Chapter 7

As he atehis veggie cheeseburger and sweet potato fries, Joel stole as many glances at Dan as he could without being creepy. They were both seated on the same curve of the round patio table, which gave them a good view of the lake but made it harder for him to search Dan's face and body for the boy he'd once been.

He was as heartthrobby as ever, his muscles and tan probably borne of outdoorsy activities instead of a gym and tanning bed. Then there was his artfully untamed hair that made Joel's fingertips tingle.

Time to look away. If he stared too long at Dan, his heart wouldn't be the only thing throbbing.

But maybe just a few more seconds.

As Dan reached for the ketchup bottle, he caught Joel watching. "What?" He touched the corner of his mouth. "Do I have tartar sauce?—"

"You're fine." Might as well be honest. "While I was giving my talk, you had fifty minutes to stare at me. I'm trying to catch up in small doses."

Dan's smile was almost bashful. "So I can't look at you again until you've clocked fifty minutes?"

"You can have a glance here and there for politeness' sake. Otherwise, just do what you're doing and I'll take care of the rest."

Dan picked up his crab-cake sandwich. "So you're watching me eat."

"Don't be self-conscious. You're a very good eater."

"Oh, you have no idea." Dan bit into his sandwich, then froze. "That didn't come out right," he said with a full mouth, already laughing.

"Too late." Joel mimed jotting in a palmed notebook. "The fact has been entered into the official record." He clicked off his imaginary pen.

"I meant, I once won a competitive eating contest in my hometown."

"Let me guess: Rocky Mountain Oysters."

Dan's blush deepened from pink to magenta as he nodded.

"I can't believe you didn't bring me any to sample," Joel said.

Dan held out a palm. "I'm gonna choke if you don't stop long enough for me to swallow."

"I bet you say that to all the guys."

Dan displayed his middle finger as he took a long, slurping sip of water. "Not to change the subject, but definitely to change the subject: How are your parents?"

"They're great." Joel picked up a fry and frowned at his empty ramekin of sriracha sauce. "Dad's traveling a lot to keep from going stir-crazy in retirement. Mom's now head of pulmonology at her hospital. Every October she calls me hourly until I get my flu shot."

"She was so great that day, staying with me in the ER while I waited for my uncles."

"I told her earlier that you were here, and she remembered you vividly." Joel laid a hand on Dan's forearm, firmly enough to make it feel sympathetic instead of flirtatious. "She always felt so guilty about your dad."

"Why?"

"Because she's a doctor, and there was a sick man in her backyard, and she didn't notice how bad he was feeling before he—" Dan's posture tensed, so Joel let the rest of the sentence go unspoken. "She said she would've seen the signs if she wasn't so focused on her goal of zero cicadas."

Dan's brows pinched together, and one eye squeezed almost shut. "Tell her it's not her fault. If anyone should've seen he wasn't well, it was me. Or my uncles."

"Do they still live around here?"

"Yeah, I should probably visit them before I head back to Wyoming."

"When's your return flight?"

Dan swiped his napkin over his mouth, then returned it to his lap. "I go back Tuesday." His voice curled up at the end of the sentence, like it was a question. "This lake's really nice. What's it called?"

So he was done talking about his family. Fair enough.

"Kittamaqundi. It's human-made."

"Looks pretty natural." Dan took another sip of beer. "Not that I'm an expert on bodies of water."

They discussed the host of climatic differences between here and Dan's current home—where, incredibly, they didn't need air conditioning. The weather talk felt cozy instead of boring. It let Joel imagine Dan sitting on a breezy porch under a sky as wide and blue and calm as his eyes.

Dan pulled a small manila envelope from the pocket of his camera case. "A little something for your birthday."

Joel gasped and put a hand to his chest—less as a gesture of surprise than an effort to keep himself breathing. "I can't believe you remembered."

"I didn't know the exact date, just that it was in late May."

"A week ago. The twenty-second." Sam had taken him to the country club's restaurant, where the only vegetarian option was something called a Sandtrap Salad. "Isn't your birthday also in May? I didn't get you anything."

"You didn't know I was coming." Dan handed him the envelope. "Besides, it was a whole three weeks ago."

"I wasn't aware birthday gifts had a statute of limitations." He reached into the envelope and pulled out two thin pieces of cardboard. Between them was a 5x7 print.

Joel turned it right side up. "Oh, Dan…" Goosebumps peppered his arms as he held up the painting to the soft amber porch light.

In the center, a cicada perched on its hind legs holding a microphone. Behind it, another cicada sat behind a drum set with sticks raised, and a third held an electric guitar. It was a perfect blend of rock-star postures and accurate cicada anatomy. "Where did you find this?"

"I browsed the convention vendors before coming to your talk. You have any idea how much cicada art there is?"

"I have a very good idea, because people give it to me all the time. But nothing this good." Joel let out a low breath. "Never anything this good."

"So you like it?"

He couldn't take his eyes off the painting. "I've never liked anything so much."

Dan reached for it. "I'll have it matted and framed for you."

"No." Joel held it close. "I'll do it here. So it doesn't get lost in the mail." Plus, a lovely gift arriving from a Wyoming mystery man would raise questions. "So you bought this even before you saw me? What if I'd turned out to be an asshole?"

"That never occurred to me," Dan said.

"It should've. I was a bit of an asshole at seventeen."

"So was I."

Not according to Joel's journal. "I can't believe we waltzed to ‘Swan Swan H.' A song about all the death and destruction wrought by the Civil War, how it created divisions this country is still dealing with today. Meanwhile, there we were, stumbling around stoned and shirtless, laughing like a couple of…"

"Assholes?"

"Yeah."

"I think we were just seventeen."

"I know what you mean," Joel said reflexively, twisting the Beatles lyric.

"Good one." Dan cradled his beer glass in both hands without drinking it. "We were just happy, like, in the moment. We couldn't relate to the song because we thought we were immune to suffering."

Joel saw it all again: Ella bursting into their meadow, delivering words so dark and heavy they could blot out the sun. Danny turning to Joel, his eyes soft and wet—for only a moment, before his face turned to stone.

"Kids that age think they're immortal," Joel said. "Them and everyone they love."

Dan tilted his glass back and forth, staring into the remnants of his hefeweizen.

"I'm sorry I took you away from your dad in his final hours," Joel said. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to comfort you afterward."

A shrug. "None of that's your fault."

"I still feel bad."

"Then just say you feel bad. Don't apologize."

"I wasn't apologizing. I was just?—"

"Saying sorry."

Joel met Dan's eyes, which crinkled at the corners. "Asshole," Joel said through his own grin.

He picked up the envelope to put away Dan's gift, but the painting pulled him in again. Even without human mouths to form smiles, the cicadas exuded joy. It was like a promise dangling in front of him: This is how you could feel tonight.

"Do you understand the title?" Dan asked. "It's on the back."

Joel flipped the painting over. Serenading Phaedrus was written above the artist's name. "In one of Plato's Dialogues, Socrates is hanging out with his friend Phaedrus on a riverbank where the trees are full of cicadas. There's the obligatory philosophizing, which I forget, but he also tells him the Myth of the Cicada."

"They have their own Greek myth?"

Joel nodded. "It said that cicadas were once humans, and when the Muses brought song into the world, these people were so enchanted that they sang and danced without eating or sleeping until they died."

"Died for good or just myth-died?"

"Neither exactly. Muses were like, ‘Oops, our bad.' To make up for it, they turned the dead humans into cicadas so they never had to eat or sleep again. They could spend their whole lives singing and dancing." Joel gestured to the treetops. "Obviously Socrates didn't know much about cicada biology. They do eat and sleep, even as adults."

"Maybe he did know that, but he thought it made a great story."

"Good point. Like my rabbi always says, ‘Those old tales don't have to be true to be true.'"

"Same goes for new tales, like movies or books." Dan took another sip and looked out over the lake. "Even the stories we tell ourselves," he added, almost inaudibly.

Joel sat back in his chair and followed Dan's gaze. On the lake's opposite shore, the white trunk of a single sycamore stood out among all the green. A jogger appeared on the faraway trail, visible only as an ambulatory yellow shirt. On the near shore, the glistening water lapped against the paddle boats tied to the dock. The boats—shaped like swans, frogs, and something that might've been a dragon—rattled quietly against one another with each tiny wave.

He hadn't forgotten the "obligatory philosophizing" at all—in fact, there was a chapter on the Phaedrus in Lorraine Kidjo's book, which he truly did reread every year. But how could he state, while sitting mere inches from Dan, that the Phaedrus's main topic was the nature of erotic love?

He caught his breath. "Listen."

"To what?" Dan whispered back.

"The cicadas. They've gone quiet."

Dan let out a soft gasp. "Wow." He leaned back in his chair and sipped his ale, this time not slurping at all.

"Tomorrow I can take you to one of the state parks so you can hear them in full voice and get more pictures for your article."

Dan smiled broadly without looking at him. "That would be great."

Silence wrapped around them like a comfy quilt, dotted with sounds that couldn't break through before—the laughter of a young couple strolling on the boardwalk, the splash of a fish surfacing on the lake, the squeak of Dan's tangerine wedge as he rubbed it back and forth on the rim of his glass.

The most natural thing would've been to reach out and take Dan's hand, to sit here under the ash trees like an old married couple savoring the start of another summer together.

Joel clasped his own hands together in his lap. They weren't even on a date, much less sharing an anniversary dinner. So what if Dan had blushed and turned away when Joel had changed his shirt in the hotel parking lot? It meant nothing. Maybe in some alternate universe they were lovers, but in this one, he and Dan were just friends.

Friends whose connection was stronger than mere nostalgia, a connection potent enough that they could slip straight into their old selves made new.

It had to be enough.

He slid the painting between its thin cardboard protectors, then reached for the manila envelope. "Thank you again for?—"

Wait. On the front of the envelope were two words—Bug Boy—beside a smiling cartoon bumblebee hovering over a flower.

He looked at Dan, who grinned at him with the tangerine wedge between lips and teeth.

"That's Bug Man," Joel said, "thank you very much."

Dan pulled the fruit out of his mouth. "I did promise to only call you Bug Boy once. Figured I'd make it count." He chucked the wedge into his empty beer glass. "Also I got bored sitting here while you were in the men's room fixing your gorgeous hair."

Joel touched his bangs, his face warming. He fastened the clasp on the painting's envelope, then drew his thumb over his ornately lettered nickname.

Maybe this was a date after all. Dan was wooing him. He was wooing Dan.

There was a whole lotta wooing going on.

High-top Chucks were maybe notthe best shoes for dancing. Sure, they had the perfect amount of tread to let Dan spin and slide, and the flat soles offered great balance. But the lack of arch support was killing his bad knee.

Still, there was no stopping. This band was too good, and the crowd packed into this saloon—America's oldest, according to the sign—was too rowdy to even consider sitting down.

And then there was Joel beside him, fists pumping, hair flopping over his forehead as he bounced and flailed. The worn wooden floor and brick walls could have easily been the shrubs and wildflowers of their meadow, to match the bliss in Dan's nerves and skin.

Joel grabbed his arm. "I'll be right back!" he yelled over the music, gesturing in the direction of the men's room.

Dan leaned over before Joel could turn away. "We should get each other's numbers in case we're separated." It was a ridiculous excuse, considering the small size of the bar, but better safe than sorry, and this way they could stay in touch after this weekend.

Joel reached into the front pockets of his khakis, then the back pockets. "Must have left my phone in the hotel room." He pointed at the floor with both forefingers. "Stay right here."

Dan gave him a thumbs up. Wild horses couldn't drag him away.

By the time Joel returned, the set had ended. The line at the bar was intimidatingly long, so they headed outside.

The humid night air draped over Dan like a soggy towel, sagging with the scents of seafood, salt water, and spilled beer. "I need water. Mostly to bathe in, but also to drink."

"Water is our second stop," Joel said. "First we gotta feed the hungry, hungry meter."

They went back to Joel's car, which was parked on a leafy side street of Baltimore's Fell's Point historic waterfront district. Dan had him pop the trunk so he could get his camera. As he hitched the strap over his shoulder, a big black SUV slowed beside them with its blinker on.

He shut the trunk. "This guy thinks we're leaving."

"Yeah, life's hard." Joel looked straight at the driver's tinted window as he slipped more coins into the meter.

The SUV's window rolled down far enough to show a meaty middle finger. The driver gunned the engine as he continued down the street.

"Suck it up, gas guzzler!" Joel yelled after him, then turned to Dan. "C'mon, Broadway should still be open."

Huh. Dan looked back at Joel's car as they approached the corner. Were they taking a train to New York? Did Broadway shows even run this late?

In the well-lit center of Fells Point, they approached a long, squat brick building with a row of huge arched windows along its entire length, a building that wouldn't have looked out of place in downtown Laramie. Above the entrance, the sign stretched out in big block letters.

"Oh, Broadway Market," Dan said. "I get it now."

"Did you think I was taking you to New York?" Joel opened the door. "Sorry, Danny. Maybe next time."

A cacophony of clanging pans and sizzling oil swirled around him. Dan's mouth watered at the smell of seafood, Thai food, and…was that a chicken and waffles stand?

Thirst came first. He darted over to a countertop mini-fridge at the deli stall.

Joel followed him. "I just called you Danny again, didn't I? Sorry, I will try very hard to call you Dan."

"No, you won't."

Joel laughed. "Yes, I will! Names are an important part of identity. You became Dan for a reason, and I respect that." He pressed a palm to his temple. "Danny is just the version of you that's lived in my head all this time, but that person wasn't real."

The conversation had turned a bit too existential. "Either name is fine." He opened the fridge and pulled out two jaw-droppingly expensive bottles of spring water. "I kinda like when you call me Danny."

"Does it make you feel seventeen again?"

"The way my knee hurts after dancing—not to mention walking on all those cobblestones—I don't think anything could do that."

"What happened to your knee?"

"Old football injury. Bad sack at practice senior year. Legs got tackled." Dan paid the cashier, focusing on her strawberry-blond beehive hairdo to blot out memories of that day, when his debts were collected with a deliberately missed block of a vengeful linebacker. "Blew my chance at a scholarship to University of Alabama."

Joel gasped and covered his mouth. "I'm not a sports fan, but even I know that's a big deal. I'm so sorry."

Dan took several deep gulps of water, then held the cold bottle to the side of his neck. "Probably for the best. If I'd gone to 'Bama, I wouldn't be where I am or doing what I do." He tapped his camera case. "This makes me way happier than football ever did."

"I'm glad, and not just because I think sports are an inhumane waste of time and money."

Dan laughed. "We'll have to agree to disagree on that."

"But seriously, Dan." Joel touched his arm as they walked on through the bustling market. "I'm so happy that you're happy."

"Thanks. I really am." Professionally, at least. "I used to think about what life as a famous quarterback could've been like: the money, the women…"

"The padlocked closet."

He pointed his bottle at Joel. "Exactly. I never would've been free to know who I really am, what I really want." Not that he'd figured out any of that stuff yet.

"You would've had a massive midlife crisis. On the other hand, you could've consoled yourself with a new mansion or two."

"Or I might've flamed out after half a season on the bench of the Cleveland Browns. I probably wasn't as good as the college scouts told me I was. They'll say anything to snag someone half decent, just so other schools won't get them."

Joel studied his face with narrowed eyes. Dan took another swig of water and kept walking.

A blast of air washed over him from a giant electric fan pointed outward from the Korean-food stall. He stopped in front of it, closing his eyes and spreading his arms to savor the breeze.

"Speaking of regrets…" Joel said.

"Were we?"

"When I turned thirty-four last week, it hit me that in one year, I'll be old enough to become President. According to the Constitution."

"And?"

"And what have I done with my life?"

Dan opened his eyes. Was Joel trying to make him feel better? It was kinda sweet. "Only forty-three people have ever been President."

Joel held up a finger. "Forty-two people. Grover Cleveland was number 22 and 24."

"My point is, that's a pretty high bar to set for yourself."

"I don't want to be President. It's the benchmark that gets me." Joel swept his sweaty bangs off his forehead. "There's this statement enshrined in our nation's founding that you should be an adult at thirty-five. I don't have a spouse or kids or a mortgage." He counted off on his fingers. "All I have is a boyfriend, a dog, and a lease without my name on it. I had all of those things when I was twenty-one, so what's changed?"

"I don't know." Dan headed for the door. "You tell me."

Outside, a crowd had gathered in an open space next to the market. A street performer was juggling a trio of glow-in-the-dark rings in his left hand while casually twirling an LED kid-size soccer ball on the tip of his right forefinger.

"My last segment," the juggler said, "I will dedicate to the world's greatest juggler, a German man called Francis Brunn, who sadly died yesterday at age 82." The performer spoke with some kind of European accent. "Brunn was very famous in his time, performing with the Ringling Brothers circus and appearing on TV shows like Jack Benny. He proved juggling can be an art form."

Joel steadied himself against Dan's arm as he rose on his toes, trying to see.

"Over here." Dan guided him to the sparse side of the crowd, facing the juggler's back. "Better?"

Joel nodded with a grateful smile. Dan shifted to stand behind him, with the top of Joel's head reaching his chin.

So, hypothetically, to kiss Joel, would he lean over? Bend his knees? Or would Joel stand on his toes and wrap his arms around his neck to pull him down? Maybe all three.

Dan rubbed his forehead and focused on the juggler.

A spotlit sign on a nearby folding chair read The Astounding Arnaud in an ornate typeface. Beside it stood a slim young woman, maybe Arnaud's daughter or granddaughter, holding a blinking pink ball.

"Because it is disrespectful to copy a routine exactly," Arnaud said, "I will perform a variation on Brunn's famous ‘impossible trick.' Please forgive me as I stop talking to concentrate."

As he continued tossing the rings and spinning the little soccer ball on his finger, the juggler nodded to the young woman, who bent down and rolled the pink ball toward him over the brick pavement. He scooped it up with his right foot and balanced it atop his scruffy black moccasin, where it perched, motionless, as if suspended in midair.

Then Arnaud bounced the pink ball on his toe, higher with every strike, somehow not hitting the other stuff he was juggling with his hands.

Dan applauded with the rest of the crowd. Was this the impossible trick? It was definitely cool, but impossible?

Arnaud kicked the pink ball up higher, into a wide arc over his head. He caught it behind him with his leg, trapping it between heel and calf.

"Whoa." Joel stepped back, pressing against him. Whether it was on purpose or accidental didn't matter, not to Dan's body.

He lifted his hand to…what, push Joel away? Now that would be an impossible trick.

"Here we go!" Still juggling the rings and twirling the soccer ball, Arnaud kicked the pink ball up with his heel, bounced it off his head, and caught it atop the spinning ball in his right hand.

What the?—

How the hell did that happen?

What was this insanely talented artist doing on the streets of Baltimore?

And most of all, why did Joel's hair smell so fucking good?

The moment stretched out, the crowd cheering and clapping as all five objects stayed aloft, the rings moving faster and faster. Dan put a hand on Joel's shoulder…

"Voilà!" The juggler threw everything high in the air, then caught each object one by one, the rings around his arms and one ball in each hand. Finally he took a deep bow.

Dan raised his hands above his head to applaud along with the whooping, whistling crowd. Joel took a small step forward, putting space between their bodies again. Dan's skin ached from the sudden absence.

The juggler's assistant picked up a bucket and started collecting coins and bills from the far side of the crowd.

Joel turned to Dan. "Do you have cash? I put the rest of my change in the meter and used the last of my bills to tip the bartender."

Dan opened his wallet and pulled out a twenty. "This is all I have."

"You two can pay me another way."

They turned to the juggler, who was crouching beside a big black case a few feet away, packing up his materials.

"Tell me a story," Arnaud continued. "I also write songs, mostly for my own amusement." He tucked his stack of rings into a pocket inside the case's lid. "Lately, though, no inspiration. The world is too much a mess. So keep your twenty dollars and tell me a good story."

He was probably just having fun with them, but what the heck. "What kind of story do you want?" Dan asked.

"A true one is best." The juggler tugged open a mesh bag. "Tell me how you met."

Joel put out his hands. "Oh, we're not together."

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," Dan said. "Technically we could be. We're both?—"

"I have a boyfriend," Joel said.

"He has a boyfriend."

"Okay, okay." Arnaud muttered something in maybe-French as he stuffed the balls into the bag. "My question is not answered."

"We met when we were seventeen," Joel said.

"Seventeen years ago tomorrow, actually," Dan added.

"My mom hired his dad to kill all the cicadas in our yard."

The juggler tilted his head. "Cicadas?"

"Oh, en fran?ais," Joel said, followed by some word that sounded like seagull.

Arnaud nodded. "And did he kill them?"

Joel glanced at Dan. "Not exactly."

"Dad died of cardiac arrest before he could finish the job." There. He'd said it out loud. Easy-peasy.

The juggler stared up at Dan, then got to his feet. "Your father died and the cicadas lived. Now that's a story." He beckoned them closer. "Give me your emails. I will send you my song."

They handed over their business cards. Arnaud's bushy gray eyebrows rose when he saw Dan's. "Wyoming? Interesting."

"I'm originally from Colorado. I moved to Wyoming for?—"

"Don't care." The juggler cut him off with a sweep of his hand. "I have enough to inspire me. Too much information quenches the fire, no?" He turned back to his equipment. "Bye bye."

"See ya." Joel spun on his heel and started walking away.

Dan followed before they could lose each other in the milling crowd. "Thank you!" he called back to the juggler.

He meant those two words a thousand times over. In the span of five minutes, The Astounding Arnaud had proven that sometimes, impossibly or not, everything falls into place.