“Well, anyway, she is,” JB continued, “and the Bitches are throwing her a party at their house, and we’re all invited.”
They groaned. “JB, I only have five weeks before I leave for London, and I have so much shit to get done,” Willem protested. “I can’t spend a night listening to Edie Kim complaining out in Bushwick.”
“You can’t not go!” shrieked JB. “They specifically asked for you! Francesca’s inviting some girl who knows you from something or other and wants to see you again. If you don’t go, they’re all going to think you think you’re too good for them now. And there’s going to be a ton of other people we haven’t seen in forever—”
“Yeah, and maybe there’s a reason we haven’t seen them,” Jude said.
“—and besides, Willem, the * will be waiting for you whether you spend an hour in Brooklyn or not. And it’s not like it’s the end of the world. It’s Bushwick. Judy’ll drive us.” Jude had bought a car the year before, and although it wasn’t particularly fancy, JB loved to ride around in it.
“What? I’m not going,” Jude said.
“Why not?”
“I’m in a wheelchair, JB, remember? And as I recall, Marta and Francesca’s place doesn’t have an elevator.”
“Wrong place,” JB replied triumphantly. “See how long it’s been? They moved. Their new place definitely has one. A freight elevator, actually.” He leaned back, drumming his fist on the table as the rest of them sat in a resigned silence. “And off we go!”
So the following Saturday they met at Jude’s loft on Greene Street and he drove them to Bushwick, where he circled Marta and Francesca’s block, looking for a parking space.
“There was a spot right back there,” JB said after ten minutes.
“It was a loading zone,” Jude told him.
“If you just put that handicapped sign up, we can park wherever we want,” JB said.
“I don’t like using it—you know that.”
“If you’re not going to use it, then what’s the point of having a car?”
“Jude, I think that’s a space,” said Willem, ignoring JB.
“Seven blocks from the apartment,” muttered JB.
“Shut up, JB,” said Malcolm.
Once inside the party, they were each tugged by a different person to a separate corner of the room. Willem watched as Jude was pulled firmly away by Marta: Help me, Jude mouthed to him, and he smiled and gave him a little wave. Courage, he mouthed back, and Jude rolled his eyes. He knew how much Jude hadn’t wanted to come, hadn’t wanted to explain again and again why he was in a wheelchair, and yet Willem had begged him: “Don’t make me go alone.”
“You won’t be alone. You’ll be with JB and Malcolm.”
“You know what I mean. Forty-five minutes and we’re out of there. JB and Malcolm can find their own way back to the city if they want to stay longer.”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Thirty.”
“Fine.”
Willem, meanwhile, had been ensnared by Edie Kim, who looked basically the same as she had when they were in college: a little rounder, maybe, but that was it. He hugged her. “Edie,” he said, “congratulations.”
“Thanks, Willem,” said Edie. She smiled at him. “You look great. Really, really great.” JB had always had a theory that Edie had a crush on him, but he’d never believed it. “I really loved The Lacuna Detectives. You were really great in it.”
“Oh,” he said. “Thanks.” He had hated The Lacuna Detectives. He had despised the production of it so much—the story, which was fantastic, had concerned a pair of metaphysical detectives who entered the unconscious minds of amnesiacs, but the director had been so tyrannical that Willem’s costar had quit two weeks into the shoot and had to be recast, and once a day, someone had run off the set crying—that he had never actually seen the film itself. “So,” he said, trying to redirect the conversation, “when—”
“Why’s Jude in a wheelchair?” Edie asked.
He sighed. When Jude had begun using the wheelchair regularly two months ago, the first time he’d had to in four years, since he was thirty-one, he had prepped them all on how to respond to this question. “It’s not permanent,” he said. “He just has an infection in his leg and it makes it painful for him to walk long distances.”
“God, poor guy,” said Edie. “Marta says he left the U.S. Attorney’s and has a huge job at some corporate firm.” JB had also always suspected Edie had a crush on Jude, which Willem thought was fairly plausible.
“Yeah, for a few years now,” he said, eager to move the subject away from Jude, for whom he never liked to answer; he would have loved to talk about Jude, and he knew what he could and couldn’t say about him, or on his behalf, but he didn’t like the sly, confiding tone people took when asking about him, as if he might be cajoled or tricked into revealing what Jude himself wouldn’t. (As if he ever would.) “Anyway, Edie, this is really exciting for you.” He stopped. “I’m sorry—I should’ve asked—do you still want to be called Edie?”
Edie frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well—” He paused. “I didn’t know how far into the process you were, and—”
“What process?”
“Um, the transition process?” He should’ve stopped when he saw Edie’s befuddlement, but he didn’t. “JB said you were transitioning?”
“Yeah, to Hong Kong,” said Edie, still frowning. “I’m going to be a freelance vegan consultant for medium-size hospitality businesses. Wait a minute—you thought I was transitioning genders?”