Serenading Stanley (19 page)

Periodically, Roger would glance in Stanley’s direction, letting him know he wasn’t forgotten. Even with everything going on, he found a way to calm Stanley’s angst. Only a truly kind person would think to do that.

That realization wasn’t lost on Stanley. Nope. Not one little bit. And it made Stanley even more confused than he was before about where he stood, and where he wanted to stand, with Roger Jane.

For the hundredth time, the physical perfection of the man wasn’t lost on Stanley, either. Somehow in this horrible place, it stood out even more. Roger Jane was like a calmly scenic island dropped in the middle of a raging, storm-tossed sea. The surrounding turmoil never quite touched him. Other eyes besides Stanley’s gravitated to Roger, finding solace in his beauty even in the midst of their own fears, their own injuries, their own sicknesses. Just a glance at Roger’s calm, handsome face eased their horror of this place, if only for a moment. And Roger stood there among them, totally unaware of the eyes upon him, absolutely oblivious to the soothing effect his beauty and composure had on others.

Repeatedly, as he spoke to the young doctor, while Pete stood beside them chewing his fingernails and craning to hear every word, Roger would keep flicking his eyes to Stanley. Making sure he was still there. Making sure he had not wandered off or ran screaming from the nightmarish surroundings of a big city emergency room. And Stanley appreciated it. He did. It was the only thing that kept him from freaking out completely.

With a nod of commiseration, first to Roger, then to Pete, the doctor hurried away, disappearing through a side door. Pete slumped in a chair, elbows on his knees, hands in his hair, while Roger strode to Stanley’s side and took his arm. Roger led him down a hallway to a Coke machine, fished around in his pocket for money, bought two sodas, and handed one to Stanley.

At that moment, they heard a voice crying out from the farthest end of the hallway, almost a football field away.

“Roger! Stanley! Thank God I’ve found you!”

They turned to see Arthur scurrying toward them. He wasn’t in drag exactly, praise Allah, but he was wearing a lilac housecoat with lilac bunny slippers on his feet and a pink bed jacket wrapped around his shoulders. He was running, now, and for a three-hundred-pound man he was moving pretty fast. His fluffy-eared bunny feet flapped across the tile floor as he drew closer and closer, and every head he passed along the way turned to stare, looking pretty damned startled. And why would they not?

Arthur reached out to grab at Roger and Stanley while he was still twenty feet away. For an obese truck-driver type (if you discounted the clothes), his voice was such a high-pitched wail of misery that one could only wonder where it came from.

“How is she? Oh, my God, I was just about to take a facial when I heard! Why would she do such a thing? What was she thinking?”

He traversed the last ten feet to Roger and Stanley’s side by gliding across the waxed floor on the soles of those fuzzy slippers like Mickey Mantle sliding into home plate. His housecoat flapped around him while his mouth made a perfect O of horror in his fat, terrified, unshaven face.

Embarrassed by the scene the man was making, Roger shushed Arthur to silence, draped an arm across his shoulder, and steered him into an alcove behind the Coke machine. It took all of his tact and diplomacy to calm Arthur down, but since the news was good, Arthur finally began to look a little less panic-stricken. He listened to everything Roger said, asked for most of it to be repeated, then finally slapped his hand to his massive chest and breathed a mighty sigh of relief. He plucked a used cigar from his pocket to celebrate, then remembered where he was and stuffed it back in.

“So she’ll be okay? You’re sure. You’re absolutely sure.”

Roger nodded. “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine. They’re taking good care of her.”

“The party’s ten days away, you know. When can she go home? I’ve already ordered all the food and booze. I was just about to get the two of you—hello, Stanley—to come help me finish the decorations. I think I’ve lined up a band too. Oh, Lord, I’ve worked so hard to make her happy. I love her, you know, well not like
that,
of course, but oh, are you sure she’s going to be all right?”

A little more forcefully, Roger said, “Yes. Now stop worrying, or we’ll all be standing around while they’re treating you for another heart attack. That would really put a fucking crimp in the party preparations.”

Arthur blinked. “You’re right. It would. I’d better calm down.”

Roger gave the man a reassuring hug and pointed a finger at where Pete was still sitting with his head in his hands. Pete seemed to be the only one in the Emergency Room who wasn’t staring in amazement at the man in the housecoat and bunny slippers.

“Now, why don’t you go sit with Pete,” Roger urged. “He could use a shoulder to cry on about now. He loves Sylvia too, you know.”

Arthur wiped a tear from his stubbly cheek. “I know. Poor man. Poor, poor man.”

“Go on and keep Pete company. I need to talk to Stanley. We were just going outside to have some privacy. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Okay? Will you do that for me?”

Arthur nodded, mute. Again he said, “Hello, Stanley.” Then it was Stanley’s turn to nod.

“And don’t worry,” Roger said, still placating. “Stanley and I will help you decorate. We’ll help you with whatever you need to do to make the party a success.” Roger turned to Stanley, looking fairly fierce. “Won’t we.” It wasn’t a question.

Taken by surprise, Stanley opened his mouth to say something, but when nothing came out, he simply nodded.

Roger turned back to Arthur. “See? No problem. Stanley and I have you covered.”

Wiping more tears away, Arthur gave them each a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then gathered his housecoat around him like Liz Taylor pulling her fur coat snug before facing a herd of paparazzi. He said, “Toodles, darlings,” and headed toward poor Pete, who was still sitting with his head in his hands and had no idea what was about to be inflicted upon him in the guise of an overweight drag queen in a bed jacket and bunny slippers.

Seeing their first chance to escape, Roger tugged at Stanley’s sleeve, and said. “Come on. Let’s sit outside.”

Stanley was watching Arthur shuffle away. “Isn’t he hot in that fucking outfit?”

Roger grunted. “Insane people don’t feel temperature like the rest of us. I’m in the medical profession. We know these things.”

And tugging harder, Roger pulled Stanley through an outer door.

Back in the fading light of evening, they sat side by side on a stone bench beneath a pepper tree. This side of the building was shaded from the dying sun. There was a breeze that made Stanley breathe a sigh of relief. It was the first breeze he had felt in days. Behind the emergency room wall at their back was a world of screaming misery. Here, in the shaded cool of approaching twilight, they seemed to have dropped themselves into a kinder world. To call it a relief would have been a massive understatement. Stanley actually closed his eyes and let the calming, cooling silence seep into his bones. It had been a tiring day.

He took a long pull from his Coke and looked down at Roger’s hand as it lightly lit upon his arm like a resting bird.

“Thanks for coming with us to the hospital,” Roger said.

Stanley nodded. “What did the doctor say?”

Roger tore his eyes from Stanley’s face and stared up into the swaying leaves of the pepper tree. There was a mockingbird somewhere up there jabbering away. Roger looked like he was trying to spot it. He seemed to be enjoying the breeze too.

“She’s going to make it, thank God. They’re pumping her stomach. The pills were a tranquilizer. She had a prescription for them. Sylvia’s been under a lot of stress lately. If you hadn’t kicked down her door when you did, we might be having a different conversation altogether.”

Still gazing at Roger’s hand upon his arm, Stanley asked, “Why would she do that? Why would
anybody
do that? I’ve never understood suicide. Never.”

Roger gave him a soft smile. “Maybe you’ve never been unhappy enough. And I hope you never are.”

Stanley thought about that. “Me too.”

They let the birdsong intrude for a moment, both of them enjoying the happiness in it: the carefree sense that nature was still doing its thing no matter what catastrophes the humans down below were bringing upon themselves. Once again, Roger trained his eyes on Stanley’s face. “Can I ask you a question, Stanley? Can we cut through all the bullshit we’ve been inflicting on each other and just talk for a minute? Would that be all right?”

Stanley nodded. Wary, but pretty much cornered. “Okay.” He took another sip of soda to hide his nervousness. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Us,” Roger said. “I want to talk about us.”

Stanley’s heart gave a lurch inside his chest. “What about us?”

As he spoke, Roger gently stroked the hair on Stanley’s arm. Absentmindedly, maybe. But the touch sent chills through Stanley. Just the feel of the man was electric. Unable to look at Roger’s eager face staring at him, Stanley closed his eyes, shutting him out. But only visually. His heart was an open door, waiting for whatever Roger had to say. When he finally spoke, it was not what Stanley expected to hear.

“You’re tiptoeing again. Sneaking up the stairs. You must be, or I would have heard you come home. I was waiting for you. I wanted to see you.”

“Why?” Stanley asked, and he opened his eyes in time to see a flash of hurt flare in Roger’s eyes at the coolness of his response.

“Don’t you know, Stanley? Are you as blind as all that?”

“No, I—”

“Shut up, Stanley. Let me talk while I’ve got my nerve up.”

Stanley looked down at his lap, then back into Roger’s eyes. “All right. Go ahead.”

Roger touched Stanley’s chin with his forefinger. “Please don’t be so cold with me.”

“I’m not. I—”

“Hush. I thought we were starting to trust each other. I know I scared you at first. I guess I came on too strong. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t—”

“I told you to hush.”

When Stanley made the motion of zipping his lips shut and throwing the key in the bushes, Roger smiled. But the smile never reached his eyes.

Roger cocked his head to the side and studied Stanley’s face. “What are you, Stanley? Are you an innocent little lamb? Or are you a wily fucking fox? Are you playing dumb or are you playing hard to get? Are you being stupid or are you being tricky? Which is it?”

“I don’t underst—”

“Yes, you do. You understand perfectly. Please tell me why you won’t let me get close to you. Just explain it to me so I’ll understand. I deserve that much, don’t I? Make your case. And if you want me to leave you alone, I swear I will. But I have to know why. I have to know why you won’t let me in.”

Stanley had to close his eyes to say the words. They came in only a whisper, but they came. It was almost a relief to let them out. “I don’t want to get hurt.”

He opened his eyes when he heard Roger chuckle. That sure as hell wasn’t the response he’d expected.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Stanley, you’re not the one hurting here. That’d be me.”

“Why are
you
hurting?”

Roger sighed. His smile reappeared, but it was the kind of smile that comes with disbelief. A smile of amazement. A what-the fuck-is-
that
kind of smile. “You really are blind, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Stanley said. “I guess I am. Enlighten me. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

A flash of anger lit Roger’s eyes. “The hell you don’t! You know
exactly
what I’m talking about!” He set his soda can aside and grabbed Stanley’s shoulders. He twisted him around until they were face-to-face. Then he held him there, pinning Stanley in place. With his hands, and with his eyes.

“All right, Stanley. Listen up, because I’m about to enlighten you like you ask. Here it is in a nutshell. I want to be with you, Stanley. I want to be with you, and I want you to want to be with me. I want us to trust each other, and I want to see if maybe we can move beyond friendship into something else. God help me, you little shit, but I’m nuts about you. I think about you all the time. And I can’t
not
think about you. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Roger took a moment to calm himself. Stanley was speechless, watching him. Stunned by the words. Stunned by the emotion in them.

When Roger spoke again, he was calmer, but still he gripped Stanley’s shoulders. More gently now, but not letting him escape, just in case that was what Stanley was planning to do. He was determined to finish what he had started, and he wasn’t going to let Stanley out of his grasp until he did.

“You’re asking yourself why. Aren’t you? You’re asking yourself why do I like you?”

Stanley could only nod. That was exactly what he was thinking.

Roger must have realized he was being too rough. He released his grip on Stanley’s shoulders and laid his hands in his own lap, one hand cupping the other, as if to keep them out of trouble. Still, their knees were touching as they huddled on the bench. Periodically, people walked by—a few of them even looked their way—but neither Roger nor Stanley cared. They stared only at each other.

“Baby, I like you because you’re funny and you’re sweet and you’re not all full of yourself like everyone else I know. You’re cute. You don’t think you are, but you are. And the fact that you
don’t
think so makes you even cuter. And you’re kind. You’re the kindest man I’ve ever met. I really like that about you, Stanley. That kindness is a real turn-on.”

Stanley blushed. “Please.”

Roger shrugged. “I don’t care if you believe me or not. It’s all true. Oh, but all that stuff isn’t the clincher, you know. Not by a long shot. Would you really like to know why I’m nuts about you, Stanley Sternbaum? Would you?”

Stanley nodded, wide-eyed. He still didn’t trust his voice.

“I like you because of the way you look at me,” Roger said.

At that, Stanley forced himself to speak. “How do I look at you?”