Close to Hugh by Marina Endicott Read Free Book Online

it’s juvenile. She’s always known him, he’s best friends, like, brother and sister with her mom and Hugh; there’s nothing to flutter about. There he is, Newell, haloed in the hall light. His hair. But it’s his eyes, tired and kind, that kill her. Knows all your flaws and loves you anyway. He’s like thirty years older than she is, plus actually gay, everybody knows, although he doesn’t make a public deal of it. But that doesn’t always—look at Orion. Gay, except that Savaya experiment. And look at Savaya. It’s a continuum, a spectrum, a raiiin-bow connection , right. Anyway she herself probably likes Nevaeh best of anybody, but that doesn’t mean you don’t flutter flutter flutter. The problem of love. She starts a butterfly thing in her mind, a paper thing, mobile, to work with the ladies in pots from the Voynich, fluttering from their chrysalides to the light-haloed, shadow-eyed face of him.
    Hugh’s hanging around on the veranda, as if he didn’t want to go in. But it’s cold. Hugh hugs her, then Jason. He salutes Orion, who’s been in pretty much every art class Hugh ever gave. Jason too, and L, because of not taking her mom’s classes. Every class for ten years, ever since Hugh came back from wherever, some other life he’d been living. He is probably her mentor, if you have to give it a name. But she has not shown him the Republic .

10. I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR HUGH
    Parked beside the pumpkin punchbowl, Hugh holds a half-glass cupped in his hand. Students and teachers hover, waiting for the old prank where some joker kid adds bottomless bottles of vodka. Maybe it’s already been done. You’d have to taste the punch to know, and Hugh can’t bear to. Such a headache. Can’t be the wine, must be the fall from the ladder this morning. Stand up straight, man. You ought to head for the hospice. Or wait till the awards are over, then go. She won’t know Hugh, she’s been wandering in crazyland for days; harder to go there than to stand watching Newell’s progress around the room, with Burton as tug.
    Jason and Elle—unexpected treat, to see them here. Their set design, a painted cyc, a gobo London Bridge from die-cut Mylar: he takes their word for it. Elle says Della’s coming. Hugh feels some relief. Burton is easier to bear when there’s someone to mock him with.
    Here’s Jerry Pink. Tight, rose-tinged asshole that he is. Hugh wishes he was at home, climbing the wooden hill to his treetop house and pulling the stairs up after him, alone. It’s not lonely if you like being alone. Jerry Pink is all hail-fellow et cetera; Hugh endures it. The school gets their certificates framed at the Argylle Gallery and they won’t if Pink takes a pet. Pink is in plaid, he’s a joke of a guy. One arm round a student, Savaya or Nevaeh, Hugh can’t remember which the tall blonde one is. Pink’s other arm snakes out to snag a woman, a shortish, plumpish person. Thick eyebrows give her a look of surprise, or attention, when she turns her eyes on you. She turns her eyes on Hugh.
    A nice look, actually. That’s a nice face. Intelligent, sweet. Exotic but plain.
    This must be the I of O actor Newell brought in for the master class scene work. She looks back at him, straight back; their eyes focus andlock crosshairs, as if they were spy cameras. Actually seeing each other, on first meeting, in all this punch-drunk crowd.

    Ivy likes this person. His height and breadth fit the imaginary stencil in her mind: “Man.”
    Out of her league, of course, because she is dumpy and hidden and nobody ever knows her at first. She always has to translate herself, insert herself into people’s consciousness. Then they like her.
    But here, look: at first blow, first glance, this person, this man looks back at her and sees her true self. Nice.
    Then Burton, sensing something happening that he’s not in on, bustles over. “Eye, Vee .” he says, two words in all. He holds her off and looks her up and down. “ How sweet.