A Madness Most Discreet Read online

  “Have you ever considered self-publishing?”

  “When I first started out, no. But now… I don’t know.” I’d thought about it, especially after my last meeting with my publisher. But it terrified me too. I relied on my editors to improve upon my drafts and the marketing and distribution team to get it in front of readers. How else would Arden have found my first novel in a Miami airport? To Arden I said, “It would be a steep learning curve for me to be able to manage my own career, and truthfully, business isn’t my strength.”

  “I’d buy them,” he said. “I’d read anything you wrote.”

  He squeezed my hand and gave me another one of his reassuring smiles, and I thought, I want him. Not just for his looks. Or his body. But his easy confidence, his affable nature, his cleverness. I imagined him again, rumpled and freshly fucked in my bedsheets, like that Ikea photo. I didn’t want him as a one night-stand—though I would certainly take it—but as a course of nature. What were the steps I must take to get from here to there?

  “Will you come with me to a dinner party?” I asked impulsively. There was no dinner party scheduled. I’d have to convince one of my friends—Bitzy perhaps—to host it.

  He looked at me suspiciously. “A dinner party? Sounds like high society.”

  “Just some of my college friends. I think you’d get along well with them.”

  “Remember, I’m a scholarship kid.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” I teased, not realizing how elitist it sounded. As if being on a scholarship was something to be ashamed of, rather than proud.

  “When is it?” he asked without pulling out his phone to check his calendar, like he didn’t believe it was really a thing.

  “This Friday night.” Bitzy could surely pull something together by then, and if not, then I’d host it myself.

  “Should I bring something?” he asked.

  “Just yourself. I can pick you up at your apartment.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  “I’d love to see your place.”

  “It’s tiny.” He pinched his fingers together for a visual.

  “It’s New York.”

  He seemed at odds with himself, and I assumed it was because I was essentially asking to invade his personal space. “I’ll meet you there,” he said again.

  “All right. I’ll text you the address.”

  He gave a smile, a shy one, my first glimpse that Arden might not be as confident as he seemed. I was relieved. Despite whatever mystique he was cultivating, I wasn’t looking for perfection.

  3

  the dinner party

  When I pitched the idea of an impromptu dinner party to Bitzy for the sole purpose of getting to know Arden better, she was enthusiastic to say the least.

  “Where’s he from?” she asked while I prepared the salmon filets by poking slivers of garlic and rosemary into the pink flesh.

  “Florida,” I said.

  “Florida?” she asked as if it didn’t comport. “Miami?”

  “No, the Gulf Coast.”

  “What’d he do there?”

  “I don’t know. Go to the beach? Golf?” I imagined Arden lounging on the sand in one of those skimpy bathing suits he modeled, his tanned skin glistening with sweat, the fine hairs of his thighs catching the sunlight. Then I dressed him up—white shorts that hugged his firm ass and a pastel polo, something preppy and clean, with a visor on his forehead or maybe a ballcap. I wondered then what clique he might have been part of in high school. He had the looks and physique to be one of the popular kids—a jock maybe—but he lacked the conformity. A puzzle indeed.

  “Listen,” I said. “Go easy tonight. No twenty questions.”

  She smiled. “But that’s practically our schtick. I’m the nosy one, you’re the polite one, and together we unearth your potential suitor’s skeletons. Then you proceed to ignore one red flag after another until it ends in a screaming match on the street and broken glass everywhere.”

  “Or computer bits,” I said. One of my exes threw my laptop off the fire escape to make the point that I’d been ignoring them. (Point taken.) Thank God I’d had my manuscripts backed up on the cloud. I didn’t know if I attracted dramatic types or if I drove my partners to do batshit crazy things, but of the two serious relationships I’d had, both ended badly.

  And then there was Franco.

  “I really do have tunnel vision when it comes to men,” I admitted.

  “Which is why you need me to filter out the crazies. Why else do you think I agreed to have a half dozen people in this tiny-ass apartment? I cleaned my bathtub for you.”

  “I really like him,” I said.

  “You know it’s not me you have to worry about. It’s Franco.”

  Franco Sampere was a friend of ours who worked on Wall Street. He’d been my first roommate at Columbia and had often spent holidays with me and my family, rather than fly home to Spain. We fooled around off and on during college and a few times since then. We’d agreed on numerous occasions that we were better as friends, but he could still get a little territorial.

  “I’m more worried about Liam,” I said. “When he gets going…”

  Bitzy nodded. “We need new friends.”

  Our guests arrived shortly thereafter. Franco brought Marquis, a male entertainer he’d met at a gay nightclub in Chelsea. Collette and Aparna were housemates who arrived together with a tiramisu from Collette’s family’s patisserie. Liam came with one of his writer friends, Charlemagne Snodgrass, who claimed some distant relation to the American poet W.D. Snodgrass, though their connection was dubious at best. Charlemagne had once told me my work was perfectly adequate for escapist fiction. (I hadn’t asked for his opinion.)

  Bitzy thanked Liam for the wine—a Chianti and an expensive Cabernet—and said she’d aerate them before dinner.

  “Why does it smell like fish in here?” Liam scrunched up his nose at the smell.

  “Baked salmon,” I said.

  “We’ll be smelling it all night. Who serves fish at a dinner party?” Liam asked Charlemagne who only shook his head in displeasure. “If I’d known you were serving fish, I’d have brought a white. I have a lovely Gaja at home. You should have told me, Bitz.”

  Bitzy made her apologies. Her tiny kitchen was crowded with bodies spilling over into the small dining area. There was not much room to navigate between the extended table and chairs. Our guests were still getting drinks and picking at hors d'oeuvres when I called them to attention. I’d given Arden a later arrival time so that I could properly prepare my friends.

  “I invited someone new to join us tonight, and I want you all to be nice,” I told them.

  Liam rolled his eyes. “Censoring us already? Oh, goody.”

  “I mean it. I’ve only just met him, and I don’t want you cannibalizing him in the first five minutes.”

  “So, you haven’t fucked him yet?” Franco asked crassly with one arm slung casually around his date. Marquis elbowed him with a scowl. “What? It’s relevant.”

  “We’ll be perfectly pleasant,” Aparna said with a smile.

  “I know that you will.” I shot Liam a look. His intelligent eyes narrowed.

  “If you don’t enjoy my company, I don’t know why you invite me to these things,” he said, insulted.

  “For the wine,” Franco said, and Liam’s frown twitched into a grin. They used to despise each other, but over the years they’d developed something of a combative friendship, often using their alliance to outnumber me.

  There was a knock, and I hustled to the door to find Arden, freshly showered with his light brown hair falling in soft, layered waves. Wind-swept and ruddy cheeked, he wore a long-sleeved button down made of some silky material in a sage color that highlighted the green in his eyes. The top two buttons were undone in a way that only a model or a pimp from the seventies could make look authentic.

  “And who’s this?” Bitzy asked, while I stood in a daze—he had that effect on me.

  “You m
ust be Bitzy.” Arden thrust a bouquet of flowers in her direction.

  “Thank you. You’re taller than I expected.”

  “Six foot, one, milady,” he said with a chivalrous bow.

  “Welcome to my rent-control apartment. I like your freckles.”

  “I live not far from here,” Arden said as she ushered him inside. “I love the neighborhood. Wow, what a view.”

  Bitzy beamed. She paid nearly a thousand dollars more each month in rent for the view of the East River and the Manhattan skyline, and she appreciated it when people took notice.

  “This is for you.” Arden shoved a book in my hand, a well-worn copy of The Old Man and the Sea. We’d talked about Hemmingway over lunch. I told him I’d read The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms but that I’d never gotten around to reading this one, and it was his favorite. “I know the e-book is probably free, but I thought—”

  “Thank you.” I hugged him on impulse. He went stiff for a moment, then relaxed in my embrace. I thought he might be worried about me wrinkling his shirt or, similar to Liam, didn’t appreciate public displays of affection. I pulled away to discover we had an audience.

  “Everyone, this is Arden. Arden, this is…” I rattled off their names, forgetting the name of Franco’s date for a moment, so that he had to supply it himself. I apologized profusely, red-faced at my slip. I was stupidly nervous. Collette saved me by complimenting the flowers and asking whether Arden lived nearby. He said his apartment was just a short walk away. Franco kept eying Arden as though he couldn’t believe he was sharing space with someone as attractive as himself. Liam looked scornful.

  I led Arden to the kitchen island where I left him to chat with Marquis while I made him a club soda with mint and lime at his request. Aparna asked how we’d met, and Arden relayed the story to her. I filled in the bit about how I’d found him again, leaving out Bitzy’s detective work. We then transitioned to the dining table where Bitzy and I served the salmon with a rice pilaf and green beans sautéed in butter and slivered almonds. Franco had brought a loaf of bread with a good, thick crust, which Arden avoided.

  Liam poured the wine, and Arden held up one hand to stop him. “None for me, thanks.”

  “Didn’t you walk here?” Liam said.

  “Yes, but I don’t drink.”

  “This is very good wine.” Liam took offense when people didn’t enjoy his hospitality.

  “I’m an alcoholic,” Arden said, and though he’d not meant for it to be some dramatic admission, the room quieted. Arden looked up from his plate to find everyone staring at him.

  “Arden, we’re all alcoholics,” Franco said lightly. Arden chuckled, and I scolded myself for not saying something clever to rescue him.

  “How old are you?” Liam asked, now seated at my side. He had that look, like Arden was a line of poetry he’d found lacking.

  “Twenty-four,” Arden said.

  “When did you start drinking?”

  “Liam,” I admonished.

  “Twelve.”

  “That’s so young,” Aparna said with motherly concern.

  “I lived on a boat,” he said as if that explained it.

  “Like a pirate ship?” Franco asked.

  Arden smiled. “Something like that.” We were all curious about this unusual upbringing, and our silence conveyed it. “My father was a sailor,” Arden said and then, “Well, more like a smuggler.”

  “What did he smuggle?” Franco asked.

  “He never told me.” Arden took another bite of salmon as if that were the end of this exchange. “This is delicious,” he said with a nod to Bitzy. Her smile was a delayed reaction.

  “But you must have had some suspicions?” Liam said.

  “I kept them to myself. I wasn’t a very good liar, and this way, when the Coast Guard or Customs boarded us, I wouldn’t give anything away.” Again, everyone’s gaze was riveted on him. Arden took it in stride. “But enough about me.”

  Collette took over the conversation then, sharing that her family was opening a second shop in Morningside Heights and that she’d be determining the menu and managing it. We congratulated her on the expansion and promised to spread the word.

  Conversation shifted then to the economy and which sectors were doing well. Franco had introduced me to my accountant and helped me with a monthly budget based on my advances and anticipated royalties. He’d even set me up with a retirement plan. When I mentioned this to Arden, his eyes widened.

  “Retirement, wow. That’s so… optimistic.”

  Bitzy snorted a laugh. Liam looked disdainful.

  “Why is retirement optimistic?” Franco asked. He could be quite literal when it came to financial planning.

  “Just that you all think you’ll be around long enough to enjoy it,” Arden said unapologetically.

  He couldn’t have known that would trigger Franco’s sales pitch as to why a 401(k) made sense not only for future investments but also as a way to reduce your current taxable income. He then explained the drawbacks and benefits of that plan as opposed to a Roth IRA. Arden nodded along, but I could tell that he was struggling to keep up with the onslaught of information. It wasn’t easy when Franco started rattling off numbers like a sentient Excel spreadsheet.

  Bitzy then brought up the recent success of my novel, which was clinging to the Best Seller’s list with a cadaveric death grip. I tended to not bring up my achievements in Liam’s company because he was still struggling to get a selection of poems published, and I didn’t want to gloat. Lucky for him, he had his trust fund to sustain him. His family were prosperous New York developers—old money—though, in my opinion, not the nicest people.

  “What are you working on now, Michael?” Liam asked. “Something more serious I hope.”

  “Nothing too profound,” I said lightly. Even in our critique circles at Columbia, Liam tended to be a bit of a literary snob. I’d sooner electrocute my own balls than admit to him I was suffering from writer’s block.

  “I tried reading them,” Liam said. “We both did.” He motioned to Charlemagne. “But the plot was so very predictable. I guessed the killer within the first thirty pages. I don’t think mysteries are your strong suit, Michael.”

  There was a hushed silence while I absorbed the barb and considered my riposte.

  “If you’d read onto the second,” Arden said, “you’d know that Nathan Shields got it wrong and that Daphne wasn’t the killer after all. For a sleuth to put the wrong person behind bars is revolutionary in crime fiction.”

  “I don’t know about revolutionary,” Charlemagne said. “I can’t even say that I found it all that entertaining.”

  “Thankfully not every reader’s palate is as discriminating as yours, Charlemagne,” I said tightly.

  “The thousands of people who bought his books would say it’s very entertaining,” Arden added. His smile was cold but even that held a certain icy appeal.

  “Well, pulp is meant to be accessible,” Charlemagne continued. “Isn’t it written at something like an eighth-grade reading level? Meant for the lowest common denominator. Just like our public education system.”

  “Something like that,” I said shortly. Neither of them had ever stepped foot inside a public school.

  “So common,” Arden said. “Much better to use big words and convoluted sentences that only a linguist could decipher. Reading is so much more enjoyable that way, don’t you think?”

  “Kitty has claws,” Marquis said with a delighted smirk.

  “Do you have some literary background, Arden?” Liam asked and I groaned aloud that Liam was asking for his credentials.

  “No, but I read books and visit the library.”

  “And where did you go to school?”

  I was embarrassed that I’d asked him the same thing, only I hoped, for better reasons.

  “St. Petersburg Community College,” Arden said mildly. “But I never finished.”

  “You told me Brown,” I said, immediately regretting it. I d
idn’t want our front divided.

  He shrugged. “I had to drop out after my first year and move back home to take care of my father.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with community college or trade school for that matter,” Liam said in a cloying tone. “Not everyone has the aptitude or resources for a four-year university. And why force it? Not everyone needs to be a scholar.”

  “Whatever happened to college being bureaucratic bullshit?” I said to Liam. It was something he, himself, had told me when he was failing out of organic chemistry, which he later dropped and, as a result, had to inform his parents that he was switching majors from pre-med to creative writing.

  “Is that what you are?” Arden asked Liam evenly. “A scholar?”

  “A poet, yes. And what is it that you do, Arden?”

  “I’m a model.”

  Liam’s eyes raked over him, assessing him coolly. “And how many years does the typical modelling career last for a man? Until you lose your hair?”

  “Liam, you’re being a dick,” I said. “Apologize.”

  Liam took a sip of wine, simmering with fury. “I’m sorry for insulting your boyfriend, Michael.”

  “Apologize to Arden.” I didn’t bother to correct his assumption.

  He sighed and gave Arden a disparaging look. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. You see, I’ve known Michael for several years now, as a colleague and a friend, and I thought we could have a frank discussion about his work, but I understand your need to prove yourself, what with your relationship being so new and all.”

  “That was a shitty apology,” Arden said. “Next time try fewer words.”

  Franco let out a loud guffaw. Bitzy interjected with some news about one of our old classmates who was studying Neolithic art in Scotland, and I let my gaze drift to the enigmatic man at my side. Fierce and uncompromising. Loyal too. He smiled warmly and I returned it. Dinner was wrapping up, and I was suddenly tired of my friends and their pretentious bullshit.

  “Want to get out of here?” I asked him.

  Arden shrugged. “Why not?”