These Things Happen by Richard Kramer Read Free Book Online Page B

Armfeldt. Which is gay of me, I know, but as long as I still know what's gay of me (and I do) I don't really give a shit. I was Henrik, three times, in A Little Night Music. Kenny, of course, doesn't get my reference, which is hot.
       I'm on my way out when he touches me. "Hold it," he says.
       "He's waiting."
       "This'll be quick. I promise." He beams, like a boy holding a present behind his back, something he's made for his mom. "You know how I never know the song I'm thinking of and always have to ask you?"
       "Well— yes."
       "Well, guess what? This time I do!"
       "What song is that?" I say. "And about what?"
       "The London song." He sings, in the voice of an actor whose rather good singing has been a secret. " A foggy day, in London town . . . Y ou know that song?"
       "Everyone does."
       "It's not about the song, though," he says. "It's about a trip."
       "To London town?"
       "Just a quickie. More of a long weekend, really. We've never been there together and we've always wanted to go, right? So we pop over for Boxing Day, or Whitsuntide. Anything. What matters is going. So how does that sound?"
       Can he be serious? Only Maggie Smith can answer this question properly and, since she lives inside me, I have no trouble summoning her up. "Oh, K enny ," I say, all pursed lips and buttressed elbows, "Whitsuntide's in May."
       He laughs. "Well, if anyone would know that, it'd be you."
       "I'm sorry. But I do." So another small talent I'm embarrassed by, meat thrown to the Shame Buzzards; I know holidays from around the world and the festive foods that go with them, most of which involve almonds.
       "So call it Christmas," he says, "because that's when it would be. And no big deal, either. We'd just pop over."
       "So popping is free now?"
       "It may not be free," he says. "But that's not a problem."
       "But it is," I say. "A big one. Especially since my business is fucked, pretty much, and may never get better. Because I'm a step from dipping candles and selling them at farmers markets, in a kooky hat. It's the wrong year—"
       "No, the year's right. Y ou're wrong. The only thing we have to do is get there!"
       "Don't tell me!" I say. "Do I sense the hand of Charles and Margaret?" Charles was Kenny's Yale roommate, Harvard law school roommate, and the first person he came out to (Charles was w onder ful , of course), while Margaret, whose great-grandfather invented cement, or some such useful thing, heads a pilot program to keep arts in the schools, whether they want them there or not. They breed Affenpinschers, just for friends, devote their Saturdays to delivering nutritious meals to AIDS patients and the elderly, and have every known recording of Die Frau ohne Schatten , including the hard-tofind Louis and Ella Swingin' with Strauss . I hate them.
       "Yes!" Kenny says, as if this were the best part of it. "You've read my mind." He beams, again; he almost never beams. "They've rented a flat in Covent Garden, on Floral Street. Two bedrooms, antiques, actual water pressure—"
       " Really?"
       "Around the corner from the Opera House."
       "Oh, fuck me."
       "But I promise you won't have to go."
       "Well, if it's a Friday, I can always have shabbos with William and Kate."
       "Seriously," he says. "We'd have our own cooker, which is what they call stoves there. And one of those plug-in teapots. So we wouldn't have to spend much on food. George?" I turn away; there's a boy in the kitchen, waiting for us, who last night I heard pacing, troubled, above us. "George? So?"
       "When would this be, exactly?"
       "We'd leave the twenty-third. We've got the miles, or I do, to cover us both. And we'd be home by New Year's Eve." He lets this settle. " Which would be just us. You and me."
       "I know what us means."
       "Remember last year? How it snowed? And we watched that movie. You know the one. Come on. What's the name