Fire Raiser (10 page)

“Peaches! Get to the point!”

“Yeah. So Michelle’s invited this guy she knew at William and Mary. He’s only twenty-one—kept skipping grades—and she wants to introduce him around so he’s not completely friendless when classes start the next week. I take one look at him and—”

“No knees?”

“I’m standing there in the living room, sweaty, stubble-faced, wearing the oldest clothes I own, spattered in Plymouth Plum or Roanoke Rose or some other paint with a cutesy colonial name. He breezes in looking like he just finished a photo shoot for
GQ
. And I swear on everything we hold sacred, four hours later he doesn’t have a speck of paint on him. Like I’d spelled his clothes for him. It was spooky.”

“But he still said he needed a shower, right?”

“How did you know?”

“He was at Woodhush a few weeks ago for lunch. I took him out to the tack room to show him the saddle great-great-whatever-grandpa Goare rode to the Revolution, and you
know
what the tack room is like when you’re rooting around for the really old stuff. I’m covered in dust and cobwebs, and he’s still immaculate, just exactly like he did have one of your wards on his shirt and jeans—but he says he’s all grungy, and would I mind if he used the hose to rinse off? You’re right, it
is
spooky.”

“He took off his shirt?”

“Yeah. It was at least ninety, and we had lemonade on the porch while he dried off—Evan got home about then, and ragged on me the whole evening about tucking my tongue back between my teeth—”

Cam shook his head. “He. Took. Off. His. Shirt.”

“Oh.” Holly gnawed on that one for a minute. “Do you mean to tell me—? You and he never—oh, Cam!” She cradled his face between her hands, stroking his cheeks with her thumbs. “Does this have to do with trust fund and gorgeous and brand-new Mercedes?”

“Mostly the ‘gorgeous’ part,” he admitted. “Especially back then. People looked at him and thought
six-pack
. They looked at me and thought
beer
.”

She simply stared. He’d felt inferior? Him? Cam Griffen of the straight A’s and concert-quality piano playing and prodigious magic and big blue eyes and perfectly
lethal
dimples—

Then she remembered an evening featuring a silk dress that split up the back seam and a diamond that fell out of its setting.
“. . . there really ought to be a model or actress or somebody staggeringly gorgeous on your arm. . . .”

“Yeah, okay—I’ve been there, too,” she admitted. “But you never even gave it a chance, did you? Oh, sweetheart, what am I gonna do with you?”

“Leave it alone. I mean it, Holly. Thanks, I love you—but leave it, okay? You can’t fix it, you can’t change it. It’s just—it’s
there
.” He sighed, then finished ruefully, “Or I guess I should say it’s
not
there.”

He sat forward on the bench, elbows on knees, spine in a dejected curve as he stared bleakly at the floodlit white mansion. She rubbed her hands gently across his back like she used to do the summer he was ten years old and trying not to cry after his mother died. “You’re a fine, sweet, good man. It’s just not fair.”

“Fair? Life’s supposed to be fair? You’ve gotten idealistic in your old age.”

“I’ve relearned it.”

“For the kids?” He glanced up at her.

“Yeah, now that you mention it. I think that once you become a parent, no matter what’s gone on in your life before the kids, you have to believe in things again. Life, love, hope—all the good old clichés. Maybe not in life’s being fair, exactly, but at least that there’s a chance of it.”

“So tell me, Freckles, what’s your take on the Pandora story?” He smiled with no humor in his eyes. “All the evils fly out of the box to wreak havoc on humans—but at the bottom is Hope. Is that a kindness? Meant to keep us from total despair? Or is it the cruelest joke of all? That in spite of everything, we’re still stupid enough and stubborn enough to hope?”

“You can’t mean that. You’re not that cynical.”

“I’m a lawyer,” he reminded her. Something changed in his face and he squinted at Westmoreland. “There’s something weird about those windows—”

“What?” Turning to look, she saw only the graceful proportions of a restored antebellum Southern mansion three stories high. “What are you talking about?”

“Are you sure nobody’s sensed any magic around here?”

“The place was built more than two hundred years ago, Cam. None of the Nevilles ever had any magic, they never married any of our folk, and if there was any Witchery about the place, somebody would’ve noticed long before now.”

He looked stubborn, then shook his head. “Sorry. For a minute I thought I saw—but it’s nothing.” Pushing himself to his feet, he wrapped long arms around her and went on, “Do me a favor about Jamey, huh? No lectures, no righteous indignation, no ranting and raving, no hugs, no trying to fix it—”

“If you want to make that ‘no hugs’ thing stick, you better let go of me.”

He pretended to consider. “Nah,” he said at last, grinning, and cuddled her closer. “This is nice. You’re softer and mushier than you used to be, and it’s nice.”

“Mushy?! You try having twins sometime, boyo.”

“That was over two years ago,” he reminded her ungallantly, and patted her backside, making her yelp. “Yeah, if I liked girls, you’re the kind of girl I’d like.”

“Soft and mushy.” Holly narrowed her gaze. “You’re gonna want to reconsider your phrasing, there, Peaches. And your next line better be something about the radiance of motherhood.”

“Absolutely luminous,” he said hastily. “Sparkling. Incandescent, even. You glow in the dark. You’re practically radioactive. And
don’t
call me ‘Peaches’!”

“On one condition.”

It amused her that Cam didn’t bother with a stop at suspicion; he went directly to certainty, prompted by lifelong knowledge of her character—or lack of same. “No,” he announced.

She only smiled.

“How about a compromise?” he pleaded. “If I tell you what went on at Yale, will you—I don’t know,
relent
, or something? Maybe?”

Seven

January 1994

“SO WHAT HAPPENED TO MORGAN?” Jamey asked, weaving his way through the cramped tangle of furniture in Cam’s living room. “Nobody’s seen him since we left for Christmas.”

“He’s gone.” Cam spoke to the beer bottle between his palms. “Home.”

“What? How come? I know he didn’t flunk out—he’s smarter than anybody in your whole year.”

“He didn’t flunk out.”

“Well, let’s see—what are the usual options? Did he get sick? Break any bones? Piss off somebody at the Dean’s Office?”

Cam shook his head.

“Well, he didn’t go home to get married because he got some girl pregnant, that’s for sure,” Jamey said in a tone that invited Cam to smile along with him.

Cam had never felt less like smiling in his entire life. But Jamey didn’t deserve his snarl. So he made his tone as calm and gentle as he could. “How about I only say this once, and then we never talk about it again?”

“Okay,” Jamey said warily. “But it sounds like I’d better sit down.”

Cam felt the far end of the sagging old couch dip, heard the soft scratch of denim against worn upholstery as Jamey scooted deep into the cushions. Cam didn’t look at him, because he knew exactly what he’d see. Spine straight; no slumping for Mama Stirling’s darling boy. Right arm on the doily Gary’s grandmother had knitted or crocheted or whatever it was old ladies did with yarn to make useless ornamentation for antiquated couches donated to keep their grandsons from having to sit on the floor. Left arm close to his side, long fingers resting lightly on his thigh. Knees apart but not too far apart; no vulgar sprawling allowed, either. Feet—what was it today, sneakers or loafers? He snuck a glance, saw brown Italian leather below thick wool socks and the fraying hems of old Levi’s. Cam knew that pair of jeans, the way they fit just snugly enough to entice but not incite. He also knew the familiar baggy shape of an old black sweater, too comfortable to toss out but too ratty to wear to class, the kind of sweater rich boys wore because . . . well, because that was just the kind of sweater rich boys wore when they weren’t wearing excruciatingly tailored Ralph Lauren.

Cam knew what expression would be on that face with its patrician bone structure and wide, sincere, extravagantly lashed eyes. Jamey would look concerned and curious, and unnervingly patient while Cam found the words. Jamey was always patient. He waited so quietly, he never paced or fretted or drummed his fingers. He simply waited. But the thing Cam knew he was truly waiting for was the thing Cam had resolved never to give him.

Oddly enough, Jamey had taught him patience, too. Or maybe it was restraint. Whatever, it felt like cactus needles in his guts and he didn’t much like it. But if it kept him from touching the kid, fine. He’d be patient, he’d be restrained, he’d swallow poisoned thorns with a Sam Adams chaser if only he could live out this last semester of law school without putting a finger on Jamey.

They’d erratically circled each other since last August, like wayward planets searching for a mutual center of gravity. Cam knew the attraction was mutual. Jamey didn’t understand that it was also mutually disastrous. They were in law school; they didn’t have time for this. Maybe if they were both anticipating a future in private practice, maybe there would have been a hope. But Cam wanted a career in international law, and he didn’t want to have to keep paranoid lists of which countries stipulated jail time and/or execution for homosexuals. Jamey was planning a stint as a district attorney on the way to political office—which of course was just the perfect milieu for a guy who liked guys.

Thus what Jamey waited so patiently for, Cam would never give him. He was bemused and fascinated by this gorgeous kid who had so obviously been waiting all his life to fall insanely in love. But Cam wasn’t going to be the one Jamey did the crazy with. He wasn’t going to be the one to break Jamey’s heart. He didn’t want that on his conscience. If Jamey was going to louse up his life, he’d have to do it with somebody else.

Cam would never admit to how many hours he’d spent staring at ceiling plaster or faded wallpaper or the lighted dial of his alarm clock, anxiety gnawing at him. Especially after he realized what a hypocrite he was. Jamey’s heart was going to get broken; that was a stone cold fact. And Cam would be the one to do it, because Jamey was in love with him.

“Cam?”

No impatience in the question, just worry. He’d been silent too long, he knew. He’d meant to say it, to tell Jamey the whole thing. Now he just couldn’t. “Morgan went home to Idaho. He didn’t flunk out. As is indeed obvious to anybody with half a brain, he didn’t get some girl pregnant. He’s just—he’s not coming back. Can we please leave it at that?”

Long pause. “Well—okay.”

Mother of All Mercy, how could this kid love him so much that he was willing to accept without question? Anybody else would have been demanding explanations right now. Not Jamieson Tyler Stirling.

No, he had something else in mind. Something infinitely worse.

“So you guys are short a roommate until the end of the year.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I’m about to suggest!”

“Yeah, I really do. And no,
you
really don’t.”

“And the award for Best Obfuscation Using a Single Breath goes to—”

“Knock it off.”

“All I was going to say was—”

“No.”

“Will you for Christ’s sake let me finish?”

“No.” Cam put his beer down and pushed himself out of the couch’s sluggish clasp. “I need coffee. You’re buying.”

And you’re not moving in with us. That’s all I need, my final semester in law school when I’m gonna be insane anyway:
you
in the shower down the hall every morning.

They walked the five blocks in silence. Cam stared down at his own feet practically the whole way, at the same boots he’d brought with him to Yale as a freshman. If the boots had been pristine and virginal back then, they were worn out as a twenty-buck whore now. He sort of felt the same.

Not that he’d been virginal back then. Not quite, anyway. The “not quite” was due to Holly’s fixing him up with a guy she knew from grad school at UCLA. He and Mac had lasted from July to the end of August, that summer before Yale, while Mac learned the horse-farm business from Lulah and Cam learned the finer points of the apothecary’s art from Cousin Clary Sage, as was traditional in the family. He’d studied what every Witch should know about herbs and spices and flowers and trees—though he was principally interested in anything that would help him get through four years of college and three of law school, which made Clarissa grin and give him the appropriate recipe book. Once Mac entered the picture, Cam had played around with a few other kinds of spells, but being too scared to use them had actually been a good thing. Mac liked him without magic. A long moonlit chat with Holly on the Fourth of July clued him in to the value of being wanted for what you were rather than what you could do. But if, as a going-away present, Cam had secretly spelled Mac’s favorite riding boots to keep his feet warm when it was snowing and dry when it was raining, nobody ever knew it but Cam. And Holly, who had contributed a few drops of blood. It was the only magic he could give Mac in exchange for teaching him the magic of skin on skin.

Since then there had been few lovers. He was like Holly that way: neither of them could simply fall into bed with someone. He supposed it had to do with trust; a Witch out in the wider world learned wariness, like it or not. Holly’s opinion was that the two of them were just fastidious—or, to put it less delicately, damned difficult to please. Whatever. Cam knew who and what he was, and how he wanted his life to evolve, and his plans didn’t include sleeping with anybody who would out him.

Not that Jamey ever would. It was just that Jamey was too young and too innocent and too in love with the idea of being in love to think it all through. So Cam would have to do the thinking for him.

They reached the coffee bar without saying a word to each other. Cam ordered Sumatran, black. He’d go back to sugaring up his caffeine fixes during finals, but for now he was trying to lose a couple of pounds. Jamey indulged himself with a combination of coffee, chocolate, coconut syrup, and whipped cream that should have sent him into insulin shock.

“They should call that the Giant Rat,” Jamey said as they chose a table near the back. When Cam gave him a puzzled frown, he explained, “Your coffee. Sherlock Holmes, the Giant Rat of Sumatra.”

“You’d get along fine with my cousin Holly—a constant barrage of obscure references nobody but Lit. majors ever understand.”

For a moment Cam thought Jamey was going to argue against any reference to Sherlock Holmes being
obscure
. Cam was wrong. What Jamey said was: “Morgan came out to his parents, didn’t he?”

Cam blinked, swallowed a gulp of coffee, and coughed.

“Sorry. I just thought I’d try to shock you into admitting it. I mean, not that anybody ever thought the guy was straight—or that you and Gary and Keith are anything
but
perfectly straight—it’s just that he—and you and Gary and Keith aren’t—and since he didn’t flunk out or get sick or anything, it was only logical to assume—”

“Jamey,” he asked grimly, “do you have any idea what the hell you’re talking about?”

“Um—no, I guess not.”

“Then maybe you’d better shut up, okay?” Cam sighed, settling back in his chair. Jazz from a soprano sax seeped from the house speakers, just loud enough to cover conversation. Cam often brought Jamey here: they could talk without being disturbed, while fully aware that any inept reaction would disturb others. Nobody paid any attention to anybody else unless voices were raised above the music. At that point, arching eyebrows and meaningful stares exiled the nuisance. This unspoken etiquette had kept Jamey from coming on to him too obviously. It had also kept Cam honest.

And honesty, he realized, was something he owed the kid.

“Okay, here it comes,” he said suddenly. “Yeah, Morgan told his folks. Just the Christmas present they wanted, as you can imagine. I don’t know how many people there are in that flyspeck town he comes from, but if any of ’em are gay they don’t admit it. Ever. Morgan did. So now he’s in a treatment program.”

“Excuse me?” Cloud-gray eyes went impossibly wider.

“Morgan’s parents sent him to queer rehab. They want to fix him.”

“Was he broken?”

Cam chose to ignore the peculiar juxtaposition of innocent inquiry and cynical commentary. “From their point of view, yeah. From what I understand, the claim is that these people can turn gays into ex-gays.”

Jamey was silent for a moment. Then: “Does it work?”

Cam stared at him, bewildered anew. “Huh?”

“It would seem unlikely,” Jamey mused, stirring whipped cream down into his coffee. “More evidence is found every year that sexuality isn’t a choice, it’s an orientation. The way a person’s brain is wired. I wonder when they’ll find a combination of genes that will clinch the deal and shut these people up.”

“Even if they did find proof, it wouldn’t matter,” Cam replied. “It’s right there in the Bible, folks. God says no, so even if God made you the way you are, you can’t
be
the way you are without God getting pissed off and sending you straight to hell.”

“And Morgan’s parents believe in the Bible.”

“Oh, yeah.” He swallowed more coffee, missing the sugar rush, needing the caffeine. “I got an e-mail from his father. Pack up all his stuff, please, we’ll send you a check for the shipping costs.” He sighed and shook his head. “I wrote back and asked if Morgan was okay. His father then apologized for his son, said he hoped Gary and Keith and I hadn’t been tainted, and that he was sure we hadn’t suspected Morgan was mentally diseased because, of course if we had, we would’ve ratted him out.”

“ ‘Mentally diseased’? That’s what he called it? What did you write back?”

“I haven’t yet. I just got that e-mail last weekend and I’ve been so mad I can’t get my hands to stop shaking long enough to type. Spellcheck can only get you so far,” he added sardonically. “But I did start packing Morgan’s things. He had a couple of pamphlets about how to tell your parents you’re gay. One of them said to be sure to have a place to go the night you tell your family, because it’s a mortal lock that they’ll throw you out of the house. If you don’t set up somewhere to go in advance, you end up sleeping on the street.”

Jamey said nothing for a moment, then took a long swallow of coffee, put the cup down, and met Cam’s gaze. “Is that how it was for you?”

He was twenty-six years and four months old and he was convinced he was having a heart attack. Or a stroke. Or a convulsion or a conniption or a seizure or something not immediately fatal but dangerous all the same.

“Cam, breathe.”

Maybe he’d just pass out. Yeah, that sounded good. Give in to the whirring and buzzing and black-speckled haze in front of his eyes, fall face-first onto the table, and not have to deal with this.

Except that the little chunk of amber on its gold chain around his neck felt a bit warmer next to his heart, gift of the eldest son to the eldest son in the Griffen family for over two hundred years. Amber for confidence and mental clarity; a strong memory and power of decision; protection, defense—
“And it even cures hay fever!”
He remembered his father telling him that, and giving him one of his big, light-the-world grins. He missed those grins. He took a deep breath, and felt the amber shift against his skin.

“I’m not gonna ask how you knew.” His voice sounded almost normal. He’d put a lot of time and effort into presenting an outward image that was so normal he even bored himself. He dated enough women to make suspicion ridiculous; he slept with enough of them to make his sexuality a non-issue; he went to sports bars with the guys to watch big-screen TV baseball in the spring and football in the autumn; he snickered at the jokes and innuendos just the way a straight guy should. So he wasn’t going to ask how Jamey knew. He just knew; there was nothing Cam could do about it.

Jamey said, “You don’t fit any of the stereotypes—whatever those are anymore. I just—I suppose I was kind of hoping. If you were, then maybe someday I might be able to—”