If you say my name Cog, you get Cog.
I gave it back to her.
“The engraver’s getting rich this summer,” I said.
I never carried the key chain. Nobody had ever given me jewelry with something printed on it before. I was afraid I’d lose it.
“Nobody ever gave me something engraved before,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll lose it.”
“I know what you mean.”
“You know how I always say if you say my name Eugette, you get—”
I cut her off. “I got it,” I said.
“He said he might even write a song about it.”
“What about Martin?” I said.
“I love Martin.” She was fastening the bracelet to her wrist. “This is different. It’s just an innocent flip.”
“A fling,” I said.
“Cog’s a big star! What would he want with me? He keeps saying he wishes I’d go someplace with him, far away from Roundelay.”
“I bet he would,” I said.
“Don’t sound so cynical. How’s Alex?”
“Busy.”
“When will you see him again?”
I shrugged. “Who knows?” Early that morning he’d called me to say he thought he might have a room a few miles from where he was. He might be able to rent a bicycle. There was a possibility that Scotty Lund and Maggie would drive up from New York, the first weekend in August. Maybe I could hitch a ride with them.
“Remember Scotty?”
“Won’t that nellie queen ruin your scene?” I’d said.
Alex had said, “You just don’t get it, do you? Nobody cares about what kind of friends I have. Everybody knows Scotty. That’s different!”
“What would you do with me around? Find me a beard, too?”
“You’d look like a friend of theirs…. Lang, Nola Leary is a real bitch! This is an unusual situation!”
Then he’d asked about Huguette. I told him she was busy with Cog Wheeler.
Alex had laughed. “You’re traveling in powerful circles, love. Don’t let it go to your head.”
I’d said, “I’m not traveling at all. I’d like to, if you could figure out some way for me to do it!”
“I hear you,” Alex had ended the conversation. “And I love you! Just hang in there awhile longer, okay?”
Nevada strolled out on the deck, nodded at me, and said, “Penner,” then stood a second or so listening to the music.
“That’s a bizarre percussion jam tacked on at the end of this,” he said. “I’m surprised at Cog.”
“Why did he want to talk to you this morning, Uncle Ben?”
“Maybe after an hour he got tired of talking to you,” said Nevada. He sat down at the table, across from me. “I think I’ll buy some telephone stock if this keeps up.”
“What did he want?” Huguette persisted.
“He wants me to come out of retirement.” Plato had followed him from the house with a chew stick in his mouth. He sat by Nevada’s chair gnawing on it.
“Well? What about it?” Huguette said.
“I have to think about it. It wouldn’t be anything permanent. They’re doing a gig at The House of Stars in Boston this August. I opened there twenty-three years ago in August. I got my start there.” He lit a cigarette while we waited for the rest. Blew a smoke ring. Shook his head. “Cog wants me to walk out and do a number with him. Surprise, surprise sort of thing…for sentimental reasons. No advance publicity, no big deal.”
“Oh, Uncle Ben—do it!”
“I don’t know.”
I was watching her. I was thinking how easy she’d made it for me to get back with her: no mention of anything that had happened on my birthday night. No need to talk it into the ground, explain, apologize.
What I’d feared most—her asking me what I’d meant when I’d said that maybe we were more than friends—was just passed over. All of it was.
All of it except that strange pull I felt taking me closer to her: not just in my head, but running up and down my arms when I looked at her, as though the blood in my veins was jumping in time with the fast thumping of my heart.
While she talked with Nevada about Cog Wheeler’s proposition, I scratched Plato’s head and made myself stop watching her. I looked out at the ocean. I thought of Alex’s idea to have me go up to the Cape with Scotty Lund and Maggie. I thought of the day on Roosevelt Island when I’d met them, when I’d said there was no such thing as a bisexual.
“Where the hell is our lunch?” Nevada yelled suddenly.
“I’ll see what Franklin’s up to,” Huguette said, and she left me there with him.
“What do you think, Penner? You think I should come out of my closet?”
“I’m all for that,” I said.
“Out of retirement and back into the fray, just for one night?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“It’d be a change,” said Nevada. “I miss changing. About all I’ve changed lately is my clothes. You, at your age, have all your changes ahead of you. Once they’re behind you, you’re as stuck as a mouse on one of those glue pads we’ve got down in the cellar.”
Aristotle and Socrates came out and joined the party, while Plato trotted off to the other end of the deck, guarding his chew stick.
Nevada leaned forward and spoke in a low, confidential tone. “I think Huguette is beginning to forget her grape picker. Now she knows she can do a lot better than that…. And Cog is a good kid. He doesn’t drink. He’s not on dope.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve made some inquiries. Everyone says he’s clean, a real businessman. He makes the deals, the decisions. He went to Bush, this very fine school in Seattle.” Nevada was in awe of anyone who attended prep school or college, or even someone who took a home-study course in embalming.
He said, “I like his writing. His songs mean something. They remind me of the good writers, the old ones: Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel.” He laughed and added, “Ben Nevada…Of course, I suspect he’s more interested in Huguette than he is in getting me up to Boston
