The Lord Won't Mind (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (27 page)

He laughed at her warning. There was a brief silence.

“You said plenty of others,” she said more calmly. “Since when have there been plenty? Is that what you did with those three or four girls?”

“Don’t be silly. Haven’t you ever heard about boys in school?”

“Is that what you did with Peter?”

“Yes, dammit, if you’re so damned anxious to know. That’s what I did with Peter.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“He also liked to suck my cock, in case you’re looking for ideas. Why not try it all, since you’re not interested in having babies?” He laughed again. Let her know everything. What difference did it make? He felt free at last for the first time in months.

“Goddamn you. You bastard. You can’t have babies, anyway. C. B. says so.”

His laughter died, and he stared at her heavily. “What are you talking about?”

“Something about your family. I don’t know what. The Mills Madness. She told me weeks ago.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“Ask her yourself, if you don’t believe me. She said I must never bear your children. As if I ever intended to.”

He lurched up out of bed and careened back to the bathroom to wash. He couldn’t seem to make his mind work properly. Couldn’t have children? It didn’t make any sense. People were always making up these idiotic stories about C. B. Hattie was just trying to unload onto him some of the blame for her own decision to remain childless. He damn well would put it to C. B., except that it wasn’t something he would like to talk to her about. Maybe an opportunity would turn up when he could touch on it naturally. It obviously didn’t matter as far as Hattie was concerned.

His sense of freedom was fleeting. Christmas came and went, and he felt more and more trapped, trapped in the endless round of office and parties and bed, trapped by her clothes, which were everywhere so that he could never find anything of his own, trapped by the bills that now began to come flooding in. He could make no sense with her about money.

She had only a vague idea about how much she had and when she received it. Even though their expenses for food and drink were minimal, she could go through his salary in an hour of shopping “to keep the house stocked,” as she put it. He couldn’t imagine how they would manage when the parties stopped, although the parties carried built-in expenses of their own. She took it for granted that their hosts must be thanked with gifts; flowers, candies, exotic fruits, or bottles of fine wine were dispatched to all but her immediate family.

“Listen, I know we have to do something about the Jamiesons,” he remonstrated after they had been to a flower shop together one evening, “but does it always have to be dozens of roses? What was the matter with that plant?”

“Oh, God, are you going to start whining about money again? It’s mine, isn’t it?”

“How should I know? We’ve got bills right now for over four hundred dollars and you haven’t got twenty-five in your account. Who takes care of the balance?”

“I’ve got credit in this town. The Donaldsons are good for four hundred dollars.”

“The bills are addressed to Mrs. Charles Mills.”

“Well, why don’t you go out and do something about it if you don’t like it? No, you’ll go grubbing along at that office just so you can count your pitiful little earnings at the end of the week. You’re not even a clerk. You’re an accountant. Imagine adding up all those bills.” She laughed at him and swung forward on his arm and looked up at him teasingly. “I know somebody who needs a drink.”

HE was thinking about a drink on his way home one dark winter afternoon when he stopped for a look at Bergdorf’s windows. He had come to the last one and was about to go on when he became aware of a man moving in close beside him. He froze, keeping his eyes fixed in front of him so as not to give any hint of interest.

“Doing anything this evening?” a voice murmured close to his ear. A rude dismissal sprang to his lip in the instant before he realized who it was. He turned slowly, not knowing what was happening to his face, knowing only that he was totally unprepared for the encounter. Peter threw his head back and laughed.

“How’s my best boyfriend? I told you I’d follow you if I saw you in the street. This was bound to happen sooner or later. I thought I might as well get it over with.”

Charlie looked at him. His beauty was as troubling as a half-remembered dream. He was dazzling. He wore a handsome overcoat flung picturesquely over his shoulders like a cloak. There was an air of expensive carelessness about all his dress. His skin, which had long retained the ruddiness of the summer tan, now was pale and luminous. The golden hair was ruffled by the wind. Charlie was speechless. With embarrassment? With delight? Because there was simply nothing more to say? He didn’t know.

“You all right, honey?” Peter’s eyes filled with solicitude. “You don’t look too hot.”

Charlie glanced about him nervously. “Hey, take it easy,” he said, finding his voice.

Peter laughed. “Still worried somebody’ll get ideas? Listen, champ, New York is teeming with faggots. One more or less won’t frighten the horses.” He gave an effeminate flip of his hand. “All right. I’ll try to stay within a foot or two of the ground. Are you on your way home to the little wife?”

“You heard about that, of course. You’re looking wonderful.”

“Your sister manages. Come on, let me buy you a drink. You look as if you could use one.”

Charlie looked at his watch to give himself something to do. He knew he should get away as fast as he could. There was a hollowness in the pit of his stomach. His chest ached with the beating of his heart. He felt dangerously close to tears. “It’ll have to be quick,” he muttered.

Peter gave a hitch to his coat, and they fell into step beside each other. “It’s amazing running into you like this,” he said in a breezy chatty tone that was new to Charlie. “I mean, right now, of all things. You’ll never guess who I’m going to see in a little while. Sapphire.”

“You’re kidding.” The summer was evoked. Charlie found conversation possible. “I’ll be damned. I read all the reviews, of course. She’s made quite a hit. C. B. went to the first night. I must say she’s eaten all her words very handsomely. Have you seen the show?”

“Not yet. There’s this party up in Harlem that Hughie Hayes asked me to. She’s going to be there before the theater. Golly, I wish you could come. How about this joint?” They turned into a bar. A blowsy hatcheck girl was crowded in behind a little counter in the entrance. Peter shrugged off his coat and laid it before her. The girl looked at him and smiled appreciatively.

“My, my, a real beauty. What’re you doing later, beautiful?”

“I won’t tell.” He grinned and added a suggestion of a lisp. “As you see, I’m with this gentleman for the moment.”

She laughed. “Wouldn’t you know. Us girls don’t stand a chance these days.”

“Oh, come on. There’s plenty for all of us.”

“I guess that’s the truth.” She laughed again. Charlie’s face was burning as he handed over his coat. The girl was looking after Peter and chuckling.

They sat on stools at the bar. A bartender came lumbering over to them. “Two whiskies, please,” Peter ordered. “And don’t you eye me like that, you brute.”

After a startled moment, the bartender rested his arm on the bar and laughed and shook his head. “That’s a good one. That sure is a good one.” He heaved himself up and went off to get the drinks. Charlie didn’t know where to look. His face was burning more fiercely than ever. The bartender returned with the drinks and leaned across the bar confidentially to Peter. “I slipped a little extra in yours, sonny.” He laughed and shook his head again. “You brute. That sure is a good one.” He went off down the bar.

“Don’t you ever get into trouble?” Charlie demanded in a muted voice.

“Why should I?” He laughed and lifted his glass to Charlie and drank.

Charlie took a thirsty gulp and began to feel less conspicuous.

“What are you doing now?” he asked.

“The street. I guess that’s about as close to it as you could come. It’s a very high-class street, though.”

“Don’t talk such nonsense.”

Peter looked at him with clear, untroubled eyes. “It’s not nonsense, champ. I don’t take money, if that’s what you mean. People give me things. I sell them when I have to. Watches. I could open a goddamn watch shop. It turns out I’m a perfect thirty-nine. I guess you are too. It’s amazing how many peoples’ clothes I can wear. What more does a kid want?”

“Plenty. How long do you think you can keep this up?”

“That’s no problem. There’s a war on. I won’t be around much longer. Maybe the Army will make a man of me. Or maybe I’ll make the Army.” He giggled.

“Stop talking like that. It’s disgusting.”

“Oh darling—hey, who do you think you’re talking to?” A grimace of pain crossed his face, and then he leaned over his drink and launched into a rapid, mumbled, semicoherent little monologue. “Now, now, now. We’ve been through all that. Enough. Enough of this. Come on. Up. Up, Pete. Up. That’ll do. You see? You can do it if you put your mind to it. There. Now. One, two, three, and—” He took a deep breath and straightened. “Sorry. Where were we? Oh, yes. Nowhere. Hell, champ, I’m just having fun, sort of. The talk is part of the act. Pay no attention.”

“I don’t like it. Why do you have to have an act?”

“Why do—? Oh, come on, that’s not fair. Leave your little sister be. Tell me things. What’ve you been doing?”

A battle was raging within Charlie. He was shocked and repelled, drawn, held. He felt as if he had been touched by magic. He would have welcomed resentment, bitterness, recriminations. Sunny sweetness flowed out to him like a healing balm. Was this what it had been like all those months they had been together? A memory of happiness came to him as if from some former existence, known but not quite his own. His sex stirred even as he rejected him with contempt. So they had had a great time together in bed; that might happen with anybody. He was forgetting everything that really counted. Peter was nothing but a silly fairy. His stomach churned at the thought of him handling, being handled by, other men. He knew he ought to go, but he gestured to the barman for another round. “This one’s on me.”

“Come on. Tell me things.”

“Oh, well, getting married’s taken a hell of a lot of time. Everybody wants to celebrate. Hattie has an awful lot of family.”

“She’s fine?”

“Sure, great.”

“And what about all the little Charlies?”

“She doesn’t want any for a long time. Her career and all.”

“Is anything happening in the theater for you?”

“Not yet. We’re working on a possibility now. There might be something in it for both of us. It’s not much of a play, but I might have one of the leads.”

“Hey, wonderful. We’ve got Sapphire all set. It’s your turn now. I was glad Meyer Rapper’s play flopped.”

“Yeah. Virtue rewarded.”

“I really ought to leave in a few minutes, dammit. I don’t want to miss Sapphire. Now that we’ve finally run into each other, it’ll probably happen every five minutes. This is a crazy town.”

Charlie suddenly knew that he couldn’t leave him now. It was finished, there was no question about that, but he had to catch a glimpse of his world, he had to see him with his friends simply to reassure himself that he was well out of it. The sweetness that radiated from him was a trick of personality, hiding God knows what sickness and corruption. Peter had obviously surrendered to the worst in himself, yet Charlie felt in him an inviolable purity, manifested even in his making no move to touch him. Even here at the bar, he had kept his legs carefully to himself. It made Charlie feel lonely. “Listen, did you mean it about taking me to this party?”

“You mean you’d come?” Peter’s face lighted up.

“What the hell. Hattie will kill me, but I want to see Sapphire too.”

A doubt crept into Peter’s eyes. “It’d be wonderful but—Well, I don’t know who all’s going to be there, but there’ll probably be plenty of other faggots. You’ve never been to that kind of party. If you think I’m bad, wait’ll you see some of the others. You sure you won’t mind?”

“I’ll try not to. Who knows? Maybe I’ll let my hair down too, for once.”

“You?” Peter laughed, but there was pain again in the set of his mouth and behind his eyes.

Charlie went off to find a telephone and returned in a few minutes. “She’s wild. I’d forgotten we were having dinner with her parents.”

“What did you tell her?”

“The truth for once. I’ve told her all about us.”

“You have? Golly. You know, it’s amazing. I used to sit around wondering what you were doing, who you were seeing. Now somebody else is waiting, and I’m out on the town with you. We’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Well, here we go.” They looked into each other’s eyes, and Charlie looked hastily away.

They took an uptown double-decker bus on Fifth Avenue and climbed to the top. Crowded together on the narrow seat, there was no way of not touching. Even though they were insulated from each other by heavy coats, Charlie found their proximity deeply troubling as they swayed and Bruced themselves against each other with the lurching of the bus. He could see in his mind’s eye every muscle working in the known, loved body. He wouldn’t stay at the party long; just long enough to say hello to Sapphire. Even if there were an opportunity for a private moment with Peter, he wouldn’t take advantage of it. He would definitely keep his promise to Hattie to meet her at her parents’ house by eight-thirty.