Christmas Coda 73

 

Kyle and Adam – MURDER IN PASTEL

“New York City!” I echoed right on cue.

Adam said, “Have you ever been?”

“Well, no.” I didn’t add that I’d never had any desire to go. I especially didn’t have any desire to go around the holidays. I asked reluctantly, “I guess you want to go?”

“I think it would be good to get away from Steeple Hill for a bit.” He said seriously, “I think it would do you good.”

I shrugged. It had been six months since, well, everything I thought I’d known had been turned upside down. Painful revelations. Hard truths. Followed by probably the happiest six months of my entire life. I truly loved Adam. He truly loved me. And that was as much of a happily ever after as anyone could hope for.

I didn’t see the relevance of a change of scenery.

Adam said slowly, “You don’t like the idea?”

“You know me. I like home and hearth.” I listened to myself and added hastily, “But if I was to go to New York, I’d want to go with you.”

Adam’s eyes tilted up when he smiled. He said ruefully, “That’s a very tactful non-answer.”

I did a little belated soul searching. For the past six months our lives had revolved around me. What was good for me. What I wanted. Adam was so generous, so kind, it was too easy to take all that unselfishness for granted. To take advantage.

I said with a firmness I did not feel, “My answer is, I think you’re right. I think it would be good for us to get away. I think it would do both of us good.”

He looked surprised, which confirmed my suspicion that I was turning into a selfish asshole. “Is that the official answer or your real answer?”

I shook my head. “O ye of little faith. Are you booking this trip, or am I?”

 

 

Wisely, Adam booked our trip. Otherwise, we’d have spent five days in a nice hotel room enjoying room service, streaming movies, and fucking like minks.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Adam’s idea of Christmas in New York was a little more ambitious and a lot more romantic, given that it also entailed the fucking like minks part, but included exploring Greenwich Village and the High Line, trips to The Met and MoMA where I got to see others responding to my father’s paintings in person.

“What do you think?” Adam asked after the crowd thinned and we stood in front of a moody study of the beach below Drake Trent’s cottage. The dock was still intact in the seascape. I stared at it as if waiting for the cracks to appear.

“I don’t remember this one.” It was one of this older works, probably painted during the time I’d been hospitalized.

Adam was still looking at me, still waiting for something more.

I said, “It’s…quiet. It feels sad, like he was…”

I had never thought of my father as anything but strong and self-sufficient. Most of his work felt restless and fierce. But there was something lonely and melancholy in this moody swirl of clouds and waves and shifting sand.

“He was afraid he was going to lose you that summer.”

I smiled faintly. “I don’t think all that stormy weather would be over me. Unless he was worried about having to stick close to home.”

Adam raised his brows, but didn’t argue.

He really did try to think of everything. We paid a visit to the New York Public Library, as well as fitting in a shopping trip at the Strand Bookstore with its legendary “18 miles of books”—a mile of which I’d have been willing to bring home if I could have fit it into our luggage.

“Tell me if any of this gets to be too much for you,” Adam had said seriously. That was the night we arrived, when we were having dinner at our hotel. “I don’t want you to push yourself because you think I’ll be disappointed if we don’t do everything this trip.”

“Yeah, of course,” I promised.

Thanks to the new medication regimen and the drastic reduction of attempts on my life, I was feeling better than I had in months. Maybe years.

I did want the trip to be everything Adam wanted. But I also knew the main thing Adam wanted was for me to be glad we’d made the trip.

Imagine my surprise when it turned out I was glad.

I don’t know how I’d feel about New York at any other time of year, but in winter, at least during Christmas, it was kind of magical. And that was even before it snowed. Every street, from Fifth Avenue to small neighborhood blocks, was lit up like, well, you know. Stars twinkled overhead, glittered in windows, flashed and sparkled in trees and bushes, all of it reflecting and glowing on the snow. Nothing like Steeple Hill. Not the lights. Not the snow. Not the feeling of excitement crackling in the hazy air.

Yes, the air felt different. Smelled different too. The ordinary city smells masked by the more pleasant scents of roasted chestnuts and candied nuts, the piny smell of the fresh Christmas trees for sale lining sidewalks, the mouthwatering aromas of cinnamon rolls and gingerbread cookies drifting from cafes and bakeries.

Every day there was some new little adventure. We wandered the market stalls at Bryant Park Winter Village, we drank cocoa and watched ice skaters, we gawked at the holiday window displays at Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue with all the other tourists, we listened to the street musicians and carolers, and we even did that most cliché of cliché things and went for a horse-drawn carriage ride in Central Park.

Which, it pains me to admit was pretty fun.

“Like Elf,” Adam said, grinning.

“Or The Lady from Shanghai,” I said.

“Your other favorite Christmas movie!”

So, yes, we did all the things.

I loved it. And I loved it more because Adam loved it. Sometimes I couldn’t help remembering that Adam had met Brett in New York. And that he had perhaps, probably, done all these things with Brett too.

But did that make it any less special?

 

 

At night we returned to our lovely suite in our lovely hotel, and curled up in our nest of blankets and pillows and talked.

Talked and kissed and made love and talked some more.

We talked about the usual things: Vince and Jenny’s divorce, about Jenny’s new boyfriend, about Joel’s new boyfriend, about Micky’s decision to buy a retired circus donkey, which had turned into two circus donkeys—both of which apparently moonlighted as escape artists. We talked about Mayor Cobb’s upcoming trial.

We talked about things we rarely talked of. Brett. My Father. The past. The future.

On Christmas we had dinner at One if by Land, Two if by Sea, an historic 18th-century carriage house in the West Village. The building had once been owned by Aaron Burr, and according to legend, Burr and his daughter Theodosia haunted the place. There was no sign of them that night, though. No ghosts of any kind. By then, I think we had talked our own ghosts out. Anyway, the restaurant was charming and intimate with exposed brick walls, fireplaces, and grand chandeliers, and meal—and the wine list—were superb.

Adam and I toasted Cosmo and we toasted the future and we toasted to Adam’s upcoming exhibition in the spring.

No question about it. It was the best Christmas ever.

That night, as we lay in each other’s arms, watching the huge moon meandering past our window drifting like an untethered balloon outside our window, I whispered, “Are you happy, Adam?”

He opened his eyes, and I could see their colorless shine as he studied me. “Yes.”

There was a childish, insecure part of me that wanted to ask that stupidest of questions: happier than you were with him?

I didn’t ask it. But Adam said quietly, thoughtfully, “I didn’t know it was possible to be happy like this. To be so happy, you actually know that you’re happy.”

I made a thoughtful sound. I saw the brief gleam of his teeth as he smiled. “Are you happy, Kyle?”

“Yes.”

“Do you wish we’d stayed home for Christmas?”

I smiled, pressed my smile softly to his smile, and whispered, “I’m happy that we’re spending Christmas together in New York.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I’m even happier because we share the word home tonight--and all the rest of the year.”

“All the rest of our lives,” Adam said.