Page 65 of Exquisite Things
I gulp down hard, thinking of Mother. The obituary said she died peacefully in her sleep, but how would they know? Perhaps she was asleep, but it may have been a fitful slumber, full of nightmares and questions from the past. Was she still wondering about me until her last breath? Or had the grandchildren Liam gave her filled her heart full enough to forget me?
“First time at the Blitz?” Bram asks me as I take my backpack from George.
I panic. Will he recognize my voice? Am I ready to reveal myself to him? Or do I want to run away into the safety of solitude again? “Yes,” I say with a twang. “You’re a regular?”
“Nothing regular about me.” Bram smiles devilishly. “Perhaps that’s why I like it so much here. There is no normal here. Most subcultures thrive on uniformity. Punks, beatniks, surfers, zoot-suiters, hippies. They all dressed just like each other. It’s not like that here. There’s no uniform. Look around.”
I gaze out at the crowd. He’s right. There’s no uniformity here. Everyone is unique. One man dressed like a futuristic robot kisses another man wearing a three-piece suit right out of a 1940s film noir. The only commonality is individuality.
Bram’s eyes light up as he speaks about this place. “The thingmany queer people who long to benormalforget is that the whole fun of being queer lies in running counter to culture,” he says with awe. “We deserve rights, notboredom.”
“So everyone here is queer?” I ask.
He shrugs. “If by queer, you mean that they live in defiance to whatever society decides is the norm, then yes. And isn’t it wonderful?”
“What’s wonderful?” I ask.
“That we have to fight for what we want. It’s so much more fun to earn something, isn’t it? In order to merely exist, our love for each other, our belief in our own identity, must be so much bigger and deeper than theirs. And they know this. They know that queer love is the truest love, because it’s the one that’s been fought for. I think that scares them. They know we’re stronger. They know our skin’s thicker.”
“I suppose I’ve never thought about it that way.” I miss the way he makes me think about the world. His perspective and his impenetrable hopefulness, even when his heart is broken. I can’t take my eyes off him. He looks so alive. He doesn’t wear sunglasses or a mask like I do. He lets the fiery glow of his eyes shine for all to see. In this space, they don’t look strange at all. “How long have you lived here?” I ask.
“London?” he asks.
“No, Earth.”
He laughs. “Earth, seventeen years. London, a year and a half.” He pauses, considering what to say next. “I lived in London for a short spell when I was... younger. But it wasn’tthisLondon then. Or perhaps I wasn’tthisme then.”
I nod. “People change,” I say.
“Thank God for that,” he says. “Are you visiting? You soundAmerican. Southern? Let me guess. Alabama? Louisiana? North—”
“I—I came for a visit, but I’m... considering staying, I think.”
“How could you leave after seeing this place?” he asks. “This is freedom.” With a note of sadness in his voice, he adds, “I never thought I could find a place where I could truly be happy. But here I am.”
“You don’t sound happy, though,” I observe.
“Oh. Yes. That’s just because my heart was recently bruised.”
“Not broken?” I ask.
“Not yet. I thought perhaps I could have it all. But what I’m realizing is that what I have might be enough.” He looks toward the dance floor, where the man and woman he walked in with are laughing in a huddle with a group of mesmerizing creatures of the night. The woman waves to him. “That’s my mother Lily and her best friend, Archie,” he announces proudly.
“I’m sorry about your bruised heart,” I say. “I hope it heals.”
“I hope it doesn’t,” he replies quickly. “Love, even unrequited, makes me feel alive. If my heart healed, it would mean I didn’t love him anymore.”
“Him?” I ask.
He smiles. We’re both haunting the past now. I can feel us traveling from the Blitz back to 1920. We’re at the Golden Rooster again. Wrestling each other. Holding each other. We’re walking side by side, sweet cookies in our bellies. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I must be boring you. Other people’s love stories aren’t interesting to anyone else.”
“Tell that to Romeo and Juliet,” I say. “To Antony and Cleopatra. To Tristan and Isolde.”
“Those aren’t love stories,” he says. “Those are tragedies.”
I nod, realizing he’s right. “Perhaps the only love stories anyone’sinterested in are the ones that end tragically.” I think of the movieLove Story. It captivated the world with its doomed tale. The lead character’s name was Oliver. The love of his life died. Mine never will. I feel a sudden swell of warmth for Bram. Maybe the two of us really can have eternal love.
“I’ve had enough tragedy for one lifetime, thank you very much,” Bram says. “I’ll hold on to hope as long as I’m alive.”
