Chapter 2
Geoffrey had been somewhat of a late bloomer. Starting at thirty-seven was somewhat difficult, as Geoffrey worried about his lack of experience, at least when compared to “Randy Ryan Wright,” as Ryan’s sports buds called him. Now, with gray peppered throughout his hair, deep lines and creases on his face, his gut far less taught than it had been when he’d first hooked up with Ryan, a miserable failure at the only real relationship he’d ever had, Geoffrey found the notion of starting overat fifty damned well daunting.
“I don’t know either.” Geoffrey spoke to the rock. “Why can’t I?”
Was it a matter of time, Geoffrey wondered, the reason he was so stuck? More quick math revealed Ryan had been gone ten whole months. Or was it only ten months? It sort of depended on the day, Geoffrey decided. The grief over Max was fresher. He’d been gone only three, and Rafe and Vincent, the former soldier in the musical and his closeted, married empty nester love interest, were reopening the wounds. The quarrelsome fictional pair would meet the same way Ryan and Geoffrey had—while trying to adopt a dog. A few songs and one explicit sex scene later that would probably be cut, they’d all live happily ever after.
Why can’t you?
“Because.”
Geoffrey checked his watch. He’d been in the field half an hour, mostly just staring at himself in the water and six words on a rock. Maybe I’m scared, he wrote“What do you think, Max?” Sometimes Geoffrey would see Max’s shape in the clouds, or that of one of his favorite toys. It comforted Geoffrey some to think he did, anyway, like he and Max still met up in the field some days. That day, all Geoffrey saw was blue.
“Fuck it.” Geoffrey obliterated his reflection by collecting a palm full of ice cold April water, then went at the words on the rock to do the same, words probably left by some goofy stoner or a horny teen banging his girlfriend against Geoffrey’s musings with no consideration or concern whatsoever for what they may have meant. How could he know? Why should he care, he or she?
The r from over, the y from the second why, the a and the n from can’t…of all the letters to survive the swipe of Geoffrey’s wet hand, why those four?
“Because you’re seeing what your mind wants you to, knucklehead.”
The last time Geoffrey and Ryan had been to the field together, Ryan had suggested a romantic romp under the stars before heading home from a raucous night of bowling and drinking with friends.
“Let’s get Max first,” Geoffrey had suggested. “He’ll stay out of the way.” But in the end, he was always grateful they hadn’t.
They knew they were opposites going in. Geoffrey could sit for hours, right there in the open field, listening to nature, staring out at the horizon, while the tickle of the grass or the teasing of the water against the soles of his feet took precedence over a blank old fashioned notebook page he promised would be filled with lyrics by the end of a lazy Sunday. Ryan, on the other hand, was never happy with quiet time at all.
“Let’s spend next May in Europe with my parents,” he’d suggested not long before that fateful night.
Geoffrey could barely sit through a movie or a Broadway show without wondering what Max was up to, and the train home from NYC was torture. “I’d miss home too much,” Geoffrey had responded. “Besides, the Irises and Weigela only bloom once a year; if we leave, we’ll miss them. And what about Max?”
Ryan didn’t much give a crap about flowering plants and shrubs, but he did love Max. “We should get another.” He’d supported his proposal with kisses and fondling, there against the rock Geoffrey now touched. “That way, Max won’t ever be alone, and we could go out more often. We could go to Europe,” Ryan suggested. “We’ll leave them both with Kent.”
Though Geoffrey trusted Kent with is life, he knew he’d be far too miserable with Max so far away to enjoy the Louvre or the canals of Venice. “Hmm…Maybe.” Geoffrey hadn’t allowed anything more right then, and there hadn’t been a chance later on to discuss it any further.
Kent would have been all too happy to oblige. He was a true friend—Geoffrey’s first, and then to the couple. Some would say he was Geoffrey’s only friend now, though Geoffrey liked to think he was somewhere on the spectrum of normal when it came to socializing. He’d been on a date just before Thanksgiving and spent New Year’s Eve with a group of actors from the playhouse in town. He’d left before eleven and was in bed before the ball dropped on TV, but two outings in two months, that was something, right?
“Okay, so I’m a homebody,” Geoffrey said to the sky. Once he handed off a script, he left most of its production to the directors and producers down in Manhattan. They worked via email and text sometimes, but he rarely if ever saw them face to face until opening night. Locally, the executive manager at the theatre group was always after him to serve as musical director and pianist for their current show. Geoffrey had finally accepted the gig, for just one production, right after Max died. Though he was offered the position fulltime right after, he had graciously turned it down. His living room, his garden, his bed with a crossword book, the meadow, the grocery store once a week, and the plant nursery in fall and spring; that was as far as Geoffrey and Max had ventured since Ryan left them. Geoffrey mail ordered his seeds and plants for the 2016 season. He’d been shopping online a lot since Max had died, for books, Christmas decorations, dolls for his mom, and smiley face sponges. The hosts on QVC may not be real friends, but the hot UPS guy who delivered the packages was. His name was…Alan…or Adam…or Aidan…or Peter.