Sunflowers (Tournesols) II 4 страница

I began to take off my coat. It slid off my shoulders once the buttons were undone, and I took steps forward before I dropped to my knees as I got to the mattress. He pulled my body gently on top of his, and our lips met again as they did in the hall and passion grew between us. He placed his hands on the small of my back, uncut nails digging into the skin. Our hips pressed together, clothed, again and again. I broke our lips apart, and he went towards my neck, while I let out in uneven breaths, "What about Vivian?"

"She'll understand," was all he said, and our clothing began to come off one by one.

I was shirtless and Gerard had his pants undone when Vivian came back in. And Gerard was right: she was very understanding. After she came inside, she had a minor scare realizing the door was unlocked, but as soon as she saw our backs, she was put at ease and out of her panic-mode. She was probably too much at ease, actually, because she squealed like an infant, put down her bag of groceries super fast, and then jumped on the bed with us. So yes, she was completely understanding of our form of semi-public and private expression for one another, but her emotions towards us and how much she had missed me for the past four months, and Gerard, the past seven years, completely overwrote her sense of boundaries, and before we knew it, Vivian had attacked my bare back with hugs and quick kisses to the top of my head.

"Frank! Frank! Frank! Frank!" she seemed to scream in my ear. In a minute, the mood between Gerard and I had changed, and we were no longer amorous. I was somewhat embarrassed - it was odd having Vivian, who was like a second mother to me a lot of the time, on my back while I had an erection, but without the creepy incestuous stuff. I backed away from Gerard and ended up beside him on the mattress once Viv let go of my waist. She then threw herself on Gerard and began her attack again.

"Gerard! Gerard! You fucking bastard," she added to his exasperated greeting. "Seven fucking years, you asshole, you lousy sack of shit," she continued to berate him and then hug and kiss him hysterically. He was smiling as she called him a million vulgar names under the sun, and stroked her long dark red hair, which now had some gray like his, as he did it. "I hate you so much, you lousy cocksucker," she finally finished with and then exhausted like a two year old, collapsed onto him. He kept smiling.

"I missed you too, Vivian. More than you know," he kissed her forehead, a tenderness overwhelming him that I had not seen before. Or at least, not directed towards me. I sat at the corner of the bed, cross legged, my hand on Gerard's leg. I squeezed him, sudden insecurity overcoming me.

"Oh shut up," she said. I thought she was still teasing, but there was a distinct bitterness in her voice. "I don't need to hear any maxims from you. Just take my abuse and then make up for the seven years you've been gone later, all right?"

She looked up from his chest, kissed him quickly on the lips, and then bumped him on the head playfully. "And now I'm even making you dinner! And dessert!" She got up and trudged to the kitchen, straightened out her clothing and resuming her dignified and light-hearted manner. "You better realize how awesome a friend I am."

"Oh, trust me Vivian, I do, I really do," Gerard conceded. "Even if you weren't holding a knife right now, I would both realize and appreciate it."

She threw him a coy glance, holding the knife used to cut the carrot with a weak wrist, and then resumed. Chop, chop, chop seemed to echo through the whole apartment with how quiet it became after that loud reunion. I still felt very small on the corner of the bed. I knew that my first meeting with Gerard had been completely different - it was practically painful. Part of me did not know how to gauge what had just happened, whether or not I should be jealous. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the thought. It was my manhood, I told myself, that had mostly been hurt, plus now my chance at any type of sex alone was gone. I was just awkward.

"So. I have to ask. The bed?" she broke the small silence, seeming to read my mind. "Should I start a knock system before I come into the apartment now to be sure you two aren't out here declaring your love for all to see?" She smiled sweetly, realizing midsentence how incredible our bed set-up really was. Gerard moved himself closer to me at the edge of the bed, putting an arm around me.

"You can do whatever you want, Viv. This apartment is as much mine and Frank's as it is yours," he answered, and my heart skipped a beat. I had been included. Mine and Frank's. I thought I would pass out from happiness.

"No, no, no. This is your place, Gerard. You've worked hard for it, and besides, I have my own. With a daughter. I have a home." She smiled as she chopped vegetables. "Although I hope that I will be seeing more of you two, because we do have a fair bit of catching up to do. I was hoping we could have dinner tonight with everyone, and then more dinners when we have time? I don't imagine you two have thought much beyond very public displays of affection, but when you do work out jobs and responsibilities - do you remember those? Anyway, let me know when you do so we can have dinner more often." She finished chopping the carrots and then added them to a pot and walked over to the fridge, facing us and making eye contact.

"That sounds wonderful, Viv," Gerard stated sincerely. He passed me my shirt, which was still lying on his side of the bed. I put it on mutely, not interrupting the moment the two were having.

"I'm glad you're home, Gerard. Because this is your home. New Jersey. Although I want to hear all about Paris, you are not allowed to disappear ever again. You hear me?"

I was taken aback at first, by Vivian's request. Wasn't this putting restrictions on someone you loved? Why would you ever do something like that? I thought Vivian had understood us, and our mission in art and in life to be as free as possible. It seemed so contradictory that she would support our relationship, one that was so illegal from the first onset, but she would be mad at Gerard for going to Paris. Maybe I was overreacting, but something happened in my gut that made it feel like someone had hit me hard. But refractory pain hit harder when I heard Gerard's response:

"Don't worry, Viv. I promise."

My eyes were wide, but I did not respond. I didn't get it. Was this just for show because Vivian seemed very upset in spite of her grateful smile; was he just conceding because she had a knife? Or was Gerard visibly upset as well? I couldn't tell, because as soon as the words were uttered, their stare was broken and Vivian's head was in the fridge, looking around for stuff to cook with.

"Did Callie and Dean treat you well?" she asked, our conversation now moving on. Gerard and I had gotten up from the mattress, and he had kissed my forehead.

"Who?" I asked.

"The graduate students. They were holding signs...."

"Oh, about that," I started, ready to tell her about Gerard and our understanding and egalitarian relationship now, but Vivian cut me off, her eyes wide.

"Did you leave them there? Oh god. I need to call them right away. Tell them to go home. Oh god. Why did you leave them? Gerard, you must have known they were grad students. They can't think for themselves! They always wait for Prof Approval and oh god they're going to kill me -"

Vivian ran off into the other side of the living room, where the phone was and frantically began dialling. Gerard giggled and called afterwards, "Maybe that's why I did that, Viv. They are going to have to learn at some point."

"Oh, fuck off, Gerard. This time I'm the teacher, and these kids are dependent on me. " She turned away and was now absorbed in her telephone conversation. Gerard and I approached the counter and began cutting what was there. Celery and what looked to be basil. As soon as Gerard's knife went through it, the smell exploded, and was confirmed. Definitely basil. I was hungry, and looking forward to dinner.

"Ah, yeah, she's right. I don't want to be the teacher anymore, that was partly why we had left them there," he said after a moment or two, and I wasn't sure at first if he was speaking to me. I began to chop onion and squinted my eyes to prevent tears.

"So what do you want to do here, if you don't want to be the keeper, or the teacher?" I asked, quietly. Although I didn't want to admit it to myself, I knew that his answer would interfere with whatever plans I had for myself this time around in Jersey. All I knew for sure was that this apartment was ours, so our career and lives began to form from that as well. I wanted to grab his hand, to demonstrate this, how tangled and apparent we were to one another, but we were both chopping.

"I don't know," he answered. "Right now, I think I could be happy with anything."

I began to chop faster, my emotions taking over and wanting, needing, something to do. His answer struck me in a way I was unfamiliar with. It must have been what he felt as soon as he came back here; this power of memory and emotion. People say that smell triggers it, and yes, that's true and I had certainly felt that with Gerard several times: his cigarette smoke, the coffee, and the way his shampoo infiltrated his hair and then permeated my sense of myself. But the smells in the kitchen were new to me: garlic and raw onion, a bit of chilli powder, and the distinct tart of herbs. All new, and I had no memories with them except the ones that were forming at that very moment and that I would remember anytime anyone ever cooked Viv's marinara sauce ever again. It was Gerard's words that triggered my memory this time. It was his body next to me, and the physical landscape of the apartment itself. I felt like I was in two places at once. We were there, finally together, and happy in our relationship - one where we could leave the apartment and be okay - and I was catapulted by my mind back to the first day of the relationship, when we banished ourselves indoors and didn't seem to care.

Gerard said he was happy doing anything, and I immediately thought of everything. We were artists, and we wanted to be everything. And finally, as my body seemed stretched and overwhelmed my memory, we had everything.

I began to cry. I wanted to blame it on the onions, but that wasn't the full story. Gerard saw it, though, and the onions in front of me, and turned me around. Took the knife out of my hands and placed his hands on my cheeks and wiped away the tears.

"Shhhh," he told me, wrapped me in a hug. "Don't worry. It's just the onion."

My stomach dropped a bit. I wanted to scream, no! It's so much more than that. It's relief. I am crying from relief and I am so happy to be home! But I didn't. I tried to swallow, but I couldn't.

"Shhh," Gerard said again, rubbing my back.

"Everything," I finally managed to choke out.

"I know," he said, and I could tell from his voice the 'onions' had gotten him too. "I want everything," he whispered. "I want you."

"I love you.... so much," I told him. We didn't say it very often at all. It almost felt cheap for me to say it, but I did. I didn't know how else to convey it. He didn't say it back, but he held me tighter, and I kicked myself internally because his response felt so much deeper.

Suddenly, Vivian had also wrapped us in a hug. Approaching from the side, very slowly, and a lot more subdued than she had been. She had already dismissed the students and told them they'd done a good job (lest their self esteem plummet). She joined our hug, and then, in a whisper, added, "Welcome home."

The 'everyone' that was coming to this dinner turned out to be Mikey and Jasmine. Not exactly everyone, but close enough. Vivian explained the small tradition that had started while we were away as she chopped the last of the vegetables, and began to simmer the sauce. I didn't say anything as she talked and explained to us, and neither did Gerard. We just listened patiently as she raddled through this protocol and all the people who usually turned up, and what they had eaten in the last four months or so. I could tell from Vivian's voice and Gerard's suddenly self-conscious body language that these dinners were started because of us. Because we were the only real people bonding this seemingly random group of strangers together, and once Gerard was gone in Paris, and I was close behind him, the dinners were the perfect remedy so that the group did not disband completely. Vivian was perceptive though, even more than I would sometimes give her credit for, and she had swooped into fix "the mess" that was left behind.

"We all ate here," she informed us. "It made sense because it was free of children, and because there was room. Besides, since the task fell to Jasmine to organize and I to keep the apartment clean and still running while you were gone, it made sense to use it for something. " She paused for a second, and blinked slowly. I noticed aged lines and crow's feet around her eyes that had not been there in the past. The grey in her hair I had noticed along with Gerard's - they both had a salt and pepper look coming through (though Vivian's was more like sugar and spice, I supposed, since she was a natural red head ). But these signs of age had never really stuck with her; they never defined her personality. It seemed more like a temporary causality, like a cut finger, and would heal with time. But as she stood as she talked, I realized the secret of Vivian's youth was in her voice. When she spoke before, she was animated, she was young, even when she was angry and insulting Gerard - there was life in anger, in passion, and frustration. But now she was tired. She was going through this rolodex of how she kept this place going and these people together, and she was tired. She was keeping a memory alive, not knowing when we would come back, if we would come back, and now that we had - she could rest. And she was exhausted.

My eyes went from Viv's suddenly fatally aged physique to Gerard's, and it hit me that these wounds were not ones that exactly healed. Aging wasn't reversible, though it could be masked, by hair dye and animated voices, or by different clothing. But Gerard had stopped buying hair dye in Paris because he couldn't afford it, and similarly, his clothing was old and worn. It was too big for him. I realize now how shabby we both looked, and how we had been clinging to our shirts, our pants, and our shoes in spite of holes and threadbare parts because it was all we could afford. And while I could shed my clothing and automatically become my appropriate age again, Gerard's case was terminal. It was even pointless for him to dye his hair again. I knew what he looked like now, and while I knew he was older, I used to think that certain things could maybe address it. Maybe not reverse it, but at least halt it. Coupled with the sudden realization of Vivian's age as well, I began to see that there was no discrimination in terms of age, and soon, it would happen to me.

There was a sudden sizzle that jolted me out of my thought, and back into the conversation. Vivian was startled as well, and put a lid back on the pot, and then looked through a recipe book while explaining that Cassandra had had a piano lesson tonight, and Alexa, Mikey's wife, had to get caught up on her home business and watch their kids, so they wouldn't be attending.

"Normally, Alexa comes. She's actually a scream to be with now that she has her own focus, and no longer has to butt her way into everyone's business," Vivian explained. She looked around the kitchen, back at the recipe book, and sighed with relief. It appeared that all she could cook or chop was done for the time being. I felt my stomach rumble on instinct - and before I could say anything, Viv offered: "Coffee? Anyone? It's not quite dinner, and I know that this coffee is probably nothing compared to what you two had in Paris, but it's something. And oh," she dug through one of her shopping bags. "I came bearing gifts."

She held up a box of homemade croissants, grinning like a child. Her smile, and her voice, apparently, could suspend her age. "Again, not quite like Paris, but..."

"It's perfect, Vivian. Thank you very much."

I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, and thanks for dinner. Sorry we didn't help much..."

Viv waved her hand in the air, brushing the complaint away as she got the percolator ready. "It was fine. I don't trust Gerard to cook - it's one of the few arts he has not mastered." She threw him a teasing, knowing, glance.

"And you yourself, Viv. From what I can recall you were still trying to perfect that one."

Vivian shrugged, sitting at the table. "That's why it's just marinara sauce, and why it's prebaked, bought, croissants. I would probably start a fire otherwise." She shoved the container out into the centre of the table. "Here. Go for it."

We all took one and sat in somewhat awkward silence, eating the pastry. She was right, it was nothing like Paris, but even if she had imported goods from there, it would not have been the same. The ambiance of Paris itself was what made the food good -- and the coffee, and the wine. This food wasn't bad, and this ambiance wasn't bad either. It was just different. There was no need for comparison.

Our table was startlingly quiet. Especially for Viv and Gerard. It made me shift in my seat and look around. Vivian didn't seem uncomfortable at all; she got up and poured us all coffee.

"And you're not to tell me about Paris right now, okay? Or maybe ever. But for sure I need you guys to wait until people actually come over, and so I don't have to hear the same story repeated a zillion times."

Gerard nodded, taking a sip. "What time should we hold our tongues until, my dear?"

"About six or so. I know Mikey said he was coming by right after work, so give him a bit of a window for around then." She took another sip, dipping her croissant into her coffee. I saw Gerard smirk at this; he had chastised me the first time I had done the same in Paris. A definite no-no, but in Jersey, it just became a small inconsequential table joke between the two of us. Vivian added: "Oh, and Jasmine may be late. She told me she had a job interview, but she wants to come."

"Do they know we're here?"

Vivian smiled. "That's the fun part. Only Mikey does, but that's because he can see through anything and knew I was planning something right away. It's gotta be my voice. It always tells the story before I can. But everyone else, nope, they do not know. Not even Cassandra, and Mikey promised not to tell Alexa. I know he's been good to his promise, too, because if he had told her, she would be here in a minute. She's always been fascinated by you two."

I looked over at Gerard, but he was focused on Vivian. I had wanted to gauge his reaction to the last part about Alexa, but he seemed to not register it at all. The idea of anyone being fascinated by us was alarming at first, especially given our history -- and the fact that I had never met Alexa, let alone Mikey or Cassandra. I was already feeling myself becoming nervous by this whole affair. The only thought that settled me was that Jasmine was coming. Jasmine had apparently been here all along, keeping this place in working order and the apartment in good shape. I didn't even notice her presence, but she had been here, on and off, for the past four months. And she had done her duty, keeping the apartment like a time capsule, too.

According to Vivian, she had moved around a lot after we left. I tried to probe into why this was, but she told me that I just needed to ask her. I strained my memory to go that far back in terms of my relationship with Jasmine, but I couldn't really get anything. I knew she had finished school and was working, but this job she was coming back from, what was that? When I left I thought she had one. And was she living with a boyfriend, is that why she wasn't always here? I was confused and simply hadn't thought about it in so long. But again, any probing I did with Viv was brushed aside. So I address the Alexa issue.

"What do you mean, she's fascinated with us? Should we be worried?"

"She's... just like that," Gerard stated.

Vivian nodded her head. "Come on, Frank. Two budding artists in a relationship with one another? Moving to Paris? A gay relationship and one that was illegal for a period of time? Cops and parents and fighting and art shows, oh my! It's better than a soap opera."

"She's fascinated by us," Gerard repeated with emphasis. "Not exactly with us. With implies some type of consent on my end, and I never gave that. But hey, people have to do something to amuse themselves, and if they want to create this hyper-dramatic situation around my life, so be it."

"Don't even pretend that you're not flattered by it. Come on, where's the fabulous Gerard that left seven years ago?" Viv teased, giving him a tiny punch on the arm. "You would have loved this. You practically ate drama for breakfast and drank it with your wine."

Gerard smiled, but it was a weak one. He took a big gulp of his coffee, finished it, and placed it down. His eyes never left the white porcelain of the mug. His age became apparent again. It poked it's head outside of his buttons, at the cuff of his torn pants, and around his eyes. He had changed in Paris - even I knew that, and could see it within moments of meeting him again after seven years. Sure, the fabulous artist that I had met when I first fell for him was still in my mind, but even that became subdued after some time. I looked around the apartment, at the bedroom door that was now wide open. The black bedroom door, where he had kept all of his secrets before, even seven years ago. That wasn't exactly very fabulous; that was austere, serious. In Paris he had become more of that part of himself. His move of the bed into the middle of the room today was part of him showing this austere nature and permeating everything, I was sure.

Not a keeper anymore, but a man. A dove he told me, as if he had things to learn, still. Why couldn't Vivian see that as well?

"Things change, Viv," he said quietly. "You know that every seven years, our skin is completely new? It takes that long for all the cells to shed and create themselves again." He was reverting to knowledge, to shift from emotional change. "It's hard to not be different. It practically hurts."

Vivian nodded. The conversation had already become too heavy for her. She wanted to focus on having Gerard here now, having fun, eating dinner, and dessert. She shoved the box of croissant towards him. "You, sir, need to eat all of these until it is time for dinner. Just because you change skin every seven years doesn't mean you don't replace it. You have lost far too much weight and are hanging out of your clothing." She looked at me and back to him, shuddering at the state of our dress. "Both of you. Seriously. We need to go shopping. But you need to eat first, so we can find a more accurate size for you." Not waiting for a response from us, she got up and began to gather her things. "I have to go pick up Cassandra and take her to her lesson. Can I trust you to keep watch of the dinner and make sure nothing spills over? Okay? Good."

And before we could disagree, she was out the door, and we were alone again.

As much as we wanted to, we did not resume where we had been when Vivian first interrupted us. Instead, we actually tried to make ourselves useful. We cleaned up the coffee and the filters, finished the dishes that were in the sink (mostly cutting boards, totally not a big deal) and then wiped off the table in preparation for the dinner. It was going to be five of us, so the table would be crowded, but it would work. I wondered how they were able to fit everyone in before, but only vaguely. Gerard and I didn't talk much as we did this. When we were done, he came up behind me at the sink and wrapped his arms around my back. Kissing my ear, he then said, "I'm heading out to the balcony to smoke."

"Okay, I'll be right there," I informed him, only to have him turn me around at the counter, so our hips were lined up - chastely. He kissed me, not breaking the surface of our lips, and then shook his head.

"I would like to be alone for a bit. A long flight, seeing people again, and plus, I'm a little full from those croissants. I just want to think before everyone arrives."

I knew I shouldn't have been hurt, but I was. After seven years of waiting, I was used to always being with him. We had had four months together in Paris, and aside from a little bit of a discrepancy in our sleeping schedules, we had always been together. Why wouldn't that continue now? I didn't quite understand Gerard's need to be alone; he seemed sad, morose. Wasn't he happy to be back here? To see his friends again?

"Are you okay?" I asked as a pathetic retort. This was possibly the least useful question in the English lexicon of stock phrases, but I was desperate, and said it anyway.

He nodded, then added, jumpily, "It's just family. It's hard. But worth it."

I was still trying to piece together what he meant as he kissed my forehead, and then went out to the balcony, lighting up and staring off.

Did this mean I was a part of this family? Vivian too? I would be meeting his brother soon enough, actual bloodline, and I was nervous. Vivian, in all her dinner ramblings, had never once used the word family. Its weight hit me like a train and I wasn't sure how to feel. I knew my own family, my father and my mother, and I was never actually excited to bond with them. It felt like a chore. And Vivian - from the way her tired voice broke through the surface, I could tell that this organizational task was sometimes exhausting. I rattled those two seemingly polar opposites in my brain, trying to make sense of the situation I was now in with a flip of a word choice. Family seemed to add an element of suffocating weight. It added burden, and I was terrified.

I went to the bathroom, hoping to relieve myself and then also make myself smell better. Gerard was right - a long plane right was exhausting, and I was sure I smelled like the recycled air of the cabin, plus cigarette and exhaust smoke. I opened up the medicine cabinet and went through what I had left behind. Again, everything was exactly the same as I had left it before - except something small in the corner. A purple bottle, I took it out, and examined it up close. Lavender. When did I have this?

I didn't have time to answer my own question before I heard a knock at the door. I paused, and hearing no footsteps from the other end of the apartment, I washed my hands quickly and went to the door. I thought, in the back of my mind, that it was a little odd for Viv to knock, but maybe she had learned her lesson the first time around when she caught us going at it (not likely, I quipped to myself), or maybe she had forgotten her keys. Without thinking or looking through the peephole, I bounded towards the door and opened it.

Craning my neck a bit, I stared face to face with a man, a lot taller than me, and an inch or two over Gerard's height. He was skinny - and it was only with Gerard's recent weight loss that I could see the resemblance between the two of them. They shared the same facial features; strong jaws and angular face shape, high and distinct forehead. They seemed to share the same bones - their hands, broad shoulders, and feet were similar in size and shape, and clothing draped on them the same way. But after their bones and blood, the brothers differed drastically. Their hairlines parted different ways, and while Gerard didn't seem to be losing his hair that much at all, Mikey's forehead was larger and pronounced, the middle section of his hair the only place with density. His hair was greyer and thinner too. His face was marked by glasses, and his body was clad in very nice clothing. Not super-formal, but I could tell that his job required him to wear something like this. If we had met him on a weekend, or on a casual day, I doubt he would appear less formal and well-dressed. His posture was poised as well. He stood before me, straight as an arrow, his hands behind his back and lanky elbows forming a bow. Without the familiarity of Gerard's new body so prominent in my mind, I would not have known who was standing before me.

He waited for me to say something for a long time, but I was still too flabbergasted. I wished I had taken time out to smoke or do something by myself before I was shuffled into the thrill and despair of meeting the family. Meeting the family; it was so horrifying and so drastically mainstream that I couldn't even fathom it was happening to me, and my strange love affair. I wanted to block it out of my mind, but here it was, in front of me, dressed like a gentleman and already making me feel like I wasn't good enough for his brother. I had no idea what to even call the type of shirt he was wearing, although I knew it required a specific name. Oxford? Windsor? Everything I knew sounded like some fancy school, and well, I had failed out of school.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14