“You’re the penthouse, right? So I bet you get a very nice view,” Shannon said.
“Oh, the best. And we have an infinity pool too, with a glass edge. You can see the ocean and the horizon while you swim.”
“Holy shit,” he muttered. “My mom is gonna freak when I send her pictures. This sounds fancier than the place she cleans for.”
Personally, I thought it was a case of more money than sense, though it did sound lush. I wasn’t the one who’d spent the money buying it, but I wasn’t going to say no to enjoying it with my man. The time we had together was too short to concern myself about things like that.
16
The penthouse was vast. It was even larger than Father’s house, and far more opulent. Where Father went for comfort, ease of access to the emotions he fed on, and the ability to blend in innocuously among the middle class, the Montgomerys were all about luxury.
“This is fantastic,” Shannon said, his head swiveling around as he tried to look at everything at once.
Mrs. Montgomery smiled at him. “We like it. It was a pain to have to store everything during the remodel, but it was definitely worth it. We had them leave the best of the original features, but updated everything else and added the jacuzzi and the pool.” She tittered. “We walked in, and I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, it looks so different yet the same!’ and the designer just looked at me like I was crazy. But it’s true. None of the walls were moved or anything, and we’ve lived here since 1967.”
“So, you guys bought this place right after it was built?” he asked, looking impressed. “You must have been so young!”
She stuck the tip of her tongue out from between her lips for a moment, a flash of hesitation showing briefly in her eyes as she remembered he wasn’t Family. “Well, yes, but Ronnie had the position at the firm, and we both had our trust funds, plus we managed to get in before they broke any actual ground, so it wasn’t as expensive as you might think. We got a discount by buying in advance so they could use the money as part of their building capital.”
And no doubt it was built by someone in the Family, anyway. The money certainly went round and round. Shuffled about here and there, but never actually leaving.
Mrs. Montgomery led us deeper into the house.
“We redecorated your room after you called and let us know you were bringing Shannon,” she told me. “It didn’t feel right to ask him to sleep in a guest room and have you two trying to sneak private moments in after slipping into each other’s rooms, trying not to be seen.” She laughed at the expressions on our faces and waved a hand at us. “Don’t look at me like that! I know what goes on.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I used to do the same thing when I went to stay at Ronnie’s for the holidays, or he came to my parent’s. Anyway, there’s a queen-sized bed in there now, and I took out all your school trophies and your old posters. We had it repainted the same color and hung up some pictures we had blown up.” She opened the door to a room.
The bedroom faced the beach, one window overlooking it while a set of French doors opened up onto the patio where the pool, jacuzzi, and an outdoor kitchen with a fancy gas barbecue were.
“I could live out there and only come into sleep unless it rained,” Shannon said.
I turned as the bedroom door opened up behind me. It was Ramon, bringing in our bags. He sat them down carefully on the bed.
“Thank you,” I told him. He eyed me cooly, pursing his lips. I didn’t think he quite knew what to make of me, this fake River. He didn’t seem to dislike me on sight, but he sure didn’t have a case of the warm and fuzzies for me, either. His eyes flicked from me to a picture in the wall behind me, then back to me again. He gave me a nod and withdrew; I turned to look at the picture. It showed a young River, probably around age nine or ten, on the desk of a sailboat with his parents.
“That’s a great picture,” Shannon said.
“It was a wonderful day,” Mrs. Montgomery said. “It’s a shame River can’t remember it.”
Shannon looked at me, pity in his eyes. “Hopefully, the holes in his memory fill back in.”
They wouldn’t, but as I saw more pictures and listened to the stories told about River, the better I could fake it.
Mrs. Montgomery gave a shaky smile. I felt terrible for her. She seemed to miss her son, despite the way things had appeared to me at first. I began to realize that she was latching onto me, seeking a way to fill the hole in her heart. To assuage the grief the Family would not allow her to acknowledge. She was Made and had an eternity to look forward to of pretending her son was not dead. It was exceptionally cruel, but then so was everything else about our existence. We only had the brief and all too rare respites that could be afforded to us. For me, it was getting to play at being a college-aged boy with a boyfriend and enjoy a life I’d not gotten to have while among the living. Not that if I had remained human and by some miracle found a benefactor, I could not have had openly had a boyfriend. Not in those days, no. The late teens and early Roaring Twenties was not a kind time to be in as a gay man. This happiness, though, I could grant her. I could become her surrogate son in every way that mattered to her personally.
“I have the love in your voices as you tell me the stories and new memories to make and cherish,” I told her. She blinked, crystalline tears catching her lashes.
“We do,” she said, her voice straining from her effort not to cry. She cleared her throat busily, blinking away the tears. “Why don’t you boys go on outside and enjoy the pool. Let me know if you get too cool; I can have Laurel bring out the patio heaters and turn them on. I’ll have her bring some floats out now, though.”
She left us alone then, and I turned to Shannon. “Wanna go lounge in the pool? Or just chill in here?”
“Luckily, I did pack some swim trunks,” he grins.
I didn’t, but something tells me there will be some in my dresser drawers. I look, and I’m right, the second drawer has two pairs of trunks, the long kind they call board shorts. They look new, the tags not curled up from being worn and then washed, and the fabric still stiff. I know without even asking that everything else in the drawers and hanging in the closet will be new, too. I might be playing the part of River and doing my best to become another son in spirit to Mrs. Montgomery, but they did not seem to want nor expect me to use his things. I was grateful for that. It would have felt odd, like living in a mausoleum.
I picked up the blue, red, and yellow pair patterned to look like a sunset with palm tree silhouettes. “Cool, I’ll wear this, then.”
“We should put our clothes away first, shouldn’t we?”
I considered this. Mrs. Montgomery, or rather Mom, I reminded myself, hadn’t said a word about us doing anything except going out to enjoy the pool. It might be considered odd if we put away our clothes. Then again, if we didn’t, and when we returned to the room, our bags were still packed, we could put everything away then. It’s not like we’d packed a whole lot.
