Blink (24 page)

“How nice of you to call,” I say into the phone and then mentally kick myself. Smooth. Real smooth.

“I hope I’m not calling too late?”

I’ve never been able to admit I’m in bed when someone calls either early in the morning or late at night. I don’t know why. But in this case, I don’t want Carlos to think he’s done anything wrong, even though calling at after 11:00 p.m. is a bit, well, rude. But I couldn’t be more delighted. Besides, I’m not in bed, technically speaking.

I get myself under some measure of control. “Ah, no. I was just out on my back porch, having a beer. I’ll probably turn in soon.”
Yeah, right. You’d be fast asleep with your Kindle on your chest and Ezra curled up between your legs if it weren’t for Tate’s text.

“Good, good. I’m glad you’re still up.”

We fall to seconds-long silence. I get the feeling Carlos doesn’t quite know what to say.

Neither do I.

At last Carlos says, “I got tired of the party.”

“I did too.”

“I noticed.”

“I hope Fremont didn’t think I was too rude for just slipping out.”

Carlos laughs. “No offense, but I honestly doubt he even noticed.”

The seconds evaporate into silence. I walk to my bedroom window and look out at the night. Up and down my street, I can see many lights on in the apartment buildings lining Lunt Avenue, the flickering of television screens, a woman pacing in front of a window with a baby on her shoulder.

Lots of people are still up. It’s Saturday night. Would it be so terrible to ask him if he wanted to meet up? “So you left the party?” I ask.

“Yeah. I used to like a good party a lot more. As I’ve gotten older, though, I find that I prefer smaller gatherings—a dinner party with four or six people—as opposed to a big bash. It’s funny. I feel more alone at one of those big gatherings than I do just being by myself. And if I’m being honest, I actually like my own company too, especially as time goes by.”

I want to tell Carlos I love him, not in a literal sense, but he’s just spoken my point of view so eloquently that I can’t help but think we’d be a match.

“So,” I wonder, tentative, “are you home yet?”

“Nah. I’m just wandering around the streets of Rogers Park, hoping to get lucky.”

“You dog!”

Once more silence, like a persistent pest, creeps into our conversation, or lack thereof. I get the sense Carlos is as nervous as I am. I wonder how serious he was about getting lucky. I don’t know if I’m up for full-on luck tonight, but I would really love to see him. Any exhaustion I might have felt earlier evaporated with the sound of his voice.

“Do you remember when I invited you over to my place, back in 1982?”

“I do.”

“Do you really? Do you remember everything that happened that night?”

“Would it surprise you if I said I do?”

“Well, a little, since you didn’t recognize me at first,” I say.

“C’mon! Give a guy a break. It’s been more than thirty years.”

Begrudgingly I admit to myself that he has a point. The changes those years have brought aren’t too noticeable to me, because I look in a mirror at least once or twice a day, but to him, they must be drastic. “So you remember how sweet it was?”

“Until you got that phone call,” Carlos says.

I close my eyes and lift the phone to my forehead for a moment. He does remember. I bring the phone back to my ear. “Do you play golf?”

Carlos laughs. “Where did that come from? Talk about a non sequitur!”

“Bear with me,” I assure him. “I don’t play golf either. I can’t imagine a more boring pastime. But there’s a term golfers use called a mulligan.”

“A mulligan?” Carlos says. “That’s a new one to me.”

“Well, it’s basically a do-over. It’s a second chance.” I gnaw a bit at my lower lip. I know where I’m going with this, but I question if Carlos does. And I wonder if this direction is the right one. It’s late, and maybe I’m past the age where I should be inviting men over.

What are you? Eighty?
I kick myself mentally. I may have passed fifty, but I’m not
that old
.

“A second chance,” Carlos says. “Do we ever really get them?”

“Would you like to try and find out?”

Carlos doesn’t say anything for a while, and I worry that I’ve put him off. That maybe now he’ll perceive me, like my horny last date, Chet, as just another gay dude on the make.

“I’d love to find out if there’s such a thing as a second chance.” Carlos’s simple declaration inspires in me a feeling I don’t think I’ve had in many moons. I might even call it joy.

I swallow and say, “Would you like to come over? I’m in Rogers Park, so you could probably walk.”

“Tell me where I’m going.”

I give him the address, and we hang up with mutual “See you soons.”

This time
, I think,
I’ll turn off my phone when he gets here.

I give the condo a quick once-over. The advantage of being an obsessively neat gay man of a certain age is that one is always ready for unexpected company.
The place looks acceptable
, I think as I straighten the stack of magazines on the coffee table and put the coffee mug from this morning in the dishwasher. I hurry into the bedroom, shoo Ezra from the bed, and pull the sheets and comforter up. I smooth everything out with my hand and then throw the extra pillows in their shams on top. I look down at the bed and wonder if things will go on there tonight. After all, this
is
a second chance, right?

But a lot of water has rushed under the bridge since Carlos and I were horny twentysomethings, I caution myself. Maybe I should just consider what we’ll talk about.

Yeah, right. I’m still a gay man. And he’s still a very hot gay man.

I wonder if I’ll have time for a quick shower and decide I won’t. It would be just my luck to be under the spray when he arrives. He’s in the neighborhood. He could be here in as little as five minutes.

Well, you could at least put on something a little less obvious than boxer shorts. Or do you want him to see you as the craven slut you once were?
Memories rush back of younger days when I was desperate enough and bold enough to hook up via a phone sex line and later the Internet, and to greet my prospective suitor at the door in nothing but a pair of black briefs or a jock strap.

I don’t even know where my jock strap is
, I think and bark out a nervous laugh. I’m sure I have one around here somewhere. What would Carlos do if I answered the door wearing it? I can just picture myself, leaning against the doorframe with a come-hither look in my eyes and saying, “Hey, sailor….”

I shake my head. The confidence and nerve, not to mention the body, I had to pull off such a move have gone the way of the Sony Walkman. I pull open my dresser drawers and closet and in a few minutes am more tamely attired in a pair of faded Levi’s and a Chicago Cubs T-shirt. Hey, I can at least try to pass for butch.

Too soon and not soon enough, my phone rings, and I know it’s Carlos at my front gate.

What if it’s not?
A sudden thought occurs to me.
What if it’s Tate, calling to say he’s on his way home? Oh, wouldn’t that just be too perfect? I love my boy and want to be with him as much as possible, just not right now.

Fortunately the number on the screen is not Tate’s. Tate’s name, not his number, would come up anyway, along with a picture of him I took last summer at a street fair in Evanston.

I walk over to the window with the phone in my hand, to where I can see the front gate. It’s him. It’s Carlos.

I don’t say anything. I simply hit the number on the screen that will unlatch the gate. I go to wait by the door for the sound of his footfalls on the staircase.

Is this really happening?

I close my eyes as I hear the tread of his footsteps ascending, then getting closer as he approaches my front door. My heart beats a little faster. A line of sweat trickles down my back. I’m in my twenties again.

I open the door, and he’s there. Just for a moment, I flash back to a drizzly night in Evanston, standing across the street from the South Boulevard ‘L’ Station and seeing him emerge. Back then, my stomach gave a little lurch, and my head filled with a potent cocktail of joy and desire.

The feeling tonight, some thirty-odd years later, is not much different.

But decorum prevails. My head tells me I don’t really know this man, and my heart says I do, in all the right ways. The ways that count.

I open the door wider and try to quell the slight shaking I feel in my hands. This moment has an element of the surreal to it. “Hey there. You want to come in?”

“No. I just wanted a glimpse of you. A glimpse is enough.” And he turns to head back down the stairs.

Just as quickly, he turns around again and grins. “
Silly
. Of course I want to come in.”

I step back to let him pass. I catch a whiff of sandalwood as he passes by. I breathe it in.

He stands, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and we eye each other nervously. There are shy smiles. I think both of us have the same feeling of “What now?”

I move to the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink? I’ve got beer and some Vinho Verde.”

He comes up behind me and peers into the refrigerator. “The wine might be nice.”

I pull out the green bottle and hold it up. “There’s only about a half a bottle here. But I have more.”

Carlos goes to my living room area and plops down on the couch. “Thank God for that. Are you as nervous as I am?”

I spill some of the wine on the counter in my first attempt to pour a glass. It’ll be sticky in the morning, but I can’t be bothered with it right now. “Me? N-n-nervous? Why do you ask?” I chuckle. I lift the two haphazardly filled glasses and hurry over to the couch to hand one to Carlos. I sit down at the opposite end of the couch, scared to death that, for the rest of my life, I will never be able to think of a single thing to say again.

Carlos tastes the wine. “This is good. I always loved Vinho Verde. It’s such a young wine, so light.” He takes another sip. “Ah, we forgot to toast.” He holds his glass up, which forces me to move closer.

We clink glasses, and I say, “To young wines.” That elicits a smile from Carlos before he takes another sip. He reaches into his wineglass with his finger and then brings his finger to my lips and runs it around their surface. It’s like his finger is electrically charged. He then kisses me, whisper light, and pulls back. He looks at me as though he’s testing to see what my reaction will be.

I’m honestly not sure
what
my reaction is. I lean back into the couch, savoring the taste of the wine and even more, Carlos, on my lips. I both want more and don’t. This is weird. You never know how you’re going to feel about a thing until it happens. I confess, “This is strange.”

“Why?”

“You being here. I thought about you over the years. I never forgot you. And lately I even did a little searching for you, through the magic of social media.” I look over at him, gauging, wanting to be sure he’s not creeped out or that he thinks I’m a stalker. “But I couldn’t find anything.”

“Ah, I’m not much for Facebook, and I don’t even know how to tweet.”

I shrug. “So I really kind of came to the conclusion I’d never find you again.”

“Andy? Why did you look? Why did you always remember?”

I reach over and turn off the lamp on the end table next to me. The room is now dimly lit by just the light over my range, across the breakfast bar that separates my kitchen from the living room. It’s not a move to inspire romance, at least not consciously, but to allow me to talk more. I’ve been waiting years—decades, really—for these words to tumble out. I never thought I’d have the chance. I want to make it as easy on myself as possible.

“I’ve wondered that same thing. I mean, why do I remember
you
? Don’t be offended, you were a hot guy and still are, but I’ve known lots of hot guys over the years.” I eye him. “More than I’d care to admit.” I laugh. “And I’ve had a few of those thirty-second love affairs on the ‘L’ too.”

“What’s that?”

“A thirty-second love affair is when two guys’ eyes meet on the train and something passes between them. Most likely lust, but it’s a significant moment, captured just for an instant. But there’s an understanding that goes beyond words.

“But those guys are like dreams, you know? Memories of them scatter quickly.” I take a sip of my wine, set the glass down, and then look at Carlos, my gaze probing. “But you. I never forgot you. I don’t know why that is.”

“Does it matter?”

“Maybe not. Maybe what matters is that fate, and not me, has thrown us together again.”

Carlos inches closer on the couch. “Do you think fate is trying to tell us something?”

“Ah, I don’t know if I believe in all that.” I finish my wine. I go in the kitchen and then call over my shoulder, “I don’t have any more of this stuff chilled. Do you want something else?”

“I’ve still got some. I’m fine.”

“One sec.” I run out the back door and grab my beer off the step, where it hasn’t warmed up too much. I go back and sit down next to Carlos, close enough that our shoulders now touch. I don’t look at him as I ask, “Did you ever think about me over the years?”

What he answers hurts. “No. Not really. Not all that much, anyway.” He turns my head with his hand so I’m forced to look at him. “I had someone. His name was Harry, and he made me very happy. I used to think that people who said they’d found their soul mate or that they could never look at another man were romantic fools. And then I met Harry, and they didn’t seem like such fools anymore.

“We had a good many years together, and then he passed away.” Carlos finally looks away from me, and I can see the tears standing in his eyes. “Then I really believed I wouldn’t look at another man. No one could take the place of my Harry.”

My feelings deflate. What are we doing here?

But Carlos goes on. “And then I met you again tonight. And it all came back. And I realized that the same thing was true for me—that you were always there, in the background, that sweet memory of two young men, little more than boys, staring at one another on a crowded ‘L,’ both of us, I bet, thinking nothing would ever come of those looks.