“You could do worse,” I said, with mock hurt, and his eyes darted back to mine.
“You're justâ”
“Hopelessly uncool?” I asked.
“I didn't meanâ”
“Relax, Nicky, I'm on your side. Even if you're not gay, you're all right.”
“I need to go talk to my friends,” he said, the wariness returning to his eyes.
“Hey, Nicky, hold on,” I said, taking out my wallet to give him my card. “If you ever need to talk, here's my work and cell numbers. You can call, anytime, collect if you need to. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” he said, jamming the card into his pocket.
While I watched him walk away, Jeremy joined me. “How'd that go?”
“A little tense,” I said.
“I wanted to tell you the last time I saw you, but it wasn't my place,” Jeremy said. “He's a great kid, Blaine. I know he's going through a struggle at home, but he's got a lot of support in my group. And from people like Adam's mother.”
“He says he doesn't know if he's gay,” I said, clinging to a shred of hope that he'd be spared some of what I'd gone through.
Jeremy laughed and said, “They all say that at first. Some of them aren't. But Nicky? He must have gotten the same gene you did. The sooner you come to terms with it, the easier it'll be for him to turn to you if he needs to.”
“Great, Jeremy, it's a huge fucking step that
I'm
at a PFLAG meeting in my hometown. I'm not exactly the ideal role model.”
“I think you're a great role model,” Jeremy said. “You're way too hard on yourself, Blaine.”
“Thanks,
Daniel,
” I answered.
“What can I say? Sometimes Daniel is right. And sometimes,” he stopped and gave my shoulder a little shake, “Daniel is wrong.”
I was overwhelmed and exhausted by the time I went to bed at the Stephensons' house that night. The next morning, Daniel's parents served me a hearty breakfast, keeping our conversation neutral. When they walked me outside, they repeated their assurances that I was always welcome there.
By the time Sheila joined me in Colorado a couple of days later, everything was in place for our shoot. She seemed a bit subdued, which I attributed to her preoccupation with her wedding. Josh couldn't join us, since he was photographing a producer's apartment for
Ultimate Magazine,
but the photographer that I'd hired for the Cancer shoot was just as likable. I had to wonder if the stress of wedding planning had necessitated a small break from each other, owing to Sheila's obvious need to let off a little steam.
“Cancer's the sign of the crab, right?” she asked when she arrived at our location, a rocky area on the side of a mountain with a panoramic view of the valley below. “Will I be scratching myself furiously in the pictures?” The production staff laughed as she began vigorously rubbing her crotch while pretending to apply lipstick with an aggrieved expression.
“No,” I said, leading her to the makeup and wardrobe trailer. “Cancers are free spirits, who explore the world with passion, smiling in the face of adversity. We're not going to be too literal, like with the Aquarian mermaid costume. All I need is for you to be your natural, vivacious self today.”
An hour later, Sheila emerged from the trailer in a strapless yellow evening dress, which clung to her torso but flowed around her legs with diaphanous layers of fabric. Her hair was swept up and secured into an elegant mass of curls, and her face was highlighted with Zodiac's natural but shimmering Cancer line.
I introduced Sheila to Colin, the dark-haired, youthful, tuxedoed hunk she'd be posing with in the pictures. After shaking his hand, she said to me, “Colin and I look like we're on our way to the opera. Why are we on a mountain? And why aren't we wearing shoes?”
Her questions were answered when we were taken to the location of the photo shoot. A river ran down the side of a precipice opposite us, creating a massive waterfall.
“I don't like where this is going,” Sheila said. She looked at Colin and asked, “You don't see a barrel around here anywhere, do you?”
“Surely we're not going over there,” he said to me.
“To the waterfall? No,” I assured them. “It just provides our scenic backdrop. We'll start with the two of you on that ledge, then we'll use the crane to get some more shots with Sheila suspended over the valley.”
“I hate you, Blaine,” Sheila muttered, but she gathered up her long gown and marched off to the ledge.
The shoot was exquisite. The photographer captured striking images while I barked directions to Sheila and Colin through a megaphone. For the final shots, Sheila was strapped into a harness that was hidden by yards of yellow fabric, then dangled from the crane like a human wrecking ball. With her arms outstretched and an exuberant smile on her face, it looked as if she was flying right in front of the waterfall.
I left the location breakdown to the crew, and we took a flight to Miami the next morning. Sheila slept most of the way, and I tried unsuccessfully to read a novel to keep from brooding about Daniel or worrying about my nephew. I wondered if Nicky had told his parents he'd seen me. I suspected that they knew very little about his social life. Shane had told me that Nicky spent a lot of time surfing the Internet. Since my e-mail address was on the card I'd given him, I hoped he would contact me. It might be easier for him to open up in that medium than in person or on the phone. Then again, for all I knew, his parents monitored his e-mail. Somehow I doubted it. They'd always seemed too wrapped up in themselves and their other sons. Nicky was more of an afterthought.
I smiled, staring from the window at the clouds. That gave us something else in common. It hadn't taken me long, as a kid, to figure out that my parents hadn't planned on having any more children after Shane and Wayne. It hadn't made me feel unwanted, exactly. But it had made me want to be the perfect kid, so they wouldn't be sorry I'd been born. That effort had peaked with my marriage to Sydney. She was their idea of the perfect wife.
I looked at the unconscious Sheila, grateful that I hadn't made a huge mess of her life by marrying her. She'd been hurt by our breakup, especially since, unbeknownst to anyone but the two of us, I'd been the boy who took the gift of her virginity. But we'd settled all that between us years before, and she admitted that it would have been devastating if I'd tried to live a lie with her. I'd never wanted to hurt Sheila, and not just because of my friendship with Jake and the Meyers family.
She opened her eyes, realized I was staring at her, and asked, “What?”
“Do you think I'm stubborn, too demanding, and that I bulldoze people into giving me my way?” I asked.
Sheila sat up and shot a desperate glance at our fight attendant, who immediately responded with a smile and two fresh drinks.
“I think,” Sheila said, “that the words people use when they fight are best forgotten.”
“That isn't an answer,” I said.
Sheila took a long look at me and drew a deep breath. “I think you're very good at what you do, and you've always been good at anything you tried.”
“Uh-huh.” I let my pause communicate that I was waiting for her to continue.
“I think you're used to getting your way when you really want something. And I think,” she continued, when it became clear that I expected her to elaborate, “when you have an idea about how something is supposed to be, you can have trouble considering different options. There's usually more than one way to reach the same end, but sometimes you only see your way.”
“So you
do
think I'm a stubborn, demanding bulldozer,” I said.
“That's not what I said.”
“Not in so few words, but I get the bigger picture.”
“Blaine, you have a million wonderful qualities. You're creative, and you are incredibly visionary. You're sweet and thoughtful and protective of everyone you care about. You're unbelievably committed to those people and things you believe in. Maybe that's why some people might think you're stubborn. You're not easily swayed. But that's not always a bad thing.”
I thought about what she'd said and how it compared to my final fight with Daniel. Her words seemed like a softer version of his accusations.
You lay down the law and state your wishes, and the rest of us are supposed to follow orders and make them come true . . . I am
not
your employee.
Sometimes it seemed like Daniel had understood me better when he
was
my employee. He'd known that projecting an image of authority, and the confidence and determination that went along with it, was how I survived in a competitive environment and how I compensated for my rivals' doubts about my age and inexperience. Maybe I'd had trouble leaving the attitude at the office. If that was true, leaving Breslin Evans would probably help me tone down my approach. I felt like I already had with Violet and Gavin. It was possible I needed to be more careful about it with my friends.
“Blaine? As long as I'm being honest, I'll tell you something else.”
“Okay, but remember, I had you dangling from a crane over a gorge. If I don't like what you have to say, I can do worse.”
Sheila laughed and said, “You just spoiled the impact of what I was going to say.”
“Say it anyway.”
“You have to lighten up, Blaine. Find the same balance in your personal life that you have at work.”
“Balance? This is starting to sound like a Lillith speech.” I didn't add that she also sounded like Ethan, for whom the words
lighten up
were a mantra.
“Perfect example. You know how to balance Lillith's unusual notions with the seriousness of a multimillion-dollar account. Your ads are fun. Whimsical. You need to inject some of that into your personal life. You're doing the same thing I am with the wedding.”
“What do you mean?”
“I'm so bogged down in the details of arranging the perfect wedding that I'm not having any fun. How wrong is that? Just because you don't talk about Daniel or your breakup doesn't mean you aren't consumed by it. There's no fun in your life anymore. Remember when we lived together . . .” She broke off with a gasp.
“What?” I asked, startled.
She put a finger to her lips, signaling me to keep quiet, then undid her seat belt and quietly turned in her seat, bringing her knees under her. She slowly rose up, peering over the seatback to see who was behind us. I heard a newspaper fold and a man's voice say, “Can I help you?”
“Me? No. I was just . . .” I could tell she was fumbling for words. “. . . stretching. Mmmmm.” She raised her arms over her head in a big stretch, then turned around in her seat and buckled her seat belt. I could hear the newspaper being rattled back into a readable shape.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
She whispered, “I didn't want our whole conversation to end up on Page Six. Before I went on and on about living with you, I wanted to make sure no one was sitting behind us taking notes.” We both laughed, and the conversation lulled into a comfortable quiet, until she broke it by saying, “Blaine? Are you ever going to call Daniel?”
“I've already tried. There was no answer, and I didn't leave a message. I would have, but I don't know if he's ready to talk to me.”
“You'll see him at the wedding, you know.”
“I hope to speak to him before the wedding. There's no reason we can't be civil on your big day, and I want to make that clear to him. At least that's going to be my position.”
“I guess if civility is the best I can hope for . . .”
Thinking of Daniel at a wedding reminded me of how handsome he'd looked on TV, and where I'd seen the show. I told Sheila about seeing the Stephensons and how welcome they'd made me feel.
“You'll never believe this. Daniel's mom was helping Aggie Wilson organize a PFLAG event. Next thing you know, she'll be doing print for Virginia Slims. âYou've come a long way, baby.' ”
Sheila smiled, perhaps at the idea of Joyce Stephenson reclining with a cigarette, and said, “Everything's an ad to you.”
“Blaine Michael Dunhill. The Ultimate Advertising Machine.”
Sheila rolled her eyes at my parody of the BMW tagline. “How was it? Oh, I guess you didn't go to the actual event, huh?” I could tell she was dancing around another of the issues that Daniel I used to fight about: my not being out in Eau Claire.
“As a matter of fact, I did go.” I smirked at her with self-satisfaction, finally acknowledging that it had felt good to be publicly honest about myself in our hometown.
“And?” she queried.
“It was pretty cool. Of course, it was mainly for kids and families dealing with them.” My thoughts turned again to Nicky. I had the nagging feeling that I should call him and offer him support, but I thought about the insight Sheila had given me earlier. Maybe Nicky's situation was one in which I should let someone else determine the outcome. I needed to stop trying to control everything.
Sheila dozed again until we landed in Miami. As we stepped around people waiting to greet loved ones at the gate, I took my cell phone out of my pocket and turned it on. It beeped to let me know that I had a message. Sheila waited while I listened.
“Uh . . . Hi, Uncle Blaine, it's Nick. I just . . . uh . . . You gave me your card, and Mom and Dad aren't home, so . . . Well, later.”
Click.
“To repeat your message, press oneâ” I cut off the computerized voice with the press of a button to save the message. Now that he'd given me an opening, I intended to call him later, when I could give him my full attention.