Now and Yesterday (25 page)

“No, watch,” he said, taking a slender, cylindrical glass vase from a cabinet and attaching the flip-flops to it with some kitchen twine. He removed the price tag, then placed the creation on the kitchen table, which had been set for four, and stood back to admire his handiwork.

“Really?” said Luz.

“I guarantee you one of them will bring flowers.”

“Mm-hmm—maybe both,” said Luz, slyly.

Will made a face of mock-dread.

“Oh, God, do you think we're headed for disaster?” he said.

“I thought you said having both of them over was the best way to do it.”

“I did, but what the hell do I know?”

 

At the same moment, Peter was standing deep beneath Times Square, on the 7 train platform, the lower-most level of the subway station said to be New York's busiest, where eleven lines converge, on three levels. He had with him two bottles of a good sauvignon blanc, a bunch of expensive, waxy French tulips in a fleshy pink, and a copy of Eliot's
Four Quartets,
wrapped as a gift. Though he was as far from the sky as anyone can be in New York without a hard hat, he was still sporting the sunglasses he'd thrown on just before leaving the house. A Queens-bound train had just left the station, so the platform was almost free of people. An LED display promised the next train in six minutes.

Though he'd set out early, as usual, he was now stressed about time, on top of a certain malaise about dinner that he'd been nursing all day. On arrival at the station he'd found that the N train he'd meant to take wasn't in service between Times Square and Queens Plaza, owing to an accident—though no one could say what kind of accident—so he'd had to figure out an alternative route to Will's house. Now, if the 7 came as promised and the transfer at Queens Plaza happened quickly—and the travel time was really twenty minutes, as a harried assistant station manager suggested—he could still be a little early for dinner, which was called for seven. And that was the way he wanted it, because Peter didn't like being late for important things and was perfectly willing to walk around Astoria or sit in a coffee shop, if he landed there before the dot.

His underlying malaise—now, typically, in the bullying company of an unplanned worry, planted in his mind by New York—was the result of being both sad and happy: sad, because Peter's loneliness made a dinner like this loom larger than it should; happy, because dinner would be fun—though he wasn't sure if it was going to be just Will and him, or Will's roommate, too, or one of those informal dinner parties for a group that young people seem to be able to rustle up on no budget. The invitation said “maybe a few friends”; Peter had been too shy to ask for more details, earlier in the day, when confirming with Will by text.

Even after the much ballyhooed Disneyfication of Times Square in the '90s, Peter's mental picture of the subway station there remained three levels of filthy, crowded, screeching hell. Yet as he stood on the platform he noticed that things seemed cleaner and better maintained than in the rest of the station, probably because the 7 train ran only from Midtown to points in Queens that, for decades, had served the city as solidly middle-class bedroom communities, and the platform was used more by well-trained worker-citizens than by the raucous masses that populated other regions of the “crossroads of the world.” The mouse-colored porcelain floor tiles were mostly uncracked; the wooden benches, unscratched; the white tile walls opposite the platform, unstreaked by the mysterious crud you see oozing from cracks in the walls in lots of other stations. The cream-colored ceilings looked freshly painted and relatively soot-free, as did the cream and red of a broad team of overhead pipes that ran a course, bracketed together, parallel to the tracks, above the edge of the platform, into the distance. Or were they electrical conduits? Peter realized that sewage and drainage pipes would have to be larger—and sure enough, he spotted several much larger pipes, vertical ones, attached to some of the station's century-old steel columns and to a bank of massive concrete piers, at least five feet thick, that were at the end of the platform. The piers looked like they could be supporting the tonnage of all of Times Square's buildings.

The place is so massively overbuilt,
thought Peter, who sometimes obsessed about such things when nervous.
Is that the way they did infrastructure in the early twentieth century? Will this hole in the ground still be here in a thousand years, even after the skyscrapers melt away or are encased in ice?

Fluorescent lighting made the whole place shadowless. And, in the absence of a train, it was quiet, too, except for occasional safety announcements and the rumbling that echoed down periodically from the tracks on levels above.

So when it rains,
thought Peter,
and Times Square floods, is all the runoff sluiced right through the station, down into some kind of chamber that's even deeper below the surface—a cistern, or a reservoir, or some fractures in the famous Manhattan schist on which this part of the city is built? Is it all drained off somehow to the river, through massive culverts under the city?

A little girl in a purple parka was sitting with her parents on one of the benches, near where Peter was standing. The parents were talking quietly, their bulging shopping bags from Modell's, Sephora, and Forever 21 between them, at their feet, while the girl squirmed restlessly, periscoping around. The girl caught Peter's eye and smiled, and he smiled back generically: an older guy in shades, with flowers, obviously not from Queens—a guy who meant her no harm. At the end of the platform, where the station gave way to tunnel, was a police control booth, unmanned, with a boxy little chemical or biological detection unit posted outside, like a sentry.

Was the platform even
snug,
as New York places went?

Well, not exactly
. It felt peaceful in the bomb-shelter sense of the word, though surely just one bomb that was strong enough—the kind they talked about practically every day in the media, a dirty baby nuke—could transform this bomb shelter into a tomb. Such talk sometimes betrayed an oddly gleeful tone, Peter thought, as if someone believed that the acceptance of the “inevitability” of such an attack was a comfort and the option of dying better than living in a world in which cultural supremacy had shifted away from New York and America itself, toward other continents. Yet . . .
couldn't
the inevitability of death, the idea that the end might be just
there,
coming within reach, be comforting in a way, if you didn't have better things before you, like a dinner party with the man who might become your lover? With no love in your life, wouldn't death be welcome—not a thief, ready to steal something from you, but a loyal sentry, posted somewhere out there on a timeline that was customized for you by God or fate, ready to embrace you at that moment tenderly called “your time”? And if death
were
out there on your timeline, visible in the distance, shouldn't he—and of course it was a “he”—be saluted, despite the prospect of a lovely dinner, so that familiarity could help mediate the impendency of his arrival? For someone looking for love as hard as Peter, the idea of one's own death—as personal as a lover, promising an embrace as specific as a lover's—did afford some shadowy splendor. . . .

Yet shit,
thought Peter
, isn't it slightly disloyal to Jonathan, for one, to be thinking in this way
—even if death were a fact of life and overbuilding a city futile?

Suddenly, Peter was terrified. He wondered if he could possibly, really, be scoring with Will that night or any other night. Death, he thought with a chuckle, might be easier to deal with than all the work there'd be to do if love truly
were
in the offing—learning about each other, listening to each other, compromising with each other....

Ugh.

Then a train slid into the station. It was one of the new, smoother riding, silver trains, gleaming clean, of a type that would have been hard to imagine back in 1975, when the MTA's rolling stock was uniformly ancient and broken down, and covered with graffiti. The train discharged its passengers and those who'd been waiting on the platform stepped in. Peter settled into a seat and noticed his harshly lit reflection making a ghastly portrait in the window opposite. Then, with a futuristic “bink-bonk,” the train signaled the closing of its doors and the little girl in purple uttered a gurgle of delight.

P
eter noticed the table was set for four, the minute he walked in. But the tumult of welcome, the introduction to Luz, a quick tour of the apartment, and the jollity triggered by Peter's approving and unprompted description of the color of the living room walls as “paper bag,” all kept Will from mentioning that Enrico was the fourth guest—until he received a call from Enrico, whose driver was lost. They were standing in the kitchen, sipping limoncello, while Will finished the pasta and Luz saw to the fish, chatting about Astoria and picking at a
meze
platter, when Enrico finally walked in the door, twenty minutes late. Introductions and subsequent conversation were smooth—more, Peter thought, because he was making an effort to be a good guest than because Will put his mind at ease about this little surprise. Were those two still an item?

“Ooh, pretty table,” said Peter, after Will invited them to sit.

“Peter brought the flowers,” said Will.

“Sensational presentation,” said Peter.

“Nice,” said Enrico. He was overdressed in a fitted sport jacket and flashy striped shirt. Peter, like Will and Luz, was in jeans, with a crewneck sweater and T-shirt.

The table was in a dining area off the kitchen, a nook wainscoted in garish panels of the same blond wood that the kitchen cabinets were made of, which was so highly lacquered in acrylic that it looked like plastic. The flip-flop centerpiece did lend an offbeat elegance to the table, an agreeably tropical spree of newly bought china and cloth napkins—charming, Peter thought, and just as entertaining as the tabletop drama his grander friends achieved with gaily mismatched Ceralene, grandmother's Buccel-lati, and the carnival of glassware one picks up in Venice over the years. On a counter nearby sat a bowl of salad and a stack of salad plates. Will and Luz brought the rest of the food to the table on platters.

“How long have you lived here?” asked Enrico, unfolding his napkin and draping it across his lap.

“Six months now,” said Will. “We're still moving in.”

“Such big rooms,” said Enrico. “Do you have the whole house?”

“Of course not,” said Will.

“We have a very nice landlady who lives downstairs,” said Luz, serving the fish with the grace of a headwaiter, using a pair of forks. “It's like having our own Greek mama.”

“Ah,” said Enrico.

“Not exactly like your place,” said Will, laughing, filling everyone's glass with wine. “Enrico's apartment is a little jewel box.”

“No,” said Enrico. And then there was an empty moment during which a gracious remark about the host's apartment could have been added.

Nice guy,
thought Peter.
Not worthy of Will.

After offering a toast to new friends, Will served the pasta. With pleasure, Peter noticed the ease with which Will managed the hosting of his inaugural dinner party. The guy was clearly organized and seemed to have a talent for amplifying the conviviality of a group—asking the right questions, drawing people out, adding to the conversation in ways that kept it going, kept it buoyant. Luz seemed cooler, more serene.

“It's nice to have at least one person in the family who knows how to give a party,” she said.

“That always helps, right?” said Peter.

“I can grill fish, but that's about it,” said Luz.

“If only life were that simple,” said Peter.

“Give a man a fish . . . ,” spouted Will—and they all chortled, except Enrico, who didn't seem to get it.

Peter had been surprised to find Luz there when he arrived, but he immediately took a liking to her. She was smart, funny, open; she reminded him of Alanis Morrisette—not just because of the luxuriant, long black hair, which Luz had gathered up into an asymmetrical twist for the evening, but because she had a witchy directness that seemed shot through with something saucy, even girly.

“. . . Then I told the guy, ‘No, I'm not a dyke, but I
am
nine times the man that you are,' ” she said with a laugh, concluding a story.

“
I
am a dyke,” purred Will, leaning over and giving Luz an affectionate hug. “That's how much I love women.”

“Oh, baby,” said Luz, “and you're gonna turn me into one, aren't you.”

Talk over dinner ranged from aquaculture and ecology to hunting and firearms, and then to gun policy and politics. Except for a few two-on-two moments, resulting from Enrico's subtle tendency to address remarks more to Will than to the group, the conversation flowed steadily
a quatre
. Twice, when talk touched on the subject of what Peter did for a living, the conversation sputtered—partly because Peter was trying not to be brilliant and outshine his host, but also because Enrico seemed remarkably uninterested in Peter's work or his thoughts. Was Enrico jealous? Maybe those two were still an item!

Enrico was a handsome guy, but Peter suspected it might be the kind of handsomeness that gives way, over time, to a caricature of itself, instead of a fruition. For years Peter had been in the habit of Photoshopping forward people's looks; he always had clear ideas about how they would look, ten or more years on. Thus he had judged Harold, when they first met, as poised to age gracefully; and the changes that did occur in Harold's appearance during the crunch of that awful, final year, even though they were too ungentle to foreshadow actual advanced age, did nothing to dim Harold's beauty in Peter's eyes. Will, too, would only improve with age, Peter knew; and he winced when Will referred to his approaching thirtieth birthday with queeny mock-dread—more because the dread was so obviously unwarranted, than because it was partly disingenuous. Peter knew that the noble proportions among Will's strong nose, brow, and jaw would remain intact, that the classic facial architecture would only be enhanced if the hair went gray and laugh lines developed around the eyes.

“I hear you're going to be working for Henderson McCaw,” said Luz. She, unlike Enrico, was very curious about Peter's work.

“Well, I
may
be,” said Peter. “We're thinking about it. It would be working
with
him, by the way—not
for
him.”

“But only maybe, right?” said Will.

“Right.”

“He's only a total monster,” said Will.

“Monsters need slogans, too,” quipped Luz. “In fact, they kind of depend on them, don't they, Peter? I'm thinking historically.”

“Interesting,” said Peter, glad to have an idea on the table, along with the unpremeditated lie he instantly regretted. “The slogan itself can be kind of a monstrous thing, I suppose. Anyway, we're thinking about it. I'm trying to determine whether or not I have the stomach for it. . . .”

“Who is this?” asked Enrico, though an explanation did nothing to inspire him to join the exchange. Peter was relieved when the conversation moved on, because he realized he was so ambivalent about his new client, he wasn't prepared to talk about him.

After dinner, Peter helped Luz clear the table and followed her into the kitchen, while Will and Enrico remained in the living room, talking. It made Peter jealous to see them chatting like that, by themselves, though he knew he wasn't really authorized to feel jealousy, since he had never been promised anything and was really only nursing a fantasy.

“Don't worry about them,” said Luz, when she noticed Peter glancing back into the living room.

“What do you mean?”

“They're not together.”

“Oh,
Luz
. . . ,” said Peter, with a pretend shudder. He assumed she knew everything.

“Man, you've got it bad,” she said. “I can see it all over you.”

“Can you?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Can I be honest?” He spread his arms into as wide a “this much” gesture as possible.

“So what are you doing about it?”

“I'm
doing
it.”

“You're not seeing anybody?”

“Anybody
else?
No. Not that I am exactly seeing Will. . . .”

“You're attractive and successful.”

“Thanks. I haven't dated in ten years, Luz. I think I'm in some kind of transition. I had two long-term relationships that ended . . . well, it's a long story. For a long time I haven't known what I wanted, or
if
I wanted anything.”

“And now you do.”

“I think I do, yeah.”

“Why Will?”

“His cooking, of course.”

“Seriously.”

“I dunno. The men of my generation bore me, and younger guys usually do, too. But Will . . . he's something else, isn't he?”

“
I
think so.”

“But it's all so . . . confusing. Why am I telling you this? I've had too much to drink.”

“It's sweet. It's like you're seventeen.”

“Yeah, except I'm in my eighties,” said Peter.

“Aw, c'mon.”

Then Peter wondered if it were possible that she could believe him.

“Luz, I'm only fifty-nine.”

“Whatever.”

He had an instinct that she could be trusted.

“So lemme ask you,” he said. “Do I have a chance?”

“He tells me everything, of course,” said Luz.

“Uh-huh . . .”

“But in confidence.”

“Uh-oh.”

“No, no—don't worry. It's not bad for you.”

“Oh, good. I guess.” A pause.

“I would just say: Step up,” said Luz.

“What do you mean?”

She smiled enigmatically.

“I'm not gonna say more than that,” she said.

“Step up,” repeated Peter. “And you can't say more than that because you're supertrustworthy.”

Enigmatic turned to angelic.

“I try,” she squeaked.

“Luz, I suspect you are a treasure,” said Peter.

“Oh, I'm a good lawyer, too, baby.”

“I'll bet you are,” he said, laughing.

“That, in there,” said Luz, indicating the living room, “if you ask me, it's just a case of VGL, UB2, blah-blah-blah.”

“Ecch—really?”

“They're programmed that way.”

“He swallows all that crap?”

“I go out with the guy, I see what's out there—all those smiley boy-bots. I guess it's fun—unless you happen to have a bigger idea about relationships.”

“Jesus, Luz, what kind of law are you studying?”

“Intellectual property,” she said.

“Figures.”

“But he's more than that and he knows it.”

“I hope so,” said Peter.

“He knows
you're
more than that.”

Peter smiled.

“You and I, counselor,” he said, “are gonna have a big fat drink, one of these days, just the two of us.”

“I'm there, buddy,” said Luz. “Anyway, I wanna hear more about writing taglines and naming brand extensions.”

“Everything I know is yours.”

Dessert was figs and nuts, in the living room. No one wanted tea or coffee. Talk was about why people come to New York. Will told his story, which Peter already knew—that he had come more or less automatically, without a feeling of destiny about either the place or his career—whereas Luz said she had come to stake out territory, climb to the top of a heap—like himself and Jonathan and their crowd, Peter thought. They chewed over ambition and power, the good and the bad, and then it felt like the evening was over. When Peter came back from the bathroom, he said he should probably go.

Almost too quickly Enrico was saying what a pleasure it was to have met him.

“I had a great time,” Peter told Will moments later, in the doorway, after thanking Luz with a hug.

“Thanks for the book,” said Will.

“I was hoping we would have a chance to talk about it.”

“Me too. Another time.”

“OK.”

“Soon.”

“Of course.”

“Know where you're going? We can call a car.”

“No, I'm good with the subway. You going out later?”

“No—Peter! I have an early morning, tomorrow. The rest of the guests will be leaving very shortly.”

They shared a genial chuckle and a peck on the cheek, which afforded Peter a waft of rosemary-lavender-scented hair gel—enough of an intimacy to make him feel, as he descended into the street, a little high.

He chuckled again, at himself, on his walk to the subway. On the way out to Astoria he had given some thought to the possibility—a long shot, he knew—of being invited to stay the night. In all other ways, though, the evening was a success. Knowing that Enrico, who seemed so smooth at first, was actually dull, passive, or maybe even lazy, was comforting.

Unworthy.

But the thing that really stuck in Peter's mind, as he rattled back to Manhattan and then to Brooklyn, was why he had denied saying a definite yes about McCaw. It was a done deal, yet he had answered Luz with a “maybe.” And the uncertainty seemed to matter to Will. The matter continued to perplex him all the way home.

 

Soon after the turn of March there was a hint of spring in the air, though not necessarily a vegetal hint. Are the mineral smells released by warming city walls and sidewalks under strengthening sunlight not just as invigorating as reawakened greenery? A fresh breeze, sweetened by sun-kissed brick, was pushing in through a crack that Aldebar had opened in Jonathan's kitchen window, as Peter, in a blue blazer and white shirt, stood there talking with him, leaning on the granite countertop, sipping coffee. It was just before eleven, on a weekday morning. There was little to see out the window—only the building's inner courtyard, though even the difference between a clean, spacious courtyard like that one and the dark, choked airshaft that is more common in New York was another reason why Jonathan's building counted as a prestige address.