Page 3 of Say It Again

“I’m sorry we’re a little late,” Olivia said. “Hopefully, you still need us?”

“Well, yeah. It’s still a party, baby,” Eric said with a wink, a shimmy, and a bawdy Mae West inflection that stopped existing after the 1920s. “The more the merrier. Go find the caterers. They’ll tell you what they need.”

Daniel started to follow Olivia into the kitchen, but Eric snagged him by the elbow and asked under his breath, “Hey, what’s your deal?”

He studied the man’s tan-in-a-bottle face. “My deal?”

“Yeah, name your price.”

Daniel opened his mouth and closed it again as his eyes narrowed to a squint. Had they accidentally wandered onto a spy movie set? “Come again?”

“Your price, boy.” Eric worked his hands in agitation like Daniel’s answer should’ve progressed by now. “What is it? How much to take your shirt off and go stand over there with the others?”

He scanned the living room for the shirtless others to no avail. “I’m sorry, but the other what?”

“Eric!” someone yelled.

“Coming, my sweet.” Eric whirled toward the stairs and pointed a finger back at him. “Think about it. Come find me later. I’ll be in the sauna. Not the steam—the infrared.”

That storm of confusion fizzled just as quickly as it brewed when Olivia grabbed his hand and yanked him to her side. She giggled and pointed to a recessed living room off the kitchen. “Look.”

Above the fireplace hung a portrait of Eric and Lavender Hair Boy. Naked. Fearless. Surrounded by puggles.

A grin twitched his lips. “The dream, though.”

She sighed wistfully and rested her head on his shoulder. “The dream.”

The party consisted mostly of older men, all puff-bellied, white-bearded, and oily-skinned. They slipped in and out of the pool like seals, only bobbing up to cackle or take a sip of something spritzy from a cocktail glass.

Daniel strolled around, filling waters, gathering empty champagne flutes, doing his best to avoid eye contact so no one would ask him questions he didn’t have the answers to. Questions like Where’s the bathroom? or Do those meatballs contain pork? or What are you doing? Do you know what you’re doing, Daniel?

He did not know what he was doing, as all he’d ever done was dance, then study about dance, then dance some more, but at least he didn’t shatter any of the plates that a mother-daughter team of caterers kept stocked with canapés or toothpick-speared meatballs no one ate. (Because they contained pork? Because they didn’t?)

“Daniel,” Olivia hissed from where she stood behind the bar outside, surrounded by blinking sugar-skull string lights. Her eyes were all wide and insisting as she beckoned him over.

“Yes, ma’am, how can I help you?” He brushed off his apron and checked his pants for grime. “You want a mysterious meatball? Maybe pork? Maybe not? Hey, this party is weird, by the way. Everyone’s either twenty or literally mummified—there is no in-between—and I just saw an adult man doing a whip-it. Like, when does the Grateful Dead start playing?”

“I need you to cover for me.” Olivia clutched her phone to her chest. “It’s Puddles.”

“Olivia.” Daniel fortified himself with a breath, then firmed his glare. “Let the cat die.”

Her mouth fell open as her shocked voice barely escaped. “Whaaa? I can’t believe you would say that. It’s not his time.”

“It is his time. That’s why the kitty doctor said it was his time.”

“Wow, Daniel.” She squinted, nodding. “No, mewow. Glad to know you and the kitty doctor are both cold-hearted thugs—”

“The cat has a brain tumor, and that’s like the least of its worries. He’s miserable, he wants to go, and you artificially keep him alive with your medication.”

“Why do you say medication like allegedly that’s what it is? That’s what it is! And he won’t let my roommate give it to him, so I have to go.”

“No!” A meatball rolled from his tray as he grabbed her arm. “Dude, you can’t leave me here.”

“I’ll be back in half an hour, tops. You’ll be fine. But you need to work the bar. That’s more important than”—she waved a hand around his person—“whatever you’re doing.”

He blinked hard. “Oh, now it’s ‘whatever I’m doing’? When earlier, it was imperative that I come and be incandescent for all.”

“You’re practically ablaze, you’re so glowy. Now, come stand back here.” She shuffled him behind the bar by his shoulders. “That’s all you have to do.”

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