Page 40 of On Fire Island

When the song ended, we couldn’t even wait for the check. He threw down all the cash in his wallet, more than enough, and we jumped in a cab—madly kissing the entire way to my apartment. I swatted his hands off me in the lobby—embarrassed by the watchful eye of my doorman, Jermaine, who had made it his personal business to screen my dates since I had moved into the studio apartment downtown. Jermaine would go as far as signaling his approval or disapproval when buzzing up a guy with cryptic weather-themed messages that had no correlation to the actual conditions outside.

“It’s a beautiful night tonight, Julia,” for someone who met his approval, even in the dead of winter, or “Big storm coming, don’t forget an umbrella,” during a drought in May, for someone who did not.

I kept my distance in the elevator too—cameras—but barelymade it down the hall without ripping his clothes off. I dumped out my bag on the carpet, searching for my keys, and kicked my belongings into the apartment as I opened the door. We made love for the very first time on the floor of my studio, scarcely making it inside. It was quick, hot, and desperate—not at all like Erin O’Malley and Patrick O’Reilly on the fields of Tipperary. That came later when we finally made it the ten feet over to my Murphy bed. It remained open for the entirety of the weekend.

And “Be My Baby” became our song.

Ever since, the tune always got him up from his seat, whether from the stereo in our living room or on our honeymoon in Rome, when we randomly heard it performed by a group of street musicians on the Spanish Steps. We stood and danced around the Piazza di Spagna, our hearts beating along to its famous drumbeat.

BUMP bump-bump bump, BUMP bump-bump bump.

Ben pulled his sunglasses down and wiped his eyes. I sunk into the sand next to him, concerned. I hoped that one day he would smile again when he heard our song, smile at the memory of us dancing to it, but that day was surely not today. I was pretty certain it wouldn’t be tomorrow or the next day either.

“Are you using the sunblock from last summer? You should check if it’s expired,” I said, noticing that the redness of his eyes matched his sunburned cheeks.

He pressed Play again. This time a pained, almost guttural sigh escaped his lips, overriding theBUMP bump-bump bumpof the music.

“This is not productive,” I added.

I can’t express how badly I did not want to have the sound of that song eternally marred by this memory. I closed my eyes and thought back to happy times we had heard it together. When I opened them, Shep was setting up his chair next to Ben’s.

I loved this man more and more each day.

“What up, son?” he asked, always adding a hint of humor, this time in the form of his youthful greeting. “Did you get up at the crack of dawn to come down here to cry?”

I wondered the same thing. He had little privacy back at the house. He seemed to make a big point of crying in the shower. Not a terrible place to let it out, all things considered.

“What’s it to you?”

Boy, he was in a mood.

“Just asking.”

Shep waited a bit before saying, “You’re gonna have to get into some sort of routine, you know.”

“I have a routine,” Ben insisted.

“Waking up and suffering does not constitute a routine.”

Ben shook his head, thought for a bit, and then threw Shep a bone. “It does seem like you’re way better than I am.”

“Well, I have a few months on you, and besides, I’m mourning Caroline and what was, while you’re mourning Julia, what was, and what should have been.”

“I feel like I have nothing, nothing. What do I have?”

“Well, for one thing, you have a magnificent head of hair!” Shep ruffled his hands through it.

Ben didn’t find it amusing.

“Saw Joel this morning, he said that Goldilocks fellow broke in to his house last night. Made pancakes.”

“Hm. Any damage?”

“No. But he used up all their syrup.”

Ben didn’t even crack a smile.

They both looked east to see a famously annoying couple, the Kerchaikens, on their daily exercise walk. The Kerchaikens weren’t ballplayers or tennis players. They were a paunchy, ratherboring pair who walked, or more aptly strolled, all twelve blocks from one end of town to the other under the guise of exercise. My kind side would say “to each his own,” but they acted like they were marathon runners on account of it. Aside from that, Shep held on to an old grudge with Mr.Kerchaiken with the vengeance of Taylor Swift after a breakup.

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