A Child across the Sky

"What's going on?"

"Finky Linky and I decided we're going to have a di

"Tomorrow! That's short notice."

"I know you hate socializing, Weber, but you like all the people who are coming, so please don't run away." She stopped putting groceries away and counted off on her fingers. "Dominic and his wife, Max, Sean, and James, Wyatt, you, and me. Eight. Will you make your potato salad?"

"How come a party?"

She took a deep breath. "Because I'm sick of sadness. Wyatt said it's time we laughed some more, and he's right. We even bought a Best of The Supremes tape so we can dance if we want. Okay, Baby Love?"

"Okay. Did you buy lots of bacon? I'll need that for the potato salad."

Finky Linky walked in with more bags. "We did not buy bacon and we forgot sour cream. You're elected to go, Weber. Get you away from those fucking television sets for a while." He held out the car keys, but I said I'd walk.

"Has everyone said they'd come?"

"Yes. We called them this morning. We knew you'd have to come if they all said yes."

"Come on, I'm not that antisocial."

"Really? When was the last time you went out?"

"I went to your birthday party, Wyatt!"

"Yes, six months ago. You've become such a recluse in New York that the only time we ever see you is at rehearsal."

"It's like Phil before he died."

Both of us looked at Sasha. Her last sentence drifted slowly across the kitchen like a well-made paper airplane. I remembered once saying about Strayhorn, "He wanted to be famous. He wanted to be left alone." I'd already had my fame. It was like a too-sweet dessert. Did I also want to be left alone? No sane person wants to be left alone in any real sense.

"Don't fall into that, Weber. Let the people who love you see you now and then."

An ice-cream bar slid across the counter to me. "We even bought your favorite disgusting ice cream, so you have to come."

The market was jumping with after-work shoppers. The place was so large it took fifteen minutes to find the things I'd come for. I was standing at the express checkout line, trying to read the headline on the week's TV Guide, when a voice behind me said, "Word is, you're making a new movie."

I didn't know the voice, and when I turned I didn't know the person: a woman with a nothing face and pulled-back blond hair. But Los Angeles is a friendly town and more often than not, if people know who you are, they speak as if you're old acquaintances. There wasn't much else I could do, standing there with my bacon and sour cream.

Radiating a new "I'm not antisocial" charm, I said, "Not really a whole one. Just helping out on a friend's."

She had four cans of whipped cream and four cans of deodorant. Something was up in her life. When she spoke, everything came out sounding like an accusation. "I heard you're working on a horror movie."

"Something like that, yes."

"Another one?"

"Another? I've never made a horror film."

Smirking as if she knew better, she accused me, "You mean you never made one all-out. Only little pieces here and there. Because horror movies don't win Oscars, do they? Come on, move, huh? I want to get out of here."

When I got home, we had a ball preparing for the party. Wyatt put on the Supremes tape full blast and we danced around while we cooked, set the table, cleaned the house, discussed. At midnight, Sasha decided we needed balloons, but not tomorrow – now. We got into the car and drove around until we found an all-night drugstore that sold balloons. Then we were hungry, but Wyatt said the only place to go for a real hamburger at night was a place in his old neighborhood.

No matter how old or jaded you are, there will always be something exciting and cool about cruising around at three in the morning with a bunch of good friends. All the old duds are asleep but you're still awake, the windows are down, the radio's glowing green and playing great music. Life's given you a few extra hours to horse around. If you don't grab them, they aren't usually offered again for a while.

"I want to be fifteen again and still a virgin!" Sasha had her head out the window, and the wind whipped her hair.

"At fifteen the only thing you thought about was losing your virginity!"

"You know where it happened? On a beach in Westport, Co

"Scared of what?"

"That that was all there was to it. 'You mean this is it?' That's what was supposed to make the world go round? Shit! Your turn, Wyatt."

"I'm driving. Weber's next."

"Barbara Gilly. Affectionately known in our town as The Tu

"You slept with a tu

"Everybody slept with her. We did it on the hill behind John Jay High School. I used a rubber I'd had in my wallet for six months. You can imagine how comfortable and exciting that was. And you?"

"My cousin Nancy."

Both Sasha and I cried out, "You slept with your cousin?"

We drove another hour, telling old secrets and fu

When we got home we gave each other big kisses and hugs because the evening had been such fun. I kept smiling and chuckling as I washed up and got into bed, thinking about some of the things that had been said.

Sometime later, just after the first morning birds started to sing, the door opened and I turned in time to see Sasha standing there. Gesturing to close the door, I held up the blanket for her to come in with me. She was there in an instant, sliding close, naked under a thin silk nightgown.

She took my hand and ran it across her stomach, up over her breasts, up the thin curve of her neck. Opening her mouth, she slipped my fingers into it and started licking them.

I took the hand away and caressed her face, her shoulders, her arms. Neither of us talked, although when we'd been lovers in Europe, years before, we'd always said things and made lots of noise.

But tonight needed to be different. We weren't here as lovers but as two longtime friends who loved each other and had had the luck to share a wonderful night together.

We fucked in silence, trying not to make even the slightest sound. The secrecy made it hotter, more exciting.

When we were finished and the early light lit the floor, she lay half across my stomach, her breath tickling my chest. Loving the feel of her there, I whispered, "I wish I'd been that guy in Westport."

She lifted her head and gri

"Not so much that. I don't know if I would've done it any better. But I would have . . . gone swimming with you. I wouldn't have let you go so easily."

She touched her head to my chest and slowly got up. Standing, she tried to find where the armholes were in the knotted tangle of her nightgown. Her hair was fluffed and flying out in all directions and she looked as beautiful as I had ever seen her.

Giving up on the nightgown, she threw it over her shoulder and sat down again on the bed. I took her hand.

"Will you always be my friend, Sasha?"

"I promise."

"Even if we don't do this again?"

"We think differently about it. I could be happily married for twenty years and still have no hesitation about going to bed with you. I love you, Weber. I sleep with the people I love."

"What would you say to your husband?"

"I don't know. Maybe nothing."

Leaving the room with the gown held carelessly in front of her, she was a Bo