Real Life(28)

He often thinks of the boys he sees rowing on the lake, how perfectly efficient their motion is as they draw themselves over the placid silver surface of the water. He sees them often when he’s out there walking, can hear their calls in the trees; sometimes he stops and stands on the edge of a slippery rock, marveling at the speed, their shining arms, their muscles flexing in perfect unison.

Cole comes jogging along the fence. He’s breathing hard.

“Sorry sorry sorry,” he says. He bends over, clutching his side. “Whew, it’s a scorcher out here.”

“Yep, it’s something,” Wallace says. “It’s okay. I’m not doing anything else today anyway.” He lies back on the court and pulls one thigh up to his chest, holds it until there is a sweet ache in the muscle.

Cole tosses his bag on the bench and joins Wallace on the ground to stretch. There is something agitated about him as he stretches out his long pale legs, which are already turning red from the sun. His eyes avoid Wallace’s. The coarse concrete scratches the back of Wallace’s neck.

“You okay?”

“Fine. Yes. No. Yes.”

“Oh—well.”

“It’s nothing,” Cole says, sitting up. “I just . . . Fuck. I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Wallace says. He sits up too, slowly. Cole lies back down.

“Are you on that app?”

“Which app?”

“You know the one.” Cole flushes as he says this, looking away to the trees and to the long, winding sidewalk that slopes down to the lake.

“The gay one, you mean?”

“That’s it. Yeah.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess, sometimes.” Wallace deleted the app some weeks ago, but this feels like a minor point. Cole has always made sure to mention that he is not on the app and that he’s relieved to have found Vincent before the advent of such technology. Geolocation, finding the nearest queers for fucking or whatever. Wallace always has to keep himself from saying that Cole would have done well on the app. He is tall and good-looking in an average sort of way. He is funny and quippy, gentle. He is also white, which is never a disadvantage with gay men. But Wallace says none of these things because to say them would disrupt Cole’s view of the average gay man as shallow and kind of stupid—they are shallow and kind of stupid, but no more than any other group. Wallace only deleted the app because he had grown tired of watching himself be invisible to them, of the gathering silence in his in-box. He wasn’t looking anyway, but at the same time he wanted to be looked at the same as anyone else, to be seen.

“I saw Vincent on there last night.”

“Oh? What were you doing on there?”

“I suspected he was on there. So I made a fake profile.”

“Isn’t that . . . ?”

“I know, I know, but I had to see if he was there. And he was there. Can you believe that?”

“Is that something you two talked about?”

“No. Yes. I mean . . . We said we’d think about it, you know? Opening things up. I don’t know why I’m not enough.”

“Maybe you are,” Wallace says. “It’s not about things not being enough. Maybe he just . . . wants something different. I don’t know.”

“But why would he sneak around to do it?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s what kills me, Wallace. That he snuck around.”

“Has he?”

“Not that I know of. Fuck. I don’t know. We’re supposed to be thinking about getting a dog, you know? We’re supposed to be thinking about getting married. Settling down. And now he wants to open everything up.”

Wallace lets out a slow breath. He claps his hand on the back of Cole’s shoulder.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s hit a little.”



* * *



? ? ?

WALLACE AND COLE have been playing tennis together since their first year of graduate school. They are an evenly matched pair: Wallace’s backhand is a decent, flowing one-hander and Cole’s forehand is smooth and easy. Wallace hits his forehand with a looping swing and Cole’s backhand is piecemeal, barely keeping itself together. When they play, it’s a matter of just a few points here or there, but Cole typically comes through with the win because his serve is more consistent and when he needs it he can lash an ace out wide, leaving Wallace scrambling, flailing. They have played each other a number of times—so many, in fact, that each knows what the other will do even before the ball has landed on their side of the court. For example, Wallace knows that if he kicks his second serve up to Cole’s forehand, baiting him, Cole will swing out and probably sail the shot long. Cole knows that this is the tactic, but he thinks that this time will be the time he slaps the winner up the line.

They start at the net, just a few volleys to get their bodies used to tracking the ball in the sun. Back and forth they send the ball across the net, easy, controlled. Wallace prefers his forehand volley and so he’s deft at meeting the ball out front on that side. He can put it to either side of Cole’s body, warming up both wings. Cole is less adept at this part. He prefers the telescopic blasting from the back of the court. But this will let them talk a little more. Cole’s eyes are red-rimmed, and his voice is thick and foggy with moisture.