In Between Days Page 2

  Tonight, he reads slowly, quietly, the words of his poem overshadowed by the violence of the storm outside. The others seem distracted, more interested in the splitting thunder and the sudden streaks of lightning flashing across the lawn. But Dr. Michelson remains poised, his eyes focused on Richard, his head nodding each time that Richard looks up from his poem. When Richard finally finishes, Dr. Michelson looks at him and smiles.

  “Thank you, Richard,” he says. Then he turns to the group. “Any suggestions?”

  The others are quiet, unsure of what to say. Normally a very vocal and spirited group, they are typically quiet whenever Richard reads. Maybe it’s the fear of dissent, the fear of disagreeing with Dr. Michelson, or maybe it’s just the fact that they’ve grown exhausted over time with the inevitable praise that always follows.

  Finally, Eric Stevenson speaks up. “I thought it was kind of long at the end. You know, like it kept going on and on, repeating itself.”

  “You’d suggest condensing?” Dr. Michelson breaks in. Then he looks at the others. “What do the rest of you think?”

  “I kind of agree with that,” says another boy, very timidly, looking away as soon as he says it.

  Michelson looks up at the boy. “Really?”

  “Well, yeah,” he says. “I guess.”

  A few other people chime in quietly, agreeing with Eric. Richard stares down at the poem he has written, a poem about his mother and father’s recent divorce, a poem that he has to admit is probably a little long. After a while, the others begin to bring up other things. The clichéd imagery in the second stanza, the overly sentimental language at the end of the poem, the somewhat-oblique references to things that have happened in the parents’ marriage.

  Finally, Dr. Michelson breaks in, praising the group for their thorough critique, but also explaining that while their points are all fair, what they seem to have overlooked is the utter simplicity of the writing. The simple beauty of it, that is. The emotional honesty. He goes on for a while longer, but Richard zones him out. He has grown wary of this type of praise, these types of compliments. He no longer knows whether or not to believe them. The poem was something he had worked on for days, labored over, but in the end, what did it really mean? Even he couldn’t say. He wonders sometimes whether any of this is even relevant, whether anyone but the person who has written the poem can actually say what it means. And if the person who has written the poem doesn’t know what it means, then is the poem even valid? He looks down at his hands, unable to meet Michelson’s eyes, even as he explains to the group that what they’re looking at here is real poetry.

  When Dr. Michelson finally finishes, the group adjourns to the kitchen, where Mrs. Michelson is waiting with a small tray of drinks. Margaritas tonight, she says to the boys and then winks. The boys circle in around her, thanking her profusely. Then a few of them head out to the yard. Normally, after one of these biweekly workshops, they all go out to the pool to swim. They swim there until eight or nine, drinking whatever Mrs. Michelson brings them, before heading off to the bar. But tonight they just stand there cautiously beneath the small overhang in the roof, watching the rain as it comes down in violent waves, the lightning as it crackles at the edge of the lawn.

  After a while, one of the boys starts off toward the pool. It’s Eric Stevenson, the one who didn’t like Richard’s poem, and as he does this, the others begin to cheer. He stands there for a moment at the edge of the pool, then pulls off his clothes and jumps in. A few of the others begin to follow, stripping down to their briefs, before Mrs. Michelson catches wind of what’s going on and comes over to the door. Better come in, boys! she yells. I don’t think it’s safe. But before she can finish, the rest of the boys jump in, and the cause is lost. Dr. Michelson, who has just returned from his study, comes up to the door and laughs, perhaps a little too loudly, then takes a drink from his wife’s hand and shepherds her away from the door.

  “Let them play,” he says. “They’re young.”

  “It’s dangerous,” she says. “The lightning.”

  But Dr. Michelson just shakes his head and laughs. “Haven’t you ever swum in the rain before?” he says, and then pats his wife’s hand. “I know for a fact you have.”

  His wife looks at him but doesn’t answer.

  A moment later, Dr. Michelson turns on the pool lights, and the pool glows. A bright electric blue. The boys, all of them half naked, swim for Dr. Michelson’s pleasure.

  Richard moves across the room toward a small group of boys in the corner, trying to avert his gaze from Dr. Michelson. He knows that at some point Dr. Michelson will want to corner him, will want to tell him again how brilliant his poem is or remind him again about the application deadlines for summer fellowships. Lately, he has been talking to Richard about graduate programs in creative writing, something that Richard has little interest in.

  As he approaches the boys, Richard can hear them talking about how crazy this all is, swimming around in the rain—not to mention in a lightning storm—how someone is probably going to die out there. At the far end of the pool he can see his friend Brandon O’Leary splashing about, waving to him. Richard waves back, then starts toward the door, trying purposely to avoid Dr. Michelson’s gaze. He stands for a moment beneath the small overhang in the roof, waiting for Brandon, and when Brandon finally approaches, he smiles.

  “Why don’t you come in?” Brandon says, his body glistening and tan.

  “Can’t,” Richard says. “Gotta pick up my sister from the airport.”

  “Chloe?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What’s up?” he says, smiling.

  “Long story,” Richard says. “I don’t really understand it myself.”

  Brandon nods. “Well, you gotta come out later, okay? To Limelight.”

  Limelight. One of the newer gay clubs in the city, a poor excuse for a club, really. More of a bar than a club. A meat market. “There’s someone I want you to meet,” Brandon adds.

  “A job?”

  “No, not a job. A friend.”

  Recently, the only people Brandon has wanted to introduce him to have been jobs, what Brandon calls johns. Overworked businessmen looking for a hand job in the back of their BMWs. Men wanting to believe that they’re only taking a little recreational vacation from their wives, a little break, relieving stress. That this has become Richard’s life is a little perplexing, even to him. The son of a prominent Houston architect hanging out with a boy who gives out hand jobs for fifty bucks a pop in the backseat of some ophthalmologist’s car. It sickened him the first time Brandon told him about it, amused him the second. But now it simply seems routine. Something Brandon does two or three times a month to supplement his income, his measly paycheck from Café Brasil.

  “Who’s this friend?” Richard asks.

  “A guy I met. I think you’ll like him.”

  “I’m not looking for anything serious.”

  “Dude, believe me, this guy isn’t serious. In fact, he’s the total opposite of serious.”

  Richard nods. “I’m not looking for anything, really.”

  “What do you mean?”

  But Richard doesn’t answer. “What did you think of my poem?”

  “I liked it.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Well, no. I mean, it was sad. And I agree with Eric, it was maybe a little long. But it was good. I mean, all of your stuff is good. Michelson practically creamed himself.”

  Richard shrugs this off. “I don’t know,” he says. “Lately, I don’t know what any of this stuff I’ve been writing means.”

  “You’re getting better,” Brandon says.

  “You think?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Definitely.”

  And then a moment later, there’s a shout from the pool, and a group of the boys begins to beckon Brandon to come back in and join them.

  “Better go back,” he says. “Call me on my cell, okay?”

  “Okay,” Richard says, and then, as Bra
ndon is turning around to go back to the pool, he yells, “Hey! What’s his name?”

  “Who?”

  “Your friend.”

  Brandon smiles. “Beto,” he says. Then he turns around and does a sort of sideways dive into the pool.

  When Richard returns to the kitchen, Michelson is waiting, drink in hand. Richard explains that he has to leave, and Michelson says he’ll walk him to the door.

  “I was talking to some friends of mine,” Michelson says as they move through the hallway. “One at Cornell, one at Michigan. I was telling them about you.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “They said that if you still wanted to apply, then you should go ahead and send your application directly to them. That way you’d be sure to get a fair read.”

  Richard nods again.

  “Are you still thinking about applying, Richard?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Well, yeah, I don’t know.” He pauses. “I mean most of those places are pretty hard to get into, you know, and also I’m a little strapped for cash these days. It’s not really such a good time for me.”

  “It’s never a good time,” Michelson says. “But you’re still young, you know. The older you get, the harder it becomes to do something like this.”

  Richard nods again. Then Michelson smiles and puts his hand on Richard’s shoulder, massaging it lightly. For some time now, Richard has suspected that Michelson knows about him, about him and Brandon, and about some of the other boys in the group. At least half of them are gay, a fact that surely couldn’t have escaped Michelson himself, though he never mentions it, never even brings it up, except in reference to their poems. Perhaps this is what years of being closeted has done to him, years of going out to cocktail parties with his wife at the dean’s house. That poor, lovely woman, Richard thinks. How could she have endured it for so long? How could she have put up with this man for so many years?

  At the edge of the hallway, Michelson slows down and stares at him. “I feel like I’m losing you, Richard.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I feel like something’s changed.”

  “Nothing’s changed,” Richard says. “I’m just really busy right now, that’s all.”

  Michelson nods.

  “With work and stuff.”

  Michelson moves toward the doorway, and Richard suddenly feels bad, guilty for not explaining to this man what he can barely explain to himself. That ever since his parents’ divorce, he can hardly bring himself to care about anything. Not work, not poetry, not graduate school. Not even the tiny apartment he shares with a few other boys from his year.

  “Well, if you’re interested,” Michelson continues, opening the door now and letting the rain into the hall. “I have a friend coming into town next week. A minor poet who’s actually pretty good. I think you’d like him.”

  Richard nods.

  “Just let me know if you’d like to meet him and I can arrange for the three of us to have dinner together.”

  Richard nods, considers this, wonders about Michelson’s deeper motives. “I’ll check my schedule,” he says. “When did you say it was again?”

  “Wednesday,” he says. “Wednesday night. There’ll be a reading, of course, and then, if you’d like, we can all have dinner.”

  “Wednesday,” Richard says, pretending to ponder this, pretending he’s actually considering it. “Okay,” he nods. Then he gives Michelson his hand, which Michelson holds a beat too long, says good-bye, and takes off through the rain, jumping over the puddles on his way to his mother’s minivan.

  3

  EARLIER THAT DAY, before the sun came up, Raja had come to her dorm room and let himself in with the key she had given him. He had lain down beside her and put his arms around her and squeezed her tightly. He had been up half the night talking with the police, then his lawyer, then his parents. Technically, he was not allowed to be on the campus anymore, but he no longer cared. What else could they possibly do to him? he often reasoned. What else could they possibly do that hadn’t already been done?

  It was still unclear what would happen to him, or to her, what the charges would be, but that morning he had come into her dorm room and said that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It was her last day, after all, and what he wanted to do now was make love to her, then take her out for breakfast, then drive her up to the airport in Boston. It would be a month, possibly two, before they saw each other again, and he didn’t want to spend their last day together worrying about it. She had finally relented, agreeing not to talk about it, though it was hard for her to think of anything else. When he’d made love to her, she’d cried, and then afterward, she had sat there at her window and stared out at the empty quad, at the freshly fallen snow and the purple sky above it. In the corner, Raja had dressed quietly, then come over to her and sat beside her on the bed. He had squeezed her so tightly that she was sure he’d broken a rib, or maybe something else, something that would leave a permanent trace of him.

  “I don’t want you to talk about this with your parents,” he’d said finally.

  “I already have.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I don’t want you to say anything that you haven’t already said.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t,” he’d said. “It’ll be better that way.”

  “For who?”

  “For both of us.”

  She’d nodded, though it bothered her how surreptitious he’d become, how guarded. Earlier that week, he had come over to her dorm room and demanded that she show him all of her e-mails, even the personal ones from friends. Then he’d made her delete each and every one, even though she’d made a promise to him long before that she would never talk about this stuff with anyone. Deleting the e-mails from him had been the hardest. It was like erasing a part of her life, a part of her past. Suddenly, aside from the few tiny letters she’d kept hidden at the back of her desk, there was no evidence, no sign at all, that she’d ever actually known him.

  Later, on the way to the airport, they stopped at a diner for breakfast, and then afterward they’d driven the rest of the way to Boston in silence. When he dropped her off at the airport, he’d been quiet, evasive, just like he’d been on the way up. He’d helped her with her bags; then he’d stood there and hugged her tightly, though he hadn’t cried. She had wanted him to cry. She had wanted him to show some sign of remorse, some sign of contrition for what he’d dragged her into, or, at the very least, some sign that he would miss her. But that was not his style. Instead what he’d done was patted her on the head and kissed her. Then he’d said, “It’s gonna be okay.”

  “I wish I believed you.”

  “It will be,” he said. “I promise.”

  “Do you have enough money to get back home?” she’d said. “I mean, for gas?” He almost never had enough money for anything.

  He looked at her and shrugged. “I’ll manage,” he said.

  “What if I never see you again?” she said. The thought of this had never even occurred to her before that moment.

  “Then that would be a miracle,” he’d said. “Or a tragedy.” Then he’d started to laugh. “Or both.”

  Now, as she stands outside the empty baggage claim at Houston International, she wonders how long it will be before she sees him again. How long it will be before she hears his voice. Raja had been the first and only boy she’d ever loved. Before him, there had been Aiden Bell, and before Aiden, there had been Dustin O’Keefe, but neither of those boys had held a candle to Raja. It was only with Raja that she felt herself. It was only in his presence that she understood what women meant when they talked about love in magazines and books. There was a coolness about him, a detachment, that seemed to attract other people. He had more friends than she had ever had, and yet he never seemed to make the slightest effort to get to know them. They simply showed up at his room at all hours of the night, wanting to talk about books or politics or movies or wan
ting to tell him about the problems in their lives. That he’d chosen her as his girlfriend had been a miracle. He could have been with any woman he’d wanted to, practically. Any Indian woman, for sure. And yet, he’d chosen her, a suburban white girl from the South, his Indian parents’ worst nightmare. On their first date together, he had taken her to Tommy’s, the local hamburger joint off campus, and over chili fries and beer, he had told her about his life in Pakistan, then India. How they’d moved around a lot. How they’d never had enough money. How he’d shared a room with his brother and sister. He talked a lot about his father’s jobs, most of which were part-time jobs in the pharmaceutical industry, and how he’d usually get laid off or canned just as Raja was making friends. They were always moving, Raja said, but certain things remained the same, remained constant. His mother’s cooking, for example, the rich tandoori and vegetable curries she made, the flaky parathta and roti that she baked in a coal-fired oven. The way he talked about his mother’s cooking made her feel guilty for wanting to eat the chili-cheese fries at Tommy’s, for devouring them so quickly.

  When he’d finally finished, she’d asked him if he thought he’d ever go back.

  “To visit, sure,” he’d said. “But not to live.”

  “Why not?”

  He’d thought about this for a moment. Then he’d said, very earnestly, “That place is dead to me now.”

  She’d asked him what he meant by that, but he hadn’t answered. Instead, he’d taken her hand and reached for the bill. “Would you like to see my room?” he’d asked.

  • • •

  Outside the baggage claim at Houston International, the rain is coming down thickly now, blurring her view. In the distance, she can see a long row of lights, headlights from the cars moving up along the thruway. She tries to imagine Raja’s face, his lips, tries to picture him just as he looked that night at Tommy’s, that first night they kissed, but as soon as she sees his features, as soon as she pictures his face, the image is gone, broken up by the sound of her cell phone ringing. She reaches into her purse and grabs the phone, and a moment later she hears her brother’s voice on the other end.