you mean love. She’s a woman. It’s not sexual.”
“Neither are we.”
Zack looked startled, confused, worried. “True,” he said. “True.” He
guiltily lowered his head. “All right. Categorize it how you like. It was like a
crush, an office romance. But I was in love with her. And not just her. Her life, her kids, her situation. I’m still trying to understand it.”
Daniel continued to walk around his thoughts, unable to get a fix on what
he was thinking, what he was feeling. “So what did you want from her? Since
you weren’t going to fuck her.”
Zack screwed up one side of his face.
“Did you want to save her and her family? Keep them here and take care
of them?” Daniel heard himself sneering as he said it.
“Yes. Maybe. Something like that. But that part was fantasy.” Zack was
watching him, studying him. “Why are you so angry? They’re gone. They’re
in another country. There’s no reason for you to be angry. It was only pla-
tonic.” His eyebrows came together as he understood something new. “Are
you jealous? You’re jealous of me and Elena?” His mouth opened in a mirth-
less grin. “That’s crazy. She and I didn’t do a damn thing except talk, and you
get jealous. I’ve never been jealous of you.”
“No. Because you don’t love me as much as I love you.”
Zack shook his head in confusion, like a cartoon character who’d been hit
with a mallet.
Daniel’s anger came out of pain, and his pain was like injured pride, but
that was another name for jealousy. “All right. Maybe I am jealous. But I’m
proud of being jealous. Which is more than you ever feel. You’re such a cold,
rational know-it-all. Leave it to you to fall in love with a woman. Who you’re
never going to fuck, so it’s never going to get messy.”
Daniel felt suddenly hot and uncomfortable, and he realized he was still wear-
ing his coat. He hurriedly unzipped it and opened it, but he didn’t take it off.
“Why are we fighting?” said Zack. “What is this fight really about? You
want to finish what we started the other night? Is that what this is about?”
E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a
3 5 3
“What do you mean? What other night?”
“The night you said there isn’t an us anymore. I said this crisis wasn’t
about us, and you said there isn’t an us. I didn’t pursue it because we still had
them to worry about. Well, now they’re gone, so we can pursue it. What the
hell did you mean by that?”
What had he meant? Daniel couldn’t remember.
His silence made Zack more persistent, even desperate. “Look, I know I’m
not a romantic man. I’m not a passionate man. But I am a good friend to you,
a very good friend. And you’ve been a good friend to me. What the fuck else
do you want?”
The question took Daniel by surprise, so much that he wanted to answer
truthfully. “I want meaning in my life. I want joy. I want to have something
more to show for my time here than twenty-plus years of— friendship. ”
“Yeah. Because you’re getting older. And you’re a painter, only you don’t
paint anymore, so you got to fall in love.” Zack remained sunk in his corner of
the couch, his voice droning away, softly bitter, coldly angry. “And who do
you fall for? Another painter, someone you admire. Someone you envy.
Which is a recipe for misery. You don’t want joy. You want to suffer.”
The man’s a psychiatrist, thought Daniel. He knows exactly where to put
the fucking knife.
“What about you?” he replied. “A gay man who’s given up on sex? Who
falls in love with women in trouble but can’t do anything to help them. You’re
no prize either.”
“I never said I was.” He lowered his head. “We shouldn’t be talking about
this now. When I feel so low and shitty that I can’t control what I’m saying.”
“But now I know what you really feel. What you’ve been hiding all these
years.”
“It’s not what I’ve been feeling all these years, ” said Zack, gritting his teeth.
“It’s only what I feel this minute.”
Daniel was hotter and more miserable than ever. He was still wearing his
damn coat. “I got to hang up this coat,” he said. “But I’m done. I’ve got noth-
ing more to say. Let’s stop while we’re ahead.”
Zack was watching him, looking very sad and desperate and confused.
“Fine,” he said. “Yes. Let’s give it a rest.”