in my living room, I could look straight down into my neighbor’s ground-floor living room. His was a nineties house with floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that filled the lower north and east side of the house. A tiny L-shaped patio had been created outside the sliding doors, and beyond that, a row of bamboo had been planted to shield the windows from the street. Except that from my second-story side window, I could see everything. It was like looking into a fishbowl, perfectly situated for anonymous viewing of his living room as long as I kept the lights turned off and the curtains closed. It was an exercise in futility though because my neighbor was gay.
The neighbor’s partner would show up sporadically, sometimes for the weekend, sometimes for a couple of days during midweek, and there would be small moments, never anything overt, but a hand on a hand, an occasional woeful hug, long intense talks in the living room, wild uncontrolled laughter bubbling up, the both of them so easy with each other, so completely relaxed, that there was no doubting how well matched they were. They were perfect soul mates. I envied and admired them. From my window, their relationship appeared to have everything. Then the partner, who was small and dark in contrast to my heavier brown-haired neighbor, would disappear for a week or more, and my neighbor, obviously at a loss, would pull out his home gym and work out.
During those hot evenings in late August, I was behind that curtain watching him move his half-naked sweat-shined body. And I swear, if Russell Crowe had come along and hip-checked my neighbor out of the way, and taken his place there at the bench press, and let the last shafts of light catch the muscular ripple of his arms and torso, you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between the two of them.
August flowed into September and September into October and I still went to the window to catch a glimpse from time to time. My voyeurism told me that I’d been hanging on too long. How could I criticize the Tsadziki Pervert when I too was becoming an urban weirdo? I told myself that it was because I needed time before getting burned again. But now the years were beginning to speed up. I’d reached thirty without even realizing it.
“You can get your mind off his éclair, Cleo. It’s not earmarked for you. Take my word for it,” said Joey, “Dinah and I have been surveying him for a while and we are happy to inform you that he is of the religion Pas de Femme. Where information gathering is concerned, we make the CIA look like a bunch of wussies.” Joey’s expression was triumphant.
“He’s not gay,” wailed Cleo. “He can’t be, can’t be, can’t be.”
“He is, he is, he is,” said Joey, stamping his foot in imitation.
She clumped over to the table to pour herself another larger slug of wine. “The best ones. Always the best ones. And anyway, Joey, how do you know?”
Joey said, “I’ve seen him around. In the clubs.”
“Which clubs?”
“Well. I’ve seen him at Luce and Numbers and Lotus Sound Lounge. And he always has his arm around the same guy. The guy that comes over sometimes. Small, dark French-looking man with zero pecs. I’m telling you, he’s so monogamous he’s dreary.”
I took one last peep. The neighbor stood motionless now, looking out at the sky and the luminous gray clouds that threatened to burst. It was odd that we’d never met, never crossed paths. Just bad timing, I supposed. He only lived next door, but his world and mine could have been a million light years apart.
“Oh shit,” said Joey, “he’s turned the light off.”
“Probably tired of his voyeur neighbors,” I said.
Cleo had turned away from the side window to face my big front French doors. She shrieked and pointed. Outside the windowpane, hanging in midair above the little balcony, dangling from a cord, was a shadowy man.
Chapter Two
The man-shaped silhouette waved.
I ran over and opened up the French doors, then stepped out on the balcony to help the guy down.
“Simon. You’re back. Come inside before somebody calls the police.”
With expert rock-climber’s maneuvers, Simon lowered himself down to the balcony, then began to haul his cords down after himself and wind them up. He was grinning the whole time. I stepped aside to let him into the apartment, then I picked up his equipment and passed it through to him. He stood in the middle of the living room, straightened up and brushed himself off. He was dressed in black, and very lithe, thinner than when I’d last seen him, two years before.
“Hey, Di. Happy birthday. Figured I’d drop in on you. Hey, so cool to see you.”
Joey muttered, “Now that’s what I call an entrance.”
I smiled at Cleo and Joey. “This is the Simon Larkin I’m always telling you about. The one I grew up with. The one who shared my dog biscuits.”
“Yeah,” said Simon. “You could say that Di’s my honorary sister.”
Joey batted his eyelids and leapt forward to offer his hand. “Hi, great to meet you, Simon. I’m the famous actor, Joey Sessna. You may have seen me in—”
I punched Joey’s upper arm.
He yowled. “Ouch. Jeez, Dinah. Wha’d you do that for?”
“Simon doesn’t know who you are, Joey. He doesn’t watch TV. He doesn’t have to. He has real-life entertainment. When he isn’t scaling some terrifying rock face, he’s infiltrating some interesting urban landmark. Right, Simon?”
“Hey, babe. That’s me.” He grabbed me and squeezed me in one of his death lock hugs. Cleo and Joey were practically drooling. Simon was tall and toned with messy strawberry-blond curls and navy-blue eyes. He looked like a Renaissance angel in Lululemon sportswear.
Cleo grabbed my glass out of my hand, poured some wine into it, and handed it to Simon. “I’m Cleo Jardine.”
He said, “Thanks, Beauty,” and downed it in one gulp.
Joey began to jabber at Simon and I started to whisper to Cleo, “Before you get any ideas, there’s something I’ve got to tell you about Simon….” But she and Joey were so involved in ogling him that they couldn’t hear me.
“Hey Di,” said Simon, “got any growlies in the house? I’m perishing with hunger.”
I knew what was in my fridge. The Empty Fridge Diet was the most successful one I’d tried so far. We quibbled for a few minutes, then decided to call out for Chinese food when Cleo offered to pay.
When the food arrived, we all attacked it like starving refugees. But after a minute or two, I noticed Cleo and Joey making way for Simon as he helped himself two and three and four times. Simon had that effect on people.
Joey’s chatter turned into a runaway train as he tried to impress Simon with his TV and movie credits. Simon just grinned and nodded but I doubted he knew what Joey was talking about.
I said quietly to Cleo, “Simon is a bottomless pit. You don’t ever want to invite him over for dinner.”
A sly look came over her face. “I was thinking I could take him to one of those all-you-can-eat smorgasbords.”
Finally,
