Andy had always found true patience one of the more difficult virtues to attain. He could pretend to be understanding, or logical, or whatever was required of him at any given time, but it was just that: pretense. And at the moment his ability to maintain a calm and unruffled facade was being sorely tested.
"You said you wouldn't leave. Just last night, you said you wouldn't leave."
"I'm not leaving, Andy. I'm just going back to the States with George for a short visit. It's not the sort of thing I can tell my parents by phone, or let George say for me. Don't you see the difference?"
Andy did see the difference, but the problem was that he wasn't so sure it carried much weight or was entirely relevant. And while the whole overflowing bucket speech had rung true—even romantic, in a dorky, Paul sort of way—it still didn't mean that Paul's sudden epiphanies were to be trusted in the long term. What if he had another epiphany when Andy wasn't around to do anything about it?
"But what's the sudden hurry? You still have a year ahead of you to tell them, according to your original plan. Why go now?"
Paul had been pacing, but he came to sit next to Andy on the couch and take his hand. "The first thing my mom is going to do when she sees George is ask him about me. How I am, if I'm eating enough, if my place is decent. She'll even ask him about the curtains on the windows and the tiles in the bathroom. What's he supposed to say, Andy? I can't expect him to lie to her for me."
"He could say that he didn't see you, that you were away from Athens on vacation," Andy mumbled. It sounded even more childish when he said it out loud. But damn it all to hell, he needed more time and that had been a good excuse!
"Even if he wanted to, he can't lie to her. I bet you can't lie to Elaine, either."
"Can, too." No wonder he couldn't get Paul to see reason; he was acting like a five-year-old.
"By omission, maybe. Not outright."
Andy took a deep breath. "Yeah, okay. I just hate the thought of you going through this alone."
Because what if Paul decided he couldn't disappoint his parents, after all? What if they got him to convince himself that his duty to them was more important than his own happiness or than Andy?
"George will be there to divert some of the flack. And you'll be here for moral support, right?"
"Right," Andy agreed reluctantly, because, short of throwing a temper tantrum, there was little else he could say or do.
Paul squeezed his hand briefly, then let it go and stood up.
"I need to get to my afternoon classes. I'll let Maras and my pupils know that I'll be away for about a week or ten days on a family emergency. Once I'm back, I'll pack. George couldn't get me on the same flight as him out of Athens, so I'm flying out tomorrow at six in the morning, but we'll be flying together from Frankfurt to JFK. He even used some of his miles to get me bumped up to business with him on the way there."
"Good old George," Andy muttered through his teeth.
He almost let Paul walk out through the front door before jumping up and catching up with him.
"Tell them you'll be away for a week. Not ten days. A week."
Paul paused in the act of adjusting his bag strap across his shoulder and looked up at Andy. He caught Andy's hand again and knit their fingers together.
"Okay. A week," he agreed quietly, and Andy nodded. "I'll be back, Andy. I swear. There's no need for all this drama."
Andy let out a shaky exhalation. "I've always wanted to be a drama queen, I just never had the opportunity until now, so I had to jump all over it," he joked weakly and Paul grinned.
"I'll see you later, then. Don't fall asleep before I'm back."
He reached up and kissed Andy, then wheeled his bike out the door and through the front gate. Andy watched him leave, then shut the door and leaned against it, banging his forehead lightly against the wood panel in frustration. Sometimes he really wished that twink in the orange T-shirt in S-CAPE had waited around for Andy to ask him to dance, because no matter how much trouble he might have turned out to be, it couldn't have been more than Paul.
---o-O-o---
Given enough time, most people can adjust to any unpleasant situation. Paul wasn't sure if his co-workers and some of his pupils' parents had adjusted to him, or if he'd adjusted to their reactions to him, but things at the Club had reached an even keel. Although the academy didn't run during the school year and classes in the morning had thinned out and consisted mostly of retired men and women trying to stay active, he had a number of younger pupils in the afternoons and evenings, once school hours were over. It helped financially, but was frustrating on a personal level, because with a schedule that forced him to leave the house before Andy had woken up, return when Andy was at work, and then leave again for several more hours just as Andy was getting home, it sometimes felt that they no longer got to spend much time together.
He called George on one of his breaks to confirm that he'd spoken to Andy and that he was set to leave the next day.
"How did he take it?" George asked.
"He understands. But I need you to change my return ticket to a week from now." "What? You're not even going to spend two weekends home? What the hell, man?"
Paul was unwilling to discuss Andy's obvious unhappiness or his own doubts and misgivings regarding the whole exercise, so he fell back on the easy excuse. "I just can't suddenly take that much time from work, George. People are counting on me."
"So are we."
"No. You're just counting on me to do what
you
want me to do!"
"Paulie!" George exclaimed, and Paul felt ashamed of his outburst. Anyway, they'd beat the subject to death yesterday, and no doubt George would have more to say on the plane. Paul didn't doubt that George was trying to be understanding and supportive, but he also had his own viewpoint and objectives, knew Paul's buttons all too well, and wasn't above pressing them.
"A week, George. If things go well, I can come back with Andy, so that everybody can meet him. And if they don't, then there's not much point to staying longer, is there?"
"You need to give people time, Paul. You need to be there when they need to speak to you."
"Please, just change the tickets, okay, George? Okay?" Paul said a little desperately.
"Fine. Anyway, we can change them back if we need to," George said, and Paul hung up on him and only just stopped himself from hurling his phone to the ground and stomping on it.
He was dead tired by the time his last lesson finished, and he dreaded returning home to sort through his things and pack. More than that, he dreaded facing Andy, who'd been caught wrong-footed that afternoon, but who would by now have mustered a number of arguments as to why Paul shouldn't fly back home.
He entered the house cautiously, half-hoping Andy would already be asleep, but no such luck. The sliding doors to the back garden were open, and the crappy French music Andy listened to when he was depressed floated into the house. He was probably lying in the hammock and moping. To give Andy his due, he was generally upbeat after that all-important second cup of coffee in the morning, but on the rare occasions he fell into a funk, he really worked it.
