Body Language (41 page)

As we all began plodding up the stairs together, Carrol paused to finger the lapel of Pierce’s sport coat. “Beautiful jacket, Sheriff. Ralph Lauren?”

Puh-leez.

Pierce answered, “Nah. Brooks Brothers.” He may have blushed.

Watching this exchange, I realized that in the year I’d known him, I’d come to take Pierce’s good looks for granted. For a middle-aged man, he was perfectly fit and ruggedly handsome, an image that was complemented by his knack for dressing well. Carrol was right: Pierce
was
wearing a beautiful jacket, rusty tweed, exactly right for the in-between weather of that autumn morning. His gray flannel slacks, double-pleated with razor-sharp creases, found a dead match in the darker tones of the tweed jacket. He
deserved
Carrol’s compliments.

Continuing up the stairs, Carrol chattered vacuously about something as we, his retinue, prepared to ensconce him in Grace Lord’s coach house.

To the fanfare of his own ringing laughter, the king, indeed, had arrived.

D
OMESTICITY HAD NEVER PLAYED
much of a role in my life. During my younger years, as a bachelor reporter, building a career at the
Chicago Journal,
I had little time for nest-feathering and not much interest in it either. But two events—turning points, really—would effect a profound change in my indifference to house and home.

First, I met Neil. I had never been truly in love before, and then, at thirty-nine, I found it—with a man (egads) who happened to be an architect. This resolved a particular identity crisis that had long gnawed at me (I could no longer brush aside the suspicion that I might be gay), and just as certainly, it imbued in me a new appreciation for the great indoors. I had bought a condominium loft in Chicago’s trendy Near North neighborhood, but it was Neil who moved from Phoenix to live with me, setting his talents to designing and rebuilding the space. When we’d finished the project, we had carved out a magazine-perfect showplace; we’d also built a “home.”

Then, less than a year ago, within a week of my move north to Dumont, Thad Quatrain’s life merged with mine. It was an inauspicious melding, to say the least. My nephew (technically, a second cousin) was an absolute snot toward Neil and me, with all the charm and lovability of a juvenile homophobic bigot, which in fact he was on the day when he met us. Imagine his dismay when, that very afternoon, his mother died young and I was named in her will to look after him. Imagine
his
dismay? Imagine
mine.

Having grown comfortable in the role of a “gay urban professional,” I had never given a moment’s thought to the possibility of rearing a child, but there I was, suddenly faced with that unlikely task. Adapting to the day-to-day weirdness of life with a teenager would be challenging enough; far more daunting was the forced change of mind-set, the identity crisis. How was I to think of my
self?
Did my vocabulary even possess the words that might name this new
me?
Gay dad, Uncle Mark, Neil’s lover, Thad’s father…

But we managed to pull together—Thad and I, and Neil too. While Neil taught me how to become half of a couple, Thad has taught me to be part of a family. Domesticity now plays a large role in my life. As a result, the focus of my days has changed.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the evening cocktail hour embodied my notion of the day’s ultimate reward—a brief, civilized period of repose, refreshment, and conversation, replete with its own comforting rituals—the polishing of crystal to perfect cleanliness, the clink of ice, the skoal, the first shared sip. Neil and I declared an ingenuous concoction to be “our” drink on the night we met, and every evening since (every evening, that is, when we have been together), we have poured Japanese vodka over ice, garnishing it with orange peel while leaving the day’s travails behind.

Now this routine has been interrupted and refocused. The interruption was my own doing, the result of moving north to Wisconsin to try my hand as a publisher. Neil’s architectural practice would keep him anchored to Chicago, so he agreed to a plan of alternating weekend visits with me, taking turns at the four-hour drive. Our “arrangement” had barely begun when that unexpected death in the Quatrain family left me executor of a huge estate that includes Quatro Press, Dumont’s largest industry. Because I now serve on Quatro’s board of directors, I had no trouble securing for Neil a contract to design a major expansion of the printing plant. The project has kept him in Dumont full-time for several months, and we feel like a couple again, sharing the same bed nightly. Once again, our evenings are a time when we can regularly, predictably share the simple adult pleasure of cocktails at home.

But now “home” has a new meaning for us. There is a sixteen-year-old living under our roof, and that roof represents
his
home as well. Even though Neil and I still enjoy our drink before dinner, this is not a ritual that can include Thad. He is, of course, too young to booze with us, and even if we’d permit it, he could not fully grasp the pleasure, meaning, and responsibility of the cocktail hour. In time, he’ll learn these things. Not yet though.

So the focus of my days has shifted from seven in the evening to seven in the morning. Breakfast—who’d have thought it?—has become the central event in our shared life as a family. We know there will be no other activities to rob us of each other’s company at that hour. We can use that time to stay in touch. We can talk.

“We need peanut butter,” said Thad, clanging a knife within the nearly empty jar, scooping out the last of the beige goo, spreading it on a piece of hot toast. He wore one of those long, baggy sweaters that hang a foot below the waist.

“It’s on the list,” Neil told him, looking up from the “Trends” section of that Friday’s edition of the
Dumont Daily Register.
“I’ll shop tomorrow morning.”

“
That
bites.” Thad sat at the kitchen table between Neil and me—we faced each other from opposite sides, dressed for work, me in a tie, Neil in a soft but tight turtleneck that displayed a buffed upper torso he’d be foolish to hide. Across from Thad, a fourth place was set with a napkin and an empty mug, should Sheriff Pierce join us, as was his habit.

It was a homey scene, in spite of its not-so-typical cast of characters. The setting too had an atypical edge. The house, built by my late uncle, my mother’s brother, had been designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin. It was vintage Prairie School, a style that, while distinctly American, is a rarity in its purest execution. The kitchen had been updated before I moved into the house, but it was a thoughtful renovation, sensitive to Wright’s style, leaving no doubt that we occupied a “significant” home. Walls of elongated horizontal brick intersected elegantly vertical cabinets of pale wood. A row of high windows punctured the outside wall, framing rectangles of a perfect September sky. The back door stood open to a cool morning breeze that huffed through the screen and whorled with the smell of hot coffee.

Thad chomped his toast, gulped his milk. Peering at him over the front section of the paper, I asked, “
What
bites?”

Thad cast a sympathetic glance toward Neil, telling me, “Shopping on Saturday.” Thad shuddered at the thought of the crowded supermarket, the wasted weekend morning. “Hazel always shopped during the week.”

I reminded him, “Hazel’s somewhere in Florida.” We were speaking of Hazel Healy, the unlikely name of the Quatrain family’s longtime housekeeper, now retired. All of us were still busy adjusting to our new life together in the house on Prairie Street, so we’d put off the search for live-in help. The prospect of bringing a stranger into our home had little appeal for any of us, though we all recognized the logistical advantages that would be reaped from finding Hazel’s successor.

“I don’t mind,” Neil told us, referring to the shopping. “Really.” He was gracious if not sincere—the thought of slogging through those crammed aisles with a clattering, banged-up wire cart was enough to knot my stomach.

Changing the subject, I asked Thad, “Two weeks into it, how does it feel to be an upperclassman?” He had just started his junior year.

“Okay, I guess. I like most of my classes, but chemistry’s a drag.”

Neil winced, remembering something painful. “I never got the hang of chemistry either. I kept telling myself that it was something like cooking—that the chemical equations were just ‘recipes’—but one afternoon during lab, my experimental dash of ammonia in Clorox turned the brew in my beaker sufficiently toxic to evacuate an entire wing of the school. The mixture had produced chloramine gas, a particularly noxious agent.” He laughed lamely.

Thad’s laughter was hearty. “So
then
what happened?”

“My counselor finally bought my argument that chemistry was of no use to an aspiring architect, and he let me transfer directly into physics. The lab sessions were considerably less hazardous, but it was still no fun.”

Thad thought for a moment. “Neil? What
did
you do for fun?”

Neil glanced at me. The night before, in bed, we’d aired our concern that while Thad seemed committed enough to his classes, he had no apparent outside interests. Sports did nothing for him, in spite of our gentle prodding to make a runner out of him, an activity that both Neil and I still enjoyed together; we’d have happily included him. The dating bug had not yet bitten, though it was surely only a matter of time. As for clubs or band or whatever, he just wasn’t involved. And though he never spoke of it, we assumed he was still in repressed mourning over the loss of his mother. Neil and I agreed that it was important for Thad to find
something,
or his boredom might lead to trouble.

So Neil answered, “I ran cross-country. And I got into extracurricular art projects—set-decorating for school plays. I was even
in
a play or two.” He could also have mentioned chairing the decorating committee for his prom, but he must have decided Thad would judge his experience with tinsel and chicken wire a tad fruity.

Thad’s face wrinkled in thought as he wiped peanut butter from the corner of his mouth. He asked me, “How ’bout you, Mark? What’d
you
do in school—I mean, besides ‘school.’”

I set the newspaper on the table and folded it. “Well, I ran cross-country and track. And I worked on the yearbook and the school paper.”

Thad nodded, thinking. Then, turning again to Neil, he said, “There’s going to be a play at school. But first you need to know about acting and stuff, right?”

“
No,
” Neil and I said in unison, leaning toward the boy.

Neil told him, “You have to start somewhere, and that’s what school is for.”

I added, “It’s worth a try. When are auditions?”

Neil asked, “What’s the play?”

Thad’s head wagged between us as we questioned him. With a half-laugh, he told us, “I’m not sure. But I’ll ask around.”

I suggested, “Your English teacher should know all about it.”

“I’ll ask,” he repeated, signaling that we shouldn’t push further, not today. He got up from the table, crossed to the refrigerator, and poured himself another glass of milk. Before returning, he offered, “More coffee?”

“Sure,” we answered. “Thanks.”

As Thad poured Neil’s coffee, he looked over Neil’s shoulder at the “Trends” section, which displayed another feature by Glee Savage. Headlined
THE KING HAS ARRIVED,
it detailed our visit to Grace Lord the previous morning, when Glee and I had met Carrol Cantrell, the king of miniatures. Skimming the story, Thad nearly spilled the coffee. “Oops. Sorry.” He set the pot on the table. “These people sound a little weird.”

Though I agreed with his assessment, I explained diplomatically, “Let’s just say they have a somewhat eccentric obsession.” I grinned, reaching for the coffee.

“Not at all,” said Neil, putting down the paper. His reproachful tone conveyed surprise at my attitude. “The art of model-making has an illustrious history that’s long been intertwined with my own field. Miniatures have always played a role in the design of big architectural projects. I’ve built a few models myself and have nothing but respect for the true masters of the craft.”

Neil stood to continue—he was on a roll now. “Consider the Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago. Commissioned by Mrs. James Ward Thorne and built by the master miniaturist Eugene Kupjack, mostly in the 1930s, that series of sixty-eight shadow boxes traces four centuries of European and American interior design—all in the space of a darkened hallway. They’re magnificent.”

“They are,” I agreed. I’d forgotten about the Thorne Rooms, but as soon as Neil mentioned them, I recalled being awed by them as a child. I told Thad, “Sometime soon, let’s spend a weekend down at our loft in the city. We’ll take you to the Art Institute, and you can see the Thorne Rooms for yourself—they’re really worth the visit.”

“Cool.” His tone was flat, not quite enthusiastic, but at least he didn’t react with that dreaded adolescent smirk. He was making a genuine effort to show some interest in our shared lives. While I assumed he had little interest in the Thorne Rooms, I knew that he’d enjoy a trip to the city on any pretext.

I reminded Neil, “That display represents the height of the craft. Somehow, I doubt if Grace Lord’s roombox competition will be in the same league.”

He laughed while crossing to the sink with his cup and a plate of crumbs. “Don’t be so sure. With both Carrol Cantrell and Bruno Hérisson here, the stakes have been raised considerably.”

I noticed that Neil had pronounced
Hérisson
flawlessly. “You’ve
heard
of these guys?”

“They’re…‘names’ to me.” He sloshed the remainder of his coffee down the sink and opened the dishwasher, depositing the cup and the plate. Thad brought his own dishes over and added them to the load.

Checking my watch, I downed my coffee. “Looks like Doug isn’t joining us.”

Thad wondered, “Where
is
Sheriff Pierce? He hasn’t missed breakfast all week.” Then he grabbed his pile of books from the counter. “I’ve gotta go—need to review an assignment before class.” He gave each of us a shoulder hug. “Bye, guys. See you tonight.”