I know you’ve never been to Palm Springs. Never been to California, even. Or, as you’ve often lamented, never even west of the Mississippi.
Would you be willing to deepen our email canoodling with an in-person visit?
Jasper stopped reading then because he felt sick. For one, he had no money to make this man’s dream come true. Literally no money. Once he paid his half of the rent and utilities, bought meager food from Aldi, and allowed himself a few cocktails here and there around Chicago, he had nothing left over. Nada.
For another, he’d gotten comfortable with this arrangement and wasn’t even sure he wanted more. He’d fantasize sometimes, of course, about being swept off his feet alaPretty Woman, but the truth was, if he thought about his own romantic future, the most he dared hope for was that he’d meet a hunky fireman from the South Side, or maybe a swarthy Italian chef from Wicker Park, or even a cute boy who worked in retail like him and they’d pool their resources eventually to get their own studio apartment and puppy or kitten together. They’d vacation in Saugatuck or at the Dells. Their cars would always be secondhand. But who cared? They’d have each other.
The idea of being involved in any way with someone rich and famous like Rob was almost absurd. It certainly was surreal.
He drank his tepid coffee and got up to go to the kitchen to refill his cup. There, he opened the back door and stepped onto the landing to look out over the building’s backyard, which was bordered on one side by a large retaining wall above which perched the L tracks.
Rain sheeted down. The landscape seemed sodden, as though waterlogged. The sky was a dark gray—so dark, in fact, it was pretty close to being indistinguishable from night. A train huffed on the tracks across from him, and he wondered if anyone could see him, standing here shivering in a Steppenwolf Theatre Company T-shirt and plaid boxers, clutching a chipped Human Rights Campaign mug. Wondered if he was seen and judged a cliché.
He laughed and went back inside about the time his teeth were ready to start chattering.
He started reading the email again, and it was almost as though Rob could see him.
Sunshine! I have Chicago on my phone’s weather app and I know what it’s like there now. Highs in the low forties, lows in the twenties. Dreary, rainy skies, worthy of London or Seattle.
Here it’s sunny every single day. By midafternoon, we hit the eighties and it cools down at night to the fifties or sixties, perfect for soaking in my hot tub with a glass of wine and staring up at the stars, which are not, unlike Chicago, drowned out by light pollution. Imagine a sky crowded with stars. You can see the constellations. Here’s some poetry I love about stars and I think of it often when I look up at night, dreaming:
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.
I’ll leave it to you to figure out the poem and the poet.
Come see the stars from my backyard, which backs up to the mountains. Come feel the desert air caress you.
I tire of these emails. Will you come? Say the word and a first-class ticket to Palm Springs will be waiting for you at O’Hare. You don’t even need to pack (grin). Just be here.
And Rob ended it there.
I won’t have to pay. The thought both comforted and repelled. Jasper had learned long ago to stand on his own two feet, that taking anything from anyone was charity—pitiable. Plenty of his bar friends, he knew, would jump at a chance like this, not thinking twice about it, just taking.
But he had his pride.
Still, itwastempting. He rose once more from the desk and moved to the balcony off the living room, where he could survey Fargo Avenue from his second-story vantage.
The rain had slowed to a sprinkle, maybe even a fine mist. But the skies were still dark enough for the streetlights to remain on. Every few seconds a low grumble in the background reminded him the day’s rain was far from over. The hiss on the pavement could move in an instant to drumming.
A chill wind, too cold for spring, blew up from the east, making Jasper shiver. He wrapped his arms around himself. “Get back inside, idiot. Don’t you have sense enough to come in out of the rain?”
He thought of clear, sunny skies. The heat of that yellow orb beating down, warming, loosening his limbs. Thought of kicking back and napping in that warm embrace.
Pictured a Van Gogh starry, starry night.
Why not take something for once? Why not simply be open to receiving a gift, especially one that could lead to significant change?
He shook his head and moved to the door.
Back inside, he woke the computer and read Rob’s email over again. Using the mouse, he highlighted the snippet of poetry Rob had shared and then plugged it into Google.
Jasper gasped when he saw who wrote the poem. It was called “On the Beach at Night,” and the full poem read:
On the beach at night,
