The Men from the Boys by William J. Mann

Author:William J. Mann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

Pravincetown, August 1994

“How could you do that?” Chanel rails at me. “He’s just a kid!”

“It just happened,” I explain. “I don’t feel good about it.”

I look over at Javitz, who’s sitting across from me at the kitchen table. He says nothing. He just lights up a cigarette, breaking the rule about smoking in the house. Already the day drips with humidity. I’m shirtless. My back sticks to the chair.

“Things like that just don’t happen,” Chanel insists, scolding me as if I’ve personally offended her. Maybe I have. There was a guy who used to work with us at the newspaper. I didn’t know him well. Teddy was his name. He was Chanel’s best gay male friend before me. He’s dead now.

She stands up. I wish she’d keep her voice down. Eduardo’s still asleep. When I got up, after a night of dreams between sticky, sweaty sheets, I’d found her here, sitting across the table from Javitz. She and Wendy had had a fight, a major one, after they left the birthday party last night. Chanel had come here, refusing to share a bed at the guest house with her lover.

“She’s completely selfish,” Chanel had been protesting when I stumbled out to the table.

“Who?” I asked.

“Wendy.” Chanel’s eyes were bleary, from lack of sleep and—possibly, could it be?—from crying. I’d never known Chanel to cry, didn’t think her the type. “She’s a fucking selfish bitch.”

“Whoa,” I said, sitting down.

“She wants a baby,” she explained to me, as she must have already explained to Javitz. Of course, I already knew that, but pretended not to.

“But you don’t,” I said.

“I’m not ruling out anything,” Chanel said. “But she said she has to know now. Like today. Says she’s waited long enough. If I don’t decide, she’s leaving me.”

Javitz gave one of his long, long sighs. Chanel had come to him when the relationship was new, for his approval. He’d met Wendy, liked her, and that was that. Now, he was presiding over the end as well.

“Darling,” he said to Chanel, “don’t make any rash decisions just because she’s being rash. And that includes saying no as much as it includes saying yes.”

“She wants an answer,” Chanel said.

“She also wants you,” Javitz told her.

“I’m going to tell her no. I can play this game too.”

I reached across the table and put my hand on hers. “Chanel, you can’t just walk away from this. It’s been four years. You’ve invested a lot in this relationship. Stick around for the dividends.”

Javitz flipped me an eye. “Well put,” he offered.

“Thank you,” I said.

But inside, all I could think of was the boy in my bed, the boy I’d betrayed.

“He trusted you!” Chanel says now, pacing the room. “Hell, he loved you. I could see it in his eyes. How could you do it?”

“Give me a fucking break,” I plead, standing up now myself. “I’m not the first one to have unsafe sex. It happens.”

“Yeah. And people die because of it!”

“All right, stop,” Javitz says finally, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray.

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