Читать книгу Slightly Single - Wendy Markham, Wendy Markham - Страница 9

Raphael has a sprawling birthday party every year.

He always throws it for himself, and he always holds it at his apartment in the meat-packing district. A Manhattan Realtor or an optimist or a blind moron might call it a loft in a converted warehouse, but basically, there’s nothing converted about the place. It still looks and feels like a warehouse—a cavernous, dank, virtually windowless, virtually unfurnished place that not even Martha Stewart, armed with a glue gun and yards of chintz and rolls of Persian carpet, could transform into anything remotely homey.

But it’s a large dwelling, and in Manhattan, large dwellings are notoriously hard to come by. Raphael makes good use of his; he always invites everyone he ever met to his birthday parties, and he tells them to bring everyone they ever met.

According to Kate, who’s known Raphael a year longer than I have and has therefore been to his birthday parties before, the crowd is typically comprised of incredibly gorgeous, hip, fashionable gay males and their incredibly gorgeous, hip, fashionable straight female friends.

This year, because it’s a milestone birthday for Raphael, the crowd is expected to be even larger than usual, and also more gorgeous, more hip and more fashionable than usual.

Raphael told me that there’s always a theme.

Last year, it was a jungle theme. Buff men in loincloths and animal prints.

The year before that, it was a beach party. Buff men in Speedos.

This year, it’s an island theme.

Spot the trend? Raphael’s motifs are designed to allow for minimal clothing—not to mention maximum alcohol consumption by way of fun, fruity drinks.

This year, he’s rented fake palm trees. He wanted to have blazing tiki torches, but I talked him out of that one. His friend Thomas, who is a set designer for Broadway shows, created this shimmering blue waterfall and lagoon out of some kind of slippery fabric. Frozen cocktails are being served in fake plastic coconut cups.

I arrive almost two hours late, with Kate in tow. She’s the reason we’re tardy. She went to a salon to have her lip waxed shortly before the party was supposed to start, and we had to wait for the blotchy red swelling to go down.

Now, as we walk into Raphael’s jamming party, she tugs my arm and asks, “Are you sure I look all right?”

Actually, she doesn’t. In keeping with the island theme, she has what looks like a Hawaiian Punch mustache above her upper lip, despite her futile attempts to cover the welt with pancake makeup. The lighting in her apartment was so dim that I didn’t realize how much it shows until we were on the subway.

“You look fine,” I lie.

She cups a hand at her ear. “What did you say?”

“You look fine,” I shout, to be heard above the blasting Jimmy Buffet tune and the din of voices. “I just can’t believe you waited until just before the party to get your lip waxed. Why didn’t you do it earlier in the day, or yesterday? You know you always have a bad reaction to the wax.”

“I didn’t realize my mustache had come back in until tonight,” Kate shouts back. “I mean, what did you want me to do, show up here with five o’clock shadow? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me I had stubble when we were together this morning.”

“I didn’t notice, Kate. Guess I was too wrapped up in my own trauma.”

“How bad do I look?” She takes a few steps toward the television set and strains to catch a glimpse of herself reflected in the darkened screen.

“Tracey!” Raphael materializes with a shriek, umbrella-bedecked frozen strawberry daiquiri in hand, and gives me a big kiss.

He’s a beautiful man, with jet-black hair, mocha-colored skin and the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. People sometimes mistake him for Ricky Martin, and he invariably goes along with it, signing autographs and waxing nostalgic about the good old days with Menudo.

“Happy Birthday, honeybunch,” I say, squeezing him.

“You didn’t dress up, Tracey!”

“I didn’t?” I feign horror and look down, as though expecting to find myself naked. “Don’t scare me like that, Raphael.”

He swats my arm. “I mean you didn’t dress in keeping with the theme.”

“What did you expect me to wear? A bikini? Trust me, Raphael, it’s better this way,” I say, motioning at my black turtleneck beneath a black blazer, worn with trendy black pants I splurged on in French Connection. Hopefully, the monochromatic effect is more slimming than funereal. “Great outfit on you, though.”

“You like?” He does a runway twirl, modeling his tropical print shirt, short shorts and Italian leather boots. “You don’t think it’s too gay, Tracey?”

In case you haven’t noticed, Raphael is a frequent name-user. He likes to think of it as his conversational trademark.

“Since when are you worried about being too gay, Raphael?”

“Since I saw the man Alexander and Joseph brought with them. Tracey, he’s delicious, and incredibly understated. You’d never suspect he’s a homo like the rest of us.” He motions over his shoulder at the reasonably good-looking, straight-looking man deep in conversation with Alexander and Joseph, who tonight are wearing matching sarongs with their matching gold wedding bands.

“The rest of us? Speak for yourself,” I tell Raphael, and add, eyeing the guy’s not-in-keeping-with-the-theme blue crewneck sweater and jeans, “Anyway, maybe he’s not a homo.”

“Oh, please. Kate!” Raphael screams her name as she rejoins us. He grabs her and plants a big kiss on her—his standard greeting—then steps back, tilts his head and frowns, wiping at her upper lip with his thumb. “Sorry, I slobbered my daquiri on your face.”

“Oh, hell.” In her accent, which is suddenly full-blown, it comes out hay-ell. “That’s not daquiri, Raphael. Tracey!” She turns on me, asking darkly, “It does not look okay, does it? It’s still all raw and red, isn’t it?”

I hedge. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s not that bad? Raphael thinks it’s slobbered daquiri!” Kate rushes off to the bathroom.

In response to Raphael’s questioning glance, I explain, “Lip wax.”

He nods knowingly, and says, in his barely there Latin accent, “Poor thing. And with her complexion…From peaches and cream to peaches and blood. Tracey, lip wax kills.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m a bleach gal myself.”

“Trust me. Wax kills.”

“Trust you?”

“I’m serious, Tracey.” His eyes are big and solemn.

There are two basic Raphael moods: Giddy Enthusiasm, and Earnest Concern. He is not currently sporting the facial expressions that accompany Giddy Enthusiasm.

“You wax your lip?” I ask incredulously.

“Tracey, I don’t do it.” He winces and shudders. “I have Cristoforo do it for me.” Cristoforo would be his stylist and erstwhile lover who has since taken up with a well-known, supposedly straight soap opera actor who shall remain nameless.

“Cristoforo waxes your lip,” I repeat, not sure whether to be bemused or amused.

“Not just my lip. My whole face. Believe me, Tracey, it’s better than shaving every day.”

“I believe you, Raphael. So that’s how you keep that boyish look.”

“You know it. Let’s go mingle with Alexander and Joseph,” Raphael suggests, promptly bouncing back to Giddy Enthusiasm as he links his arm through mine.

We make our way across the room to where they’re standing. Along the way, I snag a daquiri from the tray of a passing waiter who’s all rippling muscles and washboard abs, practically naked save for a tiny thong.

“You hired waiters?” I ask Raphael, who shakes his head.

“Tracey! That’s Jones,” he says. “You’ve met him before.”

“Jones? Just Jones?”

“Just Jones.”

“I don’t remember him.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Of course you do, Tracey. He’s the dancer. The one from Long Island? The one with the tutu fetish?”

Raphael has this annoying habit of insisting that you know people or have been places when you have no idea what he’s talking about. It happens all the time. I used to argue with him.

Now I just shrug and go along, pretending to know Jones.

Note that Raphael’s crowd, like the pop music industry, has more than its share of mono-monikered folks. Jones and Cristoforo. Cher and Madonna.

I don’t know what to make of this, but it seems significant. I’m about to point it out to Raphael when he goes on with his explanation.

“Jones is going to be doing a chorus part in a summer stock production of Hello, Dolly in Texas, of all godforsaken places, so I told him to grab a tray and pretend he’s rehearsing for the show. I thought he’d wear a tux, something classic with tails, but, Tracey, you know Jones and his infernal need to display his physique.”

Like I said, I don’t know Jones or his infernal need to display his physique, but I pretend to, rolling my eyes along with Raphael. Still, I have to ask, because I don’t get the connection: “Hello, Dolly?”

“Yes, yes, yes, you know—the Harmonia Gardens scene with the dancing waiters.”

I do know, but before I can tell Raphael, he rushes on, assuming I’m clueless, “You know, the dance contest and the stairway and ‘so nice to have you back where you belong.’ Shh, shh, we’re almost there,” Raphael says impatiently, wildly waving his hand at me as though I’m the one who won’t shut up.

“Almost there” means that we’re almost standing in front of Alexander, Joseph and the object of Raphael’s latest crush. Maybe it’s just that he’s positioned beside two of the most flamboyant men in the room, but he seems awfully low-key and—well, normal. Too normal for Raphael’s taste.

“Aruba…Jamaica…ooh, I want to take him…Tracey, isn’t he adorable?” Raphael gushes in my ear against the opening bars of the song “Kokomo,” which is blasting over the sound system.

“He’s pretty cute,” I agree. “But not adorable.”

He looks aghast. “Tracey! How can you say that? He’s definitely adorable.”

I reassess.

The guy has short brown hair—just plain old short brown hair, rather than one of Cristoforo’s statement-making “styles” or tints that are so popular with this crowd. He has brown eyes, and a nice nose, a nice mouth—the kind of guy you’d expect to find teaching sixth grade, or pushing a toddler in a shopping cart, or raking some suburban lawn. The kind of guy you’d expect to find pretty much anywhere other than here.

But here he is, an average Joe in a crowd of outrageous Josephs and Alexanders and Joneses—which is, I suspect, precisely the reason Raphael is so attracted to him.

“Joseph!” Raphael cries, moving forward. “I love the sarong! Yours, too, Alexander! And you…whoever you are, I love the sweater. Banana Republic?”

“I’m not sure,” the guy says, wrinkling his nose a little.

He is pretty adorable. And I see that his eyes, which I assumed from a few feet away were brown, are actually greenish. He looks Irish.

Raphael is momentarily taken aback at his idol’s lack of label awareness, but he recovers swiftly. “We’ve never met,” he says, thrusting his hand forward. “I’m Raphael Santiago—the birthday boy. And this is my friend Tracey Spadolini.”

“I’m Buckley O’Hanlon. Nice meeting you, Raphael. Hey, Tracey.”

“Hey,” I say, noticing a bowl of tortilla chips on a nearby overturned cardboard box serving as a table. I’m starving. I skipped dinner, feeling guilty about that massive diner lunch with Will.

I take a step closer and dive in, scarfing a couple of chips while Raphael manages to work into his next few sentences the fact that he’s available now that he and his lover Anthony have broken up, that he works out at least five mornings a week and that he recently went to Paris on business. Until last August, he was an office temp. Now he’s an assistant style editor for She magazine.

The job isn’t as glamorous as you might think. Plus, the Paris trip was last September. But Raphael manages to make it sound as though he just blew into town on the Concorde with Anna Wintour.

“What do you do, Buckley?” Raphael asks.

“I’m a freelance copywriter.”

“A writer? You’re a writer! Buckley, what do you write?”

“Copy,” Buckley says with a faint grin. “Trust me, it’s not that exciting.”

“Buckley is writing the copy for our new brochure. That’s how we met,” Alexander says, taking out a pack of cigarettes. He hands one to Joseph before putting one between his own lips. Raphael, a notorious butt-moocher, snags one out of the pack before Alexander puts it away.

I reach into the pocket of my blazer and take out my Salem Lights. Alexander clicks a lighter four times, and we all puff away.

Buckley shakes his head. “Guess I’m the only nonsmoker left in New York.”

“Oh, I’m going to quit tomorrow,” Raphael announces.

“Since when?” Joseph asks.

“Since I turned thirty. Joseph, I want to live to see forty. That’s not going to happen with a three-pack-aday habit.”

“Oh, please,” Alexander says, and he and Joseph shake their heads and roll their eyes. They know Raphael well enough, as I do, to realize he’s full of crap. Still, Raphael is trying to impress Buckley, and I think we owe it to him to play along. Or at least to change the subject. Which I do.

“So what’s up with your new brochure?” I ask Alexander and Joseph.

Naturally, they jump right into that one. They love talking about their business—a gourmet boutique on Bleeker Street that specializes in organic preserves. They recently decided to design a Web site and add mail-order.

“If all goes as well as we expect,” Joseph says, clasping his hands over his ribs in anticipation, “we’re going to start looking at houses in Bucks County in the fall.”

“That’s great.” I glance at Raphael.

He looks envious. I’m not surprised. That’s the big thing in their crowd—for longtime lovers to buy a house in rural Pennsylvania, then spend years renovating and decorating and furnishing it.

I have to admit, even I’m jealous of Alexander and Joseph as I watch them exchange delighted glances, hauntingly similar to the expression I remember my sister Mary Beth sharing with Vinnie back when they were newly married and had just announced that they were expecting their first child.

I want to be in that kind of relationship.

Not the Mary Beth-Vinnie kind that ends in misery and divorce. The Alexander and Joseph kind, where anyone—except maybe Dr. Laura and the Reverend Jerry Falwell—can see that these two souls belong together.

According to Raphael, Alexander and Joseph, who must be in their mid-thirties, have shared a rent-controlled one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea for ages, since before Chelsea became overly ridden with celebrities and suburban-style superstores. Alexander is a tall, bearded, Ivy-league-educated African-American from a white-collar Westchester family, and Joseph is a short, community college-educated Italian from a blue-collar Staten Island family, but at this point they share so many mannerisms and inflections that sometimes I actually think they look alike.

Jones passes by and hands out fresh daiquiris all around. This batch is even rummier than the last, but it goes down just as easily and I’m feeling a little buzzed. Buzzed enough to find it necessary to either chain smoke or devour the entire bowl of tortilla chips.

I opt for smoking, lighting a new cigarette from the ember of the first.

“So what do you write besides brochures, Buckley?” Raphael asks coyly.

Usually, he does coy pretty well, but it’s not working tonight. At least, not on this guy, who doesn’t seem interested in Raphael. Or maybe he’s just oblivious—although how he can overlook Raphael’s breathless flirtation is beyond me.

The only other option is that he’s straight. But somehow, I doubt that. I have to wonder—as a trio of newly arrived drag queens sporting grass skirts and coconut shell brassieres wander by—would a straight, reasonably adorable guy be at a party like this? In New York?

No way.

“I write jacket copy for books,” Buckley says with a shrug.

“You’re kidding! Buckley, that’s wonderful!” Raphael screeches, as though Buckley just told him he’s landed a walk-on on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

“Trust me, it’s really not that interesting,” Buckley says, looking a little sheepish.

“What kind of books?” I ask.

“Everything. Suspense, romance, self-help, gay fiction, cookbooks—you name it.”

“Gay fiction? Have I read anything you’ve written, Buckley?” Raphael asks, bubbly as a Brookside cheerleader doing high kicks at halftime.

“I just write the cover copy,” Buckley points out again, squirming a little.

“I always remember cover copy. It’s why I buy the book,” Raphael tells him.

Kate joins us, toying with a strand of long blond hair. She’s got it stretched across her upper lip, futilely trying to hide the blotchiness.

After Raphael introduces her to Buckley, she pulls me aside and says she has to leave.

“I don’t blame you.” I glimpse the slash of angry pink skin above the painstakingly applied pink lipstick that matches her pink tropical print sundress. “It looks like it’s getting worse.”

“You think?” she drawls sarcastically. “I look like I’ve been mauled. I can’t believe you let me out of the house like this, Tracey.”

I can’t, either. But I didn’t want to show up solo at the party after Will backed out. I’ve always had this thing about going places alone. Even after all this time living in New York, I’m still not over it. It’s one thing to live alone and ride the subway alone and shop alone, but I don’t think that I could ever go to a movie by myself, or a restaurant, or a party. The small-town girl in me persists in finding that vaguely pathetic.

What a lousy friend, huh? I don’t blame Kate for being pissed.

“Do you want me to come with you?” I offer half-heartedly.

“No, thanks,” Kate says.

“Are you pissed at me?”

“Nah.” She tries to grin, wincing when the inflamed upper lip crinkles painfully. “It’s not your fault I inherited sensitive skin. It’s the Delacroix genes. That’s what my mother always says.”

“Good luck, Kate,” I say sympathetically, giving her a hug. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

When I turn back to the group, the group has dissipated. Joseph and Alexander are nowhere to be seen, and Raphael is currently being transported around the room on the drag queens’ shoulders to a rousing chorus of “Jolly Good Fellow,” leaving only Buckley O’Hanlon standing there.

“You’ve been abandoned?” I ask him. I drain the slushy remainder of my daiquiri in one big gulp that leaves my throat aching from the freeze.

“Raphael is…” He motions with his head.

“Yeah, I see him,” I say, watching Raphael hop down from his lofty perch just in time to toss back a flaming shot somebody hands him. Yes, flaming. As in, on fire. People clap rhythmically, chanting, “Go, Go, Go, Go…”

Did I mention that Raphael’s parties are wild?

“And Alexander and Joseph went to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on the cake. They said it’s shaped like Puerto Rico, and there seems to have been some kind of mishap with Mayaguez.”

“What’s Mayaguez?”

“From what I gathered, it’s either a Puerto Rican city or an unruly houseboy.”

I laugh.

Buckley laughs.

Too bad he’s gay.

Then again, I have a boyfriend. Will. Will, who should be here right now.

Doesn’t he care that our days together are dwindling? Doesn’t he know that we should be spending these last precious moments together before he heads off to summer stock without me?

That is, if I don’t go along with him.

Which I still might do.

I pluck another daiquiri from Jones’s passing tray and ask Buckley, “Ever been to the Adirondacks?”

“Nope. Why?”

So I tell him why. I say that I’m thinking of spending the summer in a resort town up there and I’m wondering how hard it’ll be to find a job and a place to stay.

“Shouldn’t you have lined that up before you made your plans?” he asks reasonably.

“You know, that’s what I’ve always hated about you, Buckley,” I say, jabbing him in the chest with a finger. “You’re so damned practical.”

He looks taken aback, then sees that I’m kidding, and he laughs. “Sorry. But I keep telling you, Trace, you’ve got to have all your ducks in a row. You can’t just go around jumping into things headlong anymore. You’re a big girl now.”

“Buckley, Buckley, Buckley.” I heave a mock sigh. “What am I going to do with you? When are you going to lighten up and learn how to live a little?”

“You’re not the first person who’s asked me that,” he says ruefully, and I get the sense that he’s only semi-kidding now.

“Really?”

He shakes his head. “I just got out of a relationship with someone who thought I wasn’t impulsive enough. But let me tell you, I’m impulsive. Just tonight, when I was getting dressed to come here, I almost wore a beige sweater. At the last minute—I’m telling you, the very last minute before I walked out the door—I switched to the navy.”

I stagger backward. “Good God, man! How positively madcap of you!”

We both dissolve into laughter. I’m impressed by his deadpan skills. And he really is cute. He would be great for Raphael, who usually tends to go for self-absorbed pretty boys or eccentric artist types.

As we chat, I make sure to work in some of Raphael’s better qualities—how generous he is, and how funny, and how he knows more about pop culture than any other living human. I tell Buckley that Raphael has heard every new CD before the singles hit the airwaves; how he sees every Broadway show in previews; how he goes to every single movie that’s released, whether or not the critics trash it.

“He saw Flight of Fancy almost the second it came out, before all this hype,” I tell Buckley.

Flight of Fancy, of course, is the hugest blockbuster to hit the multiplex in ages, and it supposedly has a shocking Sixth Sense-like twist at the end. That was all I needed to hear. I can’t take suspense. No matter how hard I try to wait, I always end up reading the last pages of Mary Higgins Clark novels before I’m halfway through. I just have to know whodunit.

“Did Raphael tell you the twist before you saw it?” Buckley asks.

“No, he wouldn’t tell me! And I still haven’t seen it.”

“You’re kidding. I thought everyone had.”

“Not me. There’s no one left for me to go with.”

Like I said, Raphael went without me, and so did Kate, who went with a blind date, and so did all my friends at work. But the thing that really gets me is that Will went with a couple of people who work at the catering company one night a few weeks ago when a gig ended earlier than they’d expected. I was really irritated with him when he told me he’d seen that movie without me. He knew I wanted to go.

“So now what? You’re going to wait until it comes out on video?” Buckley asks.

“Yeah, and believe me, I can’t stand the suspense. I’m trying to get someone to go with me. But everyone I’ve asked says you can’t see it twice, because once you know the secret, it’s pointless.”

“That’s what I heard, too.”

I gape at him. “You haven’t seen it either?”

He shakes his head.

“Then you have to go with me!” I say, clutching his arm. “I can’t believe I’ve found someone who hasn’t seen it. I’m so psyched! We’re going. Okay?”

He shrugs. “Sure. When?”

“Tomorrow,” I say decisively. “I’ve been waiting almost a month to find out what the big twist is, and I’m not going to put it off any longer. This is great.”

Suddenly, the blasting Bob Marley tune goes silent. We turn and find Raphael standing next to the stereo, teetering a little. I wonder how many flaming shots he’s ingested.

“Everybody!” He claps his hands together. “It’s time for cake. Alexander and Joseph have really out-done themselves this year. So please, gather round and get ready to sing your hearts out!”

“He’s a little over the top, huh?” Buckley asks, as we push closer to the cake table.

“He’s the greatest guy I know,” I say fiercely, wishing that were enough to make Buckley fall madly in love with Raphael. But I can’t help noticing that he really doesn’t seem that interested in him.

After a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday to You—and three encores, coaxed by Raphael—the cake has been cut and devoured, Buckley drifts back over to Alexander and Joseph, and Raphael sidles up to me.

“You’ve got frosting smeared in your hair,” I say, wiping at it with a napkin.

“That’s not the only place I’ve ever had frosting smeared, Tracey,” he tells me with a wink. Only Raphael can wink and not look like somebody’s grandfather. “Listen, what’s up with my new man? Did you talk me up?”

“Definitely. I told him you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”

“What did you find out about him?”

I sip a fresh daiquiri. They’re getting less slushy-sweet and more rummy as the night wears on, but at this point, nobody cares. “He said something about how he’s just come out of a relationship with a guy who thought he wasn’t spontaneous enough.”

“Tracey, I’m spontaneous enough for both of us.” Raphael casts a lustful glance at Buckley. “What else did he say?”

“Not much. But I’m going to see Flight of Fancy with him tomorrow afternoon. I’ll try to find out more then.”

“You finally found somebody to see it with? Tracey, I’m so happy for you!” Raphael slings an arm across my shoulder. “Will Will be jealous?”

“Why would he be jealous of a gay man? Anyway, Will is never jealous. He trusts me,” I tell him.

Silence.

“What?” I demand, catching a dubious look on Raphael’s face. “He’s never jealous. Really!”

“I believe you. And Tracey, I think you should ask yourself why,” Raphael says cryptically.

“What do you mean by that?” I ask, but somebody is already pulling him away to join a conga line.

Suddenly, I’m in no mood to conga.

I find myself wondering what Will is doing. I check my watch and decide he might be home by now. Maybe I can take a cab up to his place and spend the night with him.

But when I try calling his apartment, the machine picks up.

I don’t leave a message.