“Probably both,” I said.
“Before the Rochans changed her name, she was called Phoenix…after the bird that rises from the ashes. Cali must have felt that everything she did before the baby was destructive. I couldn’t help Cali. Her sister said as much; no one could help Cali…but now I can do something for this child, and it’s my only agenda. The Boston thing is just icing on the cake.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
IN THE WEEKS THAT followed, I was as much at home in Roundelay as I was down in the caretaker’s cottage. I no longer needed an invitation to go up there. I tooted around in the Aurora whenever I felt like it. I was integrated into Nevada’s life—a house dog with a pet name.
It seemed as though I spent all my free time up there. Or I drove into East Hampton with Huguette, waited while she phoned Martin, and after listened to her agonize about all the attention from Cog: his nightly calls, his gifts of flowers, candy, and balloons.
If my mother noticed what was happening to me, she didn’t question me about it. I think, like Nevada, who began to believe he had turned Huguette down another path, my mother clung to the hope that Huguette was making me forget Alex, and that Mom had been right all along to tell me it was too soon for me to decide that I was gay.
I was in another world at Roundelay, and Alex was firmly entrenched in his world: the theater. He’d never managed to get that room miles from the boarding-house they all lived in. He said that up there, in season, there weren’t any rooms he could afford. And anyway, he said, he would be back in New York in six weeks.
The reviews had been excellent. He’d been singled out as a new young actor to watch. So had Nora Leary. They were getting along okay. He was afraid to rock the boat, so less and less did we talk about seeing each other in August. I wasn’t pushing it myself anymore. I sometimes wondered if it was because I knew that summer would be all I’d have of Huguette, that I had never known anyone like her and probably never would again.
Boston may have been only “icing on the cake,” as Nevada had put it, but it took precedence over everything. When Nevada wasn’t trying out new material on us, he was studying the performers on MTV as though he was taking a crash course in today’s rock. He would rage against most of what he saw, criticize and complain, but behind it all we knew he was afraid he would not be well received. Sometimes he said as much, calling himself an “old dinosaur,” and the gig “a suicide run.”
One hot day near the end of July, Huguette and I took a picnic down to Main Beach. Roundelay was filled with Nevada’s arranger, his agent, his tailor, and various advisors helping him plan his appearance at The House of Stars. We wanted to get away from all the activity. She’d never hung out at Main Beach, which was crowded with kids our age: swimming, surfing, playing volleyball.
We walked down a little distance from all that, put up an umbrella, and spread a blanket on the sand.
Cog had called that morning. He said he’d written a song called “You Get Nothing.” He was going to try it out in Boston, the same night Nevada would appear with him. Huguette couldn’t stop talking about it.
“I’m a bit dazzled by him, aren’t I, Lang?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever feel that way? Feel so happy just having someone new in your life?”
“Yes.”
“I know it’s hard for you to talk about things.”
It never used to be. But it was hard for me to talk about being “a bit dazzled” when she was the one dazzling me.
I said, “And you feel guilty, too.” I did. Not just because Alex had no idea how close I’d become to her, but also because for the first time I felt in sync with the ones who’d taken the road most traveled by. I was in disguise as a straight, basking in all the warmth of a world welcoming us with open arms. Huguette and I looked like a couple. Not only was I passing, I was having a good time doing it.
Huguette said, “I don’t feel guilty. Martin is still the only one for me. Were there others before Alex?”
“No. I had crushes on guys. I never did anything about them. Alex is my first.”
“Your first what?”
“Love.”
“Finally you say it. Good…I know it’s different for you. You probably can’t talk to everyone about it. But I hope you can talk to me.”
“I can. Do you think Cog has other girlfriends?”
“He says he doesn’t have time.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Why would he lie to me?”
“Does he know about Martin?”
“He’s very jealous of Martin. He says I’m the kind of girl he could fall in love with.”
“I bet Martin doesn’t know about Cog.”
“He does so. But he’s not a jealous type. He tells me that this trip is good for me. This morning he asked me if I’d ever thought of going to school here, and he said that if I did, he’d understand. I told him: Don’t be too understanding or I’ll think you don’t love me enough…. But that’s Martin. I think he worries some that I haven’t seen enough of the world.”
I moved out of the sun under the umbrella. She asked me if I wanted her to put some Bain de Soleil on my back. I nodded and felt her hands cool against my skin, kneading my shoulders.
I finally worked up the courage to ask her what I’d been wanting to ask her for weeks. “How far did this thing go with you and Cog? Did you—” I was fumbling for a delicate way to pose the question.
“Did I what?”
“Sleep with him?”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t get much sleep, I don’t think.”
She put the cap back on
