The next week was very busy for both Evan and Craig, and most nights they simply got into bed, exhausted from heat and stress, too tired to do anything but cuddle.
On the Friday he was going to leave for Laguna, Evan left very early in the morning, kissing a sleepy Craig goodbye before getting in his cruiser and heading downtown.
It was 6:00, and for an hour or so the cool dawn held back the heat. He turned on the radio to listen to the news. All anyone talked about was the threat of more fire. There was no remote chance of rain—the only thing to hope for was that the Santa Anas wouldn't pick up again.
At the major intersection of Sunset and Fairfax he drew up to a red light, and there was Craig's billboard, in full glory. It was huge. It stood out even among all the other garish signs crowding every available point of view. He'd passed it several times on the way in the past week, and it had always made him smile. There was his boyfriend, floating on a cloud, surrounded by a bevy of gorgeous hunks. Craig looked stunningly beautiful and so seductive. Even disregarding their relationship, Evan thought how powerful a photo it really was, entirely because of Craig. This model wasn't trying to sell you anything, or project an image of unattainable happiness. He looked almost pained, full of longing and desire—all the qualities that had made Evan fall in love with him.
The traffic light lasted longer than usual, and Evan just sat and stared at "Mr. Los Angeles." He was. He was an image of the world around him—a city so soft, vulnerable, and open, so sprawling and huge but so intimate and tender at the same time.
And yet even now the fires were beginning to smolder again under the rising sun.
The light changed, and he drove on.
+++
As Evan headed down to Laguna after a long day of work, Craig was just leaving the Paramount lot on Melrose Avenue late that afternoon. He was stressed.
He cranked up the AC in his Porsche and drove as he replayed the conversation he had just finished in his head, over and over.
"Well, Craig, I can't tell you how impressed I am. Very very impressed with the work you've done here."
"Thanks, Mandy. So what's the next step?"
"From my end, it's a go. I have to run this past my boss, of course, but I don't see any problem."
"Ok, so that's . . . good?"
"Craig, it's good. It's VERY good. Why don't you set up a conference call, um . . . next Thursday, with Sony and Universal. You should have your own legal representation there, too. And we can iron out the details then."
"Well, if the city doesn't burn down in the meantime."
"What? Oh, we've never let a little thing like a natural disaster get in the way of doing business in this town. Uh, Craig, let me ask you. You do know what this means, right? I mean, for you?"
"You're talking about my cut."
"Yes. It is going to be substantial. Quite substantial. That, plus being the one to broker this. It's really going to make you a name in this town. I can guarantee your life is going to change. Coming into that can be overwhelming, even for you. I've seen it do terrible things to people. You should think about it, if this is what you really want."
"I have thought about that. And, well, here I am."
"Alright then. Let me be the first to say—unofficially, off the record—congratulations. It has truly been a pleasure."
Driving away, Craig knew he should have been happy, but he wasn't. His stomach felt queasy, he felt this strange buzzing in his head, and he realized he did not want to go home—not to his house, tonight, alone.
He had told himself, sworn to himself, that if this deal worked out, he was going to sever ties with his dad, once and for all. And now he felt his mind being torn into different directions, like it was splitting into several different pieces.
Part of him was saying, "You didn't really mean it. You don't have to do anything. It's not a big deal. This doesn't have anything to do with your dad. You can still go see him."
Another part was racked with guilt, saying, "It's now or never! If you don't make the break now, you never will. You have to! If you don't you're just a weak, spineless, stupid coward!"
Deep inside, another part was comparing this meeting to the last one he'd had with his father, and seeing in stark contrast the blatant evidence of his success and acceptance against his father's total dismissal of him. But as soon as Craig gave in to feelings of finally being
worth
something, on his own, he went in the other direction and attacked himself for being self-deluded. His instinctive need for self-protection was battling with genuine happiness and it was cranking up the stress inside to the boiling point.
This
he recognized. He'd talked about this battle inside himself many times with therapists, whenever something good happened to him, but it didn't help him the least bit right now.
The only thing he knew could truly help him at this moment was to feel Evan's strong arms around him. But he wasn't here.
Craig tried; he really tried to hang onto his trust in their newly-expressed love, but his world seemed to be crashing down around him, and now all he could think was Why hadn't Evan asked him to join him? Why hadn't he insisted? Was he ashamed of him, despite saying he wasn't? It didn't matter that it made no sense; he was here working. It was never a question if he'd join him with his family. But the self-doubt crept in, licking around his security in their relationship like tiny tongues of flame.
He began to drive. Just drive—aimlessly, stupidly, mindlessly. Down Melrose, then Fairfax, then Pico, a right on Wilshire, then down to 18th street in Santa Monica and towards the ocean. As he drove, he gazed at all the normal people in their little stucco houses. He saw fathers pulling into driveways getting back from work; stay-at-home moms pushing their kids in strollers; teenagers playing basketball; girls in tight yoga pants coming back from the gym. Normal, happy life, unrolling in front of his eyes like a movie, or a waking dream.
He'd always been so alone! In his heart, in his dreams. And now he had achieved it all—the success he'd always wanted. He'd made a name for himself, but he feared it was only going to cut him off and make him even more isolated.
He drove and drove and drove like a lost man. At one point he stopped at a 7-11 and bought a pint of Ben & Jerry's and a box of powdered doughnuts and ate them as he continued to drive. He drove through LA, up and down, getting on and off the freeway, for hours, until he felt sick. At last, barely even knowing what he was doing or where he was going, he found himself pulling into a driveway in West Hollywood. He knew he'd been here before but he didn't recall who he had come to see.
He shook his head, and seemed to suddenly wake up, as if he had just lost four hours of his life. With a huge feeling of relief, he realized he had somehow driven himself to Larry's house. Larry. Thank god. Not Jason. Ok. He began to calm down, saying, "I'm at Larry's. A friend. Larry's a friend."
At that moment he heard Larry's loud, sarcastic voice.
"Oh, he's alive! Come to see us at last. Where the hell have you been, Craigy?"
Larry. Troy. Several other guys he recognized. Walking towards him, down the driveway. Craig smoothed his hair in the mirror, put on some shades and stepped out of his car, smiling, and held out his arms.
"Hey guys! Where's the party?"
+++
That same night, Evan found himself alone in the ICU of the Cardiac Wing of the Laguna hospital, keeping watch over his dad. After a long day and night, his mother and sister and her family had gone home to shower and change their clothes, at Evan's insistence.
His dad had gone in for a routine operation, or so he thought, while he was still at work. But when he arrived at the hospital, expecting to find him sleeping or up in bed, he ran into total chaos—his mom and sister hysterical, doctors running around, nephews and nieces crying. Apparently there had been some complication, and he was still on the operating table, undergoing open heart surgery. The doctors could only say it was very serious, and it was going to be touch and go for a while. So Evan, all thoughts of Craig pushed out of his mind, went into comfort mode for his female relations. He had to be strong, for them. He held his mother and talked his sister out of a fit as they sat and waited, and waited. His dad was in there for hours, with no word from the doctors.
At last, an exhausted surgeon, his scrubs soaked in sweat, came out to see them.
Captain Malone was ok, if very shaky. They'd had to go in and do a quadruple bypass. His heart had stopped more than once, but he had eventually stabilized. His pressure was good, his breathing normal.
"I don't want to lie to you, Mrs. Malone, if we hadn't caught this now, your husband would have had a massive heart attack in the next couple of weeks. But we did. Sometimes these kinds of things, you just can't see until something bad happens. It's a damn good thing you brought him in a few weeks ago. A damn lucky thing."
"But it's going to be real rough over the next few weeks. He's not out of the woods, yet."
At this Evan's mom threw herself in Evan's arms and sobbed into his neck.
"Shh, mom, it's ok. He's going to be alright."
But Evan sounded a lot more sure of it than he actually was, and when, finally, everyone had gone home and he was alone, he sat down at his dad's bedside petrified in fear. His dad looked terrible. He had tubes coming out of his mouth hooked up to IVs and machines. His chest was bandaged and tightly bound. He looked 15 years older and so fragile and weak it scared Evan to death.
He was mortified. Paralyzed. Unable to think or breathe. He had to stifle the urge to vomit, so violently did his mind want to reject the image before him. The sight of his father's chest made his own burst into pain, so overwhelming he thought he would pass out. It didn't stop aching the whole time he was in the room. The idiotic hospital clock was ticking so loudly, as if life and time was going on as normal, and nothing was normal. Nothing would ever be normal again!
He held his father's weak, lifeless hand as tears welled up in his eyes. He was utterly unprepared for the emotions breaking open in his body, which had been muffled until the moment he was alone. But now it was so quiet, the only sounds his father's slow, labored breath and the ticking of the damn clock. He looked dead. Even if he survived this, Evan knew looking at him that the strong, vibrant man he'd always known as his father was gone forever. He looked as weak and vulnerable as a baby.
Evan continued to hold his hand as he struggled to get a grip on himself. He clenched his teeth together and focused on his breathing, otherwise he felt any second he was going to scream or have a fit.
But he realized this wasn't just about his dad. It was Craig, and everything that had happened in the last two months.
The emotions, the raw, primitive, true emotions, were swirling and churning and boiling inside him, beyond words, beyond understanding. Happiness, amazement, fear, and love, above all love, hitting him like a tidal wave. For Craig, for his father. What a bunch of lies he'd been living his whole life! He did not know himself, he never had. His love for his father burned its way up through his heart, as searing and powerful as the desert, as deep as the ocean. It burst over him now, at this moment, at his bedside, their history forgotten, swallowed up in the tender memories that now flooded his mind.
"Daddy." He whispered the word to himself. "I don't want you to die."
Evan sat for a while murmuring to him, comforting him in his sleep, holding his hand, and pushing back his own pain. He could not process it. He only knew that he began to feel weak and fragile himself, dazed and confused. And his love for Craig! Just barely acknowledged, timidly embraced, mysterious and unknown. He had to talk to him, right this second.
He left the hospital room where cell phones were forbidden and went into the waiting area and desperately called Craig's phone, praying that he would answer. But it just rang and rang, which was unusual. When the voicemail finally picked up, he could hardly wait for the beep.
"Hey, it's me. Where are you? I'm at the hospital. I'd really like to talk to you, so when you get this, give me a call, ok? I miss you. . ." Evan let the tape run for a minute, not knowing what else to say. "Just call me. Hope everything's going ok."
He went back to his dad's room and took up his silent vigil. He was only in there a few minutes when he heard a soft knock on the doorframe.
"Evan?"
