“It’s been four years.”
“Has it?”
“I think you know that it has.”
Patrick bit the inside of his cheek until he thought he tasted blood. “I had a visitor the other day. A young woman. She asked me the same thing, more or less.”
“How did you answer?”
“I didn’t.” Patrick leaned back in on the wall. “I couldn’t.”
“Because you don’t really know.” If Patrick wasn’t going to answer, then John was going to answer it for him. He had better things to do than stand by a wall in the night listening to the cicadas. Like get back to his swim, for instance.
“I had this agent. Neal. Had, have. We were at a party once. The last year of the show. One hundred episodes. One hundred fifty. Something like that. Who even remembers? Everyone was wistful, but restless. Ready to move on, I think; at least I certainly was. But it was a good run and there was no reason to pretend that it wasn’t. Anyhow, Neal was there. I suppose I invited him. Or maybe agents just get invited. There was an enormous cake, I remember that. And somewhere near the end of the night, he grabbed me.”
“What do you mean, grabbed you. Grabbed you where?”
“By the taco truck.”
“No, I meant . . .”
“I know what you meant.” Patrick’s chair slipped in the gravel and he jumped on it twice so the legs would dig in. “He grabbed my crotch.” Patrick exhaled. “We were both drunk. It wasn’t even sexual.”
“Of course it was sexual!”
Patrick was surprised by such a traditional definition from someone whose husbands were on a movie date. “He’s straight. Married!”
“It’s been my experience that doesn’t mean a whole lot. You were assaulted, Patrick.”
“I suppose. It was also a sign of ownership. He owned me. He got me that show and he had me by the balls. And it just made me think, ‘I’m making so much money for this person. WHY?’ It wasn’t fun anymore. And so I just kind of . . . stopped.”
John reached down to pat Lorna, who had snuggled up against his side. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“It’s fine. It didn’t really feel like assault. I mean, it was. But I’m not a victim.”
John swung his arms around a few times like an Olympic swimmer stretching; he caught his towel just as it slipped off his shoulders. “That’s not why you’re here, though.”
Patrick pretended to give that some thought. He didn’t like being so clearly seen. “Do you believe in heaven, Reverend?”
“I do.”
“And hell?”
“I suppose. Do you?”
“Hell on earth,” Patrick said, and he did a few vertical push-ups off the wall. “There was a guy once. I loved him and he died.”
“AIDS?”
“Jesus,” Patrick replied, but he supposed that was the difference in their ages. “Drunk driver.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think I ever healed.” Patrick stopped there, and John didn’t press. They each avoided the other’s eyes.
“Do you miss it?”
“Miss what?”
“Acting.”
Patrick thought about it. “I miss him.” The insects were loud tonight. The breeze picked up again and swept Patrick’s hair.
“Yes, but he’s not coming back.”
Patrick was almost blown backward off the chair by the brutal truth of that statement. It’s the kind of honesty that he would have run from in the past, but in the moment he stood his ground and took it. On the surface, it seemed remarkably selfish; John had two loves, two men in his bed. Patrick had none. But he wasn’t going to let his neighbor get the best of him.
“I do miss it. Acting. When I was, I don’t know, sixteen, seventeen, I was elected president of my high school drama club. I had put in two years doing supporting roles, but now I was an upperclassman, now was my time to shine. I was to be the lead. And then our director announced we were doing The Diary of Anne Frank. Sonofabitch! Right? I was cast as her father. I went around telling everyone, ‘Yes, she’s the title character, but my character, Otto Frank, is the true lead. He survived. He came back to find Anne’s diary. The whole story is framed through his memories. In fact, they should rename it The Otto Frank Experience.’”
John smiled. “That sounds like a jazz fusion trio.”
“You should know from trios.” It was a slight dig, repayment for his comment about Joe, but Patrick was mostly still lost in the memory. “Sixteen-year-old me was a terror.”