He hadn’t actually done it, had he? He hadn’t gone up there and then blocked it out, and here he sat in denial? He really hadn’t. He’d had vivid dreams about it since, but he hadn’t done it.
No, more important: Julian, beautiful Julian. Julian, who kept talking about the cure. Yale wondered if this was in fact what Julian had been trying to tell him in the bathroom. A confession of illness mistaken for a confession of love. He said to Rafael, “You heard this firsthand?”
“He, um. It was his birthday present to himself, to get tested. That’s kind of all I know. Not from Julian, from Teddy Naples.”
Julian’s birthday was December 2. The Howard Brown fundraiser had been—it had still been Hanukkah, hadn’t it? The thirteenth. So no, he wouldn’t have had the results by then. Unless he already wasn’t feeling well. Unless that was the reason he’d finally done it.
The new guy said, “I mean, if it’s just the virus, he could have a long time. Years!”
Rafael said, “What I heard was they called him on Christmas Eve. He woke up because the phone was ringing, and he thought it was his mom calling for Christmas. And it was the nurse, saying to come in for his results.”
The whole table was listening now, satisfying their own curiosity. No one seemed personally upset, just concerned for Yale. Either they didn’t know Julian well, or Yale and Charlie were the last to hear.
Yale reached for Charlie’s half-full glass of water and watched his own hand shake. He should call Julian, but that was clearly what Charlie had tried. He should chase after Charlie, figure out where he was going—but Yale was the one with the credit card, and people still had food in front of them. Rafael said, “Let’s take this down the street. Let’s get you a beer.”
* * *
—
Charlie wasn’t at the apartment when Yale got home two hours later. He felt disappointed, to an extent that surprised him. He’d wanted to talk it over, to lie there on the bed together staring at the walls and swearing and rehashing any details they’d picked up. But there was more to it: By holding Charlie, Yale could begin to atone for ever thinking of starting up with Julian. The tighter he held Charlie, the more he could take it back.
At nine o’clock, Yale headed to Masonic alone with some magazines and a paper party hat for Terrence. He hadn’t been up to the new AIDS unit yet, and he took the wrong elevator, had to wind his way through the pulmonology ward, but then there it was. Christmas lights and streamers on the nurses’ station. A nurse who looked like Nell Carter asked Yale if he wanted sparkling cider. Sure, he said, and she poured it into a little Dixie cup. “He’s got a new roommate in there today,” she said. “Angry guy, but he’s out cold now. Terrence is awake.”
Yale tried to peek at this new roommate as he walked in, tried to see if it was anyone he knew—but it was dark on that side of the curtain, and all he could see was the bottom of someone’s chin, stubble and purple lesions on a hollowed jawline.
Terrence was eating a chocolate pudding with a plastic spoon—a cannula in his nose for oxygen, an IV taped to his wristbone. He looked even thinner than he had at the fundraiser, but better too. Happier, at least. “Hey,” Terrence said. “You want to eat this for me?” His voice was rough, strained.
“I’m tempted,” Yale said, sitting down, “but those artificial flavors are for your health and recovery.”
Yale asked if Charlie had been in. Terrence said no, just Fiona. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. We just got our signals crossed.” He said, “Hey, don’t talk, okay? I’ll talk. This place is nice. Seriously, you got a TV lounge out there? This is Club Med.”
“Club Dead.”
“No, no talking. I made your veggie chili on Christmas. It turned out okay, but I’m no expert.”
Terrence said, “You know the hardest thing about having AIDS?”
It had quickly become an old joke, but Yale still laughed. “Yeah,” he said, “telling your parents you’re Haitian.”
“No.” Terrence cracked a wide grin. “It’s actually the dying part.” He started laughing, and then he started coughing. But it was okay, it was okay.
Yale remembered, so vividly: Terrence carrying Fiona down the hall of the suburban hospital where Nico’s parents had insisted on moving him, carrying her like a baby as she sobbed