Page 124 of The Librarians
Jonathan nods again, intensely aware that Ryan is looking at him.
“And you’re handy around the house?”
“I wouldn’t charge for my services but I can take care of the normal stuff.”
“Why haven’t you settled down yet?”
Jonathan’s heart zips around his rib cage, like a pinball hitting all the reflectors on the board. Why is Ryan so interested all of a sudden? “I’ve tried. Dated a couple of techies. They were fine. Just didn’t work out.”
They were coming up on Congress Bridge, famed for its bats, more than a million strong. But despite multiple attempts over multiple decades, Jonathan and his parents never managed to catch a good look at the largest urban bat colony in the world. Every time they took the trouble to come all the way downtown at sunset, the listed time for the bats to begin their nocturnal hunt, the bats emerged only when it was fully dark. Instead of avaguely apocalyptical funnel of winged mammals upon a still bright sky, they witnessed the merest wisps of shadows against the deepening night.
Ryan doesn’t make any comments on Jonathan’s lack of romantic success but guides Jonathan off the road to the hike-and-bike path that rings Town Lake.
The trees are turning colors, gold and red against determined evergreens. The sun, squatting toward the horizon, casts long, leafy shadows.
“You haven’t made much of an effort to settle down either, have you?” Jonathan ventures to ask.
They are walking past an upscale hotel, with terraces full of guests enjoying an afternoon beverage. Ryan hops onto a huge round lounger that’s been placed near the trail and pats the seat, inviting Jonathan to join him.
The steel-framed lounger can accommodate three, possibly four, relatively slender individuals. Jonathan gets on, feeling tentative. Feeling too close to Ryan, though there’s still a good eighteen inches between them. Ryan leans back against a pile of throw pillows, but Jonathan sits cross-legged—even the half-reclined position feels too intimate.
He’s been trying to get closer to Ryan for what feels like a geological era, yet here he is, jumpy and scared at the first hint of greater proximity.
Ryan glances at him. “To answer your question, I came out to my mom when I was fifteen. I told her that I liked boys the way most boys liked girls. She didn’t cry or get angry, she was just flabbergasted. The next day, she asked me very seriously, and in exactly so many words, whether I’d have many liaisons but never settle down.”
He shrugs. “That was what? Twenty-three years ago?Brokeback Mountainhadn’t even come out yet. I was a kid in the suburbs. I knew what I was, but I had no idea what kind of life I’d have—or be allowed to have.
“Most likely I’d have had ‘many liaisons’ even if my mom had never said anything. But she did and I’ve always felt somewhat ashamed about those ‘liaisons.’ Once in a while I turn into Mr. Ready-to-settle-down.”
“I see,” says Jonathan.
So whatever impetus Ryan feels toward monogamy—or even serial monogamy—is predicated on placating the ghost of maternal disappointment.
Ryan shrugs into his varsity jacket—it’s chillier in the shade. “There’s something else I want to tell you.”
Jonathan wishes he had a pair of AirPods on full blast. What Ryan just told him doesn’t make him feel all that great. In fact, there’s a heavy stone where his stomach used to be.
He braces himself. “Yeah?”
“Do you remember your apology?”
Jonathan feels broadsided. The apology that he’s spent half of his life crafting…“Please don’t think I wasn’t sincere because I happened to be serving as Hazel’s lookout—”
“Of course not.” Ryan, who flopped down on the throw pillows after putting on his jacket, sits up straight again. “I believe in your sincerity. You’re not a flippant person, like I can be.”
Jonathan doesn’t consider Ryan flippant. It’s more that Ryan excels at appearing cool and carefree, leaving Jonathan unsure as to what he truly thinks and feels.
The Ryan sitting across from him, however, looks rueful, even hesitant. “Do you recall that after you apologized, I said I didn’t remember being mistreated, that I had a good time at that pool party?”
Jonathan nods tightly. Different individuals recalling common experiences differently is to be expected, but their diametrically opposite recollections unsettle him.
“Do you remember Davoud Asadi?”
Jonathan heard that name on the night of the reunion. What was the context again? Maryam also mentioned him when Jonathan asked her on Zoom what she might know about Detective Hagerty’s investigation. Davoud Asadi, Maryam’s second cousin, was in their class. Jonathan has a vague memory of a shortish kid with chubby cheeks and a thick neck—and nothing more.
“He and I were”—Ryan’s fingertips scratch against the weatherproof material of the large round cushion under them—“we were a thing half of junior year and all of senior year.”
Jonathan more or less expected that, but it still fazes him. “Okay…”
