16
Barefoot, Alex pads downstairs a little after eight. Both Ben and Bart were missing when he woke and he assumes Ben has taken Bart for his morning walk. He finds them in the kitchen with Polly and Allie.
“Hello sleepy head,” Allie says with a smile.
“Hi,” he says and goes straight to Ben and kisses his cheek, disappointed, but unsurprised, when he gets no reaction. “I must have been really out to it; I didn’t even hear you get up.”
“Well good thing one of us is awake since he needed to pee,” Ben says sipping his coffee and nodding toward Bart, leaning against the door.
“Sorry, didn’t even hear him. You should have woken me; we could have taken him for a walk together.”
“Figured you’d want to take him for a run, so I just let him out in the courtyard.”
“Oh,” Alex says. “Okay.”
So this is going to be one of those mornings where anything he says is going to be met with icy indifference. Great. He sees Allie and Polly exchange a puzzled look but neither of them says anything.
“We’re just making a list of things to get in the village,” Allie says looking from Alex to Ben and back again. “Is there anything particular you need?”
Alex pours himself a cup of coffee, looks in the fridge, and tries to think. Tells Allie he doesn’t think so, it looks like they have everything. Just as he’s about to sit, Bart barks.
“You want to go out again? Hang on,” Alex says and swings the door open. Bart bounces into the courtyard and comes to a skidding halt barking and pawing at the tiles in front of him. Alex goes to see what is so interesting and stops, eyes wide. In front of Bart is a tarantula. It’s not as big as the one he’d seen on his first visit but this one, clearly startled, is raised up on its back legs, waving its front ones at the two of them.
“Uh Ben,” he says reaching for Bart’s collar and trying to pull the dog away. “Little help here?”
Ben sighs and comes out on the deck, muttering under his breath.
“What?” he asks. Alex points at the spider and takes another step back.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Ben says, steps forward and brings his booted foot down on the creature. Both Allie and Polly gasp at the sickening crunching sound as he twists his foot and for a moment Alex thinks he might throw up at the mess smeared on the ground. Shocked and angry, he turns on Ben.
“What the fuck?” he yells. “I did not ask you to do that.”
“Well now you and your dog can go play safely, so what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that it wasn’t necessary,” Alex says. In the two years they’ve been together, he has never seen Ben harm any creature. He doesn’t even kill cockroaches.
“Well clearly it was,” Ben replies. “Now are you going out or coming in, so I can shut the damned door before my mother gets cold.”
“Your mother is just fine,” Allie says, her voice hard, “and it’s not like it’s snowing so I’m hardly going to catch my death of cold am I?’
Alex catches his breath as Ben jerks around to look her.
“Not funny mom,” he says, his voice quiet, “not even close to funny.”
“No, it’s not,” Polly says. She steps around the counter to address her grandson, and Alex has a sudden vision of what she must have been like as a young woman, strong willed and independent. “And neither is your behavior. Perhaps you’d like to tell us what crawled up your ass and turns you into such a bad tempered little prick this morning.”
Alex groans and sinks onto one of the kitchen chairs, hand over his mouth, bracing himself for Ben’s response. For the first time in two years, he wishes he was anywhere but at the beach house. Unbelievably, Ben shakes his head and leaves the room without a word.
After the door has swung shut behind him, Polly turns to Alex, her face grey and drawn.
“How long has he been like that?”
“He’s tired Polly. It was a long day yesterday and the case has been a nightmare. He’s just tired is all.”
Polly sits down in front of Alex and takes his hand.
“Alex, you are my second favorite man in the whole world, and I know you love him, so please excuse me if I invite you to stick that crock of shit somewhere the sun doesn’t shine. Don’t make excuses for his bad behavior.”
Allie snorts as she takes a chair on the other side of Alex. Her skin looks as thin as tissue and has a yellow tinge to it that tells Alex her liver is struggling.
“Alex, what’s going on?” she asks.
He sighs and twists his watch around his wrist.
“Honestly, I thought it was just the court case and the fact we couldn’t get away to come down here,” he says and looks at her, wanting her to understand that although yes Ben is behaving badly, it’s not his fault. “He’s hated that, he’s been so worried about you, Allie. I thought, hoped, that when we got here, he’d, you know, settle. But, now, I don’t know.”
He blows air out through his nose and runs his finger along the table edge. Allie and Polly wait in silence.
“He’s been working really long hours and when he’s home, which isn’t that often, he’s still working,” Alex says. “He’s drinking way too much and um…”
He can’t believe he’s about to say this to Ben’s grandmother and mother of all people but takes a deep breath and continues.
“We haven’t had sex since Thanksgiving, he’s not even interested,” he says, blushing a deep red that he knows would normally make Polly feel obligated to comment. This morning she’s silent. Finally, Alex gives voice to his dread. “I feel like…like…I’m losing him.”
“Oh honey, no. He loves you, whatever else is going on that is one thing I am sure of,” Allie says and takes his hand. He’s aware of how fragile her hand feels in his.
“He’s postponed the wedding.”
“What?” Allie pulls back, her face white.
“He says it’s because of the restructuring in his office and because he wants to wait until you’re feeling better. And maybe that’s all it is but I don’t know because he won’t even discuss it with me.”
Allie is about to speak when Ben comes back into the room and she whirls around to face him.
“Why are you postponing the wedding?” she asks.
The blood drains from his face and he glares at Alex.
“Really? You wait until I leave the room and then you whine to my mother? Like some little bitch?”
Stung, Alex kicks his chair back. He isn’t whining and even if he is, it’s not like it isn’t obvious to the entire world that there is a problem.
“Well what choice do you leave me, Ben? What am I supposed to do?”
“How about be a man and talk to me?”
“You don’t want to talk about it, hell you don’t want to talk to me about anything,” Alex says. “And you know what? It’s getting old, so if you want to talk, let’s talk.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Alex, this is hardly the time or the place – “
“When is the time and the place, Ben? When you decide? When’s that going to be? This year? Next year? When you can be bothered coming home from the office or looking up from your newspaper? When you remember I’m even there?”
“And what’s that supposed to mean? Some of us have jobs that actually require us to work.”
Allie stands and puts her hand on Ben’s arm.
“Ben, I think you both need to calm down –” she starts to say but he shakes her off.
“No, he started this, he can fucking finish it. I want to know what he means by that.”
Tension hangs between them like static electricity. Alex doesn’t want to do this in front of Allie and Polly but he’s angry too and it’s not like Ben’s leaving him a choice. Ben turned his life upside down, gave him something more. Something warm and loving and Alex wants it back. Wants Ben back. And he’s damned if he’s giving up without a fight.
“Sooner or later you have to stop hiding from what’s happening and deal with it,” he says. “You can’t keep avoiding everything and hiding in your work or a scotch bottle.”
“Hide from what? What exactly am I hiding from, Alex?”
“Your mom being sick. Our wedding. The stuff happening at work. Me. I don’t know – maybe all of it but you have to deal with it, Ben.”
Ben steps forward until they are no more than an inch apart and Alex realizes it’s the closest they’ve been physically in a month.
“And how would you suggest I deal with it, Alex? What advice do you have for me on the score of dealing with it all? Oh wait, you don’t have any advice because it’s not your mother who’s fucking dying, is it?” he says, ignoring Allie’s gasp.
“That’s enough Ben,” Polly says, trying to get between them.
“Tell me Alex, I’m really curious to know,” Ben continues, stepping around her as if she hasn’t spoken. Alex knows he’s in full cross examination mode now, keeping his voice steady and cold, controlling his breathing to force his words out. “How do you think I should deal with this? Come on, you’re the medical professional, I want to know what you prescribe. Should I see a therapist? Should I take up meditation? Get into some hippy, dippy, touchy feely shit that will let me get in touch with my inner victim. Oh wait, you’re the expert on being the sad, sorry little queer the world has wronged so maybe you would suggest I just deal with life the way you do and drag a fucking razor over my wrist and hide behind everyone else for the rest of my life.”
“Ben!” Allie screams.
Alex is aware he’s crying, and the wounded animal sound is coming from him, but he can’t stop it.
He does the only thing he can think of.
He runs.
#