Page 50 of The Happy Month

July 28, 1996

Sunday late afternoon

The lobby bar at the Westin Hotel was located two steps up onto a very large platform. Dozens of tiny pin lights hung down from the atrium ceiling three floors above. Everything was cream and beige, there were comfortable barstools surrounding the bar, and small tables and chairs surrounding them.

Brian Peerson was now in his mid-thirties, and it had been more than eleven years since I’d last seen him. I recognized him right away, though. Blond and blue-eyed, his hair was still thick and something of a wavy mop on top of his head. In the eighties his hair had curled, but that might have been a perm. People did that then. Aside from being thinner he looked healthy. That was a huge relief.

He wore a pale-blue, button-down, short-sleeve shirt with madras shorts and flip-flops. People from the Midwest always over-compensated for the warm weather. Iremembered Chicago summers; it was probably hotter there than it was here.

Sitting with him was a woman whose blonde hair had such strong highlights and lowlights that it couldn’t possibly be natural. When she turned and lowered her giant sunglasses, it was Sugar Pilson. The well-known Chicago socialite was now in her late forties, like me. She was well-polished but had already begun the slow drying out that rich women put themselves through. Someday she’d look like a flower pressed in a book. Of course, she’d still be fabulous. She had a heart the size of her hometown: Dallas, Texas. She wore a kaftan in a riot of colors and had a handbag sitting next to her that was large enough for a stowaway.

They both saw me at the same time and slowly stood. Sugar inhaled deeply and then said, “Oh my, Lordy Lou, it is you! Nick it’s so wonderful to see you. Oh, come here?—”

And then she was in my arms. Brian right behind her. We stood like that for a moment—looking ridiculous, I’m sure.

“We should sit down,” I said, my voice thicker than I’d expected.

Brian and I sat. Sugar flitted over to the bar. We stared at each other for a moment, then he said, “So, who is Dominick Reilly?”

He knew that from the mail he sent me, but not much else.

“It’s an alias.”

“Dominick. I can still call you Nick?”

“You can. Most people call me Dom, but Nick is fine.”

And I won’t be staying long,I thought. I was already regretting the location. An open hotel bar in a city where I’dserved most of the gay men a beer was probably a bad idea if I didn’t want this getting back to Ronnie.

“I can’t believe I’m sitting here with you,” Brian said. “It’s been so long.”

“So, tell me, you’re back in Springfield? Are you still with Franklin?”

“I am. He’s good. He had testicular cancer last year, but he’s recovered and doing well.”

“And your health?”

“Surprisingly good. Yours?”

“I’m good. Stopped smoking. Don’t really drink.”

“Don’t look now but here comes Sugar with a bottle of champagne.”

I turned and there she was with three flutes hooked in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. Apparently, it was my weekend for champagne.

“Can you believe I had to tip the bartender so he’d let me open the bottle myself!” She set the glasses on the table. Then she set about opening the champagne. Brian and I smiled while we waited. The cork popped and she filled the glasses. Before she sat down, she leaned over close to my ear and said, “If I wasn’t so happy to see you, I’d rip your hair out. How dare you disappear for a decade.”

When she was seated, I said, “Sugar, you can’t tell anyone you saw me.”

“And that horrid book about the Chicago mob. The writer said you were dead! I grieved for you. I was absolutely distraught for weeks until Brian finally swore me to secrecy and told me you were alive.”

Luckily, Brian changed the subject. “Is there someone in your life?”

“Yes, I have a partner. His name is Ronnie. He’s twenty-eight.”

“Oh, I love younger men,” Sugar said. “The last man I dated was twenty-five.”

“Things didn’t work out with you and the painter?”