you. And Tracey, I think you should ask yourself why,” Raphael says cryptically.
“What do you mean by that?” I ask, but somebody is already pulling him away to join a conga line.
Suddenly, I’m in no mood to conga.
I find myself wondering what Will is doing. I check my watch and decide he might be home by now. Maybe I can take a cab up to his place and spend the night with him.
But when I try calling his apartment, the machine picks up.
I don’t leave a message.
Four
Sunday morning.
Will is cranky.
It’s raining.
Will is most likely cranky because it’s raining and because it’s Sunday morning, but naturally, being me, I can’t help feeling like it’s somehow my fault. Ever since we met for breakfast at the coffee shop a few blocks from his apartment a half hour ago, I’ve been struggling to make conversation with him while he broods.
The thing is, he’s moody. I’ve always known that. Part of me is attracted to the temperamental artist in him. Part of me wants him to just cheer up, goddammit.
As the waitress pours more coffee into his cup and then mine, I ask him again about last night’s wedding. It turned out the big top-secret affair was the marriage of two major movie stars who left their spouses for each other in a big tabloid scandal last year. I’m dying to know the details, but so far, Will hasn’t been forthcoming.
“So what was the food like?” I ask him, taking three of those little creamers from the shallow white bowl in the middle of the table and peeling back the lids to dump them, one by one, into my coffee. I tear two sugar packets at once and pour them in, then stir.
“Shrimp bisque, grilled salmon, filet mignon, lobster mashed potatoes…nothing spectacular.” Will sips his own coffee. He takes it black. No sugar.
“What about the cake?”
“White chocolate raspberry.”
“Yum.” I swallow a hunk of rubbery western omelet smothered in ketchup and Tabasco and wish that it were white chocolate raspberry wedding cake.
I wish that I were a bride eating my white chocolate raspberry wedding cake.
No, I don’t.
I definitely want to be a bride, but when Will and I get married—okay, if Will and I get married—I’d love to have a fall wedding with a pumpkin cake and cream cheese frosting. I wonder what he’d think of that, but I don’t dare ask him.
“So, Will, do you want me to come back to your place after I go to the movies?”
I already told him—first thing—about Buckley and Flight of Fancy, and how I was hoping to play matchmaker for Buckley and Raphael.
I also gave him a blow-by-blow description of the party, right up to and including the part where Raphael lit a tiki torch he’d hidden in his closet—defying my warning—and carried it around the apartment until he accidentally set a drag queen’s synthetic teased hair on fire. Jones tried to save the day by throwing the shimmering blue fake water fabric over him to smother it, but it turned out that was even more flammable than the wig, and it, too, went up in flames. Luckily, some quick-thinking bystander doused the fire with water from the spray hose at the sink. I left shortly after that, telling Buckley I’d meet him at one in front of the Cineplex Odeon on Eighth Avenue, a few blocks up from Will’s apartment.
I was thinking that after we see the movie, I could walk over to Will’s and we could get take-out Chinese or something.
Okay, what I was really thinking is that we can have sex. It’s been almost a week since we spent the night together, and the last time—the last few times—have been pretty blah.
But Will dashes my hopes now, shaking his head. “Nah, I’ve got a lot to do after the gym. I’m packing boxes to ship up to the cast house so I don’t have to lug everything on Amtrak.”
I could help him pack boxes. But maybe that would be too depressing.
Unless I were going with him…
But I still can’t work up the nerve to ask him about it.
I try to think of something else to talk about.
We’re in a booth beside the window. Will is wearing a maroon hooded sweatshirt I really like. It’s from L.L. Bean, and he’s had it as long as I’ve known him, and it’s not the least bit raggy, unlike most of my knock-around wardrobe.
Over his shoulder, through the rain-splattered glass, I can see people hurrying by carrying umbrellas. I notice that it’s a purely gray landscape dotted with splashes of bright yellow: slickers and taxicabs. I want to point it out to Will, but he won’t appreciate the aesthetic in his mood.
I reach for the salt shaker and dump some on my hash browns before taking a bite.
“You really should watch the salt, Trace,” Will says.
“If it’s not salty enough, I can’t eat it,” I tell him with a shrug.
There’s nothing worse than bland, under-salted food. My grandparents are supposed to be on a low-salt diet, and you never tasted anything more vile than the no-salt-added tomato sauce they tried to serve everyone one Sunday a few years back. We all agreed that it was disgusting, and my grandmother immediately switched back to making her usual sauce. The doctor keeps scolding them about their blood pressure or whatever it is they’re both supposed to be watching, but I don’t blame them for cheating. I would, too.
“You’d get used to less after a while,” Will points out.
“Maybe, but I don’t want to. It’s not like my health is in any danger.” I’m never comfortable discussing my eating habits with Will. I guess I’m afraid he might bring up my weight. So far he never has, but it’s not as though I think he isn’t aware that I could stand to lose a few pounds.
Okay, thirty or forty pounds.
Luckily, he’s never acknowledged it.
And if my luck continues, he never will.
“There are worse vices than salt,” I point out to him, still feeling defensive. “Like…”
“Cigarettes?”
I grin. “Exactly. Okay, salt and cigs. So I have two vices. Look at the bright side. At least I’m not a junkie.”
He cracks a smile at that.
“Why don’t you have any vices?” I ask, watching him take a bite of his toast. Whole grain. Unbuttered. No jelly.
I half expect him to protest that he does have vices—not that I can think of any.
But he doesn’t. He just shrugs, smiling and chewing his boring toast, confidently vice-free.
“Listen…what if I came with you, Will?”
Who said that?
My God, did I say that?
Apparently I did, because Will has stopped chewing and is looking at me, confused. “Came with me where?”
What the hell was I thinking?
I wasn’t thinking. I just blurted it out somehow, and now I can’t take it back.
I frantically try to come up with something else to say. Something to add, something that would make sense…
What if I came with you…
What if I came with you…
What if I came with you……to the bathroom the next time you go?
No, there’s no way out of this.
Now that I’ve started,