“How’d your date go?” Stef’s co-worker, Aedith, asked the next morning.
He grunted. “Eh?”
“Not feeling it?”
“I’m not sure we’re compatible.”
“Did you figure this out before or after you nailed her?”
Stef looked up. “You’re not cute.”
“Oh, but I am.” She perched on the edge of his desk. “Want to catch a movie with me and Katie tonight?”
“Can’t. I’m meeting a guy for a beer.”
Aedith raised her eyebrows. “A meet or a date?”
“A meet.”
“I don’t know, Finch. You got a funny look going on.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This is totally a date.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Shut up. Tell me everything. What are you going to wear?” She leaned into his space, eyes dancing behind her glasses.
He gently pushed her back. “It’s not a date. We met, we’re having a beer.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s a straight writer who might help me build a website for that exhibition in Poughkeepsie. We’re having a beer to talk about it.” Stef closed his laptop and got up.
“You are blushing.”
“You are a pain in my ass. Move. I’m late.” As he walked out of his office, the back of his neck flamed.
“Wear blue,” she yelled after him. “It makes your eyes pop.”
He was wearing a grey shirt today. It would fucking have to do. He went straight from work to the bar. No going home to shower, shave, pick a blue shirt and hang out in front of the mirror like a twink.
Dig me, dig my crappy shirt.
He walked the few blocks north on the High Line, New York’s new aerial greenway. Built on an elevated spur of the New York Central Railroad, it ran from Gansevoort to 20th Street in Chelsea. The stunning views of city and the Hudson were enhanced by naturalized plantings along the meandering walkway. By the end of construction, it would reach the West Side Yard at 34th Street.
Stef was five minutes early, but Jav was already there, sitting at the bar with a beer and a book. Cargo pants, worn along the seams and a hole in one knee. A dark green T-shirt. Unshaven as well. Attractive in a way that felt foreign in Stef’s veins. He was no stranger to appreciating a good-looking guy’s body, but not to the point where it stopped him in a doorway. Made him stand still and pick out holes in knees and the color of a shirt. Note the length of sideburns and the curl of a foot around the stool leg. This keen, detail-oriented interest was what he experienced with women. So was this goofy coil of warm excitement in his gut, a double helix of sexual and cerebral interest lassoing him across the floor to the bar.
“Hey,” Jav said, closing the book and extending a hand.
Stef shook it. “What’s up?”
“Good to see you.”
Stef drew the book closer and spun it around. The Magic Orange Tree: Haitian Folktales. “Is this required reading or pleasure?”
“Bit of both. I’m working on a book of Latin American folktales.”
Stef slid onto a stool. “You know, I think I heard you on NPR some time ago.”
“I was on Moments in Time back in July.”
“Were you going around different Latino neighborhoods and collecting stories?”
“That was me.”
“You do a lot of that kind of thing to promote your books?”
The bartender came by and Stef ordered a Guinness.
“I’ve never done any mainstream promotion of my books,” Jav said. “But it’s about to change with The Trade.”
“When does it release?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Jav said. “And Saturday afternoon, I’ll be drunk on an airplane, kicking off a three-week signing tour.”
“What’s the itinerary?” Stef kept his face neutral, thinking three weeks?
“Miami first,” Jav said. “Atlanta, Charleston, Raleigh, Virginia Beach, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Providence… I’m forgetting something before Providence. Boston, somewhere else I think, then home.”
“Your agent coordinate all this?”
“Publicist.”
“Is she good?”
“She’s expensive. And so far, good.”
“Does she come with you?”
“Oh God, yeah. She tells me what to do.”
Stef pictured a young, nubile PR rep with mile-long legs, telling Jav exactly what to do. “Is she cool?”
“For a sixty-two-year-old woman, she’s extremely cool.”
Stef laughed, mostly at himself. “What are the venues? Book stores?”
“Yeah. Some just signings, some will be readings.”
“Nervous?”
Jav paused, taking a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“I predict by Charleston, it’ll be easy.”
“Here’s hoping.”
Stef’s beer arrived and they clinked glasses. “To the next phase of your career.”
They drank.
“So your card says Javier Landes,” Stef said. “Your book covers say Gil Rafael. Who’s the real you?”
“Technically neither. I was born Javier Gil deSoto. I left home when I was seventeen and became estranged from my family. The woman who eventually became my mentor, her name was Gloria Landes. I changed my name to hers when… Well, that’s a story for the third or fourth date.”
“Is this a date?”
Jav barked a laugh. “No. It’s just a line.”
Satisfied now? Stef thought. Let it fucking go already. “Who’s Gil Rafael?”
“Rafael was my dad’s name. It was literally a spur-of-the-moment decision. I was submitting a short story to The New Yorker, I wanted a pen name. I took Rafael and the Gil part of my original surname and put it together. Then at the last minute, I reversed them. Gil Rafael. And that’s who I’ve been writing as since.”
“Why use a pen name at all?”
Jav took a drink and stared straight ahead.
“Or is it for date six or seven?”
Jav glanced sideways and his shy smile opened up. “It’s no one asking me before, actually. Not even sure what the answer is.”
“Were you hiding?”
“Kind of. Or maybe if I bombed, no one would know but me.”
“Same if you succeeded.”
Jav nodded. “I guess I was okay with that.”
“Are you still estranged from your family?”
“Sadly, my nephew and I are the only Gil deSotos left.”
“This is the nephew at New Paltz?”
“Ari. He’s my sister’s son. Until two years ago, neither of us knew the other existed. But when my sister died, she named me his guardian. And we met.”
“What was that like?”
“Surreal,” Jav said. “But he’s a great kid. I’d think so even if I weren’t related to him. I doubt I’ll be having any kids of my own at this point, so it’s like finding a son. No. Not really. More like finding a little brother.”
“I see.”
“You have siblings?”
“Two older brothers.”
“Are you close?”
“Not particularly.”
The bartender came by. “You guys hungry?”
Stef and Jav exchanged glances.
“I haven’t eaten,” Jav said.
“Me neither.”
The bartender slid over some menus.
“You’re not close with your brothers?” Jav said, perusing his.
Stef smiled. “I’ll tell you about it on date nineteen.”
“Fair enough.”
“Short version is my parents divorced when I was thirty. If divorce is tough on young kids, it makes adult children into total lunatics. It resulted in a lot of sides being taken and a lot of bitterness.”
“Gotcha.”
“It also didn’t help that my mother left my dad for another woman.”
“Shut up.”
“It was a blurry year in my life. Going through my own divorce made it even more hazy.”
Jav gave him a long, appraising look. “I think we’re gonna need a bigger bar.”
Stef laughed. Through another two rounds of beers and burgers, they laughed a lot, trading bits of stories, asking and answering questions. Even it if wasn’t a date, it still felt like a really good first date. The kind that made you wonder when the next one would be. Keeping a running tab of the things they’d talk about at a later time made Stef optimistic this wasn’t a one-off.
Except the three-week tour was going to delay next time. Damn it all to hell.
“Crap, I gotta get going,” Jav said, checking his watch. “I got eight thousand things to do.”
“Who watches the dog while you’re away?”
“I have a neighbor who dog sits, but not for this length of time. I’m going to drive him up to Guelisten, leave him with some friends. Trelawney Lark’s sister, actually.”
“How did you meet her?”
Jav pointed the neck of his beer bottle at Stef. “Dude, you have no idea how complicated that story is.”
Stef raised his eyebrows. “Date sixty-two?”
“At minimum.”
“Are you keeping track of what gets talked about when?”
Jav tapped the beer bottle against his temple. “I got this.”
“Well, good luck,” Stef said, after they squared up and headed outside. “You’ll have to sign my copy of The Trade when you get back. If your hand isn’t paralyzed.”
“My nightmare is nobody shows up.”
“Dude, not to cheapen your talent, but if you stand in the middle of Barnes & Noble, they’ll show up.”
Jav chuckled at the ground, scraping at the pavement with his foot. “Buddy of mine once described me as a marketing man’s wet dream.”
“He was right.”
Jav looked about to say something, then stopped.
“What?” Stef said, crossing his arms.
“Nothing. I’ll call you when I get back.”
“Give me a call from the road,” Stef said, he hoped casually. “If you want.”
“Sure.”
“All right. Knock ’em dead.”
They shook hands, touched right shoulders and bopped each other on the back. Then walked off in separate directions.
After six steps, Stef ventured a look back. Just as Jav looked back. They each raised a palm before turning away again.
Help, he texted Stavroula.
Speaking, she replied.
He called her. “I met a guy.”
“You need help with this?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s straight.”
“Not one hundred percent sure?”
“No.”
“You want me to seduce him and report back?”
“Cute,” Stef said, exhaling heavily as he waited on a red light. “Anyway he’s leaving tomorrow on a three-week thing.”
“Where’d the evening end?”
“We both kind of floated the idea we’d hang again. I got an ‘I’ll call you.’”
“The kiss of death.”
“You think?”
“That’s just my experience.”
“I got a look back as we walked away.”
Stavroula laughed. “Oh my God, I’ve never seen you like this.”
Me neither, Stef thought. “Everything is really strange right now,” he said.
“So talk to me. What do you need?”
“I don’t know. Do I tell him I’m bi now or later?”
“Hm. Think you’ll talk to him while he’s away?”
“I have a hunch yes.”
“Well, is he cool? You think if you tell him and he’s straight, it’ll be the end of everything? Even potential friendship?”
“I have a hunch no. It’s really my own sanity I’m thinking of.”
“Oh, if this is a sanity thing then tell him now. Otherwise you’ll create a big three-week buildup. He’ll come home, you’ll tell him and when he says he’s straight, it’ll be beyond a bummer.”
“You could’ve said if, not when.”
“I’m sorry. I’m off my optimism meds.”
“No, you’re right. I’ll tell him now. Get it over with.”
“I’ll be up late. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume it went well.”
“Thanks, sis.”
“Good luck.”
He ended the call. But didn’t text Jav. He put it off and put it off.
“Don’t be a pussy,” he muttered, and finally reached for his phone around eleven o’clock.
So listen, he typed. Now that you’re going away for three weeks there’s something I need to throw out there.
Jav replied almost immediately. Is it date 2 already?
This is date 1-A.
Sub-dates are a thing?
Um, yeah. Where have you been?
Out of touch, apparently. Fire away, then.
Within the context of dates and joking about dates, I just want to mention I’m bisexual. So I’m not entirely joking.
He almost hit send, then decided to barrel through to the end, send it in one fell swoop, then hurl his phone into the Hudson River. If I’m barking up the wrong tree, it’s cool. I just figured it’s better to be honest from the get-go. Anyway. That’s all for 1-A.
“I hate everything,” he said through clenched teeth as he hit the button and burned the boat. He went in the bathroom and brushed his teeth, but when he returned to the counter, no reply had come in.
“Shit, I blew it,” he mumbled. He leaned on his hands, head hung between, staring at the phone.
The phone stared back.
“Come on,” he said, closing his eyes. “Easy answer. Right tree or wrong tree. It doesn’t matter. It does but it doesn’t. I just want to know now.”
The phone pinged.
Stef opened his eyes.
A picture was flashing on the phone’s screen. He blinked a few times before he realized it was a rope ladder dangling down from a tree branch.
Stef stared, his mouth slowly falling open. “No way,” he said.
A text popped up beneath the picture. Stop barking, you’ll wake the neighbors. Just come up.
“No fucking way,” Stef breathed, picking up the phone. He typed LOL, because he couldn’t think of a damn thing else to say.
I like this sub-date thing, Jav texted. Will there be a 1-B?
I was planning to bring up my past convictions at 1-B but I could do it now.
Better check with your parole officer.
Good call. And nice tree, BTW.
Thanks. It’s new.
New?
Really new.
Stef blinked, not sure he was understanding. How long you been out?
What time is it?
Shut up.
And here I was worried we wouldn’t have anything to talk about while I was on the road.
“This isn’t happening,” Stef said, hitching up to sit on the counter. He looked around his apartment, around at his life, as if he’d walked into a surprise party. “This is not happening…”