The Starving Years (7 page)

“Maybe there’s a dentist around here. They’d probably be some creepy-assed Soviet-trained Ukrainian dentist with a cash-only operation, but they’d be able to do
something
to keep my tooth in by the time I could get to my regular guy. Right?”

“You saw how it was out there,” Marianne said. “Everything’s closed, locked up tight.” She paced from the window to the computer a few times, and then said, “Someone’s got to know what’s going on out there. Can I try searching?”

Tim dumped his cache and erased his history with a quick macro. “If you think you can find something.” He stood and Marianne slipped into the chair. She was a quick touch-typist. Tim suspected the probability of her accidentally activating one of his custom macros was low. “I’ll go see how Nelson’s doing,” he said, and again, he wondered if he sounded casual. Normal. Or if the tone of his voice was broadcasting his fascination with Nelson for everyone to hear.

Marianne brought up a new browser window, while Randy held on to the back of the chair and spelled out the name of his dentist for her. Neither seemed particularly interested in Tim’s opinion of Nelson. And Javier, who Tim had been fantasizing about meeting all week...well, thankfully he was taking his time in the bathroom.

Tim slipped into his closet-sized bedroom and shut the door behind him. The cheap carpet was stiff against the bottom of the door. He seldom shut it, seldom had anyone else in the tiny efficiency, therefore never had any need to keep it closed. He pressed his back against the door, took a deep breath, allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim light of the bedroom...and there he was, tangled in Tim’s sheets. Nelson Oliver.

Tim couldn’t imagine what it was about Nelson that had captured his imagination so. When he’d broken free from the crowd and headed straight for the truck with such determination, such purpose, and noticed the red bandanna, Tim was so sure of his identity there was no question. It was as if a week’s worth of fantasies coalesced in a single moment of utmost significance, and the fire in his eyes had blazed straight through to Tim’s soul. By the time Tim figured out he wasn’t Javier, the mark had been made. The spark had been struck.

The sight of Nelson in his bed only served to douse the flames...with gasoline.

“Why were you at that job fair?” Tim whispered. They may not have had the chance to speak more than a few words to one another, but even so, Nelson didn’t strike him as someone gullible enough to believe that Canaan Products was still in the business of helping third-world countries raise their standards of living. “The benefits? The job security? The salary?”
 

Nelson, well and truly dead to the world from whatever medication he’d taken, sighed in his sleep.

Chapter 7

Javier hadn’t gone into the bathroom with the intention of rifling through Tim’s private things. He’d only slipped out of the crowded living room to buy himself a bit of time, a bit of space, to figure out his next move. And yet he couldn’t help but steal a look at the “box of rubbers” Randy had so crassly announced to everyone.

He ran the water as he opened the medicine cabinet in case the hinges might let out a telltale squeak, and he looked at the box. Nothing fancy. Nothing flavored or colored, textured or ribbed. However, the box held not the typical dozen…but a value pack of thirty-six. He pulled out the box and peered inside. It was half empty. The plastic edge of the last wrapper had torn at a jagged angle as if to ensure Javier couldn’t help but notice its contents were being put to use. As if to ask him, “When was the last time
you
got laid?”

Javier returned the box to its spot in the medicine cabinet. It was really none of his business.

Tim had shown up outside the job fair, just like he’d agreed to. He extracted Javier from a situation that had deteriorated more rapidly than anyone expected—and in doing so, had enabled Javier to get what he’d come for.
 

Tim had executed his part of the plan. He owed Javier nothing.

And so this sick pining away for what might have been…it needed to stop. Now.

Clearly, they should never have cybered. At the time, Javier had allowed his enthusiasm over meeting someone with ideals like his—someone willing to blow the whistle on a crooked corporation, despite the challenge, and despite the danger. And when the conversation turned from corporate responsibility to civil rights to gay rights, he probably should have just confirmed that he, too, was gay without being flirtatious about it. Maybe at the time, the suspicion was nagging at the back of his mind that he shouldn’t lead Tim on, especially since it was Tim who’d replied “What does it matter?” when Javier asked what he looked like.
 

In retrospect, Tim’s reticence to discuss appearances had been a relief, not because Javier could cast whomever he wanted in their online encounter…but because he could be someone else, himself. Someone whole.

And when Tim had said it probably wasn’t secure to swap photos, to just look for the red bandanna, Javier ate that up just as readily.

Bad ideas all around. That was pretty obvious now.

He drew a USB memory stick from his pocket and checked that it hadn’t been damaged back there in the crowd. He’d fallen, at some point, though it was kind of a blur. He turned the device around in his fingers. It seemed fine, though he wouldn’t know for sure until he plugged it in, verified that it still worked, and saw what he’d managed to copy.

Once he pocketed the memory stick, he removed his eye patch, peeling the ties carefully from the semi-permanent ridge the strings had cut into his temple, and splashed the sweat and grime of the day from his face. The feel of the water centered him, made him feel more like himself. Disappointed? Perhaps. But dealing with Canaan Products was more important than hooking up with some guy. And they couldn’t deal with Canaan until the people from the job fair left.

He turned to dry his face with a towel hanging over the track that held the shower curtain around the chipped clawfoot tub.

Tim’s towel.

There was a tap on the door. “Javier?” Marianne called through it. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He stopped with the towel pressed to his cheek, but he resisted the urge to bury his nose in the terrycloth and breathe deeply. Resisted...barely.

“You’ve been in there a long time. You’re not hurt or anything, are you?”

“Everything’s fine.”

So much for letting go of the infatuation.

“Okay. Well...I gotta pee. If you can, y’know, finish up.”

Disgusted, he turned away from the towel, tied his eye patch back into place and opened the door. Marianne shot him an apologetic look as she squeezed past him. He stepped out into the living room and she shut the door. Randy was now the only other one in the room, seated at the computer, squinting as he typed. Tim was conspicuously absent.

“Women,” Randy called over his shoulder. “That’s the second time she’s had to go in the last hour.

“What did you find out about the riot? Anything?”

“Traffic delays. That’s what they’re calling it on the news. No mention of phone lines not working, either. This sucks, man. I gotta get my dentist on the phone.”

Javier scanned the tiny apartment as Randy spoke. It was smaller than he’d imagined it would be, and plainer, too. Not that he’d been expecting granite countertops and a view of the Manhattan skyline; Tim had made it clear that money was the least of his motivations. Crystal clear. Still, the shabbiness Javier had conjured up in his overstimulated imagination had looked more like set-dressing than actual poverty. Or asceticism. Or…Javier glanced at a window covered in yellowed newspaper. Whatever you would call it.

Which only went to show how ridiculous his own romantic notions had been.

“You got a phone on you?” Randy said.

“No. We weren’t supposed to bring one to the job fair.”

“And you actually left yours at home? What’d you think, they were gonna frisk us at the door? I’ll bet you believe in Santa Claus, too. Or the Tooth Fairy. That’s who I need. The Tooth Fairy.”

Marianne emerged from the bathroom in her stocking feet. “My mom and dad are probably worried sick about me. They never wanted me to move to New York.” She perched on the arm of the recliner as she was too keyed up to actually sit in it. “They said it was too dangerous. I thought they were just being overprotective, and if I stayed away from crackhouses and dark alleys they’d have nothing to worry about.”

“Don’t worry,” Randy said. “By the time they hear about whatever’s going on, this whole thing’ll be over and done with and you can tell ’em yourself.”

Javier only half-listened to the two of them. As much as he wanted to convince himself that the real Tim Foster, an actual flesh-and-blood human being, had nothing to do with the image he’d conjured in his own imagination, he still felt compelled to find some detail, however small, that would prove his attraction hadn’t been entirely off-base.

But the apartment was small, and dingy, and except for the sprawling homemade computer system, devoid of any sort of personal touches. Though he hadn’t seen the whole apartment, yet. There was still…the bedroom.

Javier glanced at the closed door. Tim was in the bedroom. With Nelson.

Marianne and Randy began arguing about how phone lines worked, but their voices dwindled, shut out by the rushing in Javier’s ears. Maybe he’d had it all wrong. Maybe Tim hadn’t seemed cold because Javier had gotten his expectations overinflated.

Maybe Tim had seen Nelson kissing him in the back of the truck.

***

It would have been more efficient to snap a picture: Nelson, face partially exposed by the wadded sheet, hair splayed on Tim’s pillow. Tim didn’t do it, of course. It would have been creepy. But he wanted to.

Tim would need to settle for etching to his memory the curve Nelson’s throat made where his Adam’s apple dipped when he swallowed in his sleep, the eyelash fringe, the faint dusting of freckles high on his cheekbone.

How many shots did we do?
The memory of Nelson asking him that replayed, over and over, like a sound bite.
Did Nelson actually see Tim as someone he would “do shots” with? Maybe drinking wasn’t as overrated as Tim had always assumed it was.

Voices rose and fell through the closed door, which made Tim more acutely aware that he and Nelson were most certainly not alone. Though if they were…he would never have worn such a conservative shirt. He’d always pictured Nelson as more of a computer techie, like himself. Never mind that it wasn’t even Nelson he’d been chatting with all along, but Javier, who was even
less
like Tim had pictured him. But if he’d known he was about to meet someone who managed to look cool even in a torn button-down shirt and tie, he would have worn something different. He glanced into his cramped closet. He wasn’t sure what, exactly. Suddenly everything he owned looked like it came with a matching pocket protector.

The black shirt, maybe. His last boyfriend, Phil (or was it two boyfriends ago? Sometimes they blended together. Whoever it was) had said it made him look pasty. But guys like Nelson wouldn’t let some conservative guy’s opinion stop them from wearing black.

Tim glanced back at the bed. Nelson rolled, hugging one of the pillows. The borrowed sweatpants rode low on his hips. It felt entirely wrong to stare. And yet….

More tattoos. Symbols trailed down the crest of Nelson’s hipbone. Tim felt like his suddenly-ugly shirt was strangling him.

The impulse to change his clothes was too strong to resist—and if anyone asked…well, why should they ask why he’d changed? Why would they care? It was Tim’s apartment. He was well within his rights to change his shirt without being interrogated for it. He began to pull off the shirt he was currently wearing (horrible thing—he couldn’t even imagine why he’d ever bought it) and as he did, the bedroom door opened.

Javier.

Tim acted as if he’d just been straightening his collar. “What?” It came out a lot more defensively than he’d meant it to. He could hear as much even over the pounding of his own heart.

“These people,” Javier said, “I didn’t plan to bring them.”

Tim nodded, fairly sure he looked fully clothed and normal.

Javier added, “I couldn’t just leave them behind.”

“No. Of course not.”

Javier’s eyes went to the bed, to Nelson curled on his side, clinging to the pillow. “Good. I’m glad you see it that way. As soon as things die down, we’ll get them to leave.”

“We can’t just…throw them out on the street.”

“Once it’s safe,” Javier reiterated.

“Well…right.”

Javier took a step closer. Tim did his best not to stare at the eye patch, but between avoiding that, and avoiding looking at Nelson, and attempting to look like he hadn’t just been stripping out of his shirt, it seemed like there was nowhere he could actually look or stand or act without coming off like a freak. Javier dropped his voice low, and said, “You won’t let a little delay change your mind about posting the exposé, will you?”

“No,” Tim stuttered, “I mean, yeah…I mean…I didn’t really get anything very newsworthy back there. A few photos. And they’re nothing special. They just look like a clump of people. Nobody I talked to actually knew what was going on.”

Javier looked Tim in the face for a long moment with his single eye, and then he stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled something out: a USB flash drive.
 

“What’s that?”

“You said with the right cookies, you could get into a company’s mainframe. Right?”

“Y-yeah.” Tim’s heart began to pound, really pound, harder than it had when he’d nearly been caught shirtless.
 

“Well, here it is. All the temporary Internet folders—and the whole document folder, too. Right from the laptop of an HR rep.” Javier held up the tiny drive and allowed Tim to take it from him. It was small enough to conceal in the palm of his hand, and still warm from Javier’s pocket. Only its implications were so profound, it seemed as if it should have been able to burn right through Tim’s flesh and bone, and leave a smoking hole behind.

“This is serious stuff,” Tim said. His voice shook. “You could get into real trouble for this.”