it wasn’t any worse than having cocaine in your purse on a work trip, was it?
Fiona ran her fingers through Yale’s curls and didn’t say anything. Cecily, to her credit, didn’t say anything more, and Yale pulled himself together. He stood.
“Do you want to just go for a walk?” Fiona asked.
“No, it’s freezing.” And Charlie would wonder where he was.
They headed back to the door, and Fiona slipped in first. Yale touched Cecily’s arm and said, “I never meant to make trouble for you. I didn’t.” God, he was drunk. Sober enough to hear his words, sober enough that he’d remember them in the morning, but drunk enough to say things he hadn’t planned to. He sent a message to his future self, his morning self: You didn’t tell her about the art. You didn’t say anything bad.
On the stairs she said, “Listen, Yale, I like you. I do. I want to be your friend.”
Yale couldn’t see himself as friends with Cecily, out on the town or whatever she was picturing, but still he was flattered. Nearly as flattered as he’d been by Julian in the bathroom, to be honest. When was the last time someone had made friends with him, rather than him-and-Charlie?
He said, “You’re a good person.” God, alcohol made him a sap. Why did it make some people so mean? It only made him love everyone.
Back upstairs, the speeches had finished and Charlie was holding forth in the middle of an attentive group, gesturing wildly. Yale said to Cecily, “That’s my partner, right there.”
“Oh, the Brit! I met him earlier!”
“I’m not surprised.”
“What a perfect couple!” she said, although it made no sense; she hadn’t so much as seen them stand next to each other.
And of course they weren’t a perfect couple. There was no such thing. Really—and this was a drunken thought, Yale knew—Charlie was right about what was keeping them together. On some level, at least. If there weren’t this monster out there, snatching up guys who played the field, wouldn’t Yale and Charlie have gone their separate ways? There were fights that would have done them in. There was the stress of the past few months. But no, no. They’d have reconciled. They always did. Charlie would have buried his face in his hands and asked what he could do to change, and his eyes would be desperate, and Yale would only want to hold him, keep anything else from hurting him ever again.
Charlie was saying: “The reason we don’t know all the names, the hundred and thirty-two who’ve died in Chicago, is, listen, half were married, closeted blokes from the suburbs. They picked it up at, you know, the bathrooms at the train station. Commuter gays. They convince their doctor in Winnetka to tell the wife it’s cancer. Okay, we don’t know them, and me personally, I’m fine with that. They’re hypocrites, yeah? They vote against their own bloody interest. But they’re still dying. Suffering is suffering. And they’re still spreading it.”
Another beer had materialized in Yale’s hand, the last thing he needed.
The people around Charlie looked like puppets: nodding, nodding, nodding. If someone pulled the right string, they’d clap their little hands.
For the rest of the party, Yale silently seethed at Charlie for no good reason at all. For not magically knowing he’d been outside crying. Or maybe he resented that Charlie had been right about Julian. Or maybe Yale had been mad at him a long time, an anger that only surfaced when he was already weepy and drunk, like earthworms after heavy rain.
The party wound down, and as they walked home he was stewing still.
Charlie said, “I thought it was a success, no?”
“Absolutely.”
“I mean, it was.”
“That’s what I said.”
At home, Charlie collapsed on the bed. He said, “I should go through ad sales.”
Yale said, “Not drunk, you shouldn’t.” He changed into his jeans. He said, “I didn’t get enough to eat. I might see what’s open late.”
He half expected Charlie to interrogate him, to make sure he wasn’t going to meet up with Teddy or Julian or the both of them or the entire Windy City Gay Chorus. But Charlie just made a noise into the pillow.
And come to think of it, what was to stop him from going to Julian’s? Yale walked up Halsted till he was just a block from Julian’s place on Roscoe. That pull, knowing someone wanted you, was a powerful thing. He could duck into Sidetrack—he could hear the music out here—but he didn’t need to