Page 76 of Fade Out
“Scott broke up with me.”
“Okay.”
“Fuck you.”
‘Okay’ must have sounded a lot like ‘I told you so.’
“What happened?”
“He called me a slut.”
“Why did he do that?”
“Because I am one.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“What do you know? You’re a slut too.”
“Is there a reason this is important to Scott?”
Terry was quiet. He shrugged a shoulder. “I kind of told him I was a virgin.”
It seemed odd to me that it had taken Scott this long to figure out Terry wasn’t a virgin. Then Terry explained it. “He was going slow, trying to work me into things. You know, cause I didn’t have much experience. I lost my patience and, you know, he figured it out.”
“Is he mad because you’re not a virgin? Or is he mad because you lied to him?”
“What difference does that make?” Terry asked, looking slightly appalled. Fitz, my not exactly one-night stand came to mind. He and his friends not having sex with anyone over thirty to avoid AIDS. It didn’t work, but this was how people were now making decisions. Maybe that’s why it mattered to Scott.
I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to say to the kid. This is what life was like, things didn’t turn out the way you hoped. People you thought were great turned out not to be so great. And that didn’t happen just once. It happened all the time. Over and over.
No, that was the last thing he needed to hear. He needed to hear that Scott was a jerk and that the world was full of people who weren’t jerks. He’d just been unlucky enough to find one. One of the few. I stood there wishing I could say that, wishing I was a better liar.
Franklin came out of the bedroom and walked into the dining room. “Isn’t Brian back?”
“Not yet.”
“It’s been forty minutes,” he said.
“Has it?”
I must have taken a very long shower. Not surprising, I guess, I had really enjoyed it. The Treasure Island was a five-minute walk, so ten minutes back and forth. And he only had to get a few things. He would have been in the store fifteen, twenty minutes tops. Franklin was right, he should have been back already.
“Maybe he ran into someone,” I suggested.
“Maybe.”
Faced with the prospect of staying there with a depressed Terry and a nervous Franklin, I said, “I’ll walk over. Maybe he needs some help with the bags.”
“Okay,” Franklin said, the beginning of worry on his face.
I went back to the guest room. It was cloudy out and the day was unseasonably cool. Barely even seventy. I threw on my jean jacket and grabbed my keys off the dresser.
“Make sure he remembered the pop,” Franklin said as I left the apartment.
On the street, the clouds hung overhead like dingy cotton balls. It was sometime in the afternoon, three, four, I wasn’t sure. It had already been a very long day. I was sure I’d find Brian easily. He’d probably just gotten involved with shopping and lost track of time. I walked down Aldine to Broadway.
There seemed to be more people on the street than usual. Men mostly, wearing shorts cut high on the thigh, white high-top Reeboks and expensive T-shirts made with as little material as possible. I could hear music in the distance, “I Will Survive.” I remembered there was a street fair on Halsted. I’d gone with Harker a few years back. They closed the street and people walked up and down, listening to music, drinking, eating, buying things.
