Teddy and Julian had been on and off for years, and he must be terrified, on top of devastated. Yet Teddy, despite all his time in the bathhouses, all his time in the back rooms of clubs doing things that made Yale squeamish to imagine, seemed perfectly healthy so far. (He could hear Charlie and Asher both, chastising him for that line of thought. From Charlie: It’s not about the numbers, it’s about the condoms. From Asher: If we had more bathhouses, we’d have less illness. You know why? We’d have less shame.)
Once, Teddy had drunkenly whispered to Yale, like it was the best secret: “You know why I don’t have it? You can’t get it if you always top.” And Yale had tried to give him data, had said that was like girls who thought you couldn’t get pregnant in summer. That you couldn’t apply rules to a virus this random. Yale said, “Look, you ever get soap up in there? Things go both ways.” If Teddy didn’t already know, deep down, that he had it, he had to know now. They were human dominoes. How could Teddy not know he was the next domino in line?
* * *
—
It wasn’t till two in the morning that Charlie walked in the door. Yale had been sleeping in sweatpants on the couch, by the lights of the small Christmas tree. Charlie’s face was pinched, and he moved like a broken puppet. Yale asked, as gently as he could, where he’d been, and Charlie said, “Walking.” He sat on the couch, and Yale sat up and put his head on Charlie’s shoulder. Charlie’s body gave off cold like an open refrigerator. Yale took the blanket he’d been using and covered Charlie with it too. Charlie said, “It was just the final straw. Not that it’s final. That’s the thing. It’s a straw, and it broke me, but I know there’ll be more.”
And Yale understood, because that was how he’d felt the night of the fundraiser. He put his hand to Charlie’s face, and Charlie shuddered. “Sorry,” Yale said. “I wasn’t—I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“What, are you okay?”
“Of course not. But this seems to be hitting you harder than most.”
Charlie snorted. “Most.”
It was easier to talk to Charlie when they were both looking at the Christmas tree than when they were looking at each other. Yale breathed deeply and said, “I want to reassure you. I’ve said this before, and I shouldn’t have to say it, but I know for some reason it was always a concern for you. And you need to know that Julian and I never touched each other.”
Charlie jerked away and looked at Yale wild-eyed.
“I’m sorry, I thought maybe—I thought that might have been on your mind.”
Charlie stood, throwing the blanket off like it was covered with spiders. He said, “Bloody fucking hell, Yale.”
“Okay, I shouldn’t have brought it up. Come back. Come here. Come here.”
Charlie did, and he cried for a while into Yale’s chest hair, and then he fell asleep there.
2015
Arnaud had asked her not to call till 10 a.m., so Fiona called at 10:01. He didn’t answer and so she tried again, and then she killed time by showering. At 10:26, he answered.
He said, “You got some rest?”
“Tell me,” she said.
“I have photos, if you’d like to see.”
“Was it them?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Was there—did they have—was it just them?”
“Two adults. Listen, I can describe these forever or you can look for yourself.”
They agreed to meet at noon at a place in Saint-Germain called Sushi House—not really Fiona’s idea of Paris, but at least she pronounced it easily for the taxi that took her there. And when they sat down and she made herself look at the menu, kept herself from diving across the table to rip open Arnaud’s messenger bag, she could also understand the food being described: sake nigiri, ikura, miso.
Arnaud told her he’d waited in his car till eleven, and at last Kurt and Claire had come walking past his window, hand in hand.
Arnaud held his phone out over the table. “You ready?” he said.
She didn’t understand at first. She’d been expecting him to pull out a stack of glossy 8 × 10s. But the photos were on his phone; of course they were.
The first was just of Kurt, a close-up.
“It’s him,” she said. She waited to be overwhelmed with rage at the sight of his face, but instead she felt just the buzz of recognition, the click of encountering an old friend—which,