“For a long time—you’ll appreciate this, Fiona. For a long time, I wondered if I was a ghost. A literal ghost. I thought I must’ve died and this was some kind of purgatory or heaven. Because how was it even possible, you know? But then I thought: If this is heaven, where are all my friends? It couldn’t be heaven if Yale and Nico and everyone weren’t there. So I guess this is just plain old earth. And I’m still on it.”
Serge excused himself to answer the phone. He’d been texting all day, and although all his acquaintances seemed accounted for, not all of their acquaintances were, and there were still urgent and worrisome things to be discussed.
Julian said, “My husband had basically the same experience. He calls this his second life. To me that sounds too born-again, but then he didn’t grow up in the South. He’s right, though; that’s what it feels like.”
There was a ring, a golden wedding band, on Julian’s left hand.
How utterly strange that Julian could have a second life, a whole entire life, when Fiona had been living for the past thirty years in a deafening echo. She’d been tending the graveyard alone, oblivious to the fact that the world had moved on, that one of the graves had been empty this whole time.
“Speaking of mothers,” Julian said, “and speaking of Yale Tishman. Richard, did I ever tell you I met Yale’s mom? Maybe twelve years ago.” Fiona put her hands flat on the table, steadied herself. If Julian was indeed a ghost, he was a tormenting one. He turned to Fiona and Cecily. “I was working on set for this sitcom pilot called Follywood. You never heard of it, it didn’t get picked up, thank God. And she was playing a doctor. I wouldn’t have recognized her face, but I knew her name. Jane Greenspan. Remember?”
Fiona remembered the woman’s nose, just like Yale’s, and her broad mouth. She’d seen her pixilated a hundred times, and in real life only once, only briefly. That Tylenol commercial ran for a few years, and Fiona had slowly memorized her face, knew it well enough to recognize her when she’d popped up in other ads throughout the years. Why?, she’d lamented to anyone who would listen, except for Yale himself. Why did that have to be the parent who’d left? Of all the parents of all the gay men she knew? An actress mother would have understood a gay son, wouldn’t she? For Yale to be alienated from her for reasons that had nothing to do with his sexuality just felt excessive, perverse.
Richard asked Julian if he’d talked to her, and Julian said, “Not about Yale. It would’ve felt cruel. I don’t know. I mean, how do you even start that conversation? I was good friends with the son you abandoned. And then I thought, What if she didn’t know he’d died?”
“She did,” Fiona said, and her voice was cracked glass.
She couldn’t breathe. Even though she didn’t want to be out on the street, she was about to say that she needed fresh air. But Serge had gone to the door and was returning, having let Jake Austen into the studio.
And then she was stuck, because everything had to be explained, the story told over: the misunderstanding, the strange reunion, Richard’s chagrin, Julian’s whole life.
Jake grinned like it was the coolest thing in the world. “Okay,” he said, “I gotta say, I feel a little vindicated. This is why I wanted to ask about the triptych, Fiona. Because I saw the update. I mean, you sounded so sure of yourself, I thought maybe I’d misunderstood.”
Fiona didn’t follow, and Richard explained how last year, when Julian had passed through Paris, he’d taken his photo again. One of the pieces for the show was an updated group of four photos. “A quadriptych,” he said. “Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”
“Can you believe it?” Julian said. “After all this time, I’m a model again!”
And the way he said it was so exactly like Julian Ames, so much the way he’d have said it at age twenty-five, that Fiona walked straight over to where he sat and kissed him on the forehead.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I’m so, so, so, so glad.”
1990
Even though they were only going to march, not chain themselves to lampposts or anything, Yale and Fiona had written Gloria’s phone number on their arms with a Sharpie, as well as the number for Asher’s law office—although Asher was far more likely to get locked up than they were. Gloria had a sprained ankle but had volunteered as a remote bail buddy to at least ten different protestors, and Yale was concerned that if they all got arrested, she’d run out of money, leave him to languish. “She’s the most responsible person I ever met,” Fiona said. It was true; Charlie used to say she was the one writer in the world who’d never missed a deadline. Gloria had left Out Loud behind and was at the Trib now, writing features. But just in case, Yale wrote Cecily’s number too. They both wore bandannas tied loosely around their necks, though Yale had doubts they’d work against tear gas. He felt like a silly cowboy.
They headed down to the Loop on the El, and Yale tried not to let Fiona see how terrified he was. He’d gone to the candlelight vigil outside Cook County Hospital on Saturday night, staying till two in the morning, eating soup and sharing a blanket with Asher and Fiona and Asher’s friend from New York, but that had felt far safer. Candles reminded him of a religious service, and after a while everyone was sitting. Only a few hundred people, some guitars. A silly fashion show at one point. An actual march was different, and the overzealous guy who’d called him late last night from the ACT UP phone tree had reminded him to let friends and family know where he’d be. He’d suggested wearing a second, padded backpack in the front. “Sometimes they get baton-happy,” he said. “So just, sweaters in there, whatever.” But Yale only owned one backpack. He put a sweatshirt in, a spare bandanna, and a bottle of water. He put his inhaler into one pants pocket and a plastic baggie with three days of pills into the other, in case he was detained. Eighty-five pills, seventy-some dollars’ worth, thank God for insurance.
The train was full of Monday-morning commuters, men in suits, women in blazers, a few kids in private-school uniforms. Everything had started at 8 at the Prudential Building, but it was already 8:45, and they’d likely have to meet the crowd on its way up Michigan to the Blue Cross offices. Yale had the Xeroxed route map folded in his pocket. A huge loop that looked like way too much walking. The American Medical Association was the next big stop, followed by another insurance place, and finally back to Daley Plaza, where they’d plant themselves in front of the County Building to protest the closure of half the AIDS beds at Cook County and the fact that the ward wouldn’t take women.
Fiona managed to find a seat and insisted Yale take it. He felt fine, really, except that his stomach had been a mess for a few days. A different kind of mess than the drugs made it—this was sharp cramping, sloshing. It might have been the start of everything, or it might have been nerves. Once he was sitting below her, she said, “So I have a problem. I’m in love with my sociology professor.”