“Don’t think I don’t know.”
Liem kept his eyes on the letter, certain his father had written no more than what needed to be said: make money and send it home, take care and be good. The message would be underlined once and then once more, leaving him to guess at anything too dangerous to be said in his father’s bare vocabulary. But whereas his father had never sought to find new words, Liem was the opposite. He looked up at Marcus and asked the question he’d wanted to ask since yesterday.
“What does candid mean?”
“Candid?” Marcus said. “Yeah, right. Candid. It means being caught by surprise, like in a photograph or a film, when someone takes your picture and you’re not looking. Or it means someone who’s frank. Who’s honest and direct.”
Liem took a deep breath. “I want to be candid.”
“I’d like to be candid.”
“Shut up,” Liem said, putting his hand on Marcus’s knee.
Afterward, he sensed things might not have gone well. First, none of their clothes came off as smoothly as he expected, because all of a sudden the buttons and zippers were smaller than he knew them to be, and his fingers larger and clumsier. His rhythm seemed to be off, too. Sometimes in his eagerness he moved too fast, and to make up for it, or because he was embarrassed, he then went too slowly, throwing them out of sync and causing him to apologize repeatedly for an elbow here, or a knee there, until Marcus said, “Stop saying you’re sorry and just enjoy yourself, for heaven’s sake.” So he did his best to relax and give himself up to the experience. Later, his arm thrown over Marcus’s body, facing his back, Liem wasn’t surprised to discover how little he remembered. His habit of forgetting was too deeply ingrained, as if he passed his life perpetually walking backward through a desert, sweeping away his footprints, leaving him with only scattered recollections of rough lips pressed against his, and the comfort of a man’s muscular weight.
“I love you,” he said.
Marcus did not roll over or look behind him, did not say “I love you” in return, and indeed, said nothing at all. The ticking of Parrish’s antique grandfather clock grew louder and louder with each second, and by the time the patter of rain on the roof was distinct, Liem was fumbling awkwardly with his underwear.
“Can you just wait a minute?” Marcus said, turning around and hooking one leg over Liem’s body. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”
“No,” Liem said, trying to unpry, without success, Marcus’s leg, honed by countless hours on the treadmill and the squat machine. “I need to go to the bathroom, please.”
“You just got caught by surprise. Sooner or later you’ll figure out love’s just a reflex action some of us have.” Marcus stroked Liem’s hand. “A week from now you’re not even going to know why you told me that.”
“Okay,” he said, not sure whether he wanted to believe Marcus or not. “Sure.”
“You know what else is in your future?”
“Do not—don’t tell me.”
“A year from now you’ll be the one hearing other men say they love you,” Marcus said. “They’ll say you’re too pretty to be alone.”
Marcus pulled him closer, and, as the rain continued to fall, they held each other. Outside a car began honking repeatedly, a sound Liem knew by now to mean that someone, double-parked, was blocking the narrow street in front of the house. Then all was quiet but for the clock, and he thought Marcus might have dozed off until he stirred and said, “Aren’t you going to read the letter?”
He’d forgotten about the airmail, but now that Marcus had mentioned it, he felt it glowing in the darkened living room, bearing on its blue face the oil of his father’s touch, and perhaps his mother’s too, the airmail the only thing he owned that truly mattered.
“I never read it to you.”
“I will never read it to you. That’s the future tense.”
“I’ll never read you the letter.”
“Now you’re being petty. Don’t read it to me, then.”
“But I will tell you what I’ll write.”