Twelve Rooms with a View (31 page)

“I do,” I said. It was relaxing listening to this stranger blather on. He had the same attitude all these gay guys seemed to have: even though we had never before met, he assumed a level of complete understanding between us, which was surprisingly accurate considering that I was having trouble remembering his name.

The apartments on the fifth floor had been subdivided three times since the building was built, which meant that Vince’s dad’s apartment was only four rooms—a bedroom, a living room, a den, and a kitchen—and they were all rather small, even though the walk-in closet was, as my new friend Andrew noted, quite large. The bedroom had a sleekly square king-size bed that took up virtually the entire space, except for the three feet in front of an enormous flat-screen television, which was screwed into the wall like a giant piece of pop art. But the bathroom was enormous and a thing of beauty. Pink Italian tile rose up the walls and framed an actual Jacuzzi, which was tucked neatly into a corner so that unlike the bed in the next room it didn’t take over the entire space.

“A Jacuzzi,” I breathed. I suddenly felt completely exhausted. “A Jacuzzi.”

“And he’s mad because his father hasn’t put the lease in his name. I’m going,
taxes
? It’s not in your name, so who pays the property taxes, you could also look at it that way … oh, look what I’ve found!” Andrew
plucked something off the bottom shelf of the tiniest teak cabinet I’d ever seen, which stood next to the pedestal sink. “This looks like a bottle of bubble bath with your name on it. Look, it says ‘Tina Finn,’ right here,” he announced, waving it madly in the air and leaning over to turn on the faucets.

I admit that it’s a little crazy that I took off my dress and got into that hot tub, but I was so tired and drunk on vodka gimlets that it seemed like a good idea. The bubbles smelled like lavender, and the Jacuzzi jets were whipping them into a complete state of frenzy, and those guys were being so nice to me. At first it was just Andrew, who, as I said, simply started filling the tub as if this were a done deal, and then Scott with the silver hair came in to use the bathroom, but he immediately got into the spirit of the thing and started running around looking for towels. Then Lyle (short) and Roger (buzz-cut) showed up, reporting that Dave and Edward
and
Christopher were
all
in love with Vince, and he was driving everyone crazy and he just didn’t want to watch it anymore. So they were just coming back to say good-bye before taking off, but then they thought that having a Jacuzzi with Tina sounded like fun, so they decided to stick around, but we all needed another round of drinks. While they were getting the drinks, the sushi arrived, which they brought back along with the drinks, and then everyone took turns getting in and out of the Jacuzzi, but I didn’t have to get out because they all thought of me as somebody truly special who deserved for one night to be treated like a queen.

And they wanted to know everything. All of it. Every time I tried to streamline the story, they would say I wasn’t telling near enough.

“Okay,” said Andrew. “Let’s start at the beginning. Your mother died—”

“Yes, they said that on television, you know that.”

“No, back up beyond that,” said Scott, sounding slightly abrupt, but that was just his manner. “Where were you when she died?”

“I was out at the Delaware Water Gap—”

“The Delaware
Water
Gap? Why?” Scott demanded.

“I had this boyfriend, he had this idea that we would clean houses—”

“He had you cleaning houses? Back up,” said Lyle.

“Well, we were supposed to be caretakers for the homes of rich people who had places out there. But Darren didn’t have it worked out.”

“Back
up
. What do you mean it wasn’t worked out?” Lyle held his hand out to silence the other three, so he could get the information he wanted.

“Well, you know, he didn’t really know anybody there, so we went out and there was no place to live, not even an apartment to rent because there just wasn’t, so we ended up living in this trailer—”

“You went from living in a trailer to living in the Edge?” said Roger, clearly entranced by the magic of this.

“Don’t rush her, we’re not there yet!” Scott interrupted. “So then your mother died.”

“Yes. My mother died.”

“And when was this?” he continued.

“About two months ago.”

“Two months?” someone murmured.

“It was just two months ago? Oh, sweetie. Oh, Tina. That’s such a loss.” All of them were silent for a moment, thinking about what a terrible thing it is to lose a mother. And it did feel like that suddenly. For the first time since she died, I knew I was talking to people who wanted to hear about my mom.

“It was,” I said. “It really was. But the fact is, I had already lost her! I hadn’t seen her in so long. Years. I hadn’t seen her in years.”

“So you lost her twice,” said Andrew, mourning that double loss quietly with the question.

“I lost her even before that,” I admitted. “She started drinking when I was in high school. And it wasn’t her fault.”

“Spoken like the true daughter of an alcoholic. I see some Al-Anon meetings in your future, darling,” Scott observed.

“I don’t mind that she drank,” I said. “It didn’t make her mean or anything, it just made her kind of dopey. Honestly, I thought it made her feel better. Nobody was really very nice to her. My father was a nightmare.”

“Did he hit her? Did he hit you?”

“He hit everybody.” Soaking in a tubful of bubbles, surrounded by nice gay men, somehow made it not so hard to admit that.

“Did he drink too?”

“Well, sure, he always drank. He drank beer. Her drink was vodka.”

“God, I love vodka,” Roger said with a sort of spiritual sigh. “Okay, so he was always a drinker, and she started when you were in high school,” Lyle narrated, making sure we were all on the same page.

“Yes,” I said.

“It happens like that sometimes,” said Andrew, the compassionate realist. “People don’t know they have options and so they get dragged into it.”

“Is anyone worried that we’re all sitting here getting smashed while we talk about Tina’s tragic and clearly alcoholic parents who both died terribly young? They died terribly young, right?” said Scott, the less compassionate realist.

“My father died in a car crash when I was twenty,” I said. “He was forty-seven or something.”

“Did you cheer?”

“No, everyone just pretended it was all so sad,” I remembered. “It was weird. Lucy and Alison and I were all out of the house by then—”

“You were in college,” Scott supplied.

“No, I dropped out of college.”

“You
dropped
out of
college
?” Roger exclaimed, as if this were really astonishing.

“Let her
finish,”
said Lyle.

“Yeah, so I was living with this guy,” I fumbled.

“Darren?” suggested Roger.

“No, a different guy, there were—several—different guys,” I admitted.

“I’m sure,” Scott said, nodding.

“Anyway, Lucy and Alison and I went back to my parents’ house after the funeral—there was like a little thing after the funeral.” I had a terrible moment as I realized that we had had a little party for my
oh-so-shitty father, and we didn’t have one for mom. But I didn’t want to stop and fill in all the ironic extra details anymore; as nice as these guys were, I was afraid that I might suddenly drown. “Anyway, there were neighbors and some friends of his from work, and people brought food and stood around. We lived in a little duplex, one of those places that has aluminum siding on it, it was pretty nice, Mom always kept it clean. And so people were there after the funeral, talking about how it was such a shame and what a relief that he didn’t suffer, and then they all left. Mom was drinking by then, it was like one in the afternoon, and she was totally just—but she didn’t really show it. She would go into the kitchen when no one was paying attention and come out with a glass of grape juice or orange juice, pretending like that’s all it was. I mean, she never said, ‘oh, I need another drink,’ she would just disappear and come back and then eventually she would fall asleep. She would put her head down on the table and mutter something like ‘whatever you do, it’s not enough.’ That was like her mantra, I used to hate her for it. She was such a quitter.”

“Tina, shush, she’s dead, sweetheart,” Scott reminded me.

“So Alison and Lucy and I,” I said, pushing on with the story, “we knew she was about to pass out, she kept disappearing into the kitchen, so we all assumed, and we were getting ready to take off. Alison had put all the dishes in the dishwasher and it was running, and we were leaving. And then Mom was, she just showed up in the doorway and said, ‘Can you take that out of here?’” I couldn’t believe I was remembering all this. Sitting there in all those bubbles, it all seemed so clear, like a movie playing in my head. “And she sort of lifted her hand just a little, because she was really drunk, she was, she was just smashed—” Okay, and then I did start crying, because that seemed like the worst detail of the whole story, that she was so drunk. “And she was pointing at his chair. He had this chair, it was so ugly, this brown plaid Barcalounger that he would just, he sat there all the time and got drunk and watched stupid sports on television, and it was like
him
. It was just
him
. And she said it, she didn’t have to ask twice, we knew what she was asking. Just, get that
thing
out of here. Which we did, the three of us, we went over and picked up that horrible chair and took it to the front door, and I don’t know how we got it
out but we did, we took it out to the curb and left it there. And it sat out there for like a week and a half, and then the garbagemen got tired of ignoring it, I guess, because it was finally gone. Like him. No one could explain how it happened that we were all just—free.”

Andrew poured another vodka gimlet into my glass. He had a little shaker tucked by the side of the Jacuzzi, on the floor. “Thank you,” I said, clutching the slippery glass. I had to concentrate to do that, and then I was able to stop sobbing, which was a relief.

“Why didn’t she leave him?” Roger asked. “That’s what I don’t understand. Honestly, what is the point of sticking
around?”

“She had three kids,” I offered, as if that answered the question. I was aware as soon as I said it that it answered nothing at all, but I was too exhausted and embarrassed and drunk to offer more.

“Did you inherit those pearls?” asked Scott.

“The pearls?” I felt my hand creep up to my neck, to make sure they were still there, although I could feel them heavy against my neck. Scott raised an eyebrow at me. He was sitting on the floor now, draped in a towel, and he looked a little like Zeus or Apollo or some severe god who was not going to be easily fooled by mere mortals.

“Yes, the pearls, Tina, don’t look so guilty,” he commented. “Did you steal them?”

“Did I
steal
them?”

“Goodness, you sound so paranoid! I was joking, I just wanted to know where you got them, you know they have to be worth a fortune. Is that a melo pearl in the clasp? How much are those worth?” Scott turned to Lyle, who was apparently an expert on all things women wore.

“If you have to ask, you can’t afford it,” Lyle said, without seeming to notice the questions inside the question. “Although I will note that the clutch you were carrying is a Rue Jacob and probably worth at least fifteen thousand. Does anyone want this last piece of sushi?”

“Fifteen—come on, for just the purse?” I asked.

“Well, that’s probably what you’d pay for it in a vintage couture shop. You wouldn’t get that if you sold it. You’d get maybe five.”

“And the pearls?”

“You really want to know?” Lyle asked. You could tell he was
wondering what on earth I was doing wearing them if I didn’t even know what they were worth.

“I just borrowed them,” I said, sliding down a little farther in the bubbles. The steam in the room was making everyone a little pink, so no one could see me blush. I am an accomplished liar, but I didn’t feel like lying to these guys. They cared enough about me to respect the truth, which made it hard.

“Isn’t that funny,” I murmured.

“What’s funny, Tina?” asked Andrew gently. I looked at him, surprised that I had spoken the words aloud, like in one of those dreams where you can’t tell the difference between what you are thinking and what you are saying.

“It’s funny that Lucy and Alison are so easy to lie to, but you’re not,” I said. “I don’t even know you. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

Before this could lead to any more truth-telling, however, our steam-filled reverie was interrupted.

“Tina Finn, in a hot tub wearing pearls, surrounded by men,” said a sardonic voice. “Be still, my heart.” Everyone looked up, and there was Vince, his shirt hanging open, lounging in the doorway. While it was true that I had been sitting in that hot tub surrounded by men and bubbles for a good forty minutes, no one had glanced at me that entire time with anything more intrusive than good-natured kindness or drunken bonhomie. Vince’s lust curled and snapped through the room like a whip. I knew he couldn’t see a thing below my breastbone, because the bubbles, frothed up by the water jets, were insanely thick by this point. But for the first time all night I felt naked.

“Go away, Vince,” I said. “We’re having a good time.”

“I can see that. I can’t believe I’ve missed all the fun.”

But it wasn’t fun anymore. I looked up at him slouching in that doorway, thinking about having sex with me, and he looked like half a dozen other guys I let myself get swallowed up by. I looked over at Roger and Lyle, who were rolling their eyes at each other; there’s no mistaking a guy in heat, and if you’re not the one he’s gunning for, you may as well not be in the room. Our little cabal had turned into some sort of hot fantasy for Vince. As far as the rest of us were concerned, the fun was over.

“Well, we were just taking off,” Lyle announced. “It’s great to meet you, Tina. Take care of those pearls, those are a treasure. And so are you.” He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, dropping his towel carelessly as he did. He truly did spend a lot of time at the gym, so there was no reason not to be bold at a moment like that. Scott and Andrew cheered. “Have a good look, girls,” Lyle said, raising his arms with a little flourish as he squeezed by Vince. Roger, who was a little shorter and stouter, held on to his towel, but he kissed me too.