Chapter Text
They sat in Dickie’s living room, Dickie and Marge on the couch and Tom across them on the armchair. Dickie looked at Tom. Neither of them had brought up the other night, and neither of them would. Dickie found himself examining Tom’s face, trying to decipher his expressions. Did he remember? Was he acting strangely, or was this just how he acted? Tom was speaking to Marge in his restrained way, and was nodding to whatever she had said.
“Dickie?” Marge turned to him. “What do you think?”
“Hm?” he said.
“Let’s go out,” she said. “Tonight. It’s been a while since we’ve all done something fun.”
“Yes,” Dickie said. “Let’s.” They hadn’t really been out together, the three of them. Either Marge was in mood or busy with her book, or she wasn’t and Tom was in a mood. He was surprised they’d both agreed. He couldn’t tell what either of them were thinking these days.
That evening, they took the bus to Naples. Dickie was uncharacteristically quiet, or maybe Marge uncharacteristically chatty. He didn’t know about Tom. Dickie spent much of the ride looking out the window at the green fields and blue mountains on the horizon, drifting in and out of conversation with hums and nods. It felt strange with Marge, now, but she seemed alright. Certainly not upset, and not entirely in love with him either. It was as if he didn’t know how to act, what role to play, if not her noncommittal lover. It didn’t feel easier, but he felt lighter, as if a pressure that had hung over all their interactions had been lifted. Marge made a joke, and he laughed, and didn’t reach out to touch her arm.
When they got there, they walked a few streets over to a bar he and Marge had been to before, and Dickie ordered them all cocktails. After a bit, the conversation came easier from all directions. They discussed the evening environment, and how different and similar it was to New York or Boston or New Orleans, or any of the other American cities they’d been in. Marge talked about Ohio, and the difference of cities.The culture was different enough in the day, but the nighttime experience of Europe was another story, one Tom was almost entirely unfamiliar with.
Some time and several drinks later, Marge excused herself, having recognized someone at a table on the opposite side of the street.
“Everyone sits out here, on the streets,” Tom said, quite obviously, as Marge walked away.
“Well, yes,” Dickie said, turning his attention back to the table. “There’s certainly room here, unlike New York.”
“Exactly,” said Tom, and he waved the glass in his hand, spilling the last remaining drops of his drink. Tom looked down sadly at the spill on the slate table. “Oh.”
Dickie laughed, and after a minute Tom laughed with him. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll get you a new one,” Dickie said, pushing his chair back and standing up.
He returned, not with a replacement cocktail but with a bottle of wine. When he turned back, he saw Tom looking across the street with a strange expression. Then he saw Dickie, and he saw the wine, and he smiled.
“Here we go,” Dickie said, setting the bottle on the table. Tom just laughed. He frowned. “What?”
“You forgot the-” Tom paused the laugh. “You forgot glasses.”
“Oh.” Dickie said. He had. “Well, that's alright.” He plucked out the cork that had already been loosened, and raised the bottle to his lips, taking a long sip before passing it to Tom.
Something about the scene felt familiar to him in a way he couldn’t quite place. When Tom had introduced himself that first day on the beach, he’d said he hadn’t recognized him. It was true, really, at the time. He’d seemed familiar, in the way anyone from New York might have, out of place on the Italian coast, so he’d brushed it off. He didn’t think about it until a while later, Tom had been asking him about different people he might know, Bob Delancey or Vic Simmons or whoever else. He’d denied it, of course. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t true. They weren’t the kind of people you admitted to knowing. He’d found it strange that Tom either didn’t know this or didn’t care.
Despite his attempts to focus on anything else, he was remembering now. It was something about seeing him in the evening light, he thought. Or maybe the several drinks they’d had. Something about the pink flush the alcohol brought to his cheeks, emphasized by his lack of experience with the Mediterranean sun. Or maybe it was the way the dining room seemed to soften at the edges of his vision, focusing on one thing at a time, and with Marge away, that thing had been Tom.
It had been a party they had met at, with a similarly dim and drunken if not so sophisticated atmosphere to the bar they’d been at, hosted by one of his acquaintances in the art scene of New York. Vic, who he remembered had been doing abstract expressionist type work, inspired by Pollock and Rothko and the like, had been the host. Dickie wasn’t terribly interested in him or his work, but at the time had been going to a lot of those sort of get-togethers, with writers and artists and authors and the like. Partially, he admitted, because he liked those sorts of people, and partially because his father hated them. He had never approved of his connection to that sort of world, and had let him know it. Let him know that his painting, and desire to be accepted into the community, was somehow both childish and dangerous.
But it was at that party, he now recalled, that he had met Tom. He’d seen him across the room, standing by the open door to a fire escape. He had been talking to a girl in velvet slacks, their heads leaned close together as if sharing something secret. He had seemed, somehow, to fit the setting in a way that was both incredibly natural and a bit awkward. The girl had walked away to refill her cup, and Dickie had approached him. He didn’t remember why, just remembered walking across the carpeted floor, and introducing himself. Tom had offered him a cigarette, he thought, and then they were out on the iron platform balcony. He’d spent most of the night on that balcony, with Tom, a thought that made an uncomfortable feeling stir in his stomach, and he came back to the present.
Marge had been away for quite some time, and after taking a large sip of the wine, Dickie followed Tom’s gaze and saw that she was talking to a handsome Italian man, her hand on his well-muscled arm, laughing at something he had said. She gave his arm a squeeze and walked back over to their table.
“I think I might stay here with some friends,” she said vaguely. “I’ll take the morning bus, and I should be back by noon tomorrow.”
“You know him?” Dickie said. She didn’t seem to be asking his permission.
“A friend of a friend,” she said. “And I have other friends in the area. I’ll be fine.”
“Alright.Tom and I’ll call a taxi in a bit, then. Don’t let us keep you.” He did his best smile. He didn’t know how he felt about that, after being so used to having Marge’s complete attention. He looked over at Tom, who was looking singularly at him.
The taxi ride was relaxed, and Tom and Dickie passed the bottle between them as they went. A bit spilled on the seat, so Dickie gave the driver an extra tip. He wasn’t sure exactly how much.
Back in Mongibello, but not quite ready for the night to be over, they found themselves on the beach, laying on the sand and looking up at the stars, the now-empty bottle between them.
Dickie turned his head to face Tom, who was lying with his eyes closed a few feet away. His linen shirt ruffled in the wind, a microcosm of the sea before them. The moonlight glinted off his glasses, which he held in one hand sprawled in the sand. He looked different without them. Less guarded. There was a small smile on his face, which seemed unconscious, not the usual grin he’d put on when he noticed he was being watched. Dickie didn’t know if he’d seen anything like it before.
“Tom?”
“Yes?” he said, not moving.
“You know, I think I do remember you. In New York, I mean.” He didn’t know what possessed him to keep talking. Maybe it was the fact that Tom wasn’t looking at him. “It wasn’t… It wasn’t Buddy’s. It was Vic’s,” he thought for a moment. “Vic Simmons. He was having a party, I think.”
Tom turned to look at him now, still without his glasses. Dickie felt the urge to turn away. He didn’t.
“Yeah,” said Tom thoughtfully. “Yeah, it was. I remember too.” He didn’t elaborate, which Dickie was grateful for.
“Yeah?” Dickie said, as if they reached some sort of understanding.
Tom just nodded. Maybe they had.
A few hours later, Dickie awoke to Tom shaking his shoulder gently. The first rays of dawn could be seen from the red horizon.
“Tom?” He said, voice cracking from sleep. “The sun isn’t up yet.”
“No, but I thought we might like to go in before it is,” Tom leaned over him, shirt wrinkled and hair a mess. Dickie had the urge to reach out and touch it, but was hit with the memory of the other night. He flinched. “I’m sorry,” Tom said, pulling his arm back.
“No, no, it’s ok,” Dickie sat up. “You’re right.”
Tom offered a hand to help him up, which Dickie accepted.