Chapter Nine
One of Elliott’s students plagiarized on an assignment. That would have been bad enough, but he’d copied and pasted directly from Wikipedia, which was both lazy and insulting. Elliott gave him a zero on the assignment and sent an email explaining why and promising direr consequences should there be a repeat performance. That was on Monday. On Tuesday, the student emailed back, claiming he shouldn’t have been given a zero because he only stole a couple of sentences. He also demanded to know how many other students had received failing grades for plagiarism. Everybody does it, the kid claimed.
The university probably frowned on instructors telling students they were entitled idiots who were bound for failure unless they woke up and grew up. So Elliott decided to wait a day or two before responding. He spent a lot of time wording that email in his head, though—complete with expletives and accusations about the student’s ancestry and intelligence.
On Wednesday afternoon, shortly after he returned from a run and just before he sat down to write the actual email, Elliott’s doorbell rang. A little girl with a backpack stood on his porch with a smiling woman—her mother, probably—slightly behind her.
“Thin Mints?” Elliott asked, although the girl wasn’t wearing a uniform.
The girl looked confused, but her mother laughed and shook her head. “Sorry, no. That’s at the end of winter. But we’ll be glad to come back then and sell you as many boxes as you want.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. What can I help you ladies with?”
After a quick glance back at her mother, the girl took a step closer. “I think your library is really cool.”
Maybe praise from a nine-year-old shouldn’t matter so much, but Elliott felt warm and fuzzy. “Thank you.”
“I borrowed a book about constellations. It’s really good.”
That volume had been contributed by a neighbor—maybe even Simon. But Elliott decided lightning wouldn’t strike him dead if he took the credit. “I’m glad. I always wanted to know about the stars.”
“Yeah, you can find all these shapes and stuff. And there’s stories about them too. Like one of them, she was this Greek princess. Andromeda.”
Elliott nodded and wondered how much of Andromeda’s story the girl had learned. Had she reached the part where Andromeda got chained to the rock as sacrifice to a sea monster?
But his visitor had other priorities. She shrugged out of her backpack and unzipped it. “I was thinking maybe you should have some books for kids too. ’Cause you don’t, not really, but kids should be reading a lot. Mom says probably you don’t have any children, so I brought some of my old books if you want to use them. They’re chapter books, but they’re not very hard ones. They’re too easy for me.” She dug out a stack of thin, well-read paperbacks.
“I hope this is all right,” said the girl’s mother. “It’s your library, after all, and—”
“No, I think it’s a great idea. I’d be happy to include them.”
The little girl beamed and handed them over. “These were some of my favorites. Kids will like them,” she assured him.
“I bet they will. Want to help me put them in the library?”
She seemed to like that idea. The three of them marched in a little parade to the public sidewalk, Elliott opened the plexiglass door with more ceremony than strictly necessary, and she carefully slid the books into the open space. “You can read them too,” she said. “Junie B. Jones is really funny.”
“I’ll have to give them a try. Now, are you still working on the constellations book or do you want to start a new one?”
“I’m almost done with it.” She looked at her mother as if for permission. Her mother nodded.
After a moment’s consideration, Elliott pulled a book about California geography from the shelf. “This one has a lot of big words, but maybe you can look them up in a dictionary.”
“I love dictionaries!” the girl exclaimed as she took the book. “I even sleep with one.”
“She does,” her mother confirmed.
Elliott grinned. “Perfect, then.”
The girl plopped down cross-legged in the grass and began to pore over the book’s pages. Elliott closed the library and walked the few steps to the woman. “Really, thank you both,” he said. “It’s great to include some children’s books.”
“Well, I’m just tickled you’ve decided to build this. It’s such a fun idea! You’ve included some interesting choices too. I’m reading one of your books about the Great Stink right now.”
“Makes you grateful for modern plumbing, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does!” She turned to her daughter. “Come on, Melanie. You have gymnastics today.”
Melanie got to her feet, picked up her backpack, and started down the sidewalk, all as she continued to read. Her mother shook her head fondly. “I think I’d better shepherd her home.”
“Thanks again for the books. You guys come back anytime.”
“We definitely will.”
Elliott went back inside to email the plagiarizing student and found he was able to be remarkably civil about it. He didn’t include a single swear word.
***
Elliott was not a nervous wreck Thursday evening. For one thing, he now knew that Simon was attracted to him—he had, in fact, felt physical evidence of that attraction. Realizing another man found him sexy went a long way toward calming him. More than that, though, Simon apparently found him interesting. And despite personal complications, he wanted to try something more meaningful than a simple roll in the hay. That was gratifying as hell.
So Elliott spent Thursday night working on a journal manuscript he’d abandoned two years earlier. And then he read some Neil Gaiman, went to bed early, and fell asleep surprisingly quickly.
Okay, maybe he was slightly jumpy Friday morning. If he’d had time, he would have gone for a run. But instead, he took a shower and dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved Henley, and a plaid flannel shirt. “You look like you’re trying Paul Bunyan drag,” he muttered as he laced his boots. But he didn’t change. He brewed himself a cup of coffee and leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping and waiting for the clock to move.
Simon arrived at eight on the dot. He wore a gray hoodie with the Pita Palace logo, and he looked delicious enough to eat.
“It’s a little chilly this morning,” he said from the front porch. “Fall’s finally here.”
“Should I bring anything?”
“Just you.”
Simon drove a big extended-cab pickup, the kind featured in advertisements with men wearing construction gear or cowboy hats. He seemed slightly embarrassed by it. “Sometimes Mom and Dad do events. The Assyrian festival, stuff like that. They sell kebabs, shawarma, dolma . . . So I end up hauling a trailer with the grill and all their supplies.”
“It’s a very manly truck.”
“I don’t have plastic testicles hanging from the trailer hitch.”
“That’s a shame. But, hey, Christmas will be here soon. Maybe Santa will bring you a pair.”
They climbed into the cab, Simon with some difficulty due to the knee. The inside of the truck smelled like a heady mixture of honey and Simon’s cologne. He tossed his cane into the back seat, then pointed to the paper bag on the center console. “Breakfast? It’s my mom’s baklava. Best you’ve ever had.”
As Simon pulled out of the driveway, Elliott took a piece of pastry, more out of politeness than hunger. It was delicious, however. “You’re right.” He brushed crumbs off his chest. “Best ever.”
“My grandma’s recipe. It’s top secret, but she gave it to Mom as a wedding present. Mom says she’ll pass it down to me when I get married.” He cut his eyes quickly to Elliott, then back to the street in front of him.
Elliott waited a couple of minutes, then cleared his throat. “Did your parents, um, mention . . .”
“No. Ashur can’t keep his big mouth shut, though, so either Mom and Dad are playing it cool or Ashur had bigger gossip to worry about. I hear his sister’s pregnant and she’s not married. That ought to keep everyone busy for a little while.”
“Does it outrank you being gay, on the scale of family catastrophes?”
“I doubt it,” Simon replied with a sigh.
He headed north instead of west toward the freeway. With the radio playing eighties hair bands, they turned east in Riverbank and followed the river all the way to Oakdale and beyond.
“We’re heading for the hills?” Elliott finally asked. He was eating his third piece of baklava.
“Yep. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all.”
“I was originally thinking about going to Calaveras Big Trees. There’s some nice little hikes there, but the damned leg’s not quite up to it yet.” Simon scowled, then shrugged. “I guess I should be grateful it’s my left knee. If it was my right, I’d have a hell of a time driving.”
“That was a very considerate bad guy.”
“I’ll send him a thank-you note.”
They chatted lightly as they drove through rounded hills, the grass still withered by summer, and then past cattle lounging under oak trees or strolling past chunks of volcanic rock. The road grew twistier, but traffic was light and they made good time. Simon took them past the few blocks of Jamestown—Ladd had loved the railroad park there when he was a boy—and then into downtown Sonora, where touristy shops and restaurants lined the main drag. Past that, the highway climbed more sharply, and the trees’ autumn colors blazed between the dark green of the conifers. Elliott smelled wood smoke and pine.
A few miles outside of Sonora, Simon took a turnoff to the right. “We’re going to Columbia?” Elliott asked with a grin.
“Is that okay?”
“It’s more than okay. God, I haven’t been in years.” As a kid, he used to beg his parents to drive there on weekends. Once a gold rush boomtown, Columbia was now a state park with many of the original buildings either restored or replicated. He’d loved stomping on the wooden sidewalks, pretending he was a prospector who’d just struck it rich, and climbing on the boulders left over from the town’s hydraulic mining operations. Sometimes he and Ladd had wheedled their parents into a stagecoach ride or a try at panning for gold.
After a short journey down a narrow road, Simon pulled into a gravel parking lot behind the City Hotel. It wasn’t yet ten o’clock, and the parking lot held only a few other cars, but when Elliott climbed out of the truck, he heard children’s voices. “Field trip,” he said.
“Yeah. We came here in fourth grade.”
“Us too. And we also went to Sacramento for the gold rush museum and Sutter’s Fort.”
Due to the uneven ground, Simon leaned more heavily than usual on his cane as they walked toward the main drag. “I don’t remember going to Sacramento, just here. Maybe you had a better grade school than me.”
Columbia’s paved Main Street ran past a few blocks of old brick-and-wood storefronts, with trees sporting autumn leaves as gold as the mother lode. Side streets led to a scattering of small houses. The ground dropped off at one end of town, leading to the boulders and gold-panning operation Elliott remembered from his childhood, while in the other direction, a hill rose toward the old schoolhouse and cemetery. As Elliott had guessed, schoolchildren swarmed everywhere, clutching bottles of sarsaparilla and candy sticks and jostling to watch the blacksmith work.
“Do you mind if we eat first?” Simon asked.
Due to the baklava, Elliott wasn’t hungry, but he nodded agreeably. As it turned out, their breakfast options were limited to a single restaurant, a place with plank floors and the aroma of frying bacon. Their waitress wore a long gingham dress, her gray hair in a long ponytail.
“Coffee, boys?” she asked as she handed them laminated menus. They both said yes.
While Simon perused the offerings, Elliott looked around. The restaurant was surprisingly busy. A large group of men in orange construction vests occupied several tables, and other seats were taken by people who appeared to be locals, chatting with one another across the room. A few were dressed as if they worked ranches.
“Hoppin’ place,” Simon observed, putting his menu down. “Are you sure this is okay with you?”
“It’s a great idea. I’m glad you thought of it.”
Simon grinned widely. “I wanted to get out of town, you know?”
“To where there’s less chance of running into cousins?” Elliott regretted the question as soon as it left his mouth. He reached over to pat Simon’s arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that as a dig.”
“It’s okay. As far as I know, I have no relatives in Tuolumne County, which is a good thing. I wanted to be outdoors, but somewhere I could handle.” He sighed. “I used to be pretty ripped. I didn’t run as much as you do, but I spent a lot of time in the gym. Now I hobble and I eat.”
“But you’re moving. Anyway, I told you. I like you just as you are.” Elliott threw in a leer for good measure.
The waitress took their orders—some kind of elaborate skillet thing for Simon, a fruit cup for Elliott—and refilled their coffees. They sat without talking, but that was fine. There was a lovely solidity to Simon that meant he didn’t always need to fill space with conversation. He could simply smile across the glossy pine table, and that was enough to make Elliott feel content.
When the food arrived, Elliott shook his head slightly. The portions were enormous. But Simon finished everything on his plate except two pieces of toast, which Elliott ate. Simon insisted on paying since this date was his treat. “You boys have a good day,” the waitress said before giving them a wink Elliott didn’t know how to interpret.
More kids had arrived while they were eating, each little group accompanied by a harried-looking chaperone. Loud crashes and cheers came from the gold-rush-era bowling alley, while a large group clustered around a costumed older woman who was telling ghost stories. Simon and Elliott strolled slowly, pausing now and then to scrutinize an exhibit or peruse a store. Simon left the candy store with a hefty chunk of peanut butter fudge, which he broke off in small bits as they walked.
Kids were having a great time tossing feed to the chickens in the large coop at one end of the storefronts, and Elliott found himself smiling at the spectacle.
“Do you like children?” Simon asked, leaning against the weathered boards of the adjacent shack.
“I guess. Never thought about it much.” That was not entirely true. When he was in college, he’d imagined becoming a father someday. He’d even thought about which books he’d buy for his hypothetical offspring. Goodnight Moon would be the first. But then he’d fallen in with John, and their twisted little version of domestic bliss clearly had no space for kids.
“My mom is desperate for grandchildren,” Simon said. “She makes do with my cousins’ kids, but I don’t think that’s enough for her.”
“What are your thoughts on the matter?”
Simon chuckled. “I think I need to finish growing up first.” But he was smiling at the field trip kids, and Elliott could picture him joking around with a son or daughter or folding himself into a tiny plastic chair for a student-teacher conference.
“Want to visit the schoolhouse and cemetery?” Simon gestured in that direction with his cane.
Elliott vaguely remembered that the route, although short, was steep. “Will you make it okay?”
Simon shot him a scowl. “If I can’t, you can leave me to the bears and coyotes.”
As it turned out, he had a good bit of difficulty with the uphill road. He grunted a lot but didn’t complain, and Elliott didn’t mind taking it slow. He wondered what it would be like to live in one of the little houses they passed—isolated yet beset by tourists. They didn’t see any bears or coyotes, although a placid deer stood next to a lawn-statue doppelganger and gazed at them as they passed. The juxtaposition struck Elliott as unbearably funny, and he laughed so hard that he had as much difficulty with the walk as Simon.
The old hilltop schoolhouse was a two-story brick structure surrounded by green lawn. Simon carefully lowered himself to the grass, his bad leg in front of him at a somewhat awkward angle. He squinted up at Elliott. “You’re gonna have to help me stand.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t leave you to the bears and coyotes.” Elliott sat next to him.
“Maybe it’s the scavengers I should be worried about. Turkey vultures.”
Elliott patted Simon’s good knee. “You seem pretty lively to me.”
“I’m thinking pretty lively thoughts with you here next to me. You look extra good outdoors. The sun catches the colors in your eyes.”
Elliott blushed. No lover had ever complimented his eyes, which were an ordinary blue gray. He leaned back on his hands and looked up at the sky.
“What do you think it was like to live here in the 1850s?” Simon asked.
That was a line of inquiry Elliott could address with comfort. “Hard. Really hard. People died from disease, accidents, violence, drugs and booze.” He gestured toward the nearby cemetery. “The dates on those headstones show a lot of young deaths.”
“No way I’d do that to myself just in hopes of striking it rich. I’d rather be poor and safe.”
“I don’t know that they were all after money. I think some of them probably wanted adventure, fresh opportunities. They could reinvent themselves when they came here.”
Simon plucked a tiny weed out of the grass and played with it, spinning the stem between thumb and forefinger. “Were some of them running away from something?”
“Yeah, probably.”
A jay landed nearby and eyed them speculatively. When neither of them did anything interesting or produced any food, it pecked at the ground a few times, cawed in derision, and flapped away. But it didn’t go far, landing on an oak tree branch near the reconstructed outhouse.
“Man, it must’ve been really hard to be gay back then,” Simon said.
“In Columbia? Maybe not as hard as you think.”
“Really?”
Elliott sat upright, brushing the debris from his palms. “Nobody would have been suspicious of two men sharing a house. Lots of men lived in close proximity with their mining buddies. And there weren’t many women around, so perhaps folks were understanding if men turned to each other for company instead.”
“That’s . . . kind of cool. I never thought about it like that. Do you have a book about it? I’d love to read it.”
“About homosexuality in the gold rush?” Elliott shook his head. “I’ve seen the subject mentioned here and there, but I don’t think much has been published about it.”
“Maybe you oughtta write that book, then, Prof.”
“My specialty is the Balkans.” But even as he said that, Elliott found himself intrigued by Simon’s suggestion. Before John led him elsewhere, Elliott had been interested in studying minority groups in the state’s early history. Here in Northern California, Elliott would have a good chance of discovering whatever original sources existed on the topic. There were a couple of archives on LGBT history in San Francisco, which might be a good place to start.
Except he was just an adjunct instructor of online courses now, and such people didn’t begin original research projects.
Elliott helped Simon stand, and they held hands a moment longer than necessary. They might even have kissed if a gaggle of fourth graders hadn’t appeared a few minutes earlier, accompanied by a droning teacher. Elliott didn’t want an audience and doubted Simon did either.
They walked slowly around the schoolhouse and down the hill a bit, then through the gates of the Columbia Cemetery. It was a large graveyard, founded in the 1850s but still in use. Some of the headstones were shiny and new, with flowers and trinkets from still-living family members in front of them. Others were worn and covered by lichen. Nobody remembered the people buried under those stones.
Elliott paused to run a hand along a marker for a Mary Azevedo. According to her headstone, she’d immigrated from Portugal and died in 1879 at age 31—most likely in childbirth, because an unnamed baby boy was buried with her.
“The cemetery is like a book,” he said softly. “It tells stories.”
Simon leaned against a nearby tree, looking solemn. Next to him was the headstone of a New Hampshire native who’d drowned in 1858, age 28, and was memorialized in granite by his twin brother. A low fence with fancy metalwork—now badly rusted—surrounded that grave. Elliott wondered where the longer-surviving twin had eventually been laid to rest.
“I didn’t much like history in school,” Simon said. “It was all, ‘Who won this war?’ and ‘What was the name of that president?’ Boring. But those books I’ve been borrowing from you? They’re like novels, only true.”
Still stroking the old granite, Elliott nodded. “You want to know something? I think right here in this cemetery is where I decided to be a historian. Because it wasn’t just a bunch of dead guys with dates to memorize—it was real places and real people. I can almost see Mary Azevedo, can’t you?”
He pictured dark hair, a careworn face that looked older than her age, brown eyes that had seen a multitude of wonders and sorrows. She would have worn a dress similar to their waitress’s, and she probably had several children before the one who died with her. Hard work would have roughened her hands. She would have been well acquainted with hunger and hardship, but perhaps she’d known joy as well. Maybe she was happy in the hope of her children growing up in this young country, surrounded by the promise of endless riches.
Simon walked over and cupped Elliott’s cheek in one hand. His eyes were as soft and warm as melted chocolate. “You can see her for me,” he rumbled. He looked as if that was a wondrous thing.
Elliott stepped back. If he hadn’t, he’d have been in very real danger of jumping Simon’s bones right there among the mortal remains of a century and a half of Columbians. Maybe some of them would posthumously approve, but the park rangers and the school chaperones probably wouldn’t.
They strolled the cemetery for a long time, crunching the fallen leaves underfoot and pausing to read the inscriptions. Time hadn’t altered Elliott’s fascination with the place. He wanted to know every person interred, wanted to find the bits of their existence that had been buried under the decades and bring them once more to light. And Simon apparently wanted to hear about them. He asked a lot of questions, clearly fascinated by Elliott’s impromptu lessons on the history of the region.
Although Simon appeared willing to keep going, Elliott eventually saw the lines of pain deepen around his eyes. “I’m thirsty,” Elliott announced. “Want to try out that saloon?”
Walking down the hill was harder on Simon than going up. By the time they reached the level ground of Main Street, Elliott was honestly worrying whether Simon would make it. Luckily, the saloon was at the closer end of town and there were plenty of vacant tables.
Simon collapsed onto a chair with a loud groan. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I try not to whine—most of the time. I could’ve ended up way worse. Or dead.”
Elliott shuddered at the idea. What if he’d never met Simon? His life would be so much poorer. “You can whine all you want. And I’ll buy you a drink. What’ll it be?”
Simon’s mouth quirked into a grin. “Sarsaparilla, pardner. I’m driving.”
Elliott wandered to the bar, where the bartender proved to be laid-back and friendly. He poured Simon’s drink with a good deal of panache before filling a glass mug with beer. “You want something to eat?” Elliott called to Simon. “They have pizza.”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
They sat contentedly with their drinks, looking at the old photos on the wall. This place had been in business for over a century and a half and had undoubtedly seen some lively times. This afternoon it was quiet, however, with a couple of locals sitting at the bar and a quartet of retirees in one corner. The bartender brought over a basket of peanuts and encouraged Simon and Elliott to throw the shells on the floor.
Simon dug into the snack but was hesitant to toss the shells. “My mother would murder me for throwing garbage on the floor.”
“Your mother doesn’t work here.” Elliott took the debris from Simon and let it drop.
“I still feel guilty. I’ve swept too many restaurant floors, I guess.”
“When did you start working at the Pita Palace?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. Mom and Dad opened it when I was a preschooler, and I think I spent more waking hours there than at home. Even when I was really little, I’d help out. I remember stacking endless plastic cups after they came out of the dishwasher.” The softness in his expression suggested these were fond memories, not resentful recollections of forced child labor. “Did you work when you were a kid?”
“Not like that. My father was a supervisor at the glass factory, and my mom worked as a dental receptionist. No place for a child in either spot. Ladd knew how to hustle up money—he’d mow lawns and stuff like that. All I ever did was pet sit.”
For some reason, that answer delighted Simon. “Pet sit?”
“Sure. Neighbors would go away, and I’d take care of their dogs and cats. One family had a boa constrictor.” That had been a short and easy gig—he just checked on the snake daily and refilled its water.
“I didn’t take you as an animal lover.”
Elliott scowled. “I love animals. Do you think I’m some kind of ogre or something?”
“You don’t have any pets,” Simon pointed out. “At least as far as I’ve seen. I guess you could have a fish tank hidden away somewhere.”
“I don’t.” Elliott cracked a peanut, but Simon, grinning, snatched the meat away before Elliott could pop it into his mouth. “Ladd used to be allergic to anything with fur, and my mom said fish die too much. Reptiles were out since they eat live food—Mom put her foot down about that.”
“Your mom doesn’t live with you,” Simon said, clearly pleased to throw Elliott’s gentle gibe back at him.
Actually, Elliott wasn’t sure why he’d never adopted a pet. Sure, it would have been a challenge in college and grad school, when he’d moved often from one apartment to another. But why not afterward? Maybe because nothing in his life had felt permanent, either with John or in the aftermath.
“I might get a dog someday,” Elliott said. “When I’m more . . . settled.”
The retirees noisily gathered their belongings and left. When the bartender came over to clear their table, he brought Elliott and Simon more peanuts.
“I guess you don’t mind if we hang out here awhile, huh?” Simon asked.
“I can spare the table. Anyway, that’s what saloons are for.” He sauntered away with a bit more ass swagger than was strictly called for, leaving Elliott to wonder if the bartender had tagged him and Simon as a couple. Simon wouldn’t have tripped Elliott’s gaydar. Actually, neither did the bartender. Maybe Elliott’s gaydar was defective.
“So this weekend I have family stuff,” Simon said. “And Christ, it feels like I spend the whole week with doctors and PT. But I have some time free. Can we plan a third date, or is it too early?”
Elliott leaned closer and dropped his voice. “Not too early. I want more of you.”
It was gratifying to watch Simon’s cheeks color and his throat work. He even licked his lips—not like he was trying to be sexy, although that was very much the effect. “Ditto. So when can we get together?”
“You name the day and time. I’m wide open. I’ll plan the itinerary, but it’s going to be hard to top today.”
Despite Simon’s smile, he seemed a bit troubled by something. So Elliott added a proviso. “Don’t worry. I’ll find us somewhere uninfested by your relatives.”
Still frowning, Simon waved the comment away. “El, what do you do all week?”
The nicknamed distracted Elliott enough that it took him a moment to respond. “Um, I have my classes. I run. I read—obviously. Sometimes I putter in the garden or do a little housework. Why?”
“You do all those things by yourself, right? Even the classes—you’re not talking live to the students.”
“I’m not a recluse.” Elliott remembered Ladd comparing him to the Collyer brothers. “I interact with human beings on a regular basis.”
Simon lifted his eyebrows and tilted his head. “Really?”
After John’s arrest, Elliott had spent an unfortunate amount of time being interrogated by police officers who were convinced he’d played a part in the embezzlement. He wished he had his lawyer at his side again. “Ladd. And my sister-in-law, Anna.”
“And?”
“Sometimes I hook up with a guy. Did hook up. I haven’t since I met you.”
That got him a quick flash of a smile before Simon put his cop face back on. “And?”
“Not long ago, I had dinner and coffee with Anna’s coworker, Kyle. Also before I met you.”
“Once. Okay. And?”
“I see people during my run on the greenbelt path.”
Simon raised his eyebrows slightly.
Elliott tried not to wilt as he rummaged in his mind for other examples. The disastrous Skype interview? Mike Burgess and his endless complaints? The literary Girl Scout and her mother? “I go shopping,” was what he finally came up with, and he knew exactly how pathetic that sounded.
Simon wasn’t looking at him with pity, which was good. Pity would have damaged Elliott. But Simon did look worried, and that was bad enough. “Have you always closed yourself up so much?” he asked.
If they had been gold-rush prospectors, a question like that never would have arisen in conversation—Elliott was quite sure of that. Nineteenth-century miners drank heavily, got into gunfights, and often wasted away from consumption, but they were not in touch with their feelings. He envied them. But Simon was silently unrelenting, and Elliott finally sighed. “More or less,” he admitted as he pulverized a peanut shell.
“Do you want that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m wondering whether you’re a major introvert—which is totally fine—or if there’s something else going on.”
Elliott shot him a sour look. “Maybe you should be a psychotherapist instead of a cop.”
“Maybe I should,” Simon replied easily. “Or maybe I should mind my own goddamn business.”
A big part of Elliott wanted to say that was a wonderful idea. Another part considered ordering a second beer—or maybe something stronger. Then the door opened and five young women strolled in, talking loudly. They all wore high heels and a lot of makeup, with their hair carefully styled, although they were dressed in jeans and casual blouses. They took a table next to the one the retirees had vacated and began a lively discussion about what kind of alcohol to order.
“Bachelorette party,” Simon offered quietly.
“Really? Here?”
“Sure. They’re going to have a dinner at the City Hotel tonight and spend the night there, and one of them will get married here tomorrow. She’ll be in a traditional white dress, but I bet the groom will wear a cowboy hat. They may ride off in the stagecoach after they exchange vows.”
Elliott squinted at the women. “Which one is the bride?”
“The one in the red shirt.”
How Simon could deduce that, Elliott had no idea. “I see you can tell a story with a little base material too.”
“I have attended ten thousand weddings.”
“Ten thousand? You’re sure of that?”
Simon laughed. “More or less. Most of them have been in a church with the reception at the Assyrian center in Turlock, but they’ve had themes. And I can tell a bachelorette party when I see one.”
“Okay. But where’s the groom and his pals?”
“Dunno.” Simon dropped a couple of shells on the floor and looked guilty about it. “Getting drunk somewhere else. Is there somewhere else in Columbia to get drunk?”
Elliott thought for a moment. “There used to be a Mexican place.”
“There you go. The boys are throwing back shots of tequila.”
Simon was every bit as bright as John. And there was something so easy about Simon. From the very first, everything with John had been complicated, one of those games with a rulebook as thick as a Bible. With John, Elliott had to consider every move, worry about the implications and consequences, wonder how John would take it. Even though the budding relationship with Simon was still amorphous and uncertain, Elliott felt free to act without strategizing first.
“I’m a snail,” Elliott said.
Simon gave a somewhat startled blink.
“You know those really big ones that get in the garden and eat all your seedlings? That’s me.”
“Um, okay. I don’t have any seedlings. Sometimes I accidentally step on one of those snails when I go to fetch the mail. Then I feel bad.”
“Yeah. I’ve done that too. Yuck.” Elliott shuddered. “Nobody’s stepped on me yet, but I’m one of those snails.”
“You run pretty fast for a snail.”
Elliott drank the last of his beer and set the empty glass down with a slight thud. “So the analogy’s not perfect. Bear with me.” He received a nod from Simon and then continued. “I’ve always been, well, not quite a loner, but not the life of the party either. I spent a lot of time studying. Reading. When I was a kid, I mostly tagged along with Ladd and his friends.”
“You guys are pretty close, huh?”
“He’s eleven months older than me. We didn’t have a lot of choice.” Their parents had never divulged whether the spacing had been intentional or an accident. In either case, two babies so close together must have scared them off, because they never had been interested in adding more to the family.
“Are snails loners?” Simon asked.
“No idea. Historian, not a biologist. Anyway, when I paired up with John, my social life really narrowed. I was busy with grad school and then my job—earning tenure is tough—but also John . . . The secrecy got in the way.” Because Elliott couldn’t tell anyone about his relationship, he couldn’t open up enough to form a true friendship. Damn it, how the hell had he thought that was all right?
Simon wasn’t pressing him to hurry up with the tale. Instead, he shelled a nut and handed it over. “Do snails like peanuts?”
“I guess.” Elliott popped it into his mouth, taking a moment to savor the saltiness. Ah, saltiness. That had been his original point. He traced a fingertip along the scarred wooden table—slowly, like a snail. “As long as I was with John, I crawled along. But then that whole fuckup happened and . . . and it was like a snail confronting salt. I protected the vulnerable parts of me by tucking myself into my shell. And I haven’t come out since.”
“But you have.” Simon laid his hand alongside Elliott’s, their fingers not quite touching. “You built your library. You asked me out. And you came here with me today.”
“God, I’m really glad I did.”
Simon’s smile was brighter than a shining gold ingot and twice as precious. “Me too.” Then rapidly changing gears, Simon clapped his hands and said, “Hey, how about some ice cream?”
***
They stayed in Columbia for several hours more, not doing much except strolling, people watching, and eating. Elliott bought several volumes in the small, crowded bookshop. Both of them tried candle dipping, but the results did not turn out well, much to the amusement of some schoolkids. The students marched back to their buses, and as the daylight waned, the shops closed. Elliott and Simon had an early dinner at the Mexican place. No groom’s party was in evidence, but Simon opined that they were all at the City Hotel, eating chicken and prime rib with the wedding couple’s families.
Even after their stomachs were full from an excellent chicken mole, Elliott and Simon were in no hurry to get home. They walked to a little grassy area near the old city jail and sat across from each other at a picnic table. With music and faint voices wafting from the saloon, they tipped back their heads and looked at the stars. They didn’t have to talk; they could just be. During that snippet of time, Elliott had the epiphany that sometimes people’s injuries made them whole again.
“This feels right,” Simon whispered, stealing Elliott’s thoughts. His warm, strong hands grasped Elliott’s.
“Yes.”
“We could spend the night. The wedding party might have City Hotel booked, but there’s always the Fallon.”
“I overheard one of the guides today. She said both hotels are haunted.”
“I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.” Simon smiled and squeezed Elliott’s hands.
“I didn’t bring any condoms.”
Simon scrunched up his face. “Me either. I wasn’t planning a seduction.”
The nearest grocery or convenience store was several miles away in Sonora. Making a run there and back just so they could have sex felt tawdry somehow. So Elliott squeezed back. “Another time, all right?” He promised himself that whatever he planned for the third date, he’d make sure to have supplies handy. Just in case.
It was nice to drive back together in the dark with few other cars on the road. Sometimes Simon hummed along with the radio. Sometimes one of them rested a hand on the other’s thigh. As far as Elliott was concerned, they could have passed Modesto and kept on going forever, and he wouldn’t have complained.
But eventually they were in his driveway, the porch light just barely illuminating the little rainbow flag. Simon kept the engine running but shifted into Park and, as if for good measure, engaged the emergency brake.
“Thank you,” Elliott said. “I think this was the best date I’ve ever been on.”
“I like that you don’t need fancy things. I had a really good day too.”
The kiss began sweet and tender, just a delicate brushing of lips and the exchange of warm breaths. It soon grew more demanding, until Simon tilted Elliott’s head back and nibbled and suckled on his neck, beard bristles sharp against tender skin. Elliott was at an off angle and couldn’t find anything to do with his hands, so he clenched them into tight fists and moaned.
“You’re not a snail,” Simon said breathlessly. “You’re . . . you’re . . . Shit. I don’t think I can do analogies. No, wait. I got it.” He sat up straighter. “I’ve met people who could use drugs now and then for years and it was no big deal. They could take or leave it. Get high and then walk away. And I’ve met others who tried just one hit, one dose, and bang! They ended up so hooked that all the clinics in the world couldn’t clean them up for good. You’re like that to me, I think.”
“I’m methamphetamine? I think I’d rather be a mollusk.”
“You’re Elliott Thompson, and you’re under my skin. We’re going to make this work. Somehow.”
Elliott kissed him once more before heading inside, hoping some of Simon’s optimism would be contagious.