I didn't know where we were going, so Andy drove my Subaru, since we wouldn't all fit in his truck. We headed north along 13th East, into the Avenues, which was Salt Lake City's first planned neighborhood, nestled along the foothills of the North East Bench of the Wasatch Mountains.
Many of the homes in the Avenues were built between the 1880s and 1920s and had long been popular with young professionals. Since most of the houses were older, new construction was rare, but many of the old Victorian homes in the Avenues cost a million or more dollars owing to extensive remodeling.
Occasionally there were neglected properties tucked in among the nicer houses, but these were rapidly plucked up by enterprising young home owners and either remodeled or flipped for a quick profit. Andy drove down a shaded street, stopping in front of a rare example of new construction. The lawn was terraced and had been xeroscaped with desert plants, rocks and a thin swatch of grass. The house itself was somewhat squat, also terraced to an extent with a bilevel flat roof. The exterior walls seemed to be made of different materials, wood, stone and stucco and the external lighting was tastefully done. There appeared to be a large group of people in the house, some coming, some going.
As we got out of the car, I turned to Andy, "what is this?" I asked, looking also to Zack and Michael for answers.
"This, Jen" he said, pointing to the house, "is what I do for a living."
"You go to house parties in the Avenues?" I asked, perplexed.
Zack looked at me like I couldn't possibly have matriculated in medical school.
"Uh, no. I design environmentally friendly residential homes and remodels, one of which you are about to visit."
I looked at the house, then looked at him, then looked back at the house. "You designed this??!" I said incredulously.
"I contributed to the design, yes. The firm that I joined here in Salt Lake City hired me after consulting me for this project. Today we'll be visiting five highly efficient homes in Salt Lake which my firm designed or were consulted for in their remodels. This is the only one I contributed to though." He looked slightly shy, but also proud. I smiled hugely, and he reflected this, grinning slightly as we walked up the front steps.
The interior was very modern, with crisp, clean lines; it reminded me of a Crate & Barrel commercial. As we walked through the house, Andy talked about the various structural, architectural and design elements which had contributed to its being certified as a passive home. This, he explained, meant that renewable energy employed in the house (solar panels on the roof, and in some instances geothermal heating) could supply all of the energy to heat the house in the winter and cool it in the summer.
Part of the design of this house employed a so-called thermal envelope which provided superior insulation to the entire home. Although not a new concept, Andy's insulation design employed new materials, making the thermal envelope more green and energy efficient. The way he described it he was an architect for the nuts and bolts of a house, but didn't really contribute much in the way of what you saw, as all of his work was hidden behind beams and drywall.
Walking through the home, I was struck by how Spartan everything was. I had grown up in a house of chaos, but this place looked like a museum. I was curious to see what Andy thought of the interior design and so I asked him.
"Not really my thing, actually. It's a bit too... angular for my taste. I do like the open concept though, and wait until you see the back patio, it's killer."
We walked out to the back and it was, indeed, killer. There were several chairs around a fire pit and a large patio, perfect for garden parties and entertaining. "It's a beautiful house, Andy, you must be very proud." I slipped my arm into his and looked up at him, he was smiling like a kid in a candy store.
"I'm glad you like it, even if you don't like the interior." He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek.
"Who said I didn't like the interior?" I felt a bit embarrassed, hoping that my dislike of the Swedish aesthetic hadn't been so obvious.
"You just seemed more contemplative than effusive. Normally when you like something, you're more animated." He said this confidently, as if he had known me for years.
I was about to respond to this rather shocking accusation when Zack and Michael appeared. "Great house Andy, but could you tell that Jen hates it?" Zack said nonchalantly.
"Hey! I don't hate it. It's... just... very modern is all. That doesn't mean I hate it. I'm sure that the people who live here absolutely love it."
"Actually, I heard that they're getting divorced and selling it." Andy turned to me and smiled, "relax Jen, it's not my style either. But as a model of energy efficiency, it is a thing of beauty."
"I'll take your word on that" I said, and we turned and walked out of the house.
∞∞∞
We visited the other four houses on the Passive Homes tour and found them to be very similar in design but with unique attributes that gave each house a distinctive character. Two of them were unfurnished, so it was hard to get a sense of what it would be like to live there. One of them, a white modular structure with tall, almost bay-like windows in the front, was clearly owned by art collectors as there were beautiful pieces of art all over the house. It felt very much like a museum, and I couldn't shake the impression that I could never live in a house like this.
At the end of the tour we stopped at the Avenues Proper for a late lunch/early dinner before people started showing up at my house for games. Michael and Zack had absolutely fallen in love with the third house on the tour, one of the empty ones without furniture, and they were going on and on about what pieces they would put here and there. Andy and I sat quietly nodding appropriately and effusively at their theoretical interior design plans.
Finally, Andy picked up his beer, dropping his napkin on his plate, "It's funny, you know, I contribute 95% of my energy to the bones of a house, I never really get to see what the finished products look like with the appliances and the interior design. I can't say that I would've picked the same design elements if I'd had to do myself." He said this to the table, but I knew that it was meant for me.
"I know what you mean," I said, "they were all so... modern. It didn't really look like anyone lived in any of them. Especially the one with all of the art. I guess I just couldn't see myself living in a place which looked so much like a museum." I was proud of the work that Andy did, but I was also relieved that he didn't want to live in an Ikea catalog. "Well, regardless, I had a blast today, I had no idea that looking at other people's houses could be so much fun. We totally have to do this again someday."
Andy looked up from his beer, finished it in one chug, and put it down again, "I may just take you up on that" and he gave me a wolfish grin.
"Are you guys coming straight over for game night, or do you need to go back to your place first" I said to Zack.
"Nope, I think we're ready. You're the one who has to dress up as a ballroom dancer, remember?" Zack looked at the other two conspiratorially and then smiled back at me.
"Come on then, I've got sequins to put on."
We drove back to my place, with me driving, Andy in the front and Zack and Michael in the back looking at furniture at Pottery Barn on Michael's phone. As the host, I was responsible for supplying the alcohol only, and everyone else had to bring the food. I had stockpiles of alcohol from an earlier Game Night in which wires had been crossed and nobody showed up, thinking that it was the following weekend.
Andy offered to make a last minute run to the grocery store for some odds and ends, but I waved him away, saying that Sarah could easily go pick stuff up on her way over here. I texted her the list of things that I needed and was surprised when she texted me right back.
Are you seriously dressing up for this thing?
Well, yeah, I think we kind of have to. The guys totally came in drag. Well, all except Sean. He's not coming btw, is he? I haven't really called him at all since things started getting hot and heavy with Andy.
So things are hot and heavy now, huh?
I'd say so. He's slept over two nights in a row, and I think he's planning to again tonight. It helps that Michael is more or less staying at Zack's, otherwise he'd probably go home to be with his brother.
What are you wearing to this thing anyway?
Probably some sexy stripper outfit you picked up in one of your dance recitals no doubt.
Actually I found something on Etsy for $30 a few weeks ago. It was used but she said that she only wore it once and I'm only going to wear it once, so that seemed fair. I tried it on a couple of days ago and I only look 43% ridiculous
What's the other 57%?
Bad-fucking-ass
I hate you
Love you too. Don't forget the groceries. I texted you the list.
Whatever, I may not even come. Dave is being such a jerk right now
Yeah? Is he talking a bunch of shit about how we're going to lose?
Yeah, and you know what, I think he might be right.
I know what you mean, it's like I can hear the orchestra on the deck of the titanic.
I never understood that movie. Who drops a diamond the size of a tennis ball into the ocean? That's just fucking dumb.
No shit, right? Now hurry up and get dressed.
I hate you.
Bye.
I put down my phone and looked up to see that Zack was holding up my blue ballroom dancing gown and saying something about the magic hour having arrived. I rolled my eyes and got up from my chair. This night was going to be a big pain in my ass.
∞∞∞
It actually ended up being a total blast. To their credit, all four girls showed up in their best ballroom bling and there was even a brief interlude between one of the games where Zack taught us all how to do the waltz. I paired up with Andy and Michael and Zack paired up with Vanessa and Ashley, respectively. Sarah, of course, was with Dave, although she complained repeatedly that she wanted a different partner because he was stepping on her toes. He dipped her and kissed her passionately which effectively shut up her bitching and moaning.
Her bellyaching resumed, however, at the start of the third and final game, Backseat Drawing. As the victors, the boys had been allowed to pick the games for tonight's party and had assiduously chosen games which played to their perceived strong suits, which, with Andy as their defacto golden boy, included lots of games with drawing: telestrations, cranium and backseat drawing.
The girls were completely annihilated in the first round of Telestrations, but made up some of our deficit in the second round of Cranium where my singing, Sarah's talent with words and Vanessa's raw talent at guessing random things very, very quickly, helped us to win. The boys had deliberately chosen Backseat Drawing to go last, because they knew that Andy would rock it. Or at least that's what they thought.
The theory behind backseat drawing is simple, one of the players on a team is given a clue, he then has to describe the clue to someone who is doing the drawing and everyone else, including the drawer, has to guess whatever the thing is. Being a good drawer isn't necessarily an advantage if the person doing the describing isn't very talented at explaining what it is that you are supposed to be drawing.
In fact, Andy was a better describer than he was a drawer, mostly because he had a knack for describing things very accurately. Michael was good at guessing, but not very skilled in drawing or explaining, and Zack and Dave were both pretty drunk and so more or less useless at everything.
The girls had decided that we needed to stay mostly sober because we knew that we would not be able to function as a cohesive team at this game in particular if we got too trashed. Sarah was our best drawer, and I was a decent guesser and Ashley had a natural tendency to describe things well with the appropriate amount of detail, making her a natural describer. Vanessa had just finished a week of nights at the hospital and so she adhered very loosely to our 'do not get drunk' strategy by proceeding to get quite drunk. Oddly enough, she became somewhat of a guessing savant.
The score turned in our favor and suddenly we found ourselves in the lead with one round left. If the boys won the next round, the game would be tied and they got to choose the tiebreaker. In the past we had often done Trivial Pursuit questions until somebody got the right answer, but it was loser's choice (loser from the previous game night, that is).
The final clue came up and we had the dream team in play: Sarah was drawing, Ashley was describing and Vanessa and I were guessing. The boys also had their stars align, as Andy was describing, Michael was drawing and Zack and Dave were guessing. The clue was "penguin" and both Andy and Ashley groaned audibly when they read it, so we knew it was hard. I cheated a little and listened to Andy describe (although I did not look at Michael's drawing, as I felt that constituted too much of a cheat), he spoke calmly and carefully and retained his composure when his teammates became more agitated. It was like listening to somebody hush to sleep a crying baby. For a moment, I stopped guessing, becoming so mesmerized by his voice. When the fog cleared, I looked down and saw instantly what Ashley had been describing.
"Penguin" I said. Ashley hadn't heard me, but Andy was clearly listening because he looked right at me and smiled.
"She got it" he said, "it was Penguin."
Sarah, Ashley and Vanessa whooped loudly and started doing an impromptu happy dance. I took a small bow and congratulated my fellow victors. The boys looked dejected, having lost right at the wire, but as Zack and Dave were quite drunk anyway, they seemed not to mind too much.
Sarah got up to make an announcement. "Just a reminder that our next Game Night falls on Halloween, so we would like to delay the boys' punishment until the following month since Vanessa and Ashley are hosting this year's Halloween party and we're all getting dressed up anyway." Everyone agreed and we started cleaning up, putting the games away, gathering up the food and recycling all of the empty bottles. Andy took out the trash and Sarah tidied up in the kitchen.
Once the living room looked marginally passable, Michael grabbed the keys from Zack and they left to go back to Zack's place. Sarah did similar with Dave and Ashley with Vanessa. Before too long, Andy, Max and I were sitting in my empty living room. I sat down on the couch, exhausted, and immediately started pulling pins and elastic out of my hair, letting my hair-sprayed tresses fall to my shoulders in odd, flattened shapes around my ears.
"You're a good sport for playing silly games with me and my friends" I said, rolling over so that my head was on his lap.
"I've actually had fun the last two times we played, and believe me, I wasn't expecting to. Your friends are all very easy to get along with, I can see why you like them." He put his right hand on my forehead, pulling my hair back.
"Your brother is charming. He's really working a magic spell on Zack." I looked up into his face to see that he was looking down at me. He had two or three days' worth of stubble on his chin, which was lighter brown than his dark hair, reddish-brown even in some places.
"I was going to say the same thing about Zack; Michael seems to be quite taken with him. I've never seen him this way about someone before." Andy kept looking down at me, playing with the crinkley parts of my hair.
I sat up and moved slightly closer to him, wanting him to see my face right-side up as I asked, "can I ask you a question about Michael?"
"You can ask me anything." He said, without any trace of guile.
"When did you know Michael was gay?"
"I knew ever since he was a kid, nothing in particular, not like he ever kissed boys or anything, I just knew that he was different somehow, not in a bad way, just different. I knew long before he did, and long before my mother did too. He finally figured it out when he was a senior in high school. He played all kinds of sports, was very popular in school, had tons of girls who liked him, but he didn't notice at all. One day, while I was back home from college on Christmas break, we'd made plans to play some basketball at a outdoor court near our home. I went up to his room to tell him I was ready and when I found him, he was crying his eyes out, absolutely balling. I was about to make some joke, but then I realized that something was wrong with him. That's when he told me. I think he was expecting me to be angry or something. I just laughed, which I think took him a bit by surprise. Then I think he thought I was laughing at him and he started wailing even harder. I took him by the neck and told him that I'd known ever since he was a kid and that it didn't matter to me one bit, that I loved him no matter what and that I didn't care if he sucked cock or not. He was speechless. As I recall, he didn't speak in full sentences for at least ten minutes. Finally he just smiled and then we left to shoot ball for a few hours and didn't really talk about it again."
"Did your mother have the same reaction?"
"Of course she did. Although she was the one that told him. A few days later, before I left to go back to school, Michael and I had been watching football while she was making dinner. She called us to the table and Michael and I started eating and she asked, 'Did you enjoy the game?' and we both nodded, Michael saying something about the score or a touchdown that one of the teams made. She looked at him and said, "Michael, you are my son, my gay son, and I love you." Michael's eyes went as big as saucers and he looked up at me with accusation in his eyes, thinking that I was the one who told her. My eyes must've been big too, because I think he could tell from my facial expression that I was just as surprised as he was. He stammered a bit, and I think started to deny it, but she put her hand over his and said, 'Honey, I'm sorry, but I heard you telling Andy and I couldn't keep quiet any longer. Not when I needed you to know that I've known since you were in kindergarten and it makes no difference. You are my son and nothing will change that. Nothing.'"
"We all burst into tears and I honestly don't remember her ever looking so happy. I'm kind of grateful for it, actually, because that was the last time I saw her well. She died the following year, but she was so sick then, she didn't look the same. Seeing her embrace Michael then is the last image I have of her whole and well and she looked so very beautiful. I think she probably knew about the cancer, and had been wanting to tell us, but after everything happened with Michael she didn't have the heart to."
"You miss her a lot, I mean, of course you do, but... when it comes to Michael and Jessica, you miss her for them."
"I do. As you know it's never easy losing a parent, but I think it was easier for me and Jess because we were older. Michael took it very hard. Still does, I think. That's why seeing him around Zack is so interesting. I don't think that I've ever seen him open up to somebody like that before. Maybe he has, I mean, we've been apart for many years, but I don't think so. There's something different about him, I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'm happy to see it again."
I looked down at my watch, 11:46, I had to be up in less than five hours. I stood up, put my hand out for his, and walked back to the bedroom. The sex ban was still in effect since I was getting my IUD in two days and the lateness of the hour precluded any further hanky-panky but I wanted to be near him tonight, I think we both did.
He watched me as I changed out of my blue ball gown into his favorite Flashdance t-shirt and panties and I watched him as he took off his shirt and jeans and put on his sleep shorts. We both brushed our teeth and used the toilet and climbed into bed.
He laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling and drummed his fingers on his chest, I laid down next to him and crawled into the nook in his left shoulder and he wrapped his arm around me.
I tried to fall asleep, but I couldn't. I kept seeing pictures of a Mom and her two boys and I was filled with complete joy and utter grief. I don't remember falling asleep.