Page 74 of College Town

Nat gasps again, and her lips twitch as she tries not to smile. “It’s brilliant.”

“It sucks.”

“Lawson,” Nat pleads, “you agree with me, right?”

Lawson waits until the straight razor lifts off his throat to say, “I’m not really a musical theater guy.”

And so it goes.

The valet/barber finishes, slaps a minty-smelling aftershave on Lawson’s face, and is replaced by a man in an honest to God waistcoat, bearing a tape measurer, accompanied by two assistants with a wheeled clothing rack loaded with fine material. A tailor, then, one who glares at Lawson through his small, round glasses and gestures impatiently when Lawson doesn’t rise from his chair quickly enough.

“I hate suits,” he complains.

Ray shrugs. He’s got a magazine now, one with a sleek imported car on the front. “Everybody does. You get used to it.”

“You were made for a suit,” Natalia says, stepping in beside him as an assistant unfolds a tri-panel mirror around him and the tailor brandishes his tape like a weapon. “Those shoulders, those long legs.” She grins at their reflections. “You’ll look wonderful.”

The last time Lawson wore a suit was to his cousin’s wedding, and the pants had fallen three inches short; his mother tried to let down the hem in the restroom. It wasn’t a good scene.

He holds out his arms and turns this way and that like a good little tailor’s dummy. He tries on jackets, and then, face flushed, slacks. Ray looks at his magazine, Nat peers at him with a hand tucked beneath her chin, wholly clinical, and Tommy is still blessedly out of the room, so it's fine. It’s all fine.

His stomach’s rumbling for lunch by the time he’s declared “finished.” Fully dressed, buffed, coiffed, and even liberally spritzed with a cologne that he pins, after a deep inhale, as Tommy’s. He doesn’t know what to think of that, so he shoves the knowledge ruthlessly aside.

All told, he thinks he looks…good. Okay. Better than good. Tommy’s people do quality work.

The suit is a midnight black with a faint scattering of silvery threads in the jacket, so when he turns side to side they catch the light like the wink of diamonds. The lapels are black velvet, as is his tie. The shirt is a deep blue that matches his eyes, as are the pocket square and shoes. His hair’s been timed and pomaded, but left faintly curled on top, to give an impression of…he doesn’t know. Wildness. Whimsy. Fresh-shaven, moisturized, his lips dabbed with balm, he looks five years younger and far healthier.

Nat had a lot of say in the tailoring, and the jacket emphasizes the breadth of his shoulders, depth of his chest, and narrowness of his waist. His legs look miles-long in the pants, his feet big as shovels in a way that he thinks assures onlookers that he’s well-endowed in other ways, too.

Natalia moves in to stand beside him at the mirror again, her smile pleased and smug in a way that makes them feel like co-conspirators. “See? I knew you’d look delicious in a suit.”

“Delicious?” He watches himself grin in the mirror, and is surprised by how true the expression is. Despite the circumstances, he’s starting to enjoy himself. “As in edible?”

She shrugs, eyes dancing. Picks an imaginary speck off his sleeve. “Who knows? That’s not for me to decide.”

“That’s a hefty implication there, Missy.”

“Don’t call me ‘Missy,’” she says, easily, and slaps him on the ass just as the door opens.

In the mirror, he sees Tommy enter. He’s thrown a jacket and tie over his white shirt and pinstripe pants, all done up immaculate, though he now looks positively haggard with fatigue. He’s on the phone, his head down, as he heels the door shut.

“Yeah, yeah, no. Yes. Fifteen minutes. Fine. I’ll…” He lifts his head, and his gaze lands on Lawson, and his eyes pop wide. “…call you back,” he says faintly into the phone, and lets his arm drop as though numb, phone swinging down against his leg. His lips part, but he doesn’t say anything.

Lawson preens on the inside.

“Tom, look!” Nat sings, and spins Lawson around by the shoulders. Tommy’s expression seems twice as stunned face-to-face. “Look at how handsome your man is.”

The words hit like a body blow.Not his man. Not anymore. Maybe not ever, Lawson thinks. He feels his smile dim.

But whatever his standing as “your man,” Tommy’s still staring at him in a way the strokes his ego. Lawson tries to think of the last time someone gazed on him with such obvious shock, and such obviouswant, and finds that the answer is twenty years ago, the first time Tommy ever got him naked, went goggled-eyed, and breathed, “Holy shit, is it my birthday?”

They laughed, then.

No one is laughing now.

Tommy finally wets his lips with a distracting flick of his tongue and croaks, “The suit is…good.”

Never one to pass up an opportunity to get Tommy singing his praises, Lawson stuffs his hands in his pockets and angles his hips; watches Tommy’s gaze flick down and then up, glazed over like he’s drugged. It’s extremely gratifying. “Really? I look like I’m going to the Emmy’s.”

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