Jake & Conor - 8. Chapter 8

For my thirtieth birthday, Conor didn’t even try to sneak up a surprise party. Instead, he gave a terrific dinner at a great restaurant inviting nearly everyone from work and a mess of our other friends. Afterwards, he took me to Molokai for a week.
“How’d you get us the time off?” I asked.
“I blackmailed the producers.”
I hoped he was kidding.
My parents sent me a watch – gold, fancier than anything I’d ever owned or would buy, though not so flashy I wouldn’t wear it.
“Goes along with your new job,” Dad boasted.
“Just don’t get mugged,” cautioned Mom.
My sister ordered balloons, delivered by a sexy clown soon after I got to work. Middle Brother hit lower, dispatching a stripper for lunch. He was so hot, even the women who might ordinarily have laughed it off were pissed. But Youngest Brother slammed them all – hiring an old, female stripper who waddled in around coffee-break, mainly wearing diapers. “I figured that’d confuse everyone,” the child-lawyer chortled.
I’d thought about proposing to Conor on Molokai but knew it was still too soon. We’d been seeing each other for over a year. There was no question about love. But he had walls-within-walls. Sometimes, I’d ask him something, then watch while he answered it in his mind but never told me what he thought.
“Short days here still throw me,” I told Conor, one night after we were back. “I associate them with winter and cold, then it’s dark at four-thirty and still seventy degrees.”
“You need to travel more.”
I laughed. “You know more ways of spending money.”
“It’s why it’s there.”
I couldn’t agree. When I first moved west, one of the people I asked for help said, “Don’t worry about getting into the business. There are always people quitting. The thing is, once you start making real money – and it’s inevitable – you’ve got to save about a third of it. Because there comes a point when you want to walk away.”
“How about sailing?” Conor went on. “For Christmas?”
“Only if it’s off Massachusetts.”
He shook his head, seeming amused. “What’s gonna happen when you’re married? Still gonna trot home to your folks?”
“Is that a proposal?” I joked. “You know my answer.”
“Sailing?” he asked again.
“Any time but the holidays.”
For a second year, he didn’t want to come East. That had already been discussed.
“What’s the problem?” Middle Brother razzed. “He got crabs?”
“No. He hates short-dicked little brothers.”
“It’s really throwing Mom,” my sister advised. “She’s met everyone else you’ve slept with.”
“Hardly,” I denied.
“Well, she thinks she has.”
We laughed.
“You make me sound like scum,” I went on.
“Well, you do work in TV.”
“Is this guy Conor afraid he can’t compete with us?” the law-school-grad bluntly accused. He was practicing being direct.
“That’s not the problem.”
“Then maybe you’re a wimp.”
“What if we all came to California for Christmas this year?” Mom suggested, in her best roundabout way. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Mom, consider the logistics.”
“It wouldn’t be that hard...”
“Mom...”
“A handful of plane tickets...”
“Mom...”
“And who’d miss the snow?”
“Mom!”
She finally backed off. But she took a last shot: “He’d be away anyhow, wouldn’t he?”
I was trapped: “Probably,” I had to admit.
“Am I gonna like him at all?” my mother asked.
“Yes! Really! Be patient!”
“What do you have against families?” I pressed Conor one evening soon after. I was seriously beating him at Scrabble, and for a moment he pretended to concentrate on making his next word.
“I grew up in one,” he finally answered.
“That’s glib,” I said. “At best.”
He shook his head. “You’d have to meet them.”
“Will I?”
He hesitated. More than hesitated – he was silent for a long time, staring at his letters. “Half of them are dead,” he picked up. “My younger brother and my mom. And Dad and his bottle are working on it... And every time the phone rings... late... I’m sure my older brother’s finally gotten himself killed on his motorcycle.”
It was further than he’d ever gotten, and I knew it couldn’t have been easy. I also knew not to push.
“My family’s nothing like that,” I reassured him. “You’ll love them.”
In reply, he laid down a 96 point word, annihilating my lead.
Still, he did drive me to the airport, I think less to spare me the shuttle, than to stay with me as long as he could. Once East, I again called him daily, and we often talked for an hour-or-so. He was fine: Busy. Writing.
“Take a break,” I encouraged.
“Take one for me,” he joked.
So I did – having the usual fine time with my family and friends. Then, as planned, I flew home for New Year’s Eve.
“Dad gave me this for you,” I said, offering Conor a final gift after he’d opened everything from me.
“What is it?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
It seemed about the size and weight of a book.
“If it’s Psychology,” he warned, and I pictured a less-than-completely-comfortable evening. Still, opening the package, he instantly laughed: Dad had sent a framed, childhood photo of me. Completely embarrassing.
“Now they’re ganging up,” I kidded.
He grinned. “I know just where to hang this.”
“Not your office!”
“Right behind my desk.”
“What’ll you take as a bribe?”
Laughing, he commanded: “Streak! Now! Down Wilshire!”
Yanking off my shirt, I headed for the door.
“Jake! You know I’d never take this to work!”
I grinned, admitting, “I wouldn’t’ve made it to the elevator.”
“Though I wish I’d had it for your birthday. What a great invitation!”
I stared at the uninhibited squirt I’d once been, wondering how I could possibly steal the damned thing from Conor. Then I realized it was only a copy of the loathed family original. Dad had kept that hostage.
“Use it for my funeral,” I gave in. “By then I won’t care.”
He laughed. “Too long to wait.”
Late New Year’s Day – well after our private celebrations had ended – I drove home. January was typically busy. Until the quake.
Amazingly, I got through to Conor on the first try.
“I kept calling you,” he said. “The TV says the phones are fine.”
“You have TV?”
“I have everything. This building’s on rockers.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It rocks.”
“What did it feel like?”
“A building on rockers.”
Always droll. I gave up and said, “I’ve got to call my family.”
“But you’re okay?”
“Yeah. I’m at the office.”
“What are you doing there?”
“Nothing works in my apartment.”
“Is it wrecked?”
“No, but the office is a mess.”
“Well, don’t try to clean it yourself. That can wait. Just come here.”
“Let me call east first. Then I’ll drive.”
“Sure thing. It’s not like I’m going anywhere. That’s what the TV warns.”
“The radio, too. I heard it after I was in the car.”
I got through to Massachusetts with no trouble. My family was relieved.
“How’d you get a line out?” Dad shouted, as if that would fix the phones. “We’ve been calling for hours. Your street’s all over the news.”
I righted one of the TV monitors. Ventura Boulevard was all over the news. I could have stayed home and waved to friends
“When did you find out?” I asked.
“Right after you did. They interrupted ‘Good Morning, America.’”
The joy of satellites. Strangers knows you’re dead before you do.
“Will you call everyone?” I requested. “We’re supposed to stay off the phones.”
“Don’t worry. And don’t you go out driving!”
I didn’t explain that I already had. Instead, I quickly straightened my desk then headed to Conor’s.
Wilshire Boulevard looked fine – and normal. People were shopping as I passed Rodeo Drive, probably tourists. As I pulled up to Conor’s building, I weighed parking my new car on the street or in his valet parking. One way it could be hit, the other, crushed, if the building came down. I chanced the valet.
“You stink,” was the first thing he said.
“Obviously, I didn’t take a shower.”
“Let’s go.”
And we did, of course getting distracted along the way. That was fine. We had very little to do. He eventually watched a movie, and I read. Soon before dinner, we watched the sun peacefully set from his balcony, sipping a calming California zinfandel. The building shook occasionally in an aftershock but was certified “quake-proof.” So we grinned and rode it out.
“You’re sure we’re okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s why I bought the place.”
“Sorry you lost a day’s work. I know that breaks your momentum.”
Expecting him to say, “It’s not a problem,” instead, he answered: “Are you kidding? I had a terrific morning. All that energy.”
Hours later, I fell asleep on the twenty-first floor above a fault. Wondering why I possibly felt safe.