Yale stood, too, a moment before everyone else. He reached into his pocket, extracted a business card. “Please understand that the acquisition was my undertaking, and that we acted against the direction of Ms. Pearce.”
Bill said, “That we includes me. If you’re going to complain about someone, please complain about me personally. Yale was only acting—”
Yale held up a hand to stop him. He said, “This was my project. We did nothing unethical or illegal, but any anger should be directed at me.” It would be dishonest, Bill taking the fall. Especially when Yale was the one who’d messed up, the one who’d been too distracted by his own life to do his job properly in Wisconsin.
Cecily adjusted her shoulder pads and followed Donovan most of the way out the door. She stopped and looked at Yale before she left the room, a look you’d throw a drowning man as you took the last life preserver.
* * *
—
Yale sat numbly that night on Asher Glass’s floor, along with everyone else who didn’t fit into the chairs or along the walls. Half of Asher’s living room was his office, with desks and phones and file cabinets, and the other half held a ratty couch, a small TV. Yale’s tailbone pressed into the wood, and down here you could see every dust clot, of which there were many.
Asher promised them the pizza was on its way, stood in front of the TV to talk about a community housing fund, slush money for people who couldn’t make rent because they were sick. Someone asked if Asher could guarantee the money would stay in the gay community, and Asher said, “Hell no, are you kidding? We don’t own this disease,” and then there was loud debate. Whenever Asher was exasperated, the parallel creases between his eyes would grow so deep they looked etched.
Yale was free now to lust after Asher, free to fantasize not just a dream scenario but an actual possibility. He could stay late, help clean up, put his hand on Asher’s shoulder . . . But Yale had never been one to make a first move. Not in his life, not even drunk. And he doubted Asher would ever notice he was interested unless he grabbed him by the actual cock.
Besides which, his life didn’t need more drama right now. He needed a nice boring stretch, a few months when someone could ask what was new and he’d be able to say, “Not much, just plugging along.” He couldn’t sacrifice his job and risk rejection on the same night.
But no, everything would be fine at the gallery in the morning. The transfer of property was airtight, Herbert Snow had reassured him. It had to be okay.
Rafael, Charlie’s Editor in Chief, kept scooting closer to Yale on the floor until he was right beside him. He whispered, “Bummer of a party.”
Yale had nervously checked the crowd when he’d come in, even though Asher had guaranteed, when he invited Yale, that Charlie wouldn’t be there. It wasn’t going to be easy to avoid the most ubiquitous gay man in Chicago, but he could manage it till things had cooled, crusted over. Teddy leaned on the windowsill next to his friend Katsu. Yale hadn’t talked to Teddy tonight, probably wouldn’t. Teddy and Katsu were exactly the same size, and Yale squinted till they were identical silhouettes. Katsu raised his hand, and when Asher shouted over the din to call on him, Katsu said, “For those of us living with it—” and Yale only barely heard the question, something about tenant rights. He could have guessed, but he hadn’t known.
Someone asked a question about anonymity, and Rafael whispered, “I heard you’re living large! When you gonna have us plebes down for a party?” Rafael wore a Palestinian scarf around his neck, and he hid his chin in it like a turtle.
“I’m just crashing there,” Yale said, although it felt more and more like that was where he lived, in a little capsule above the city, while down here everyone else’s suffering and drama continued.
A minute later, Rafael whispered again: “Charlie’s totally unhinged. Everyone at the office is like, Oh my God, bring back Yale. Was he always this nuts? And you were just, like, absorbing it all for us?”
Yale said, “He’s going through a lot.”
“I mean, he’s a disaster. Did you used to force-feed him? We started leaving snacks on his desk just so he’ll eat.”