Brian took us for dinner to a restaurant called Lauriol Plaza. While we waited for our entrées to arrive, we ate salsa and pleasantly oily chips, the August night was warm but not suffocating, and the people at tables around us—most of whom appeared to be either good-looking gay men, ambitious young Capitol Hill staffers, or both—seemed high-spirited and buzzed that it was summer. It was in the middle of my second margarita that I felt myself forgiving Terence. Or I guess it was more extreme than that: in the space of about 10 minutes, I went from slightly loathing him to feeling grudging affection to remembering why he was the love of my life.
This shift in my perception was due mostly, I think, to observing the way Terence and Brian were with each other, how tenderly and affectionately they both spoke of Peter and how solicitously they asked about one another. I had met Terence after his brother’s death, and listening to them talk about him—his competitiveness during games of Trivial Pursuit, his insatiable appetite for peanut butter, his great enthusiasm for celebrating birthdays (both his own and other people’s)—suddenly made him more real to me than he ever had been; it reminded me of the heartbreaking loss of it.
When we lay down that night on the pullout couch in Brian’s living room, I rolled over, spooning Terence from behind, and I whispered, “Hey, Cannibal Man, you know there’s no one I’d rather be driving 3,000 miles with.” Terence reached around and squeezed my hand.
Even though we were planning to leave by 7 a.m., Brian insisted on serving us scrambled eggs, sausage, and fat, fresh strawberries that he sliced while we loaded up the Lexus. One of my less-than-appealing personal secrets is that I actually kind of hate having houseguests, but Brian had been so warm and gracious that I was being sincere when I said, “You’ll have to come visit us in California.”
After we hit the road, the simpatico glow of Washington lasted, I am sorry to report, roughly four minutes. “So I know our plan has been to take the southerly route through the Appalachian mountains and Tennessee,” Terence said, “but what about going instead across the Midwest?”
“Why?” I was at the wheel, and I glanced over at him.
He shrugged. “It’s faster.”
“If efficiency were the point, we wouldn’t be driving in the first place—the journey is the destination and all that, right? Besides, if we go across the Midwest, we’ll miss the Country Music Hall of Fame, and I heard they sell flyswatters in the shape of guitars.”
Terence was silent, and then he said, “See, the thing is that Brian asked if we’d mind dropping off a package in Terre Haute.”
“Terre Haute, Indiana?”
“What was I supposed to say?”
“Has Brian ever heard of this innovation called the post office? If not, it’ll blow his mind.”
“You don’t need to be sarcastic.”
“You told him no, right?”
“Well…” Terence hesitated. Then he turned, reaching into the backseat. The Beast was so spacious inside that it took him a few seconds to find what he was looking for—and then he produced a plain cardboard box that was about eight by 12 inches. It was sealed shut with brown masking tape and, as far as I could see, had no writing on it.
“What is it?”
Again, he shrugged.
“Wait a second—you promised Brian we’d deliver a package to Indiana and you don’t even know what’s in it?”
“I figured if he wanted to tell me, he would.”
I was so furious and shocked that I couldn’t speak; I slowed down, letting other cars pass us, and when they had, I pulled onto the shoulder of the Beltway.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“What am I doing? What’s wrong with you? There must be something weird in that box or he would have just mailed it like a normal person. Maybe we should just turn around and give it back to him, or we can throw it away at the next rest stop.”
“Relax, Julia.” Terence sounded less cowed than defiant, which, given his behavior of late, was almost refreshing. “I assume it’s something that belonged to my brother, something sentimental maybe. He wants us to take it to this rich old lady whom they met a few years ago on Fire Island.”
This, then, is how we ended up getting off the Beltway at I-270 instead of I-66, re-entering Maryland instead of striking out fresh through Virginia. Terence knew that even on my most disagreeable day refusing the wishes of his dead brother was beyond me.
I still wasn’t convinced, though, that we weren’t just being duped into transporting a box of, say, live chicks. (Although it’s a little-known fact that you can ship those through the USPS. Really.) I had all of Maryland, West Virginia, the western edge of Pennsylvania, and the monotony of Ohio to brood, and by the time we reached Richmond, just over the Indiana border, and checked into a Days Inn (scrimp on where you sleep, splurge on what you drive, that’s my philosophy), I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt: Before we delivered that box the next day, I was going to look inside.