myself for doing it. It’s not always there. But it comes up, and it’s so ugly. And then… I hate myself.”

“You know… in the Bible it says God hates nothing he has made. That includes you. You should try to love yourself.”

“What does that mean?” Brian demanded sharply, through the lattice. “How do you… try to love yourself? How do you love yourself when you see such meanness in you? How do you get the meanness out? God! I mean… Lord… I want to… get rid of that. I used to be a good man. I think I was. But now… I don’t like the man I am, the man I see sometimes.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on. A little more specifically. So I can be more helpful.”

Brian took a long breath and rocked back in his seat.

“Father… Dan… I, I fell in love with someone. I fell in love with someone who belonged to someone else, and I told myself it didn’t matter. And I waited for the first crack in the relationship and when it was there, I jumped right in. I broke up someone’s relationship. I started having an affair.”

Dan knew all this. It was ancient history. Did Brian imagine that Fenn hadn’t told him? Dan supposed he hadn’t. He took the professional tone.

The priest said: “But it’s over now?”

“It’s been over a long time. I was told, I was told by the person I was… having this relationship with that we would never be anything; that they were very much in love with the person they were cheating on. And… what we were doing was just… lust.”

Dan could tell it was hard for Brian to say these things. It came out very slowly.

“I said that I was fine with it. I didn’t care. But when we were caught that ended the relationship. And even though I stayed away from this person for a while, in the end we kept at it and I kept hoping that one day… It would be serious. I really would be loved. It’s been a long time. Years, really. And… I try to move on. The person who I wronged has moved on, found someone else now. But we—the—”

“Brian, I know you’re gay so you can drop the pronouns. They make this story a lot harder for you to tell.”
Brian breathed out a long sigh.

“You’re right. You’re right. I thought he would love me. I keep hoping he’ll love me. This guy whose relationship I destroyed. And occasionally I go back to him. We… occasionally fall into the old routine and I can’t stop hoping, and he won’t stop loving his ex. He’s over at the hospital with him right now. And… even though I wronged him, and he’s in a really bad away… I can’t stop hating him.”


AT LAST PERIOD, Will stopped by Brendan’s locker. Brendan had been talking to Stanley Kirkpatrick, and Stanley nodded and left and then Brendan said, “What’s up, Will?”

“It’s just,” Will said.

“It’s just what?” Brendan laughed. “You ready to go to the hospital? Isn’t that a strange question? You are going with us? I thought you were?”

“Yes,” Will said, “of course.”

“Cool. You can ride shotgun.”

“I just wanted to say I was sorry about this morning. I wasn’t calling you gay. I don’t know what I was doing. But I wasn’t trying to—”

“Will,” Brendan put a hand on his shoulder, “it’s cool. Shut up and let’s go.”

“You know, before I found out what was going on, and Layla was all quiet this morning, I thought it was me. I thought it was my fault cause I did something wrong on the date. When she told me the truth I actually felt relieved. Isn’t that horrible? As long as it wasn’t my fault, I was relieved.”


Brendan turned Will a half exhausted smile and said, “You worry too much, Klasko, you know that?”



“WELL, WHO THE HELL IS THIS NOW?” Lula Stubblefield demanded. “Get my glasses, Anne. If I’m going to have company, I need to see him. And, Adele, my makeup bag.”

“Grandma!”

“Don’t grandma me.”

From beside the bed, Fenn looked up, “Thomas.”

“Yeah,” he said, giving Fenn a small wave.

“You,” Lula said, loading that one syllable with immense disappointment.

“Lula,” Fenn said in a warning voice.

“It’s because I love you,” his grandmother murmured and Fenn nodded while saying to Tom, “I told you that you didn’t have to be here.”

“That’s what I said,” Todd, standing beside Tom commented. “Half the county is outside in the waiting room.”

“If I knew having a heart attack would make me this popular,” Lula said, “I would have had one along time ago.”

“Don’t say that, Grandma!” Adele told her.

“Adele!” another man stuck his head into the room.

“Oh, not you too!” Lula said.

Adele lifted a finger and resituated her purse over her shoulder before heading out of the room.

“Adele,” Hoot was saying, “now, I was glad to bring you here, but I got things to do.”

“The first of them is get those divorce papers ready,” she said. “Now, don’t worry, Hoot. You can go. But Layla’s going to want to be here, so do you think you could pick your own daughter up?”

“I don’t think I can do that, baby—”

“No—” Adele put up her hand. “Do not call me baby. Or anything else. And, if you can’t be any use to me, then you ought to leave.”

Hoot opened his mouth to say something, but then turned away and walked toward the elevator.

Adele stood there for a moment and then suddenly was surprised by a hand on her shoulder.

“Todd!” she turned around.

“You all right?”

Adele nodded, pressing on a smile.

“I’ll be all right. I need to go over to the school and pick up Layla. Since Hoot won’t even do that.”

“Don’t you worry,” Todd told her. “I can do that.”

“No—” Adele began. But she relented, smiled and said, “Thanks Todd.”

He nodded, heading to the elevators behind Hoot.
 
THE HOUSES IN ROSSFORD WEEKEND PORTION

CHAPTER FOUR

RAIN CONTINUED
In Lula’s hospital room her daughter, Anne, and her grandchildren were sitting while Tom stood.

“Well, you look really good, Mrs. Stubblefield,” he told her.

“Well, yeah,” she agreed, finishing off her face, and putting the makeup sponge back in the bag, “You know what they say, ‘Black don’t crack.’”

“Yes,” the toilet flushed and out a voice said from the opening door, “and with the right amount of plastic surgery sometimes it doesn’t even smile or have the ability to raise its eyebrows.”

Tom covered his face and met the eyes of the man who stood beside Fenn.

“Lee Philips, cousin of the suffering,” he said, offering his hand. “Don’t worry. I always wash after pissing.

“And you would be…?”

“Tom Mesda.”

“The cheating ex, yes. Well, good to finally meet you.”

Tom opened his mouth, but Fenn only said, “Lee lacks discretion.”

“Lee lacks the desire to bullshit,” Lee Philips said. “I never saw the point in it. Besides, whatever you did, here you are, so you can’t be that bad. And speaking of discretion and the lack thereof, everyone knows it wasn’t your indiscretion that ended things. You let Fenn go, and he flew away.”

“You talk entirely too much,” Adele told him.

“Fenn’s a damn bird, once you let him go, you might never get him back.”

“Oh, shut up,” Lula said, before Fenn could say anything. She looked at her grandson and told Lee, “You’re right, of course. But shut up all the same.”

“Yes, Aunty,” Lee said with mock sorrow.

“Besides,” Adele added while everyone tried to recover from Lee, “Todd has Fenn, so he can’t be that much of a bird.”

“I don’t appreciate being talked about like I’m not in the damn room.”

But he was, and Lee added, looking over at Tom, “That’s because Todd had the good since to never let him go.”

“Oh, cousin, so that’s Tom!”

“Yeah, that’s Tom.”

“Well.”

“Well, what?”

“It’s just…” Lee began. “I didn’t know he looked like that is all.”

“Everyone says that.”

“Well, shit, yeah. I mean, the boy—the man—is beautiful. All that… curly hair and those dark eyes. Those eyes. And he’s so shy. Is he really shy?”

“Yes,” Fenn said. “When I met him, it took a month to get past hello with him. It was like pulling teeth.”

“And then it was worth it?”

“For almost ten years it was worth it.”

Lee let out a whistle between his teeth.

“Fuck!”

And then Lee said, “Do you still love him?”

“In that best friend way. Yes.”

“No, I mean in the ‘would you be jealous if someone was after him?’ kind of way.”

“Oh, my God!” Fenn said. “What’s wrong with you? You were hitting on him, weren’t you? In my grandmother’s hospital room.”

“I will confess,” Lee lifted his eyes to the fluorescent lights and put a hand over his heart before whispering, “I would make sweet love all night long to that boy, if you didn’t mind.”

And then, releasing his pose he added, “Or even if you did.”

The elevator opened and Tom came out with a tray full of drinks.”

“Here you go, guys.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Fenn muttered.

“I’m sure we will.”

“Talk about what?” said Tom.

But just then another elevator swung open and out came Todd, followed by Paul and Noah.

“Guess who I found in the lobby?” Todd said. “By the way, Layla left, already. It’s a good thing I had the sense to call first. Apparently, she’s coming here with some guy named Will.”

Fenn smiled. “I guess the date went well, after all.”

“What date?” said Tom.

“Never mind. Tom, this is Noah, and this is Paul, and we have something we all need to talk about, tonight.”

Tom looked from Paul to Noah and smiled cautiously. “Well…. All right.”

The elevator doors opened again, and out came Layla, Dena, Will and Brendan.

“Damn,” Fenn said.

“We all wanted to be with Layla,” Dena told them.

“Lee?” Layla blinked.

“Cuz,” he drawled.

“Is she so sick you needed to come from…?” Layla began, then said, “Where the hell did you come from?”

“From going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it. And no, you don’t have to worry. She’s fine.”
Fenn, who always felt that it was important to introduce everyone to everyone else, did so and Brendan stopped, tilting his head, when he met Paul.

“What?” said Dena.

“I just feel…” Brendan began, “I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

Paul looked awkwardly to Fenn and Noah, and then Noah said, “Probably in a porno. We used to do that before our boss got busted for possession of cocaine and other illegal substances.”

While Paul was opening and closing his mouth like a dying fish, Brendan blurted out, “Johnny Mellow!” Dena looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and Tom cried, “You work for Guy Clintock!”

“How do you know that?” Fenn demanded.

Lee whispered: “Who?”

And Layla shrugged.

“Well,” Fenn said, still eyeing Tom, “since my ex is apparently already acquainted with Paul’s—we call him Paul now, folks—work, I’m sure he’ll be glad to know that he’ll be taking over Chris’s part in Twelve Angry Men.”

“You can act?” Tom said.

“You should know,” Fenn said.

Dena looked at Layla and both girls covered their mouths.

“He’ll be wearing clothes this time,” Fenn added, heading back to his grandmother’s room.


I’LL BE HERE just long enough to make sure Lula’s okay, and then I’m on my way back to Kansas.”

“You came all the way from Kansas?” Tom said.

“No,” Lee told him, taking out his cigarette roller and a pouch of tobacco. “I came all the way from Chicago. But I was on my way to Kansas.”

“Never seen Kansas.”

“It’s very… flat,” Lee said, putting a filter in the roller and reaching for papers. “And very dry.”

“And the Black folks are backward as fuck,” Tara added, saying, “Roll me one, Lee,”

Todd said: “Then I don’t know why you don’t stay around here a little longer.”

They were in a Red Lobster, which Fenn always thought was ten degrees colder than it needed to be, and Lee pressed down the roller and out it came the cigarette.

“Do you know…” he began, waving the cigarette around as his cousin reached for a lighter, “that they want to ban smoking in this restaurant? Thank you, cousin,” Lee took a long drag and let out the smoke. “What the fuck is the world coming too?”

“We’re in the last days,” Fenn tut-tutted in a nasal accent. “We’re in the last days!”

“The sun will turn black as night,” Lee lamented in a country preacher’s voice. “And the moon will turn red as blood. A third of the stars shall fall from the sky—”

“And smoking will be made illegal in all restaurants throughout the state of Indiana,” Todd added, reaching for a cheese biscuit.

“Amen,” Lee and Fenn intoned. “Amen.”

“You all are so alike!” Tom rejoiced.
“That—” Lee began

“—is not a compliment,” Fenn finished, and they both laughed.

“You’re both in the arts,” Todd said. “You both smoke—”

“We’re both Black,” Fenn pointed out.

“You’re both near sighted,” Tara pointed out

“I believe in contacts,” Lee said to Tom, who cocked his head.

“You’re both sort of… scoundrels,” Todd said.

They both pretended to look shocked.

Tara added, “Let’s not forget that you’re both queers.”

“What?” Tom said.

“You thought it could only strike once in a family,” Lee raised an eyebrow.

“Well, now usually it does,” Todd said.

Fenn chuckled. “I bet it doesn’t.” The cousins clicked cigarettes like toasting drinks and Lee added with a meaningful gaze at Tom, “and we both have the same tastes.”

“Don’t be vulgar,” Fenn said, though he didn’t really seem to mean it.

“And now the reason for this dinner,” said Lee. “That we all had to be at. That was so important that Tom and I both be here? Were you trying to hook us up? Pass your ex off on me?”

Tom went red. Fenn cleared his throat.

“The two of you can work that out on your own time. This has to do with me being a scoundrel.”

Lee looked at Tom, shrugged, and said, “Well, now, what the fuck doesn’t?”

Above them there was a great ripping, a thunderclap.

“Damn, rain,” Tara said, “Let’s go and see if it’s started up yet?”

She returned a moment later and reported, “It’s biblical out there, baby. It’s more water in the sky than sky. Like God just emptied out his bathtub.”

“Well, we’ll just have to be careful,” said Lee. “But onto what Fenn was going to tell us.”

Fenn nodded, and leaning in, he began in a whisper, “I found—”

And then he stopped.

“That’s right,” Tara said. “Write it down.” She reached into her jacket and pulled out a notepad. “That’s how they always fuck it up on the soaps. Someone says some shit out loud where they shouldn’t. Write it down.”

Fenn, unnecessarily, cleared his throat again, and wrote for a while. Then he passed it to Tara.

“Shit,” she said, and passed it to Tom who frowned and passed it to Lee.

“Four hundred—”

Fenn slammed a hand over his cousin’s mouth and said, “And I’m not giving it back, and everyone at this table is sharing in it.”

Lee took a breath and sat back in his chair.

“Who else knows?” he said.

“Dan Malloy, Noah and Paul.”

“What about Adele?” Tara said.

“No,” Fenn said, firmly, and Tara nodded.

“Four hundred thousand dollars,” Tom said, as he drove through the rain, Lee Philips beside him.

“That… That’s the end of our troubles.”

“What were your troubles?”

The theatre was in the red, and unpaid for. Now it can be in the black—for a week at least—and be ours outright. I’ve been afraid really, to do some of the things I wanted to do with the theatre. Afraid because we’re always broke. And of course, Fenn and Todd can pay off the house. You know. Practical things like that. But good things. What are you going to do with your share?”

“It’s not our money,” Lee said. “I mean you’re getting your share because the theatre is yours and Fenn’s. So Tara would get some too. But that money is Fenn’s.”

“True. But do you really believe he’d sit there and tell us about… four hundred thousand dollars, if we weren’t all going to be dipping into it?”

“How many of us are actually dipping into it? And no, I still don’t think it’s a community pot by the way. Make a turn to your right on Birmingham.”

Tom nodded and the car waded through the water, stopping at the red light on Birmingham.

“Maybe we should have just spent the night in the restaurant,” Lee said.

Tom’s mind was on the money.

“Paul and Noah, You and me and Father Dan, but he doesn’t count—”

“Priests need money too.”

Tom dismissed this with a shake of his head. “He’ll never take it. And Todd and Fenn count as the same person pretty much.”
“I doubt they’d agree with you.”

“Well, financially they do. And Tara. And that makes…”

“Seven shares by your count, and by your count six that matter.”

The light turned green, and Tom turned the car through the thick water, saying: “That makes about….four hundred thousand divided by… six…”

“Roughly sixty-seven thousand.”

Tom looked at him. “How did you do that? I was never that good at math.”

“It’s not math,” said Lee. “It’s money. Now turn left. Here on Armitage. Right up there…”

“Oh, I remember this house. Fenn still lived there with his mom when we first met.

“So you’re really going back to Kansas in a few days?”

“In a few days. But not tomorrow.”

“That’s great. I mean… maybe we could get to know each other.”
The car stopped in front of the two storey with the wide porch still visible through the dark rain.

“I suppose we could,” Lee said. “But why?”

Tom rolled his eyes.

“Just… I find you intriguing.”

Lee chuckled and turned from Tom for a second, and then said, “I think you find Fenn intriguing and you think I’m like him. Which is a compliment, really. But don’t tell him. However, we are two very different people.”

“I know that. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’re interested in me because you think I’m Fenn come again.”

The thunder drummed to a crescendo and then boomed.

“That is so not true,” Tom said.

“You sure?”

Tom opened his mouth and shut it.

“That’s right,” Lee said. “Don’t say you’re sure when you’re not.”

Lee opened the car door and before he stepped out, Tom said, “Wait. I got an umbrella.”

“Well, if you give me your umbrella, what will you do?”

Tom seemed to be thinking about this for a second, and then he said, “Well, I could walk you up to the porch.”

Lee snorted and said, “You could. Sure.”

Tom reached behind him, pulled out an umbrella and, as he opened the car door, Lee’s ears were filled with the sound of the storm. A second later, Tom had rounded the car and said, “My socks are soaked. Com’on.”

Together they went up the walk to the porch and then Tom said, “By the way, for whatever the reason… I really would like to get to know you. All right?”

Lee nodded and said, “All right.”

Tom smiled.

“Great. Now… I better high tail it before your aunt opens the door and sees me. I don’t know how Fenn’s mom feels about me.”

Thunder rolled slowly across the sky, and Lee said, “Run now, and I’ll give you a five second’s head start before I ring the doorbell.”

Tom nodded, smiled, and ran down the steps.

“Ahh!” he shouted.

“Yes, Tom,” Lee murmured, turning toward the doorbell, “the umbrella only works if you open it.”
 
There's plenty more to come. If you need something different, don't be afraid to check out The Skin of Things. Have a wonderful weekend.
 
I meant to post this late last night....

THE HOUSES IN ROSSFORD

CHAPTER FOURI

RAIN


Layla came into the kitchen and was about to head out when her mother said, “The kitchen’s big enough for the both of us.”
Layla nodded, and reentered.
“I thought…” she began, “You looked like you might want to be by yourself.”
“No,” Adele said. “No. I very much do not want to be by myself.”
Layla got a glass from one of the cupboards, put it under the icemaker and watched the cubes tinkle slowly—they needed to call the repair man—into it before filling it with water.
“Your dad brought me to the hospital today,” Adele said. “It was just like old times until he said, ‘I got things to do. I can’t stay here all day.’”
Adele laughed and took another sip from the large wine glass.
“And then, I realized, it was exactly like old times.”
Layla smiled a little and sat at the table. Her mother did not turn around. It was actually easier this way.
“You know,” Adele said, “you start to wonder, ‘when did he turn into this?’ Into what you’re glad went away. When did he change? And then you realized it didn’t happen yesterday… Or last week. The first time you saw it was on that third date. But you wanted to ignore it. All the bad stuff started out as little stuff. You told yourself it would go away. Eventually. You told yourself—I told myself… a lot.”
“Mama, did you love Daddy?”
Adele turned around.
“I married a man called Hoot. Only love does that.”
“Do you still love him?”
“I’m a Houghton,” Adele said. “You’re a Houghton. You’ll learn we don’t cling to things.”
Layla frowned, and then she said, “I want to cling to things. I want someone I want to stick to. Grandma, great-grandma, you…. I…”
“Lula was never married, my mother wasn’t married long and apparently I can’t keep a marriage going either,” Adele said, plainly. “And you hope you’re not cursed in the same way?”
“I like Will.”
Adele smiled and turned to the window a moment.
“Well, now, that is news. It was good of him to come to the hospital. It was real sweet. Sometimes white boys can be a little sweeter. A lot easier to train.”
“Oh, Mama.”
“That’s what our men say about white women. Now, if it’s good for the gander it’s sure in the hell good for the goose, and maybe you and Fenn have learned something the rest of us need to.”
Then Layla said, “Mama, Dena and Brendan and I went to the motel Daddy was staying at. We went the other night.”
Adele looked at her daughter. “What for?”
“I wanted to see that other woman.”
“Oh, Lay-La! Good, Lord!”
“I had to see her.”
“Well, I don’t, and I don’t want to hear about her.”
“But I have to tell you about her. She dropped him off. We followed her car. To her house. She lives on the northside, off Wichita Drive.”
“Really?”
“And she has a son,” Layla said. “A son my age.”
“LeeLee, what are you saying?”
Layla scowled and finished her water, the ice settling in the glass as she sat there.
“Are you trying to say…? No,” Adele shook her head. “She must have been married before.”
“I saw him. He looks like Daddy.”
“I don’t believe it,” Adele said. “I don’t believe it. I won’t…” She shook her head.
“You do believe it,” Layla said. “Don’t you?”
They were both very quiet for a moment. Outside the thunderstorm was ending, the clouds rolling sounded damp and muffled.
“Yes,” Adele said.


There was a knock at the door and Tom was surprised because two yawns and a shower ago he’d planned to get to bed a little early. Part of him hoped that, impossible as it was, Lee Philips had shown up. How far would he have to walk in the rain to get here? And how crazy would Lee have been to have done that?
But while he was musing about this he opened the door and saw the incredibly handsome countenance of Brian Babcock.
“Brian… Come in.”
Brian did.
“Guess what?” Tom said, thinking that if only he could get a head start in the conversation he could stop Brian from saying whatever it was he’d come over to say. Why couldn’t he just have called?
“What?”
“Our struggling theatre… is no longer struggling.”
“Did Fenn fix that too?”
“Yes!” Tom snapped suddenly. “You’re damn right he did. Just like magic. His grandmother almost died of a heart attack today and two days ago we lost the star of our play and were wondering how we could pay for the theatre, and now we can pay for the theatre! Now you can have that raise you always wanted. Now we don’t have to cancel or postpone the play. God, Brian, can’t you be happy?
“He didn’t do anything to you. You did it—we did it—to him!”
“This afternoon,” Brian said, “hating myself, I went to confess the way I feel, all right, Tom? The way I am. I’ve never told anyone about what I did.”
“We did it together.”
“No,” Brian shook his head. “I decided that I was good looking and smart and should have whatever I wanted. I wanted you and Fenn was in my way. I decided that. I got on the high horse that every gay Catholic ever did. You know, we’re more Catholic than the pope to cover up for… the notable fact that we’re gay. And I thought I was so… good.
“So what was there inside of me that decided, that willfully decided I should try to seduce you?”
“Look, Brian. It takes two.” Tom walked away from him, leaving Brian to close the door. “I don’t like the idea of me as some dumb prey, and you scheming to get me.”
“You may not like it, but that’s how it was. I tried to make you want me.”
“I did want you, Brian. Please…” Tom shook his head. “I loved Fenn. I hate thinking about how I screwed that up.”
“You said the only thing between us would be sex. And I said I was fine with that. And we kept it up until we got caught.”
“Yes, Brian,” Tom said in a low voice, jamming his hands into the pockets of his pajama pants. “I was there. I remember it all quite vividly.”
“But I had forgotten. I made you want my body, didn’t I? It’s a nice body, isn’t it?”
“Brian, you’re a nice person.”
“But you don’t care about that. That’s not why we started sleeping together, because I was so nice. I was in love with you, Tom. I… I did not get what I wanted. Fenn could have stayed with you if he realized that what I set out to do is get you and make you love me instead of him. I never had you.”
Tom sat down on the couch, legs apart and blew out his cheeks.
“And I don’t have Fenn. And I haven’t for years. I’m over it, now. Why don’t you get over what you can’t have?”
“I can’t have you? Flat out.”
Tom looked up at him.
“Brian, when we start talking this way I just see how beautiful you are. You are, Brian. That’s the problem. I can’t sort my heart out from my lust.”
“In daylight, though? Whatever time of day it is you love—”
“I don’t wanna talk about Fenn. It’s not day, right now.”
“God!” Brian shouted.
Tom sighed, “What?”
“I don’t even like you! You know that? Tomorrow morning I won’t like you, and I know you don’t like me. I can’t work side by side with you and not care. When we’re fucking each other, in the moment, it’s like we’re in love. Feels like we’re in love, or… something. You, throw me off.”
“You came here so we could fuck. Did you?”
“No! No. I… I came cause I was mad. I… don’t know. I came because…. Whenever we do what we do I’m not lonely. I feel like there’s someone as screwed up as me….” Brian sighed. “I’d rather be screwed up in your bed than screwed up and… wound up, by myself.”
Tom didn’t talk for a long time. He sat, staring at the floor, his flesh prickling. He was tired of fighting Brian.
“So…” Tom said, at last, “you’re going to stay the night.”
Brian tried to laugh, “Two hot bodies, a free screw where you know what you’re getting.” He added harshly: “We both need to fuck.”
“Don’t say that.”
“That’s what it is, Tommy.”
“I guess.”
“You want me to stay, right?”
Tom nodded.
“Thomas Mesda, I have a bachelors from Curtis and a PhD in music theory from Loyola. Calves from hell from being a dancer. I was… I was voted most likely to succeed. I was a prom king. Every guy envied me cause they didn’t know I wasn’t straight. So I have pride. All right? I have some fucking pride. Tell me, ‘Brian, I need to fuck you.’ Or I’m out that door.”
Tom looked up at him, horrified. Brian looked back at him. When Tom said nothing, Brian shrugged and turned on his heel.
Lee Philips is not coming through that door.
Suddenly Tom shouted, “Brian, I need to fuck you, all right?”
Brian let out a deep breath. It made him shudder, like he was about to cry or collapse.
Instead he nodded his head, turned around and said, “All right.”

“Are you going to give me a cigarette or do I have to ask for one?”
“I guess,” Fenn said, turning over and reaching for the pack, handing one to Todd. “You had to ask.”
He leaned over Todd, striking the lighter and very briefly, Todd’s torso covered in black hairs all along his breast to his navel and the little trail that went south, was briefly illuminated in red light.
In the dark, smoke left Todd’s nostrils in a white, uncurling tendrils. He lay on his back beside Todd and Todd slipped his larger hand into and around his.
“Do you know… now that we’ve decided to keep it,” said Todd, “I’ve started thinking about what we’ll do with it. You know?”
Fenn didn’t say anything. He just nodded and crushed out his own cigarette stub.
“It’s just enough that we cover everything, but still have to think about… a future, about what we do with it.”
“Do you want to think about it right now?”
Todd’s smile cut across the dark as he stretched across Fenn to put the cigarette in the ashtray beside him.
“No… not right now. Right now I just want to do this all night.”
He kissed him. He kissed him again. They stretched and tied their limbs together like a knot and Fenn could feel Todd’s mouth against his throat. Outside the rain was still pouring. It was cool, but he felt the air thickening. He felt the thickness of Todd’s black hair, pressing his hand into it, stroking it, smelling the dampness. He kissed his ear.
“I want to finish that film,” Todd murmured, just as they were drifting off to sleep. “I want to do something with all that work. I want… I want to make something really good. Maybe this money will help.”
“Todd, anything you make will be good.”
Todd, whose head was still in the crook of Fenn’s shoulder, kissed his neck.
“Thank you for being a fan,” he said.
“I don’t want to think about the money right now,” Fenn said. “I don’t want to think about anything.”
Todd lifted his body up and kissed Fenn again, and then kissed the center of his chest and then down his belly. And then down further.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Fenn murmured as Todd’s lips kissed his penis.
The shape of Todd’s head looked up at him wickedly. He could just see the lines of his lover’s face. Todd grinned before speaking.
“Keeping you from thinking.”

 
Interesting new part of the chapter! I am still a bit anxious about them all keeping the money they found. I hope nothing bad happens as a result of it.
 
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