Chapter Three
When he was finally alone, Evan locked the door, leaned back against it, and took a deep breath. He'd worked hard to show his friends his spirits were good and he was happy to be home. Smiling for long periods of time tended to hurt his face, especially when he didn't feel like smiling. It had been work, not fun. He needed to be alone for a while now and think about what he was going to do next. Being in an isolated environment like Havilland where no one had expected him to smile or pretend to be happy tended to distort reality. There had been times when he'd thought about never leaving.
As he crossed to the dining table where Michele had left his bags, he glanced around the living room and smiled. It was evident Cadin had tried to spruce things up in his own haphazard, clumsy way. He'd tossed pillows on the cream sofa upside down, he'd opened the blinds in the front window crooked so that the one on the left was higher than the one on the right, and he'd rearranged a few side chairs that only made the room look smaller.
Evan's collection of furniture wasn't spectacular, but everything in his apartment reminded him of an event that had happened in his life over the past ten years. The modern cream-colored sofa had been a gift from Jeffery the first month they'd met. Evan had just graduated from college and he'd signed a lease for his first real-life adult apartment. Though Jeffery hadn't been a billionaire at the time, he'd been doing well on Wall Street with tech stocks and he'd purchased the sofa as a gift for Evan. Evan could even remember it had arrived on a Friday afternoon. They'd made love on that sofa that same Friday night. About a week later, Jeffery moved in with him and remained there until they both moved out a few years later when Jeffery could afford to buy a townhouse uptown.
Evan smiled and lifted his bags from the table. He crossed through the dining area to a small hallway that led to two bedrooms. This was another reason he didn't want to move. It had become impossible to find an apartment this large, with two full bedrooms, anywhere in Manhattan without paying a small fortune in rent. He had a separate bedroom for Kenny when he spent the weekend there. This building was one of the last rent controlled buildings in his neighborhood. He knew he could never get a deal like this again, and that was the reason he'd sub-leased the apartment and held on to it when he'd moved into the townhouse uptown. This apartment gave him independence, a sense of security, and he could afford it without Jeffery if he had to. In hindsight he often wondered if he'd ever believed he and Jeffery would live happily ever after.
But his relationship with Jeffery was too complicated to deal with that day. He didn't want to think about it and get himself stressed out on his first day home. He opened a small Gucci bag and emptied the contents on the bed. The Gucci bags had been a gift from Jeffery, too. He'd given them to Evan two Christmases ago before they'd left for Switzerland. Evan would have been happy with anything Jeffery had given him. It didn't have to be designer bags. But Jeffery had a way of tossing money around in a vulgar way without giving it a second thought. And when he did this Evan knew there was no use arguing with him.
Evan smiled at the personal items on his bed: a blow dryer, underwear, hair product, and a few other toiletries. The other small bag contained a few pairs of jeans, sweatpants, and T-shirts. He could have packed it all in a shopping bag and still had room left.
The room felt stuffy, as if no one had lived there for years. As he moved to the other side of the bed to open the window he heard a knock on the door and he stopped short. He wasn't expecting anyone. As far as he knew no one knew he was home yet other than his closest friends. He heard a louder knock, almost a bang. Then he heard Jeffery's deep voice say, "Are you in there?" and his chest caved in.
He couldn't pretend he wasn't home, so he took a quick breath and went back into the living room. By that time Jeffery had begun to bang on the door and shout his name aloud. Jeffery wasn't the kind of man who liked to be kept waiting. But the moment Evan unlocked the door his cell phone rang. He'd left it on the dining table when he'd pulled it out of his jacket pocket.
He opened the door, stared at his husband for a moment, and said, "Come in." Then he walked over to the table and answered his phone without bothering to look at the caller ID first.
"Hey, Dad. Are you home now?" Evan sent Jeffery a glance. Jeffery was standing in the middle of the living room watching him. He nodded at Jeffery and said, "Hey, Kenny. Yes, I'm home. Hell, it's so good to hear your voice. I was just about to call and leave you a message. I figured you were in class now."
When Jeffery heard that Evan was talking to their son, he smiled and sat down on the sofa. Evan figured he'd come right from his office on Wall Street. He wore a gray suit, a starched white shirt, and a navy blue tie. He was one of those men who looked just as good in a suit as he did jeans and a T-shirt.
"I'm between classes right now," Kenny said. "I wanted to see if you're okay." He went to a private school uptown near Jeffery's townhouse. He'd just entered his freshman year and he seemed to be well adjusted in spite of the fact that his parents weren't living together.
"I'm fine," Evan said. "I'm really doing okay and I don't want you to worry." Sometimes it was more like Evan was the child and Kenny was the parent. They related to each other more like good friends than father and son. Jeffery and Evan had adopted Kenny when he was seven years old, right after they'd committed to each other. This was before gay marriage in New York had been legal, and right before having children had become the ultimate chic thing to do for gay men. Jeffery had insisted on adoption. At the time, he'd said he'd always wanted to be a father and he wanted to do it while he was still young. Although Evan had been apprehensive about being a parent back them, he now realized it was the one single decision he'd made in his life so far that had been worthwhile. He couldn't imagine what his life would be like without Kenny.
"Good, because I want you to listen to me read tonight," Kenny said.
"Read?" Evan asked. He glanced at the sofa and Jeffery shrugged.
"I wrote a short story for my English class and tonight is parent-teacher night at school. Each department is doing something different. The English department has kids doing readings, and I'm doing one."
Evan felt a surge of panic deep in his stomach. "Oh, I'm not sure, Kenny. I just got home. I look like a mess and I can't promise anything." He didn't want to face people this soon, especially other parents and teachers in a school environment where everything always seemed so proper and upstanding.
"Dad, you have to come, seriously. I need you there. You're a writer and I've been telling everyone about you. I'm also scared to death. I've never done a reading before."
"Oh, God," Evan said. He hated being put on the spot this way. But there was nothing he wouldn't do for his child. He'd made a silent pledge to himself the first night Kenny had spent with them ten years earlier. He's tucked him into bed and waited for him to fall asleep. He sat there watching him sleep for more than an hour. Before he got up and went to his own bedroom that night, he bent down, kissed his son on the cheek, and said, "I will always put you first."
"Please come," Kenny said. "I think dad will be here, too. I told him about it this morning before I left for school." Kenny lived full time with Jeffery. It often seemed as if his main mission in life was to get his two dads back together again.
Evan didn't mention that Jeffery was in his apartment. "Okay, I'll try to be there. I really will. But I can't promise you."
"Thanks, dad," Kenny said. "I have to go now. I'll see you tonight at seven. It's room 304."
Evan said, "I'll try. Love you."
"Love you, too, Dad."
After he hung up, Evan set the phone on the table and smiled. It felt so good to hear his son's voice he stopped worrying about being nervous with Jeffery. He crossed to the other end of the sofa and sat down. Before he had a chance to say anything, Jeffery said, "He's missed you. You have to go tonight. I'll send a car for you around six thirty."
Although Evan didn't want to go out in public that soon, he knew he would go. He sent Jeffery a look and asked, "Aren't you going?" He wasn't sure if Jeffery was offering to pick him up or just send a car. With Jeffery he could never be certain. He'd learned to read between the lines.
"I can't," Jeffery said. "I have an important dinner engagement tonight. I was going to call him later and tell him I can't go, and now I don't feel so bad knowing you'll be there for him."
"I can take a cab," Evan said.
"I'm sure you can do anything."
Evan would have stopped the world for his son. He'd already missed deadlines and publishing events to put his son's needs first. And he'd never regretted it. But not Jeffery. He'd always put business first and Evan had gotten used to this. There was no use arguing with him anymore. He'd done that more than once when they'd been living together. He also knew Kenny would not be surprised. His other dad had missed school plays, singing recitals, soccer matches, and more than Evan could recall. Kenny had become as accustomed to Jeffery's work ethic as Evan had.
But just to see Jeffery's reaction, Evan said, "Maybe you could cancel this dinner engagement just this once, for Kenny's sake. I'm sure he'd like to see us both there tonight as a family. It sounds like it's a big event for him." As a writer, Evan knew what it was like to give readings of his own work. He'd always dreaded doing it. He'd never done it sober. He couldn't have been prouder of his son's courage or his ambition to become a writer.