Chapter Text
Thus much and more; and yet thou lov’st me not,
And never wilt! Love dwells not in our will.
Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot
To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.
This was on page forty-two. Todd turned another page to see a Neil original, aptly titled Oceans of Crowds. He really felt like drowning right now.
“Maybe if you took your nose out of a book every once in a while and looked around you, you’d finally find a girl you like,” Jeff snickered. Todd offered him a half-smile but didn’t look up.
“Jeffrey, that was unseemly,” their mother put in.
“A hard truth he needs to hear. A degree with honors is an admirable thing, but your brother had that and a wife by the time he was your age,” father replied. “You’ve always been meek.”
“Excuse me, did I hear my name?” a familiar voice spoke up behind Todd and made him breathe out a sigh of relief.
“You most certainly did not, Mr..?” Todd’s father said.
“Meeks, Steven Meeks, we’ve actually met before, Mr Anderson. I went to Welton with your sons.”
At that point Todd did glance up from the book just to see his father go red when Meeks shook his hand.
“Could I steal Todd for a second?” Meeks asked. Todd didn’t wait for his father to mumble “sure” before standing up, making his excuses and walking away from their table with his friend.
“Thanks for that,” Todd smiled.
“No problem. You looked like you needed to be rescued.”
It was August of 1965, soon after Todd’s graduation. Someone was throwing a ball in the Ritz; no one was sure who, everyone was naming a different name. Todd’s own bet was on Charlie, who kept turning up here and there throughout the night. In any case, anyone who was anyone was here, whether by direct invitation (like Todd and Jeff) or not (like their parents, who assumed that they had as much of a right to show up as their sons did). Todd was glad to see many familiar faces, but perhaps there were just too many unfamiliar ones as well. All night he felt his anxiety clogging his throat, and his family’s nagging certainly wasn’t helping. He would have much preferred to stay at home and polish his play one final time, but the opportunity to catch up with the poets was hard to miss.
Meeks led him through the crowd away from Todd’s family, picking up two flutes of champagne on the way. A ring shined on his left hand. Somehow, Todd felt a bit disappointed. He could not say whether it was because of the feeling of himself missing out on life while his former classmates were living it fully, or the fallacy of measuring everyone else by his own tape and reading more into Meeks’ and Pitts’ friendship than there ever was.
“Who’s the lucky lady?” he asked politely instead of voicing any of those thoughts.
“A software engineer,” Meeks smiled, still walking in a particular direction.
“And what does a software engineer, uhm, do?”
“Sends humanity into a new era, potentially,” Meeks’ smile turned a bit smug, “I’m helping her out, of course. When there’s a man on the Moon you’ll know whose fault it is.”
They stopped at one of the few empty tables, probably half a hotel away from the Andersons, which couldn’t make Todd happier. Meeks looked around, a bit disappointed.
“Goddamnit, I asked Pittsie to wait for us. Probably went schmoozing with the singing girls, ah well. How’ve you been, Todd? Top of the class, I hear?”
“I suppose English is a bit easier than mathematics,” Todd smiled.
“Don’t get all humble. What’s up with you except for your studies? Come on, we haven’t seen each other in what, two years? Got a sweetheart?” he elbowed Todd jokingly.
“No. No one,” Todd mumbled. “I’ve been working on a play, though. Maybe in a year or two it will be good enough to go on stage.”
“Oh right, Charlie told me about that one! Mythology, he said? If you need any help with Latin, you know who to call.”
Todd felt his ears turning red.
“Thanks, but it’s more of a modern take on Celtic myths, rather than anything Greek or Latin… In any case, where did Charlie hear about it? I don’t think I’ve ever told him the premise.”
“He said he read it a year or two ago when you got hammered and he stayed in your room. Told me it was great, too. He liked the main character a lot.”
Todd wasn’t sure how to comment on that, so he just took a sip of his champagne. Charlie was never one for boundaries, but this breach of privacy felt a bit too personal; and yet, his alleged approval did make Todd oddly proud. If the play was good last year, perhaps it was finally ready for the stage after the thousands of tiny edits he’d done over the years.
The lull in their conversation was aided by Meeks calling over some acquaintance of his to the table.
“Todd, let me introduce you to Nigel Adamovich, he’s one of the MIT benefactors and a producer here on Broadway. Mr Adamovich, Todd Anderson, a dear friend of mine, NYU graduate and an aspiring playwright.”
Todd almost choked on his champagne at Meeks’ introduction. Before he knew it, he was shaking hands with a tall man in his late thirties. He didn’t look much like the other rich attendees of the ball; perhaps it was the warmth in his brown eyes, or the charm in his smile. The handshake was firm and short, the man’s hands soft and neatly manicured.
“Pleasure, Mr Anderson,” he said, catching Todd off guard with his British accent, “creative people are the heart and soul of this city.”
Todd couldn’t help but agree.
***
Todd’s life felt like a plane flight. Throughout college it was moving fast on the ground, him anticipating some enormous sudden change, bracing himself for it and still missing the precise moment when the wheels lifted off the ground, and in a seconds’ time he felt dizzy, looking at the tiny world below, moving with the speed people couldn’t dare to imagine some hundred years ago.
It seemed only yesterday he was sitting in his dorm room with his typewriter, only going out to see a play or to spend time in Charlie’s company; now that Nigel was in his life, he was suddenly transported from the theater audience to the backstage.
Nigel said he loved the play; Todd couldn’t help but feel that he probably didn’t treat all the other playwrights he respected the same way he treated him. First there were balls like the one in the Ritz, then one-on-one “business” dinners with caviar and champagne, then the bars in the Village not unlike the one Todd once visited with Charlie, then Todd was trying on makeup in the back of one of those bars, then he was looking after Nigel’s New York apartment when Nigel was away, then Nigel started being away less and less; and yet, he never asked Todd to leave, so he didn’t. Almost overnight Todd’s life became much more entertaining and overwhelming than he could have ever imagined, all thanks to Nigel and his desire to bring Todd into his world. Nigel didn’t ask much of Todd in return, and what he did, Todd was willing enough to give.
They were working on the play, too; Nigel found a spot for it on Broadway, pulled some strings and suddenly Todd was in the front row of an empty theater with Nigel and the director choosing the actors. A face or two he recognized from the plays he’d seen before, a face or two from the bars they’d been frequenting, and yet there was no face that suited the main character just right. The character remained nameless by Todd’s choice; in the play he’d only ever been referred to as Him. When enquired, Todd would say that He was supposed to be a stand-in for anyone in the audience, and yet he wasn’t sure whether it was the whole truth. They spent weeks looking for just the right fit, the one and only actor Todd always envisioned taking on this role, yet he was nowhere to be found.
Todd never told Nigel that he could only ever see one specific person taking on this role.
Ultimately, he left this decision up to the director. In a way, he was somewhat happy to see Him being played by Pauline, a queen he knew from one of the bars. She had a great voice and stage presence; yet, she didn’t look anything like what he envisioned for the character.
***
The premiere would be, perhaps, the happiest day of his life; that’s what he told himself, at least. Why wouldn’t it be?
It was October of 1967. He and Nigel sat on the balcony, looking over both the stage and the audience; every person Todd had ever cared about was in it: the poets, his family, even Mr Keating found an opportunity to get to New York to support him. There were the critics, too; Todd mentally braced himself for the night of schmoozing with them. Nigel noticed his nervousness and squeezed his hand. Todd nodded and ran his thumb down the back of the old green notebook in his front pocket.
The play went on without a hitch; Pauline mesmerized the audience, the lights and the direction seemed to transport everyone in the theater to a different plane of existence. Todd wasn’t sure he had woken up from that dream as he shook hands, exchanged polite words and received praise at the afterparty. Mr Keating called his work exceptional; Meeks shouted out “we love you, Todd!” which made Todd’s ears go red; the critics didn’t show their approval outright, but they didn’t seem displeased, either.
The whole night, Nigel’s hand barely left his shoulder.
“Why don’t we continue the celebration?” he said in the back of the limo that was taking them home. Todd smiled in response.
They didn’t, in fact, get much sleep that night. However, Todd was too anxious to do much besides drink and pace around their apartment.
“They loved it. You’ve got nothing to worry about, darling,” Nigel kept telling him. Todd only smiled and nodded.
Barely eight years passed since the times when Todd’s anxiety about his literary prowess would clog his throat and cramp his hands to the point where he was unable to complete a simple English class assignment until pushed, and now his words and deepest thoughts were being presented to the judgement of all the theater elite of the greatest city on Earth. To think that eight years had passed to get him to this point, that eight whole years passed since…
Nigel was hugging him. Todd hadn’t noticed when he started crying.
“It will be alright,” the deep, soft voice kept telling him above his ear. Nigel’s arms were warm and comforting, and Todd wanted nothing more than to relax and fall on them. One thought kept gnawing at his mind that didn’t let him do it: who was Nigel, anyway? They’d only known each other for a little over a year, and he had changed everything about his life, and yet Todd couldn’t help but feel like he didn’t know the man who seemed so infatuated with him for some reason he couldn’t quite grasp. What did he think about? What did he love? What did he believe in? Todd had no idea.
The other one, however, the one who made the little green notebook that was pushing against his chest now; Todd felt like he knew everything about him, and he’d only ever been in his life for a few months.
Eight years ago.
The door bell rang. Nigel went to answer, leaving Todd standing in the middle of their bedroom, cold air and the light of the dawn behind the floor-to-ceiling windows hitting him all at once, making him feel naked despite him never bothering to take off the velvet suit Nigel bought for him to wear for the premiere.
The rising sun was painting the New York skyline every color Todd could imagine.
He heard Nigel’s footsteps as he came back into the room.
“Reviews are in,” he said. Todd heard him rustling through a stack of papers, but didn’t bother turning away from the sunrise.
“An exceptional debut,” Nigel read aloud, “a brave take on the Shakespearean classic, the young playwright has a potential to rival Tennessee Williams in time, well, isn’t that high praise? I can’t help but agree with them, of course. You’re amazing, Todd.”
“It’s sweet that you’re only reading out the good ones,” Todd said, barely hearing his own voice.
“There are no bad ones to read.”
A pause. The sunlight was bathing the room now. Todd heard Nigel sitting down on the bed.
“Are you feeling alright?” he asked.
Todd shrugged. It took him a second to answer.
“I thought it would have felt more monumental, I suppose. Life-changing, you know? Because it is, in a way. But I can’t help but feel like there’s something else I haven’t done, something I missed, failed to accomplish,” his hand found the book in his pocket. “I reached out, seized the day, sucked the marrow out of life, didn’t I? What more can I want?”
“Perhaps you need a vacation. You can take some time off during the season, before the Tony nominations come out. I haven’t shown you my home yet.”
“We are in your home.”
“My English home, I mean. I’d show you the countryside.”
It did sound nice, and after all, wasn’t it the proverbial day to seize? He’d never actually left the US before.
Still…
“I can’t leave here,” Todd heard himself say.
“Why not?”
Why not indeed.
The sun shone bright on the skyscrapers now. Manhattan was such a tiny island with way too many people on it to fit everyone. Every single building basking in the pink and golden light had hundreds and hundreds of human beings in it, each busy with their own tiny life, an ant in a monstrous concrete anthill. Any one of them could have been the one.
Todd was silent for a long time by now. He mindlessly took the little notebook out of his pocket and was running his fingers down its spine. It never failed to soothe him. It had been a while since he’d actually read it; and yet, he’d seen every page so many times they had been burned into his mind till the day he’d die.
“I’ve always wondered what it is,” he heard Nigel say from behind him. “At first I thought it was a strange edition of the Bible, thought it funny that you’d be so religious as to bring it everywhere you go. It looks handmade, however. Something you’d written?”
“Not me.”
“Who, then?”
“A dozen poets who are much better than I could ever dream of being.”
“I’ve told you not to be harsh on yourself.”
“I’m just telling the truth.”
“Did someone important make it for you?”
Todd swallowed down the lump in his throat. His silence was answer enough.
“Are you staying in New York for him?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in eight years.”
In the moments of silence that followed Todd could have sworn he heard cars starting to fill the streets some twenty floors down.
“I do like your work. I mean it,” Nigel’s voice was quiet. “And I will continue to sponsor your plays, if you write more and that be your wish.”
Todd finally took his eyes off the window only to look down on the floor.
“I’ll make arrangements to fly away today. You are still welcome to join me. You are welcome, as well, to have this apartment at your disposal. In fact, I’d be glad to see you here when I come back. However,” Todd heard Nigel standing up from the bed and walking closer to him, “if you find a new place to live in during the time I’m away I’d never judge you, provided that you take all your possessions with you when you move. I neither believe in caging free spirits, nor in being anyone’s second choice. The decision is yours, Todd. Now, would you at least look at me?”
Todd tore his eyes off the floor, careful not to let any tears fall. Nigel looked stern, his kind brown eyes somewhat absent. After a beat the man nodded and left the cold sunlit bedroom.
Their bed was made and covered in newspapers.