Venetian Masks (23 page)

“I thought the castles were for when you got attacked.” Jeff had seen several, the remains of stone battlements still rising above crumbling towers.

“Maybe the locals had more faith in God than in soldiers.”

They had the entire compartment to themselves, which was nice. Once the Croatian border guards had stamped them out and the Slovenians had stamped them in, Jeff and Cleve could relax with the door closed. Well, Cleve could relax. Jeff was far too keyed up for that.

For once he actually knew where they were going. He’d heard Cleve state their destination when he bought the tickets. “Were the Slovenians deliberately trying to make their capital as unpronounceable as possible?” he mused out loud.

“Ljubljana is perfectly pronounceable.”

“If you don’t mind spraining your tongue.”

“It’s a pretty little town. You’ll see. Old place. Romans lived there, the Illyrians—”

“Illyria?” Jeff interrupted. “You mean like in
Angel
?”

“Huh?”

Jeff stretched out his legs so that his feet were next to Cleve, and toed gently at Cleve’s hip. “You know,
Angel
. As in Buffy, vampires—”

Cleve finally opened his eyes. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“What? They were good shows. Metaphors for the evils of adolescence and all. Well,
Buffy
was a metaphor for being a teenager. I’m not sure what
Angel
was a metaphor for. Evil lawyers, I guess. I can understand that metaphor.”

“You really are a geek, aren’t you?”

“Told you,” Jeff said happily.

Cleve snorted and pretended to go to sleep.

Jeff decided he liked traveling by train, although every time they stopped in some tiny town with an impossible name, he scanned the platform anxiously for anyone who might be Eddie Weibull, or at least one of his goons. Fortunately, nobody seemed to fit the bill. In between stops, fairy-tale scenery rolled by with quaint little farms and neat little houses. Once he even saw some fishermen lazing by the river.

“What kind of money do they use here?” he thought to ask after a while.

“We’re back to euros. Everyone takes credit cards, though. You still have room on yours for more charges?”

“Yeah, if we don’t get carried away.”

Cleve yawned. “’Kay. We’ll skip the shopping sprees and luxurious penthouses.”

The trip to Ljubljana didn’t take long, and it was late afternoon when they reached their destination. The train station was smaller than the one in Zagreb but probably built around the same time. Cleve confidently led the way out of the station, past some restaurants, and down a street lined with cafés. Not as many cafés as Zagreb, Jeff thought. And then the street met up with a river, and he decided that Ljubljana gave Zagreb a decent run for cafés per capita. Both banks of the river were lined with tables and chairs set in front of picturesque multicolored buildings.

“See?” Cleve said. “Pretty.”

“Yeah.”

The crowds here were younger than in Zagreb and livelier. Bicycles zoomed quickly back and forth, and Jeff had to take care not to get run over. A group of people clustered around an ice cream vendor, calling out the flavors they wanted. Waiters rushed back and forth.

“I wasn’t gonna fuck him,” Cleve said out of the blue, not looking in Jeff’s direction.

“Huh?”

“Tobias. The Austrian guy in Zagreb. He used to work at a resort in the Alps, and he was going to try and get me a job there for a little while.”

“What kind of job and what was in it for him?”

Cleve sighed. “I dunno. Custodian, maybe. Something to earn a few bucks and a place to sleep. I was gonna give him a cut of my pay. Finder’s fee.”

Jeff wasn’t sure whether he believed Cleve but was touched that Cleve wanted him to believe. “Okay,” he replied, and Cleve shot him a worried look.

They came to a strange triple bridge and crossed the river, then walked uphill slightly and turned onto a narrow street that ran parallel to the water. Cleve opened an inconspicuous gray door and entered, Jeff close at his heels. They were in a room that looked like a combination of someone’s living room and an antique store. Stuff was everywhere. Jeff stayed very still in fear of knocking something over. The air smelled of dust and roses. Before he could ask what was going on, an ancient woman in a pink-and-brown headscarf appeared through a doorway and croaked something that Jeff didn’t understand.

Cleve answered her in German, which must have worked, because within moments he was pressing some euro notes into her gnarled hand and she was giving him a key that looked as though it might have been around since the Crusades.

“Where do you find these places?” Jeff asked as he followed Cleve up a set of creaky stairs.

“I ask around. I didn’t stay in places like this with Eddie, but I hear stuff from tourists, you know? Cheap rooms that aren’t ready to be condemned yet.”

Their room had two single beds with floral duvets, a tiny table and single chair, and a view of an alley. The bathroom was down the hall. Jeff set his suitcase on the closer bed and sat down beside it. He was willing to bet this place didn’t have Wi-Fi. He was mildly surprised that it had electricity and running water. “Separate beds,” he said mournfully.

Cleve didn’t look too happy about that part either. “Sorry. I wasn’t quite up to explaining to granny down there that we want to bunk together.”

“How long do you think we can stay here?”

“Honestly?” Cleve sat beside him, making the bed groan ominously. “Two nights, tops. It’s too close to Zagreb and too small.”

“And then where?”

“Wherever the next train’s heading. I’m not you, Jeff. I don’t have time-share reservations and… lists. I don’t plan. Never did, not even before Eddie.”

Jeff tried to imagine spending his life with no home base, no family waiting for him, no… anchors. Even without vengeful mobsters, it was a depressing scenario. But maybe Cleve liked it. Maybe the freedom was nice.

Cleve flopped backward on the mattress and Jeff followed suit, and for a long time they both lay there, staring up at the water-stained ceiling. Then Jeff’s stomach rumbled, making Cleve laugh. “Dinnertime?”

“I guess so.”

They ate at a place with plastic tables covered in red-checked vinyl cloths. They both ordered pizzas, which the waiter inexplicably served with ketchup on the side. The pizza wasn’t bad—Jeff passed on the ketchup—and the accompanying beer was pretty decent. When they were finished, Cleve cocked his head. “Want to do something touristy since we’re here anyway?”

“Sure.”

The something touristy turned out to be a funicular ride up a hillside to a castle. There were views of sharp-peaked mountains, which Cleve said were the Julian Alps, and a courtyard café with more beer. Jeff looked around at the other customers, well-dressed people in their twenties and thirties, and was strangely content. “I’ve never had beer in a castle before.”

“Not too many castles in Sacramento.”

“No, not many.” They were silent as a waiter came by and lit the candle on their table. Dusk was falling, turning the sky purple, and a light breeze had risen. Jeff was glad he’d brought his jacket but thought Cleve looked too warm in leather. “Would you ever want to live somewhere boring like Sac?” Jeff asked.

Cleve gave him a long look. “I’d sell my soul for it. Little house with a white picket fence, neighbor kids selling Girl Scout cookies, garbage going out on the curb every Tuesday night, someone nagging me to mow the lawn… I’d sell my fucking soul.”

“Then why not go?” Jeff asked quietly.

“And have Eddie show up?” Cleve’s face was blank, but even in the growing darkness, Jeff could see the despair in his eyes.

“So what are you going to do?”

Cleve shrugged slightly. “Keep running until he catches me. Or until I can’t run anymore.”

With that bleak statement, they left the castle and rode back down the hill. The riverside cafés were bustling with life and laughter, but even as Jeff walked right past them, he felt as if he were in a different world altogether. Parallel universe, maybe. He wasn’t in Cleve’s world either.

They each occupied a bed in their tiny room. In the dim overhead light, Jeff read his Kindle, and Cleve buried his face in a tattered paperback he’d found somewhere. Something about Germany just before World War II, he said. Jeff would rather read about a football player with the hots for his teammate. When they both began to yawn very audibly, they took turns in the bathroom down the hall—Jeff swallowing his pills—and climbed into their separate beds. “Can I borrow some clothes tomorrow?” Cleve asked.

“Sure. And maybe we can go pick up some stuff for you. Maybe find a Laundromat or something. I’m running out of clean stuff.”

“Wash it in the sink,” Cleve suggested. “Easier and cheaper.” He yawned again, and Jeff felt his own eyelids grow heavy.

Even though they couldn’t touch, Jeff could hear the other man’s even breathing. It was a peaceful sound.

I
N
THE
dream, a skinny blond man was chasing him down a levee, cackling like someone from a horror movie and waving an antique musket. Jeff woke up slightly breathless and was relieved to discover that he must not have been screaming this time, because Cleve was still fast asleep. Jeff rolled onto his side and watched the other man for a while. Cleve’s eyelids were twitching. For the first time, Jeff wondered what his lover dreamed of.

Moving quietly, he dressed and made his way to the bathroom. He tiptoed down the noisy stairs, although the hour wasn’t really that early. In fact, once he got outside, he discovered that the city was bustling, the bicycles zipping as fast as ever. He smiled at a woman with spiky reddish hair and a shopping bag, and she smiled back. Just a few blocks away, he found a produce market. Although it wasn’t as big as Zagreb’s, there was an indoor section where people sold sausage, bread, and cheese. When one smiling lady offered him a sliver of pale yellow cheese, he hummed appreciatively and bought a chunk with the euros he’d withdrawn at the train station the day before. He also bought a round of brown bread that was still warm and, when he went back outside, some strawberries. He discovered something that appeared to be a milk vending machine, but didn’t try it out.

A little more exploration brought him to a drugstore. He ducked inside to purchase a few things for Cleve: toothbrush, comb, deodorant, and disposable razor. Not because he begrudged sharing his own, but because it pained him to think of someone not owning even those basic necessities. He also bought a brown zippered bag for Cleve to store his things in.

When Jeff rejoined him, Cleve was awake, sitting up in bed and looking rumpled and adorable. He grinned broadly over breakfast in bed. “No coffee?” he teased.

“You’ll have to get up for that.”

“’S okay. I was gonna go shopping anyway, remember?”

Jeff nodded. “Yeah. And I should probably find an Internet café.”

“You know, I don’t even have an e-mail address. Or a smart phone.”

“My mom’ll worry if I don’t check in.”

Cleve smiled and stroked Jeff’s cheek. “You’re a good son,” he said softly.

“No. I’m not.”

After the food was gone, Jeff rinsed a few of his clothes in the bathroom sink and hung them over the footboards of the beds to dry. Meanwhile, Cleve borrowed Jeff’s red T-shirt—it looked better on him anyway—and a pair of boxers. Knowing that Cleve was wearing his underwear made Jeff uncomfortably hard, and that made him blush. Cleve leered cheerfully, as if he knew exactly what was going on. While Cleve used his newly purchased toiletries, Jeff slid his laptop into the messenger bag he’d brought but not yet used. After a brief pause for thought, he tucked the Kindle in there too. You never knew when you might need to kill some time with a book.

Cleve and Jeff descended the stairs together and threaded their way through the ancient furniture to the front door. But once they were outside, Cleve turned left in search of clothing, while Jeff turned right to look for Internet access. They had already agreed to meet by the triple bridge in an hour. Jeff paused for a moment and turned to watch Cleve walk away. He was suddenly overcome with the certainty that Cleve was going to skip town without him.

“Can’t keep a leash on him,” he muttered to himself, and resumed walking.

It took Jeff only about ten minutes to find a café with Internet access. It was a cheery place, with orange and red chairs and vases with bright blooms on every table. He had to buy an espresso and be given a code by the young man behind the counter, but that was fine. He wanted caffeine anyway. He chose a table near the back and started up his computer. While he waited, he listened to the conversations around him in English, German, and something that was probably Slovenian but sounded an awful lot like Croatian to him.

Finally he perused his e-mail, deleting a bunch of spam and advertisements and checking the message from his mother.

Jeffy,

I hope you’re having a fabulous time in Zagreb. I know you’re really busy, but I need an answer on that offer. Do you want me to accept? Counter offer?

Love you lots,

Mom

Shit. His house. He’d forgotten all about it in the excitement of the past day, which was pretty amazing, considering the amount of angst he’d suffered over the sale. He sat in his comfy chair and sipped his coffee and considered. And then, after a good fifteen minutes, he answered her.

Sorry, Mom. Kind of hectic here. Sort of made a side trip to Ljubljana. I visited a castle last night! Go ahead and counter offer. If you can get them to 200k it’s a deal and you can sign the papers for me. Thanks, Mom. Love to you and Dad.

He didn’t hesitate before clicking Send.

He expected his stomach to clench and his breaths to turn unsteady. But they didn’t. In fact, he discovered he was smiling and felt a little light and giddy, as if someone had tied him to a bunch of helium balloons. He was going to be free of the house and the impossible debt, free of the memories that lurked in every corner of the old place, and now he could begin saving for something new. A place that wasn’t just practical and affordable and well-located—the criteria he and Kyle had used last time—but a place that was truly
him
. A home he loved.