A Beggar's Kingdom Page 31

  Julian couldn’t speak. When he tried to say something, his throat closed up like it was bleeding fire.

  “Do they know?”

  Ashton shook his head. “It doesn’t come up, except when they ask if I want kids, to which I say no, which is not a lie.”

  “But also not the truth. When did you do this?”

  Ashton waved to the past. “Years ago. Right after you left for London. When I first hooked up with Z. I saw nothing but problems ahead. God forbid they both got pregnant at the same time. What a mess that would’ve been.”

  “Why didn’t you talk to me first?”

  “I don’t know if you recall, but you weren’t available, dude.” Beat. “You haven’t been available for a while.”

  “Oh, Ashton. Why did you do it?” Overcome, Julian covered his face. He couldn’t sit up. He couldn’t bear to look at his friend. “Didn’t you think of the future?”

  “Why are you taking it so personally? You and I weren’t planning to have kids, were we? And I thought of nothing else but the future. The rest of my life, to be exact.”

  Julian wanted to cry. Ashton, did you forget the plans we once made? We’d build two houses in the hills next to each other, like Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, one for you and one for me—you being Brando and me being Jack of course—and in between the houses there’d be a pool and a patio where our kids and wives could swim and grill and shout for us to leave the football and the boxing on TV and come join the family. Our L.A. revels were never more steeped in the sun and the sea, swelling with the righteousness and joy of the whole universe, than when you and I dreamed that dream, of a life that will never be. Did you forget?

  Ashton sat up, his eyes on Julian across the coffee table. The expression on his face told Julian that Ashton had not forgotten. “Whatever it is you’re half-remembering,” Ashton said quietly, “that dream’s been cold and dead a long time, brother.”

  Julian groaned. “Okay, but this isn’t about me. It’s not about us, or our stupid pie-in-the-sky plans. They weren’t even plans. It was just drunken banter.” It was physically painful for him to speak. “But one of your women might have eventually liked to get knocked up by you. Have a baby Ashton.”

  Ashton struggled up, looking wiped out. “And you wonder why my foot’s always propping open the door,” he said, stumbling down the hall to his room.

  We all fuck up and need to be forgiven, thought Julian, unable to get up. We beg to be forgiven, even when we fuck everything up, absolutely fucking everything. Bent in half, heads bowed, we limp forward, scarred, sterile, undeserving and unworthy, toward the mystery of bright grace.

  27

  Refugees

  BEAUTIFUL AND SMILING, ONE WOMAN WALTZED IN WITH her weekend bag.

  Beautiful and smiling, the other woman waltzed in with her weekend bag.

  As a third wheel, Julian leaned over the island with one chatty couple eating Thai food out of plastic containers.

  As a third wheel, Julian leaned over the island with the other chatty couple eating sushi out of plastic containers.

  The action was the same, yet in one case, Julian’s eyes remained averted. He owed nothing to Zakiyyah, but Ashton was right, it was impossible for Julian to interact with Riley with the same ease he used to, casually ironic and lightly affectionate. He couldn’t and wouldn’t let his friend down, but he also couldn’t look Riley in the face. He continued pretending as best he could, but their camaraderie had ceased. The few Sundays when he took her to see Devi, and she and the cook strolled through Brick Lane Market, arm in arm, chatting about produce and incense, Julian trudged behind them, counting his lucky stars. He didn’t want to be left alone with Riley. No more strolls through Green Park, no more heart to hearts for them.

  He kept busy with work, with Devi, with horseback riding, with boxing. There was square dancing in the rec hall at St. Monica’s on Saturdays. Devi had asked him to attend. It was widow night. Julian got paired up with a nice seventy-year-old woman with cataracts. She could really move, though.

  Some weekend nights, one couple tangled on the couch.

  Two weekends later, the other couple tangled on the couch.

  In the mornings, the door to Ashton’s bedroom was closed. There was giggling, rough-housing, open laughing. Occasionally at night Julian would need to put on headphones, to give himself a break from their intimacy.

  And occasionally he wouldn’t.

  Zakiyyah was louder.

  The woman was a juggernaut in many ways. She was a laughing, clucking, wiping, fixing, baking, tea-making, straightening, back-rubbing force of nature. She ironed Ashton’s previously pressed white shirts that had lain in the closet too long and stocked their medicine cabinet with Neosporin and Band-Aids (“What does she think happens around here that we need a year’s supply of bandages?” Julian asked). She threw away their leftovers and bought fresh fruit, and put pink flowers in vases on window sills and lit up the candy apple scented candles all over the apartment as if it was 1603, and electricity and tea hadn’t been discovered yet.

  She’d been in a minor car wreck back in L.A. that may or may not have been her fault. Rule number one, Ashton told her, is never say sorry to another driver after an accident. Ashton’s second rule, he said with a grin, is never say sorry, period.

  “Oh, another one of your rules?” Zakiyyah said. “Do you follow that one half as well as your two-minute sex rule?” He tackled her, tickling her. Squealing, she tickled him back. They both fell off the couch.

  Smiling appropriately, Julian studied them as they rough-housed. For fear of saying the wrong thing, he frequently would spend hours in their company saying nothing at all.

  Riley often asked why he spaced out so often.

  Zakiyyah did not. She and Julian didn’t have that kind of a relationship, where she could ask him things. He couldn’t reconcile the Zakiyyah he’d been superficially acquainted with—the prim, scholarly, school-marmy human being—with the luminescent, gentle, radiant creature who flew into their apartment like the good fairy Glinda, dazzled them for four days with her crazy hair, her commercial-grade smile and sweet tea and company, and flew out, leaving everything fragrant and emptier.

  “I thought you couldn’t stand him,” Julian said to her one Friday night.

  “Oh, I absolutely couldn’t,” Zakiyyah cheerfully admitted. “Until I could. Who could resist him? Look at him. He’s so cute.” He was asleep on the sofa, his head in Zakiyyah’s lap. She stroked his head, his cheek, fondly rubbed his shoulder. “What are you asking, Julian?” Zakiyyah said with warm eyes and a moist smile. “When I knew? Maybe when he made another one of his stupid jokes that finally broke me. Or maybe when he barged into my house uninvited, sat himself down at my table, and told me that his friendship with you was the most important relationship of his life. You were his only family, he said, and he would do anything to help you.”

  “That’s how he seduced you?” Julian said. “That Ashton. He’s a real keeper. How do you know it wasn’t posturing? Using me as an excuse to get you into bed? You think he’s above that?”

  Zakiyyah laughed. “Oh, Julian, why are you so funny?”

  “Z, it’s literally the oldest trick in the book,” Julian said. “What woman can resist a man, any man, but especially that man after he tells her he’s all alone in the world?”

  “That’s not why he said it!”

  “Did you go to bed with him?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I rest my case.”

  Zakiyyah shook Ashton awake. “Ash, wake up!” Leaning over him, she tickled him with her curls and kissed his cheek. “Ash! Are you awake? Who’s right, me or Jules? He thinks you didn’t mean the things you said to me that time in my apartment, that you only said them to get me into bed.”

  “Why does one of you have to be wrong?” Ashton said, rubbing his eyes. “Why couldn’t I have meant them and said them to get you into bed?”

  “Ashton!”

  “Asht
on!” Julian mimicked Zakiyyah’s high-pitched squeal.

  “Jules, do you really want to know why she slept with me?” Ashton said. “Because she finally laughed at one of my jokes, and realized I was amazingly funny as well as adorable.” Turning his head, he gazed up sleepily at Zakiyyah. “Do you remember the joke, Ziggy?”

  Adoringly she nodded, gazing back. “Two men are golfing,” she said, “and one of them stops for a funeral procession crossing their path. His friend compliments him for being so respectful to funerals, and the man says, Well, it’s the least I can do, we were married for forty years.”

  Zakiyyah laughed and laughed, leaning over Ashton in a deep embrace, nuzzling him into her abundant breasts, kissing him.

  Every space he was in, Ashton made better by his presence.

  ∞

  Ashton and Zakiyyah sat draped around each other on the couch opposite Julian, watching TV but mostly chatting. Zakiyyah was telling Julian some small stories about Mia, about her standing on a crate on Rockaway pier in the summers while the buskers played, reciting by heart nearly the entire narrative poem of Venus and Adonis, and fuming that no one threw money into her hat, no one except her mother, who had come and listened to her for the entire afternoon.

  Her mother?

  “Yes, why? Mia was incredibly close to her mother. After her dad died, it was just the two of them, and they had an unbreakable bond. The closest mother–daughter bond I’ve ever seen. Mia could do no wrong in her mother’s eyes. Even her theatre obsession didn’t derail them, no matter what Mia told you about it.”

  “You mean the three of them, right? She had a sister, too,” Julian said. “A sister who died of leukemia.”

  Widening his eyes at Julian, as if signaling him to stop, Ashton took Zakiyyah’s hand.

  “That wasn’t Mia,” Zakiyyah said quietly. “It was my sister who died of leukemia. Azubah. Mia was an only child.”

  Ancient damnation! as Monk would say. Even that wasn’t true?

  “Next thing you’ll tell me,” Zakiyyah said, “is she told you we both wanted to be actors. She loved to tell that one.”

  “Even that wasn’t true?”

  “Especially that,” said Zakiyyah. “I went out west solely to help her, to take care of her. She was so flighty. She couldn’t cook, or drive, or keep track of her money.”

  “She could cook,” Julian said. “She made shame toast.”

  “Like I said,” said Zakiyyah. “Her mother had begged me. Who could’ve known that L.A. was going to give her the heebie-jeebies and after a few months, she’d bail on me and move back. Do I seem like an actress to you, Jules? I mean, honestly. Just look at me. Everything I feel is on my face.” She kissed Ashton.

  Julian’s astonished gaze was to the ceiling. Was anything true? Was anything real?

  Turned out yes. Some things were both—true and real.

  ∞

  Early one Saturday morning, on a second weekend in March, Julian, Ashton, and Riley were hanging out at the apartment, having Friday night Thai for breakfast and debating where to go that night for Julian’s birthday, when the doorbell rang.

  Julian walked to the intercom, and Ashton said, “Jules, did you forget it’s broken?” The night before, Ashton had to go down for the Thai. “The man, I swear, remembers nothing. Your turn,” he said to Julian, waving at the door with a pair of chopsticks full of cold sesame noodles he was sharing with Riley. “I went last night. And I paid. Off you trot, as they say in our adopted country.” He and Riley were canoodling over the guide to the weekend in the Standard, deciding whether to go to the fair at Hampstead Heath or the artwalk in Kensington. Or would Riley prefer a browse through Portobello Market?

  Riley chuckled. “Why, because I’m your Portobello Belle?”

  “That you are, baby, and I got one for you,” said Ashton, leaning forward to kiss her, sesame sauce lips and all.

  Julian bounded down three flights of stairs and opened the glass front door. On the stoop with her weekend bag stood Zakiyyah.

  “Hey, Jules,” she said with a smile.

  Julian didn’t smile.

  “Z…” he said. They hugged awkwardly like two trees. “Um…” He tried to remember the maze of Ashton’s schedule. Weren’t second weekends usually Riley’s weekends? “He asked me to come this weekend instead,” Zakiyyah said, noticing Julian’s confusion. “He said next week was your birthday and you had plans.”

  Ashton could not continue to live as he’d been living, that was clear now. “Uh…did you text him today, Z?”

  “No, my flight got in at 6 a.m., I thought he’d be sleeping, plus I forgot to turn my roaming on, I have to call the phone company as soon as I get upstairs.”

  Julian couldn’t even text Ashton himself, one, because he’d left his phone on his bed, and two, because Ashton’s infallible smartphone that was never wrong was lying on the black granite island right next to the sesame noodles he was sucking barely dressed out of Riley’s mouth.

  Zakiyyah looked so pretty. Despite the tedious multi-stop travel from L.A. to New York to London, she was flushed, her dark face dewy and fresh. Piled on top of her head, her black curls were swept up in a fancy twist with a red satin ribbon. Her smile had been so wide just a moment earlier. She was a nice woman. Julian had changed his mind about her. She was a beautiful girl, inside and out. No wonder Mia had adored her. No wonder Ashton adored her. Julian had gotten to know her. They played cards and board games, they went out drinking, had breakfast together, yakked into the night. Julian didn’t know what to do.

  “Z, if I asked you to wait right here,” he said, “for just one minute, would you find me reprehensible?”

  She furrowed. “I don’t want to do that.”

  Was Julian the only one whose legs were weak?

  “Why are you acting weird?” Zakiyyah said. “Can you help me with my bag or, barring that, move out of the way?”

  “Riley is upstairs,” Julian said. “Your boyfriend screwed up who had custody of him this weekend.”

  Zakiyyah was motionless.

  For a minute, there was nothing.

  There was nothing but silence.

  “That’s impossible,” Zakiyyah said. “He deliberately asked me to switch for this weekend. He said your birthday was next weekend.”

  “He got mixed up. My birthday is today. You know it is. It’s the Ides of March.”

  “Happy birthday.”

  “Thanks.”

  Zakiyyah’s eyes welled up. She stared down at the bag by her feet, at the purse in her hands, at her waterproof boots. She flattened out the folds of her easy-wear gray dress, twirled a button on her overcoat. Julian once heard Ashton tell her it was his favorite dress. Except for the wet blackening of her eyes, she remained impassive.

  “I’m an idiot, right?” she said.

  “No.”

  “I’m a fool.”

  “No.”

  “You think I should run and not look back?”

  “Yes, that is what I think. I’m sorry.”

  “But, Julian, look at me!” Zakiyyah cried, no longer impassive. “Don’t you know that I love him?” It wasn’t a question. It was a fiery yawp.

  “I know.” It wasn’t unique to Zakiyyah or Riley, or Julian. It was what it was. Everyone loved him.

  “I can’t live without him.”

  Funny how glib those words sounded to Julian after five years, two continents and three life-sucking, soul-consuming travels, after all the devastating injuries to his body and heart. You think you can’t live without someone, and then you do.

  You know you can’t live without someone.

  And then you do.

  It was as if Zakiyyah had read his mind. “You call what you do living?” she said. “Please.” Grabbing her bag, she moved Julian out of the way with the flat of her hand, pushed past him into the vestibule and started up the stairs.

  He followed her. “Where are you going, Z?”

  “Where do you think?”


  Julian raced around Zakiyyah and took her elbow to stop her. She yanked away. He had to block her from taking another step. He took her by both arms.

  “Let go of me.”

  “Zakiyyah, listen to me,” he said. “I know you’re upset.”

  “Thanks for telling me how I feel, genius.”

  “Okay, you’re talking, not listening. Listen, Z. Because you’re upset and not thinking clearly, you’re acting on impulse. You want to confront him, is that it? To expose him once and for all?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, go for it,” Julian said, “but know what you’re about to do. You think you’ll cause a scene—and you will—but the only one who will be walking back down these stairs and going home is you. Riley will not leave him over this. Riley will never leave him. And he will never leave her.”

  “Bullshit.” Zakiyyah moved to go around him. “She will—after she learns the truth. Get out of my way.”

  “Never, Z. Do you know why? Because she already knows the truth. And she gives him a pass for it. She never causes the kind of scene you’re about to cause. She never humiliates him, as you’re about to. Never. She knows what he is, and she looks the other way. For this, he stays with her. Because he trusts her. Ashton hates confrontation, as you must know, otherwise you wouldn’t be so gung ho to hurt him now. What do you think will happen when you get upstairs? You think you’re going to give him an ultimatum? Make him choose? Either her or me, Ashton? You know he will never say sorry. You’ll fight. Riley might cry, you will definitely cry. When he won’t give you a straight answer, you’ll storm out. But he won’t follow you. Because he’ll know you are not the girl for him. Do you know how he’ll know? Because of what you’re about to do. You’ll say choose, Ashton, her or me, and he will give you his answer. He will choose her. So, if you want to never see him again,” Julian said, “by all means, take the stairs two at a time. Use the next twenty minutes well, because that’s all you’ll have. Twenty minutes to shout and say goodbye—but say goodbye to him for good.”

  Zakiyyah’s lips trembled, her shoulders, hands and knees trembled.