The Boy Who Came in From the Cold (21 page)

The microwave sounded and he opened it, the aroma of the food immediately filled the room.

 

“Smells good,” Tracy said. “
Really
good.”

He pulled a fork from a drawer. “It is,” he said. He sat down and took a bite. Damn. Even microwaved it was delicious, he thought, and made approving noises.

“Here,” she said. “Let me try.”

From anyone else, the request might have been rude. But this was Tracy. They did things like that all the time. Gabe made her a forkful, being sure to include both chicken and Todd’s stuffing. He held it out to her, and she leaned over and took the offered food.

“Oh…. Ohmygawd,” she said and Gabe almost laughed. Tracy had kind of said “God.” She never did that. She considered using God’s name in any way profane. “Oh, oh! That’s
amazing
. And Todd did this?”

Gabe smiled, nodded. “He sure did.”

“Well, girl!” Tracy laughed. “I take it back. I take it all back. When am I invited for din-din?”
This time Gabe did laugh. “You’re too much, Tracy.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she replied and winked. “We’ll see. Let me have him to myself a little bit more, okay?” he asked. “Before he lowers the boom on me and vanishes?”

 

Tracy sighed, reached out, and patted his hand.

“Ah, Tracy. Don’t worry about me, okay? Really. I’ll be fine. I am an adult.”
She shook her head again. “So you say. I still don’t know what you’d do without me.” She kissed his forehead and then turned on her high heels and strode from the room as if walking off a stage.

Gabe slumped back in his chair and sighed.
Oh, Tracy
, he thought. She couldn’t help but get in his business. Reminded him of a Jewish mother. But Jewish she wasn’t, and neither was she his mother.

Tracy would just have to accept what he was doing. He needed to help Todd. He had to. Couldn’t just let the kid go out onto the street. But more than that, he had to figure out a way for the kid to help himself.

Suddenly the name of Todd’s apartment building sprang to his mind. The Dove. A quick Google search showed Gabe where it was. He passed it all the time. Right next door to the glaringly ugly Red Garter gentlemen’s club, just like Todd said. He snorted.
Gentlemen indeed.

And that’s when he got an idea.

W
HEN Gabe got up that morning for work—moving quietly through the apartment—Todd was wide awake. The man might as well have been parading around with a marching band. Todd pretended he was asleep. He just couldn’t face Gabe. Todd had humiliated himself. Thoughts of how he’d thrown himself at Gabe kept rolling through his head. Rolling? Hell, it was more like a stampede of elephants. What had gotten into him? He’d been denying he was gay all his life, and then to suddenly crawl into the man’s lap like a sleazy stripper from the Red Garter? And what the fuck would he have done with Gabe had the man taken him up on it? He would have had no idea what to do. Not really. Sure, suck a cock. But fucking? And who would fuck who? And jeez, if he was the one to get fucked, wouldn’t it hurt beyond anything? How or why would a man want to get fucked?
Sleep—when it did come—was fitful and restless.

At one point in the middle of the night, he’d gotten up and made Gabe lunch and written a note. A gesture of some kind. Then he worried it might be stalkerish or like he was trying to be Gabe’s wife or something even worse. So he got up and tore up the note. Crazy. Only to then get up and write a second note.

I’m going crazy!

Todd finally got some deep sleep after Gabe left, but he was woken up after only a couple of hours by a knocking at the door. He panicked for a moment, afraid it was his landlord demanding the rent “Right now!”, and then he calmed down when he realized how ridiculous that was.

Dreaming. I was just dreaming.
There was another knock, louder this time.

“Hold on,” he called.
It’s that little girl
, he thought.
She’s going to ask me if I’m bisexual
. But when he peeked through the peephole, he saw it was only Cody, half of Cody and Harry, the guys from the laundry room. Hmmmm…. He opened the door and leaned around it since he hadn’t bothered to put on any pants.

“Hey, Todd,” said the slim young man. “Gabe called me. Asked if I would run you to the grocery store.”

 

“The grocery store?” Todd asked.

“Yup. He said to pick up some food. He said to check
The Wizard of Oz
first.”
“
The Wizard of Oz
?”
Now what the hell could that mean?
“I don’t get it.”

“He seemed to think you would. Can I come in?”

Todd started to open the door and then remember he was wearing only his—well, Gabe’s—underwear. “Ah, hold on a minute, okay?”
Cody gave a curious, one-shoulder shrug and Todd closed the door and scrambled into his jeans.
The Wizard of Oz
? Could he mean one of his DVDs? Todd wondered, starting for the door. The though made him detour to the armoire, and upon opening it, he found the movie, right where it should be, alphabetical with the
W
’s. He looked it over, front and back, then popped it open. And there were six fiftydollar bills.
Holy shit
. It made him think of his rolled-up sock in the back of the drawer of his dresser.
He quickly stuffed the money in his pocket and then dashed to the door. “Come in,” he said.

“You gonna check what he asked you to?” Cody asked. “Already did. He wants you to take me to get groceries?” “Yup,” Cody nodded. “A week or two’s worth, he said.”

A week or two’s worth? For both of them? he wondered. Or just Gabe? “Well, okay,” he replied and then slipped into his Converses. “You want some coffee before we leave?” he asked Cody.

“Nah, I already had some. Let’s get going. I still have to go into work today.”
“What do you do?” Todd asked, slipping on his jacket.

“Can’t you tell?” Cody winked and patted his head. “I’m a hairstylist.”

Todd tried not to react.
Hairstylist? Was there anything gayer?
“I’m assuming we’re going to Nature’s Corner?”
Todd shrugged.
“Did Gabe not talk to you about this at all?” Cody asked.

Todd shook his head. “Nope.”
He was too busy ignoring me after I made a horse’s ass of myself.

 

“Well I know Gabe likes organic, and I know he does shop for his herbs and veggies at Nature’s Corner. So let’s head there.”

“Okay,” Todd said. Nature’s Corner was a little grocery store he’d stumbled on one day and then been shocked at their high prices. Everything was natural, or so they said. Everything organic. Maybe that’s where Gabe got his Carlisle Free Range Chickens.

Cody turned out to have an old Country Squire station wagon— green, with fake wood paneling down the side. “Wow,” Todd said.“My grandparents had one of these.”

“So did mine,” Cody said, raising an already arched brow. “Now I have it.”

They got in and a moment later were heading south on Gilham. “Any idea what you want to get?” Cody asked.
Todd thought about it a moment. He had three hundred dollars to buy a “week or two’s worth of groceries.” At lease he assumed he was supposed to spend it all. Was it emergency money? What did he buy? “Just some staples,” he said. “Some ground beef, I suppose. Some turkey. Hey!” He got an idea. “Maybe some lamb chops. I want to really impress him. The chicken I made was nothing.”

“Boy,” Cody said. “Lamb. You can cook lamb?”

“I suppose,” Todd said. “I cooked it once. I thought it was pretty good, but my mom and stepdad didn’t care for it. But then they’re bologna-and-gravy-over-instant-biscuits kind of people.”

“My parents too,” Cody replied. “Lamb. You must really like Gabe a lot.”

 

Truth to tell, Todd was beginning to suspect he liked Gabe more than he could have guessed.

 

(
“Maybe you’re bisexual.”
)

 

“Cody, can I ask you a question? It’s pretty weird, but I don’t have anybody else to ask.”

Cody gave another of those one-shouldered shrugs. “Sure.” They stopped at a light and Cody turned to him. “And weird is a matter of experience, trust me. I’ve
seen
weird. A weird you wouldn’t believe.”

Todd nodded then steeled himself for the question. He took a deep breath.

 

“Oh, go on!”

Todd took a deep breath.
Do it. Now or never.
“How can I tell if I’m bisexual?” he asked in a rush.
Cody’s eyes went wide for a second then quickly relaxed. “Shit. Does Gabe know about this?”

Todd dropped his head back against the back of his seat. “Shit,” he said with a groan.

 

“So you think you might like girls?” Cody asked.

Todd jerked up in his seat. “No! Well, I mean, yes. I mean…. Shit, I don’t know what I mean.”
The light changed and Cody stepped on the gas. “You must if your boyfriend is Superman and you’re thinking about women.”

“I’m not,” Todd cried.
“You just said you were,” Cody said.

“No. No, it’s just… I’m… I’m wondering….” He dropped his head back again, closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh. Shit. Could he actually say it out loud? And to a virtual stranger? He lifted his head and stared out the window. “I’m wondering if I like
guys
.” God! He’d done it. He’d said it.

Todd spared Cody a look with his peripheral vision.
Cody’s eyes were wide but staring forward. “But I… I thought…. You aren’t… you don’t? But….” Cody scratched at his throat. “I though you said you and Gabe….”
“I never actually said that. I just let you think it.”
“But
why?
” Cody was looking at him, obviously confused.
“It was easier than explaining the whole story.”
Cody cleared his throat. “I’ve got time,” Cody said. “In case you didn’t notice, I’ve turned around. I don’t know if Nature’s Corner has lamb. We’re going downtown. If we need to, we’ll get that coffee too.”
Todd sighed. “Okay.” So he did it. He told Cody the whole story.

He told Cody about moving from Buckman and coming to Kansas City with stars in his eyes…

 

“I’m surprised you chose KC. Why not Chicago or New York or LA?”

… and how badly he’d wanted to learn to cook from Izar Goya. How he’d lost his job at McDonald’s and how surprisingly hard it was for a guy from a small town to find a new one with nothing but jobs with Pizza Hut and a yearbook company under his belt. And finally how he’d been thrown out of his apartment and into a snowstorm, and how Gabe had helped him by letting him stay the last few nights with him.

“Gosh. That totally sucks. But you were lucky in the end. Gabe is the nicest man in the world.” They pulled into a parking lot and got out of the car. “And now you’re wondering if you’re bisexual?”

“Sssshhhh!” Todd looked around desperately. “Someone will hear you.”

“So what?” Cody shrugged. “No one cares, Todd.”
“I care! I’ve never said anything like this to anyone.” Cody’s brown eyes softened. “No one?”
Todd shook his head. “Not until you.”

Cody stopped walking. He looked at Todd. “Thank you for trusting me.” He tilted his head to the side. “Okay. Come on.”

He led Todd into the grocery store—it was huge!—and toward the back into a small coffee shop. “Sit down,” he said, indicating a table off to the side by a large window. “I’ll get us some coffee after all.”

“What about your work?” Todd asked.

 

“I just bought the place,” Cody said. “I can show up whenever I want. What’re they going to do? Fire me?”

Todd sat while Cody got the coffees and then settled in the chair beside him. Cody gave Todd a large paper cup and placed some creamer packets—as well as sugar and sweetener—onthe table. “I didn’t know how you liked it.”

“Thanks.” Todd started to add some creamer and then stopped.
Taste it. Wouldn’t that make Gabe happy? Hell. Shouldn’t you know better? You want to be a chef.
Wasn’t there a story about how Henry Ford used to take people out for dinner before he hired them for any key positions? And how if they salted or peppered their food before tasting it, they didn’t get the job? Something about how Ford didn’t trust anyone who made a decision before getting all the facts?

Todd lifted his cup, blew for a minute, and then closing his eyes—like Gabe—he sipped.

Flavors flowed over his tongue. First earth, then berries, and sweetness. Sweetness even though there wasn’t any sugar. “Wow,” he said. It wasn’t Folger’s, that was for sure.