“I did it myself.” He looked pleased at the effect on Lionel. Everyone said he had a talent for interior design, he had always been able to take a room and change it in a matter of hours, using whatever materials were at hand. Even his mother said he should do something with his innate ability, he was better than she was, she claimed. It took her months to achieve the effects she struggled for. “I love doing stuff like that.”
“Maybe one of these days, you can wave a magic wand over my room. It still looks like a jail cell, and I've lived here for a year.”
John laughed. “Anytime.” He glanced around. “Actually, I had two extra plants, and I was going to ask you if you wanted them.”
Lionel smiled at him. “Sure. But they'll probably die the first time I walk into the room. I don't exactly have a knack with anything green.”
“I'll take care of them for you. I'll water them when I do mine.” The, two young men exchanged a smile and Lionel looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock.
“Want to go out for a hamburger?” The very words had a ring of déjà vu again, and he was reminded of Paul. It was even more eerie when John agreed and suggested they go to the very place he had gone with Paul the first time. It made Lionel silent and moody for the first part of the meal. He was thinking of that first night when he had gone to Malibu with Paul. He hadn't heard from him in months, and he had seen him drive past once, on Rodeo Drive, in the passenger seat of a beige and brown Rolls with a handsome, older man at the wheel. And they had been talking animatedly as Lionel watched, they were smiling at each other, and Paul had laughed at something the other man said. And now here he was again, with John … his younger brother's best friend. It felt odd. Even more so when they went back to the house they now shared. The other two living there just then were both staying at their girlfriends7 that night, and the others had already moved out at the end of the school year.
“Thanks for dinner.” John smiled at him as they sprawled comfortably in the living room and Lionel put a record on. Two of the bulbs were burned out in the room's main lamp, and the light was unintentionally dim. John lit a candle on the coffee table and glanced around. “This room could use a little help too.”
Lionel laughed. “You're going to have this place in shape in no time, but I think the other guys will discourage you a little bit. When they're here, this place always looks like someone just threw a bomb into the room.”
John laughed too. “My sisters keep their rooms like that.” His face grew more serious. “I've never lived with men before, except my Dad of course. I'm so used to having girls around all the time, this is going to be weird at first.” And then he smiled. “That must sound crazy to you.”
“No, it doesn't. I've got three sisters.”
“But you've had Greg around too. I've always been so close to my Mom and the girls. Ill bet I miss them for a while.”
“It's good training for when you get married, to have that many women around.” Lionel smiled again and wondered to himself if he was testing him. And he told himself that wasn't fair. John was just a kid … but he was the same age he had been when he met Paul … but Paul was so much more experienced … and he was the experienced one now. Not as much as Paul had been, but more so than this boy. But where did you start? How did you ask someone something like that? He tried to remember what Paul had said to him, but the words escaped him now … he remembered that they had gone for a long walk on the beach … and Paul had asked him something about being confused. But there was no beach here, and John didn't look confused to him. He was a trifle shy, and he was far less rowdy than Greg, but he was a happy, pleasant, young man … yet Lionel could never remember seeing him seriously involved with a girl.
They chatted on for a while, and finally Lionel got up and said he was going to take a shower. John said he'd do the same. And it was ten minutes later, when John knocked on the bathroom door and apologized, shouting into the shower where Lionel stood trying not to think of him, as rivulets of hot water purified his mind and his flesh.
“I'm sorry, Li … do you have any shampoo? I forgot mine.”
“What?” Lionel pulled aside the curtain so he could hear and saw John standing there, naked save for a towel wrapped around his waist. He felt his body stir, and pulled the shower curtain closed again so John couldn't see.
“I said, do you have any shampoo?”
“Sure.” He had already used it and his hair was wet and clean. “Here.” He handed it to John, who disappeared with a thanks and a smile, and he returned with it in a little while, wearing his towel again, his hair wet and dark, his body rippling with the muscles football had built for him, and Lionel was wandering naked around his room, putting things away and humming to himself. He had the radio on, and Lennon and McCartney were singing “Yesterday,” as John handed the shampoo back to him.
