The Angel Singers Read online

  “I think I can understand that,” I said. “I know Jonathan really seems to enjoy it. I appreciate your being his buddy.”

  Joshua squirmed on my lap.

  Eric grinned. “Yeah, Jonathan’s a great kid. We get along really well. He’s got a lot to learn yet, though.”

  I was mildly amused by his referring to Jonathan as a “kid” when he couldn’t have been more than a year older, if that. And I had no idea what his last sentence meant.

  “Like what, other than the music?” I asked.

  Eric looked at me closely and gave me a rather enigmatic smile. “Nothing, really. Only, sometimes, I think he might be a little too nice for his own good. I hope you don’t mind my saying so. I’ve told him several times.”

  “I don’t follow,” I said.

  “He’s still at the starry-eyed stage,” he explained. “He likes everybody and accepts anything people say, and that’s not always a good idea. Roger is always telling us that when we talk, we’re human; when we sing, we’re angels. Well, we do a lot more talking than singing, if you know what I mean. There are a few guys there who’d as soon cut your throat as look at you. I don’t think Jonathan has realized that yet, and I don’t want him to get hurt.”

  I didn’t know what kind of hurt he might be referring to, but knowing Jonathan, I suspected it wasn’t so much a matter of his not realizing what was going on as not wanting to think ill of anyone until he had specific reason to.

  Joshua handed me his empty glass. “I want some more,” he declared.

  “We’ll be having dinner soon,” I said. “I don’t want you to fill up on soda and spoil your appetite. Why don’t you go play with some of your toys?”

  He shot me a dirty look, hopped off my lap and hustled to his room, returning with his large block of Lincoln Logs, which he proceeded to empty on the floor and begin to build a house.

  “Jonathan tells me you’re the peacemaker of the group,” I said, trying to ignore Joshua’s actions. “That can’t be easy.”

  He shrugged. “It’s not, always,” he said. “Usually, it’s a lot like third grade, with little cliques and minor rivalries and feuds. Roger hasn’t got the time to do everything and, besides, he’s the director. But every now and then things come close to getting out of control, like it’s been doing since Grant came on board. And that really worries me.”

  “Crandall Booth’s nephew.”

  Eric grinned. “Riiight. ‘Nephew.’”

  I clearly heard the quotes around nephew.

  “You don’t think they’re related?” I asked, though I’d already come to that conclusion.

  Eric gave me a calculated, raised-eyebrow look. “Puh-leeese! Crandall’s got more money than God, and Grant wants to go to Broadway. Grant comes to rehearsals in a baby-blue Porsche. Crandall’s family came over on the Mayflower, and Grant’s got a mouth like a truck driver. You figure it out.”

  That Grant drove a Porsche didn’t surprise me, since I knew a large chunk of Crandall Booth’s money came from his ownership of several luxury car dealerships.

  “What does he do for a living?” I asked.

  “Other than Crandall, you mean?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Grant claims he has a business degree, but if he ever even finished college, I’d be surprised. Crandall gave him a job in the central accounting department for all his dealerships. To hear Grant tell it, he practically runs the place, but a guy I know works there and say’s Grant’s just a glorified gofer. I understand he’s always running to Crandall bitching about how the department head runs the place. How in hell Crandall puts up with it, I’ll never know.”

  “So, what’s Grant’s problem with the chorus?”

  Eric sighed. “Look, if he’d come in like everybody else, it would have been fine. But he acts like he owns the place. And he thinks he’s God’s gift to men—he comes on to everyone, especially the guys he knows are in a relationship. Like I said, there’s already enough bickering and jealousy going on. It’s not always pretty and can get downright mean sometimes, but it’s all sort of like family.

  “Grant isn’t family, and makes it obvious that he doesn’t want to be. But that doesn’t stop him from playing his games and starting his own little clique. He’s a real manipulator, and if some people are two-faced, Grant’s got at least a dozen. He doesn’t give a damn about the chorus. He’ll say or do whatever he thinks will help him get what he wants.”

  “And what does he want?”

  “Aside from everybody else’s boyfriend? Well, at the moment, among other things, he wants the solo in ‘I Am What I Am,’ which will be the biggest showstopper at our next concert.”

  “La Cage aux Folles!” I said. “Jonathan said you were doing it and you’re sure right about its being a showstopper. Some friends of ours in New York saw the show and immediately sent us the cast recording. We must have listened to it a hundred times, and ‘I Am What I Am’ grabs me by the throat every time. Talk about gay pride!”

  “Well, Grant wants the solo on it, though Roger’s given it to Jim Bowers, who has a fantastic voice. He’s a bass and Grant’s a high baritone. Either one can do it, but Jim is perfect for it and he has the presence. When he sings it, he means it. I don’t think Grant has a clue what the song means. But he badmouths Jim every chance he gets.”

  “I gather you don’t care much for him.”

  “You could say that. He reminds me a lot of my brother.”

  “He looks like him?”

  He shrugged. “Sort of.”

  He didn’t follow up on that, so neither did I. But I thought it was an interesting statement, and was the first specific reference to his family I’d heard him make.

  The conversation, frequently interrupted by Joshua’s insisting I look at and approve the progress of his Lincoln Log project, gradually segued into the general exchange of information that inevitably passes between two people who’ve just met. Eric seemed fascinated by my being a private investigator and having my own office.

  “I’d love to come down and see it sometime,” he said, and I assured him it was hardly worth the trip, but that he was welcome.

  Jonathan had told me Eric worked at the distribution warehouse for the Home ‘n’ Yard hardware store chain and had a small apartment on the East Side. When I did ask about his family, I was surprised to learn that his parents and older brother had been killed in an accident when he was fourteen.

  “It was the Fourth of July,” he said casually, and I detected a note of irony in his voice. I was, of course, curious and expected him to elaborate, but when he didn’t, I didn’t press him. I wasn’t sure whether he had simply been able to accept their deaths and move on or if he didn’t want to or couldn’t deal with it on other than a casual level.

  Jonathan arrived home just as I’d gone into the kitchen to check on dinner and to make Eric and myself another drink. The minute he came in the door, Joshua jumped up from his project, destroying whatever it was he’d been building, and ran for a welcome-home hug.

  As Jonathan moved across the room to join Eric on the couch, followed closely by Joshua, I stepped to the kitchen doorway to ask if Jonathan wanted a Coke.

  “I want one!” Joshua declared, and I was truly puzzled by the undertone of belligerence I detected in his voice. This certainly was not Joshua.

  “I told you we’ll be eating soon, and you’ve already had your drink. We don’t want you to get drunk. Those cherries are pretty potent.”

  Jonathan gave me a puzzled look and I gave him a raised-eyebrow “later” signal.

  But Joshua was not about to give up. Turning to Jonathan, he pleaded, “But I’m thirsty!”

  Jonathan, still puzzled, looked at me again.

  “Okay,” I said, caving in as I far too often did, “but only half a glass, and no cherries.”

  When I brought the drinks into the living room, I noted Joshua had planted himself firmly between Jonathan and Eric, and was sitting as close to Jonathan as he could get.r />
  He’s jealous! a mind-voice said, pointing out what should have been obvious to me from the minute Eric came in. And I realized for perhaps the first time how insensitive I tended to be when it came to not recognizing how everything that went on in Jonathan’s and my lives also affected Joshua.

  Jonathan’s being gone at least two nights a week was disruptive, and while I did my best to pay attention to Joshua and play with him, it wasn’t quite the same when he was used to having both me and Jonathan at hand. Our social circle was relatively small and made up of couples who had been part of Joshua’s life since he first came to us. Eric was a brand new element, and Joshua quite probably saw Jonathan’s enthusiasm in having a friend all his own as competition. And before I wrote that off as Joshua’s just being a kid I had to stop and think of the many adults I know who tend to react in the same way.

  Eric made several references during the evening to how much he envied Jonathan and me our relationship. From what he said, I gathered he’d never had a long-term relationship and very much wanted one. I knew from experience that platitudes such as “Well, you’ve got plenty of time” really didn’t mean much when one wants something now.

  Dinner went well, except for Joshua’s tendency to deliberately interrupt Eric on several occasions with his attempts to get Jonathan’s attention. Jonathan finally told him gently but firmly that it was not polite to interrupt. Eric was gracious enough to appear not to notice.

  “Are you coming to Crandall Booth’s next gathering?” Eric asked as Jonathan refilled his wineglass.

  “Is there a date for it? I hadn’t heard.” Jonathan offered to refill my glass, but I raised my hand to indicate I was okay.

  “A week from Sunday. Roger will be announcing it on Tuesday,” Eric said. “I was talking to him last night.”

  “Isn’t that pretty short notice?” Jonathan asked.

  Eric took a sip of his wine and shrugged. “That’s the way Booth does it. I think he tends to have some control issues, and I know Roger doesn’t like it. But because Crandall’s a major financial backer and a member of the board, he can do stuff like that.”

  “Well, I’m looking forward to it,” Jonathan said.

  “I want to go, too!” Joshua declared, which struck me as a little aggressive. Usually he would put his request in the form of a question.

  “We wouldn’t go without you,” Jonathan said, reaching over to put his arm around the boy’s shoulders.

  After dinner, I asked Joshua to come help me clean up the kitchen and put the dishes in the washer, to give Jonathan and Eric a chance to talk; but he would have none of it until Jonathan said, “Joshua, go help Uncle Dick. He needs you.”

  The minute the last dish was done, Joshua was back in the living room.

  *

  Around eight thirty, seeing it was close to Joshua’s bedtime and knowing he would be very unwilling to go, I said, “Hey, Joshua, are you about ready to take your shower?”

  I hoped the mention of a shower would, given his behavior most of the evening, offset the chances for a tantrum, since to his mind taking a shower was synonymous with being a grown-up. Jonathan gave me a quick look then realized what I was doing and told Joshua to go get his new pair of pajamas from his room.

  Ever since he’d recovered from his recent appendectomy, we’d been trying to give Joshua more independence and responsibility when it came to taking care of himself. While we didn’t have any standard yardstick of five-year-old behavior to measure how his development compared to other five-year-olds, or even if we were treating him in an age-appropriate manner, we tried using common sense and playing things by ear. As far as we knew, he was doing very well.

  When he came out of the bedroom, I excused myself and went with him into the bathroom for his evening getting-ready-for-bed routine. He wanted Jonathan to do the honors, but Jonathan said, “It’s Uncle Dick’s turn. You go with him.” I was vastly relieved when this did not provoke a cloudburst. Maybe he was just getting tired of sulking.

  We had started alternating his regular tub baths with occasional showers, which he took as a true sign that getting his own car and going off to college weren’t far away. Still, showers were a little tricky in that they required our turning the water on for him and adjusting it before he got in, thus invariably getting ourselves at least partly wet, then watching him closely through the glass so he didn’t try to tinker with the controls. The first few times had involved either Jonathan or me getting into a bathing suit and actually getting in the shower while he mastered shampooing and soaping.

  When he was through, we’d open the door to turn off the water and have him step out of the shower and stand on a towel during the drying-off stage, which he was also getting used to doing for himself. He seemed to be under the impression that if he couldn’t see it, it didn’t need drying, so we usually had to do at least some touch-up with the towel.

  Actually, it was probably a lot more trouble than dunking him in the tub as we always had, but we figured it was important to him to feel more grown up.

  *

  When we returned to the living room, Eric and Jonathan were standing by the bookcase, and I saw Eric had a copy of one of Jonathan’s favorite books by Morgan Butler.

  “It’s great,” Jonathan said. “You’ll love it. Just bring it back when you’re through with it.”

  Joshua, wanting to milk his staying-up time to the maximum, immediately ran over to his Lincoln Logs set as though he’d just discovered he had them, sat cross-legged on the floor and began reconstructing the project he’d begun earlier, asking Jonathan to come help him.

  “It’s a little late to start building a fort tonight, don’t you think?” Jonathan asked.

  “We can build a house,” he said and, noting Jonathan’s raised eyebrow, quickly added, “A little one.”

  “Okay,” Jonathan said. “You go ahead and build your house. Twenty minutes. Then bed.” He then returned to talking and laughing with Eric.

  When the twenty minutes were up, the total experiment in being a big boy went out the window. Told it was time to go to bed, he obediently put his Lincoln Logs away, then marched over to Jonathan.

  “Let’s go read a story,” he said.

  “I’ll read the story tonight,” I said. “Let’s let Uncle Jonathan and Eric talk.”

  That did it! Major, major tantrum of Oscar-nomination proportions. He didn’t want me to read him his story. He wanted Uncle Jonathan to read him his story. Nobody else. Uncle Jonathan.

  Okay, that did it. Taking a deep breath, I scooped him off the floor, tossed him over my shoulder and carried him kicking and yelling into his bedroom. Closing the door, I dropped him on the bed like a sack of potatoes.

  He hopped off the bed, headed for the door. I scooped him up and put him back on the bed. Off the bed. Back on. Finally, he curled into a fetal ball and covered his head with his arms.

  “I hate you!” he yelled, though the yell was muffled by his elbows.

  I put my hand on his shoulder and he jerked away.

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear you say that,” I said. “Because I don’t hate you. I love you. Uncle Jonathan loves you, too. You know that.”

  No response.

  I was really at something of a loss as to how to handle the situation.

  “Joshua,” I said finally, “you’re getting to be a bigger boy every day, and someday soon you’ll be all grown up…” If my patience holds out, I thought. “And much as we all hate it, we have to learn that we can’t always have things the way we want them.”

  His silence clearly said he wasn’t buying it.

  “Okay,” I said. “Now, do you want me to read you a story or not?”

  “No!” he said, and I got up to leave the room. I was reaching for the knob when he started sobbing.

  Oh, Jeezus! I went back to the bed and sat down beside him and cradled him, not having a clue as to what I was supposed to do.

  A moment later the door opened and Jonathan came in, looking
worried. He quickly moved over to sit beside me.

  “Here,” he said, reaching toward me, “give him to me. You go out and keep Eric company. I’ll be right out.”

  I passed Joshua, whose sobs had subsided to the softer, gulping-air variety, to him and left the room.

  “Sorry about that,” I said as I returned to the living room. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but he’s never like this.”

  Eric gave me a soft smile. “I understand,” he said. “Jonathan told me what happened to his folks. It must be hard for a little kid like that. You guys have done a great job with him.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “He’s really a great kid…usually.”

  When Jonathan hadn’t appeared after another five minutes, Eric said, “Look, I’d really better be heading on home.”

  “Don’t rush off,” I said. “Jonathan should be out any minute now.”

  As if on cue, the door to Joshua’s room opened, and Jonathan stepped out.

  “I’m so sorry, Eric!” he said. “I don’t know what got into him tonight.”

  Eric got up from the sofa. “Don’t worry about it. Kids are kids.”

  I got up, too. “I’ll get your jacket.”

  “You’re not leaving, are you?” Jonathan protested.

  “Yeah, I’ve got to go in to work tomorrow. I hate working Saturdays, but they keep asking me to come in, and I can use the money, so…”

  We said our good-byes and “Thanks for coming”/“Thanks for having me” pleasantries and he left.

  As soon as he’d gone, Jonathan shook his head. “I honestly don’t know what got into Joshua tonight. He’s never acted like that before.”

  “Well, maybe not around company,” I corrected, “but he’s pretty good in the hissy-fit department, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  We sat together on the couch. “Did he say anything?” I asked.

  “That we don’t love him,” Jonathan said, “and that broke my heart.”

  I patted him on the leg. “As it was intended to do,” I said. “Remember, five-year-olds are more emotion than logic. Of course he knows we love him; he just needs constant reassurance.”