Blink (7 page)

But all I said was, “Everything’s fine.” I glanced out the window, where the sun and clouds had conspired just above the lake to form a lovely smear of orange and pink, coloring the caps of the waves rolling in.

“Good. I love you.”

“I love you too.” A pause. “I really do.”

“I know. I gotta go, okay?”

“Yeah. You have a great day. And can we meet for dinner? Get off the ‘L’ at Fullerton and head over to that British place? The Red Lion?”

“You just want to go there because it’s supposed to be haunted,” Alison teased.

“I just want to go there to be with you,” I said.

“Go on. I should be off at five-ish. I’ll meet you there before six.”

“I’ll be at the bar.”

We hung up, and I lay back again, feeling a chill as the wind raced across the water and crept in through my window.

T
HE
WOMAN
next to me sits too close. It’s not that she’s overweight and can’t help that her bulk invades my space—that I could understand—but this gal is rail thin, hair dyed red, wearing a leopard-print dress, black spike heels, and way too much cheap perfume.

The Red Line ‘L’ train rumbles south toward downtown. It’s around eight o’clock on a Wednesday morning in May. I missed the Metra train I usually take, and it was easier for me to simply walk from my condo on Lunt over to the ‘L’ stop on Morse. That way I wouldn’t be late for my job as a communications specialist for a healthcare professional association on Michigan Avenue.

I feel her eyes on me. I try to concentrate on the book I’m reading, Armistead Maupin’s
The Days of Anna Madrigal
, attempting to immerse myself in the world of Maupin’s characters, whom I’ve grown up with as a gay man over the years. They are comforting to me, like old friends.

But the woman next to me won’t give it a rest, staring, and I find myself reading the same line over and over again. My old friends have deserted me. Exasperated, I glance over at her.

It’s the moment she’s been waiting for. “What are you reading?” she asks, peering down at the Kindle on my lap. “Something good?” Her voice is raspy, deep as a man’s, revealing her passion for cigarettes. I would peg her as a Virginia Slims kind of woman. She probably bathes in that perfume to hide the stench of the smokes.

I really don’t want to get into talking about the book. The train pulls into the Sheridan Road station. Passengers get off and on, and I’m tempted to scurry off, even though my stop isn’t until the train goes underground, until we reach Grand Avenue.

It’s hot for May, and I feel hemmed in, a little claustrophobic. The train rumbles onward, the wheels screeching and sparking beneath us before smoothing out. The woman doesn’t press me on my choice of reading matter, but she does press closer and finally can’t help herself from asking another question. “You work downtown?”

I peer at her from behind my rimless oval specs, wondering if my annoyance shows. This is why I take the Metra train to work and walk a mile to my office every morning instead of the ‘L.’ The Metra is a little more civilized. The kooks on the ‘L’ were amusing when I was younger, but now they’re just tiresome.

Especially this one.

“I work downtown.” I press the button at the bottom of my Kindle to power it down and give her what has to be the world’s most sarcastic and put-upon smile. “And how about you? Downtown?”

She doesn’t catch on to the annoyance in my smile, apparently, because she smiles back with nicotine-yellowed teeth. “Oh yeah. I sell shoes at Macy’s in Water Tower Place.”

Part of me wants to just tell her to leave me alone, that I only have about fifteen minutes left until we get to my stop and I’d like to just read until then, but then guilt stabs at me. Guilt and I are like old friends, with me since I was baptized in the Catholic Church. Sometimes, though, Mr. Guilt tells me the right thing to do.

The right thing to do is cut this poor woman a break. I give her another smile, this one genuine, even though I’m not really feeling it. And then I glance down at her shoes and speak with as much animation and interest as I can muster. “You must have gotten those there.” I point to her black patent-leather spikes. “What are those? Jimmy Choo?”

She laughs. “Oh, sweetie, I can’t afford Jimmy Choos!” She leans close and whispers, “I picked these up at T.J.Maxx. Clearance, only twenty bucks!” She snorts, and I am reminded of Lily Tomlin’s old telephone operator character, Ernestine.

“Well, you’d never know. They’re very nice.”

She grins and stares deeply into my eyes.
Oh shit, is she trying to flirt with me
? I want to burst into laughter.

We’re quiet for a while, but I know her stop, Chicago Avenue, is coming up. So does she, obviously, because she turns to me and, after taking a deep breath, says hurriedly, “Since we both work downtown, maybe you and me could get together for lunch sometime? Or maybe a drink after?” The hope on her face clutches at my heart. Something tells me this isn’t her first time making this attempt. I am almost tempted to agree to a date, but then I know dragging things out would be even crueler than just telling her the truth.

“I don’t think so. You’re awfully nice, but I’m, um, involved.”

“Of course you are.” She pats my hand. “All the good ones are taken.” She snorts again as the train pulls into Clark and Diversey. “Or gay!” she shrieks, laughing more.

I smile. “Yeah, I’m that too.”

She goes pale under her foundation. “Oh, you are? I’m sorry! I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

She looks me up and down, and I imagine what she sees—a man, fifty-something, well kept and trim, dressed in crisp khakis and a pale blue oxford cloth shirt with a button-down collar. His hair is buzzed close on the sides and in the back—his way of hiding the gray—and receding on top. He likes to think the man has a nice smile that complements his green eyes.

“You’d never know it.”

I’m tempted to offer some smartass comeback, like asking her what about me didn’t seem gay. No lisp? No limp wrist? I knew about Jimmy Choo, for Christ’s sake. Wasn’t that enough?

“Well, thank you. I try and butch it up on the train, you know. One never can be too careful with the riffraff on the ‘L.’”

“You’re smart.” She sighs. “Well, you have a nice day.”

“You too.”

I feel a sense of relief as she gets up to stand and wait by the door. She’s replaced immediately by a fair-haired teenage boy in a stocking cap and Deerfield High School letterman jacket, too warm for the day. Daft Punk leaks from his white headphones. He, at least, ignores me, absorbed in what looks like sorting through the contacts on his iPhone.

It’s too late to get back into my book. I stare ahead, wondering if the weatherman was right in predicting we could hit eighty today.

And then I see him.

It’s funny how it can all rush back. Jesus, what’s it been? Thirty years? I haven’t thought of Carlos-from-the-train in ages. Scratch that. I
do
think of him from time to time, wondering where he is, if he remembers me, what he’s doing, will our paths ever cross again.

But thoughts like those are for late at night, when I’ve gotten home from yet another unsuccessful date and have a few Hendrick’s and tonics in me. A line from a Frank Sinatra song comes to me about regrets and having a few.

I stand and hurry after the man, dodging between commuters all headed toward their daily toil. He’s going up the stairs ahead, and even though I haven’t caught a good look at his face, I know it’s Carlos. His black hair is cut shorter and is flecked with gray, like mine, but something about the set of those broad shoulders, that high ass bouncing, those strong legs, put me right back to 1982 and another ‘L’ ride, when the lines were not differentiated by color but by name.

You know how you just
know
someone by sight? Every person has a distinctive walk, a mien unique to that person. I think sometimes we believe we see someone and we have doubts. And when we have those doubts, we should know it’s not who we think it is. Our intuition works better than our brain.

I feel like a stalker as I trail him up the steps from Grand Avenue to Michigan Avenue. My heart’s beating a little faster, both from the exertion of the stairs and more from the sighting. Just laying eyes on him reminds me of my younger self and how conflicted I was when I met this man.

I have always wondered, through my marriage, divorce, and two tragically brief live-in relationships with gay men, what might have happened had my mother not called that night when we got together. Everything could have changed. Maybe I would have called off the wedding. Perhaps I’d be living in contented bliss with the man walking briskly ahead of me. Silly notions? Maybe not.

But then I wouldn’t have my son, Tate. Lots of things wouldn’t have happened.

But I can’t pause to consider all that right now, because Carlos, or the man I believe is him, is now close enough to touch.

Without thinking, heedless, I do just that. I reach out and tap him on the shoulder as we both step onto bustling Michigan Avenue.

The man turns, eyebrows furrowed in annoyance, probably thinking I’m going to ask him for spare change.

Is it him? I look into dark brown eyes, the same as Carlos’s. There’s no mustache, but the face
could
be the same.

“Carlos?” I wonder.

The man’s expression softens. He regards me with something like amusement playing about his lips. Doubt stabs at my heart. Could this be him, changed over the years?

I recall what I thought earlier, about the certainty when we see someone we know, and I recognize my doubt for what it is: the truth. This isn’t, can’t be, Carlos. I know it before he says anything, and my spirit, soaring, takes a quick plummet earthward.

He shakes his head. “No, you must have me confused with someone else.” His speech carries a Spanish accent, which Carlos most certainly didn’t have. He doesn’t offer his name.

I laugh. “Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this guy. Sorry to have bothered you. You just look a lot like him.” Yet the more I peer at the stranger, the more I realize he
doesn’t
. His nose is too big. The jawline is subtly different.

“No worries.” He shifts his weight, as though unsure how to conclude our little encounter. His gaze shifts to over my shoulder. “Well, gotta get to work. Have a good one!” He hurries away, giving a little wave.

I watch him go with something like longing.

T
ONIGHT
I’
M
meeting my friend Jules for dinner at one of our favorite spots, a little Greek storefront on Chicago Avenue in Evanston: Cross Rhodes. Jules lives nearby, coincidentally on the same street I lived on when Carlos came to my apartment that fateful—or not—night so long ago.

Maybe walking here after picking her up outside her building on Sheridan Square is the reason I want to tell her about him. Now that we’re settled at our table, glasses of red wine before us,
pastitsio
for Jules, and a bowl of
avgolemono
and a feta, cucumber, and tomato pita sandwich for me, I ask Jules, “Is there anyone in your life that you only met briefly, but who left such a lasting impression that you never forgot them?”

Jules laughs. Her laugh is tinkling. The words “liquid silver” come to my mind when I hear it. It’s one of the reasons I was so drawn to her back when we were younger, a decade or so ago, when we both toiled for an office products catalog, me as a copywriter and she as a proofreader. There’s an easy conviviality between us that makes her one of my best friends, even though she’s a good twelve years older.

“Are you serious?” She takes a sip of her wine and pushes back her mass of salt-and-pepper curls. “Or are you just trying to punk me by acting all philosophical? That’s so out of character for you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m serious.” I take a bite of my soup and put down the spoon. I launch into my story about Carlos, about how we met lo these many years ago and how I’ve always thought our brief encounter, had it not been for a phone call from my mom, could have changed the course of both of our lives.

“Oh, you know, you’re such a smartass that I sometimes forget what a softie you are. That’s
such
a romantic notion—two lovers separated by circumstance, a fleeting moment that changes everything.” She laughs. “Cue the swelling orchestra; find the soft-focus lens.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“No, honey, I’m not.” She pats my hand. “I think it’s sweet.” She pushes her glasses up on her nose a bit. “I wish I had a story like that to tell. But you know me—one cheating bastard of a husband for twenty years and then date roulette.” Her eyes and smile widen simultaneously. “Did I tell you I’m thinking of getting a cat?”

“No, and I think that’s a good idea. Want me to come with when you pick one out? I know a great no-kill shelter on the west side.”

“I’m still toying with the idea. My luck, I’d get one, fall in love with it, and then meet Mr. Right, who would be, predictably, allergic.”

“Then he wouldn’t be Mr. Right.”

Jules grinned and nodded. “Good point. But tell me more about
your
Mr. Right. Or Right
Then
. What made you bring him up?”

“I saw him today.” I took a bite of my sandwich, chewed, and then revised. “Well, I didn’t actually see
him
. I just saw his look-alike. Funny thing was, I saw this guy on the ‘L,’ just like when we first met.”

“And you
never
take the ‘L’ downtown anymore.”

“I know. Right?” We eat in silence for a while. Jules refills our wineglasses. “Seeing that guy, though, got me to thinkin’.”

“Uh-oh. Never a good thing. Have some more wine.”