Yale said to the guy, “Get her some food,” and the guy nodded. Fiona patted Yale’s chest and turned away, as if he were the one whose logic couldn’t be followed.
He got his refill, almost straight rum, and looked for Charlie. Was that his bearded chin, his blue tie? But the curtain of people closed again, and Yale wasn’t tall enough to see over a crowd. And now Richard dimmed the lights and pulled up a projector screen, and Yale couldn’t see anything but the shoulders and backs boxing him in.
Richard Campo, if he had any job at all, was a photographer. Yale had no idea where Richard’s money came from, but it let him buy a lot of nice cameras and gave him time to roam the city shooting candid photos in addition to the occasional wedding. Not long after Yale moved to Chicago, he was sunbathing on the Belmont Rocks with Charlie and Charlie’s friends, though this was before Yale and Charlie were an item. It was heaven, even if Yale had forgotten a towel, even if he always burned. Guys making out in broad daylight! A gay space hidden from the city but wide open to the vast expanse of Lake Michigan. One of Charlie’s friends, a man with wavy, prematurely silver hair and a lime-green Speedo, had sat there clicking away on his Nikon, changing film, clicking again at all of them. Yale asked, “Who’s the perv?” and Charlie said, “He might be a genius.” That was Richard. Of course Charlie saw genius in everyone, prodded them till he discovered their passions and then encouraged those, but Richard really was talented. Yale and Richard were never close—he’d never set foot in the guy’s house till today—but Yale had grown used to him. Richard was always on the periphery, watching and shooting. A good fifteen years older than everyone else in their circle: paternal, doting, eager to buy a round. He’d bankrolled Charlie’s newspaper in the early days. And what had started as a strange quirk had become, in the past few months, something essential. Yale would hear the camera’s click and think, “He got that, at least.” Meaning: Whatever happens—in three years, in twenty—that moment will remain.
Someone messed with the record player, and as the first slide displayed (Nico and Terrence toasting last year at Fiona’s twentieth birthday) the music started: the acoustic intro to “America,” the version from Simon and Garfunkel’s Central Park concert. Nico’s favorite song, one he saw as a defiant anthem, not just a ditty about a road trip. The night Reagan won reelection last year, Nico, furious, played it on the jukebox at Little Jim’s again and again until the whole bar was drunkenly singing about being lost and counting cars and looking for America. Just as everyone was singing now.
Yale couldn’t bear to join, and although he wouldn’t be the only one crying, he didn’t think he could stay here. He backed out of the crowd and took a few steps up Richard’s stairs, watching the heads from above. Everyone stared at the slides, riveted. Except that someone else was leaving too. Teddy Naples was at Richard’s heavy front door, slipping his suit jacket back on, turning the knob slowly. Usually Teddy was a little ball of kinetic energy, bouncing on his toes, keeping time with his fingers to music no one else could hear. But right now he moved like a ghost. Maybe he had the right idea. If he weren’t trapped on this side of the crowd, Yale might have done the same. Not left, but stepped outside for fresh air.
The slides: Nico in running shorts, a number pinned to his chest. Nico and Terrence leaning against a tree, both giving the finger. Nico in profile with his orange scarf and black coat, a cigarette between his lips. Suddenly, there was Yale himself, tucked in the crook of Charlie’s arm, Nico on the other side: the year-end party last December for Charlie’s paper. Nico had been the graphic designer for Out Loud Chicago, and he had a regular comic strip there, and he’d just started designing theater sets too. Self-taught, entirely. This was supposed to have been the prologue of his life. A new slide: Nico laughing at Julian and Teddy, the Halloween they had dressed as Sonny and Cher. Nico opening a present. Nico holding a bowl of chocolate ice cream. Nico up close, teeth shining. The last time Yale