they say. But they don’t understand that just when you think you’ll never have to be alone again, and then suddenly you are, no amount of reason can blunt the shock of seeing one toothbrush in the bathroom.
But it’s the middle of the night that’s the worst part. Those moments when I wake up at four a.m. and wonder in the stillness what it is that’s wrong. And then it hits me.
Joey’s gone.
Fuck, they’re all gone. Joey and Daniel and Shane—and though Lloyd might be right downstairs, he’s gone, too.
Every time I have fallen in love, I’ve been convinced it would last forever. That this would be the man with whom I’d buy a house, make out a will, take my last breath. We’d die just minutes apart, holding hands in the same bed. How romantic would that be? And of course, we’d be buried side by side. HERE LIES HENRY WEINER AND HIS HUSBAND, THEIR HEARTS UNITED TOGETHER FOREVER.
Forever. It’s a fascinating concept. What’s forever for me, of course, would only be a heartbeat for the Galapagos land tortoise, which the Discovery Channel has taught me can live up to two hundred years. Given the number of boyfriends I’ve already had in my thirty-three years upon this planet, I must say I’m glad humans don’t have the lifespans of tortoises. There’s no way I could keep getting my hopes up for another sixteen decades only to watch them get dashed over and over and over again.
And yet, for a very brief time, I wasn’t alone.
Why has my short time with Joey become so imbued with the rosy romantic glow of nostalgia? I remember with such longing the day we met at Tea Dance, the euphoria after the first time we made love, the sense of future and forever in the air. When things started getting serious between Joey and me, I moved into his apartment on Commercial Street. I needed some space away from the guesthouse. I’m the manager here, after all, Lloyd’s right-hand man—and Joey knew that for a while, a brief and crazy time, I’d fancied myself in love with Lloyd. Obviously it wouldn’t do to go on living here, so instead, I moved in into Joey’s cramped little two-room apartment over a seafood restaurant in the center of town.
Yet no matter its limitations, I adored living at Joey’s place. The harbor, sunkissed and blue, was always sparkling outside our window, and I found I actually liked picking up Joey’s socks and underwear from the floor and depositing them in the hamper. I liked doing things for him. His laundry. His ironing and vacuuming.
But there was one thing Joey didn’t like about me. My dog. Back then, I had a little pug named Clara. She was so ugly she was adorable. She belonged first to my friend Brent, and I took her in after Brent died. But Joey didn’t like dogs, and didn’t want a dog running around his apartment, so I gave Clara away to a couple of lesbians who promised her a good home. It’s a decision I’ve never stopped feeling guilty about. I chose Joey over Clara. A boy I’d known for only a little over a month instead of my faithful companion of several years. I’m sure the lesbians made good on their promise to provide well for her, but a day hasn’t gone by when I don’t regret giving up Clara.
And what made it worse, of course, was that soon Joey was gone too. I’ll never forget the night it ended. I was making dinner. Joey entered sullenly, his jacket over his shoulder, tie askew, briefcase in hand. He’d been hired by a real estate company in town, and should have been a dazzling success. The market in Provincetown was at its hottest during that time, and Joey had big dreams. Yet so far he hadn’t even sold a single condo. Everyone else around him was raking in the cash, but Joey kept coming up short.
Looking at him that night, I could see it had been a particularly disappointing day. I waited for the kiss, for the little nuzzle of his nose on my cheek to which I’d grown accustomed. But nothing came. Joey went straight to the bathroom to take a shower.
In the living room, I set up two folding TV trays and lit a candle. Joey came in, towel drying his hair, the smell of Ivory soap lingering around his body. His straight black Asian hair, electrified, fell into his eyes. He flipped on the television.
“Just for the news, okay?” he asked, seeming to want to keep conversation at a minimum. I nodded.
We talked little during dinner. Afterward, Joey washed the dishes. Usually if I cooked, he cleaned up. This time, I helped, scraping the plates.
Then we settled down to watch Jeopardy. It was just like any night. After the show was over, I expected that we’d have sex, and then maybe head out to the Wave bar to see who was around. Maybe we’d have a cocktail. Or maybe two, given Joey’s mood. But before the game show ended, Joey suddenly flicked off the set with the remote control. The abrupt silence in the room choked me. My toes curled up in my sneakers.
“I can’t go on,” he said, and I knew instantly what he meant. He didn’t mean his job, he didn’t mean this place, he didn’t mean anything but me—he couldn’t go on with me. It was as if, the whole time we’d been together, I’d just been waiting for this moment. It always came. It was inevitable.
Still, I tried to reason my way out of it. “Shouldn’t this be something we decide together?” I asked. In my first reaction to Joey’s decision, I was calm, rational, mature.
But all Joey did was shake his head and tell me he had fallen out of love with me, the cruelest phrase in the universe.
“So,” I said, my rationality beginning to crumble, “you want me just to pack my things and go?”
“You can stay here if you want,” he said, his eyes closed against me. “For tonight.”
He headed off to bed. I watched him walk down the hall. Then I placed myself stubbornly in front of the television set, snapping it back to life, refusing to turn it off until the early hours of the morning. It was as if by keeping the night going I could keep the relationship from ending. When I finally gave up and joined Joey in the bedroom, his eyes were closed, but his breathing didn’t have the usual rhythm of sleep.
Crawling into bed next to him, as I’d done so many times before, I knew I’d never fall asleep that night. I just lay there, feeling his warmth and watching the changing moonlight on the ceiling. I dreaded the sun, because then it would be over. All of this—our time together—over. When the first slivers of orange slipped between the Venetian blinds, making horrible stripes across the bed, I wanted to run outside, like a cartoon I’d once seen, and push the sun back down behind the horizon like a basketball.
Without a word, Joey got up. I reached over and pressed his pillow against my face, savoring his smell. I thought maybe that I’d just get up as usual, grind the coffee beans, bring in the paper, pour our juices. I’d pretend he never said what he did. Let him throw me out! But instead I rose, scuffed over to the closet, and gathered a few shirts and a pair of pants.
Joey cried only once. I stood in front of him, slowly removing his keys from my key ring. One by one I handed them to him. The apartment key, the downstairs door key, the laundry room key. When he had them all, he began to sob. I walked out.
For a moment, I was afraid I’d handed him my car key, but then I found it, still safely on the ring. The ignition started my tears again, and I drove back here, to Nirvana, and let myself in. I expected Lloyd, but I found Jeff, and I made sure I’d dried my eyes when he saw me. Still, I never could fool Jeff.
“What’s wrong, Henry?” he asked.
I told him it was over with Joey. His face wrinkled in compassion for me.
“Are most of your things still back there?” Jeff asked.
“My whole life is still back there,” I told him.
He scolded me for being melodramatic. But still he wrapped his arms around me, and I was grateful for them.
And so I moved back in above the guesthouse. When I found one of Clara’s toys under the refrigerator, I sobbed for two days.
I should have known I’d end up back here.
It’s where I always end up.
Back with Jeff and Lloyd.
When