Out of the Blues (20 page)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, my head was killing me and I was exhausted. I sure as hell didn’t have time for mind games.

“You have lost too much weight. There’s no food here, just whiskey. Or there was whiskey. I poured it all out. Don’t even bother arguing, or we really will take that drive into the city and I will force you to…take care of yourself.”

I sat on my futon. The sheets were missing, but the pillows were still there. I hugged one to my chest. I didn’t feel so good. “Where’s my music?”

“I put it on the piano. Everything is here. I just straightened up.” He held out a cup of steaming coffee, black. Smelled good. I took it and sipped, trying to get warm.

He moved one of the chairs up to the futon and sat down. “Thank you,” I mumbled. I drank the bitter brew, wishing there was cream or sugar. “What day is it?”

“Friday,” he answered and I remembered something about it being Friday. “January twelfth.”

“Oh,” I said. I’d lost a couple of months. “Thank you.”

“Mason,” he sighed, but didn’t seem to know what to say to me. “I ordered groceries. I’m going to stay a couple of days. We need to talk, but not right now. You’re too…out of it right now.”

I nodded because I didn’t know what else to say. I finished my coffee and he took the cup. “I’m exhausted.”

“You’ve been writing,” he said conversationally almost as if he gave a shit. I didn’t recognize this man. He wasn’t the father I knew.

“I guess.” I didn’t know what I wanted him to know. Or what I wanted to know about myself. “I have music in my head. I went back home and remembered that I have music in my head. Now it won’t shut up. I could make it shut up for years. I think I forgot how.” That didn’t make the slightest bit of sense. Not even to me. “And lyrics. Shit I need to say, but don’t know how. So much shit in my head and I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Sounds like you needed to get it all out,” he agreed. “More coffee? That’s all you have until food gets here.”

“I’m not hungry,” I told him. “I’ll throw up if I eat right now.”

“We’ll have soup later. Something to ease your stomach back into food.”

“Okay.” I tucked the pillow under my chin and tried to stop the shaking. “I…thanks, Dad.”

“Get some sleep, Mason.” He helped me lie down and then covered me with his coat. “I’ll get your blankets back to you in a while.”

“Okay. This is fine. Sorry the house is a mess.” I reached for his hand and held it for a moment. I needed to make sure he was real. I needed to know I wasn’t alone right now.

“I’ve seen worse.” He patted my hand, but I wouldn’t let him go. Not yet. There was something I needed to ask first.

“Did you…and Cody…was that real?”

He brushed my hair back from my face like he used to do when I was little and smiled that same smile, half-sad father smile. “I loved him. Yes.”

I nodded because I didn’t know what else to do. “What about…Arden?”

He sighed and his smile faded. “I loved her too. Well, I loved Alice. Arden isn’t real. I just…” he patted my face and I think there was so much he wanted to say, but I wasn’t going to hear any of it. “Sleep now, kid. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Okay,” I think I said. “Dad…I missed you.”

“Missed you too, Mason. Love you, son.” I wasn’t sure he’d actually said that or if I dreamed it. Wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear those words either, but, I slept for the first time in months. And I dreamed about him and what might have been if I’d told him how I felt when he told me he was falling for me. “Me, too…Kilby. Me, too.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Mason and the closet of skeletons.

It was dark when I woke up. I could hear someone talking. Maybe I’d left the television on? I forgot that Cody’s stepmother took all the TVs.

“He’s sleeping.” I heard the voice say and I pulled the covers up over my head trying to block out the sound. “Arden, no, you don’t need to come out. No, he’s not…no, Alice, listen to me. He’s okay. He’s been writing music. I think he’s okay. He needs to sleep and to figure out what he wants to do with his life. No…well, if he wants to sit around writing music and wasting his life, like Cody did then that’s his choice. Shit, Arden, no…goddamn woman, what kind of question is that? No wonder he hates us. Shit like that all his life. No, I changed the code on the security gate. Really. Stay in New York. Well, you know, I think this is the one time I do know more than you do. Yeah, I’ll do that. You, too.”

I could smell food, and the quiet after he cussed out the phone brought me to the surface. “She told you to go to hell.”

“Pretty much how we’ve ended every conversation for the last twenty years.” Doug was closer than I’d thought. I could smell something savory and warm not that far away either. “Here, I thought I heard you waking up.”

I sat up on the futon I’d been sleeping on for god knew how long. At least now my blankets smelled clean. I pushed my hair out of my eyes and blinked to get used to the dim lighting. He stood over me, holding a mug down for me. I took it and curled into the corner against the wall. “Thank you,” I said letting the steam hit me in the face.

“It’s just instant soup, nothing big. They make that shit for those pod coffee makers now. Would have been something to have back in the day when I lived on that shit.”

He had a cup of something for himself. I don’t think it was fake chicken noodle soup. “Hot.” I searched for something to say and realized I sounded stupid. “So, Mother was worried.”

“We were all worried. Harper has been trying to track you down for weeks. She’s afraid you went off and did something drastic.” He sipped his coffee and looked around the room. “I told her you aren’t the type to suicide. Hiding and sulking is more your cup of tea.”

“Why would I kill myself?” I was seriously confused. Maybe I was dreaming still. I swear he’d come in and dumped me in the shower. “Did you pick me up?”

He smiled. My dad was good-looking, hated that about him. I grudgingly figured that if he looked that good at fifty after getting beat up for most of his life then I had hope.

“You’re taller than me, but you might weigh one-fifty if that much. I bench more than that.”

“I take that as a yes.” I sipped the soup and tried to focus. I was at Cody’s house on the coast. Okay. I knew that.

“You were on a bender. You needed the shock to the system. Don’t know if it was the liquor or the adrenaline or the caffeine you’ve been living on, but yeah, you looked pretty bad when I got here this morning.” He looked uncomfortable again. “What happened to all of Cody’s furniture? The place looks like it was ransacked.”

“That’s because his stepmother and the ingrates that call themselves his brothers drove a moving truck up here while I was in school and helped themselves to whatever wasn’t nailed down. I've been hunting down the things that meant something for years. Hiding it all in storage in case they decide to come back.” I shrugged. It was old news. I’d handled it. Well, Cody’s lawyers, who became my lawyers, had handled it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He looked sad.

“I didn’t know there was a reason to tell you. We weren’t exactly on speaking terms about that time.” So, we were going to dredge up old shit over fake chicken soup. I see how it was.

“Because you ran off.”

“Because you told me to fucking come out and get it over with. I took that as a threat.” I didn’t want this walk down memory lane.

He sighed again and sprawled in the chair. “There is a crack on the ceiling. Damn. Wasn’t there the last time we made love in here.”

I spewed soup.

“Jesus, I…what the fuck, Doug…warn a guy before you say shit like that.” I hadn’t dreamed that part.

“Now who’s the homophobe?”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s incest.”

“Oh god, when did you become me?” I had to ask because I never remembered him being good at verbal banter.

“Who do you think you learned that from, sure as fuck wasn’t Arden or even Cody. Cody didn’t talk much about frivolous shit. You should know that.”

“No, he wasn’t overly wordy. Except in his music. He had tons of shit to say in lyric form. This is true.”

“We used to talk all the time when you were little…before you grew to hate me. You were a chatty little dude, always talking and making up shit. I used to listen to you babble on for hours and never got tired of it. Harper would get tired of it and smack you. She was always good at keeping you in line.”

“Bossy girls.” I smiled because I remembered Harper smacking me more than once, mostly because I wouldn’t let her get a word in edgewise. “She still tries to boss me around because she’s older by ten minutes.”

He laughed, the sound ending in a sigh. “Who told you she was older?”

I looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Harper.”

He laughed again.

“What’s so funny?” I really didn’t like being out of the loop.

“You never looked at your birth certificate, did you?” It really wasn’t a question, more of an incredulous statement. I couldn’t remember. Had I? I mean, besides looking at the actual paper? Had I looked at the data on it? “You were born first. Harper was difficult, she took nearly an hour to come after you damned near killed your mother.”

“Well…” I stared at him stupidly. “How in the hell am I supposed to know that?”

He didn’t laugh anymore. “We were lousy parents.”

“You were. Not even going to argue that point with you.” I sipped the cooling liquid with the chunks of chewy noodles and weird green things that were supposed to be herbs or something.

“I’m trying,” he said, not even pretending to be offended. “I hope I learned how to be a better dad after completely failing the first time.”

I thought about that for a while as I watched what was left of the sunset out over the ocean. Night swallowed the house whole after that, going from dim to full dark.

“Do you love Gwen?” I had his half-remembered confession in my head from earlier.

“Yes, very much. She’s too young for me, I know this. I know she’s closer to your age and I’m being…midlife crisis and everything, I guess. But she…she helped me after Cody died. I don’t know, Mason. I love her. And I loved your mother…but…” He didn’t seem to know how to finish. He watched the room go dark and just sat looking around at what was left of Cody’s life which was nothing, just a piano and some shitty mismatched chairs.

“But you loved Cody more? Differently?” I was trying. I really was. I didn’t understand. How could I understand? He’d always been this homophobic asshole. And then it dawned on me. “Because of football…you couldn’t love Cody because of football.”

“I couldn’t love him because of football. I loved football more than I loved Cody and that shames me. I lost everything that was important in my life because of football.” He spoke softly. I could hear regret in his voice.

“I’m not gay,” I told him. “But you…made me feel worthless because you thought I was. You made me feel ashamed for being something that I wasn’t. And all along you were…exactly what you made me feel ashamed of being.”

He looked at me, I could see him in the light from the kitchen. He was half in shadow, half-haloed in golden light.

“Last time I saw you, you were falling in love with a man. The look in your eyes when he kissed you. The smile on your face. I don’t know how that escaped your notice.”

“Way to slit my throat.” I set the cup down on the floor and crawled out of the blankets into the cold room. I wanted to run. I’d been running from that memory for weeks.

I went over to the wall of windows and leaned against the cold glass.

“It wasn’t meant to hurt you, Mason. It was simply an observation. If I hadn’t walked out when I had what would you have said when he told you he was falling in love with you?” I’d never heard him speak in anything less than bluster and…and I hated him.

“How did you know he told me that?” I turned to face him. There was no way he’d heard that. Kilby had spoken so softly I’d barely heard him. “Did he tell you?”

“He didn’t have to. I could see it in his eyes when you left. I could see it in your eyes. Love…and fear. That was the only thing he could have possibly said to send you running. He nodded to me and walked back into the reception. An hour later you were both gone.”

“Oh.” I rubbed my arms and sat down on the floor with my back to the window. “Is he okay?” I didn’t have his number. I never thought that maybe…I don’t know, maybe I’d hurt him.

“Hunter said he made it home. He went back to working his farm. He keeps in touch. They don’t speak about you.” I know he didn’t mean it to hurt, but that he didn’t speak of me…hurt.

“That’s good then.” I sniffed trying to stop the tingling behind my eyes. I needed Doug to leave so I could get back to work.

“You’ve never been with a man before Kilby?” he asked, there was no accusation in his voice.

“No,” I said. “I’ve never considered…never. Until Kilby.”

“He’s an attractive man,” Doug said, there was approval in his voice.

“Would you do him?” I have no idea why I asked that. I did not really want to know.

“He has gorgeous eyes. He’s scary quiet. The Marine thing. Reminds me a bit of Cody. But, no. He’s not my type. He’s too toppy.”

I laughed. I’m sure it sounded as if I’d lost my mind. “He’s a bottom, I guess. Is that what you guys call the one who takes it?”

“Shit. Missed that one.” Was all Doug could say. “But still no, Cody was my type. Men like Cody: pretty, slim, tall, sensitive.”

I thought about it for a long time. “Like me.”

“Like you. I apologize for thinking you were gay. You, well, you fit the type. Too well. And you have Arden’s flair for fashion and…uh, drama.”

“I’m a big old queen in other words.”

“You said it not me.”

“This is surreal, you know, sitting here in the fucking dark talking about my dad having a dude type.”

“I have
a
type. Period. Doesn’t matter what’s between the legs. Men, women, Arden, Cody, Gwen. All the same outwardly. Gwen is the only one who isn’t…she’s not interested in fame. She’s…she’s, well…a wife. I never had one of those. It’s…nice. I guess.”

“Okay.” I guess if I thought about it I could say that Cody and Arden were very similar. She was blonde, mostly, Cody was, too. Both tall, both slim. Cody wore rock star like a tailored leather skin. Arden was model to the bone. The only difference was when Cody was not onstage, he was just Cody. Arden was always Arden. “Tell me about you and Cody?”

“Do you really want to know?” He sounded old then, and tired.

“You loved him. Tell me how you met. Before you were with Arden, after you left her. Tell me, make me understand.” I’m not sure I really wanted to know, but fuck, I didn’t want to know why I’d slept with a man. I couldn’t…I needed to understand Doug to… “Our whole life was a lie, you owe me some truth.”

He didn’t. Not really, but I was lost and confused and well….just fuck.

“I guess I do.” Doug got up and walked away. He went to the kitchen and turned on the ceiling lights and looked into the oven. “I have food heating if you’re up to eating.”

“You’re avoiding the question.” I wasn’t sure I could eat. And now that he’d given me that much, I needed to know more.

“I’m checking on dinner.” He took out a foil pan of something that actually smelled good. “Just a tuna noodle casserole. The grocery store didn’t have much prepared food available and I can only shove food in the oven and set a timer.”

Pretty much exactly me, but I didn’t want to tell him that. “I’ve never seen anyone actually cook. We always had room service or take out. In high school, Harper tried to learn, but well, Kraft dinners are not real food. We ate a lot of pizza and burgers.”

“Cody did love his pizza.”

I had to laugh. “I never figured out how he stayed so skinny.”

“Heroin,” Doug said and turned to the fridge. “I got him off drugs for a while. I guess there at the end, the pot was for pain. I…he didn’t tell me. We weren’t speaking much then.”

“He didn’t tell anyone. He died alone and…” Fuck, I couldn’t do this. “I’m not hungry.”

“He wasn’t alone. He was with his kids, with you and Harper. That’s where he wanted to be in the end. I knew he was hiding. I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t get him to talk to me…after it all went to hell. He divorced Arden and rewrote his will and started preparing for the end. I didn’t know what he was doing. I mean, besides divorcing Arden. I’m surprised he stayed married to her for as long as he did. Considering they…” Doug stopped talking and looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was here.

“Hated each other? Yeah, not really a secret,” I told him because he was talking and I was trying to not run.