Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 18:03:20 -0700
From: D S <denis141@hotmail.com>
Subject: ALONE TOGETHER:Chapter 38, Far, And Away: Part 7,
     The Promise of a Child's Faith

Okay kids, hang on to your hats, because this chapter covers a LOT of
ground.  Most of it advances already existing story-lines, but in ways that
hopefully are interesting and also a bit surprising.  There is some new
stylistic stuff too, since you know I'm all about not just the story, but
how it's told too.  For those who continue to faithfully write, I thank you
all very much.  For those people out there reading who have not yet written,
or not written in a while, drop me a line if you want. But even if you
don't, that's okay - so long as you're still reading, and still enjoying,
that's all that really matters.  Finally, for those who are just a little
bit curious about when we're getting back to James and Aaron at the mailbox,
it will be (drum-roll please) chapter 40.  And because the next chapter
shouldn't be very long, you won't have much longer to wait (although
hopefully the wait has been worth it).  If you'd like to write, I'd
appreciate it.  The email is denis141@hotmail.com.

DEDICATION:   I'm not sure why this never occurred to me before, but I want
to dedicate this chapter to the real-life Lance Bass and JC Chasez. In my
story I try to depict them (especially Lance) as I imagine they'd be if in
love with each other, and living the life I describe.

DISCLAIMER:  I don't know NSYNC (except in my imagination), and this story
is, as a result, purely imaginary.  It is also a story about two men in
love, which means it sometimes also includes sex, so if this not your thing,
or if you aren't old enough, you should stop reading now.

ALONE/TOGETHER

CHAPTER 38:  FAR, AND AWAY: Part Seven:  The Promise of a Child's Faith.

Be patient that I address you in a poem,
		there is no other
			fit medium.
The mind
	lives there.  It is uncertain,
			can trick us and leave us
agonized.  But for resources
	what can equal it?
			There is nothing.  We
should be lost
	without its wings to
			fly off upon.
			-- To Daphne and Virginia, William Carlos Williams

"The writer by nature of his profession is a dreamer and a conscious
dreamer. He must imagine, and imagination takes humility, love and great
courage. How can you create a character without love and the struggle that
goes with love?"
  			~ Carson McCullers

       "The conquest of fear yields the courage of life. That is the
cardinal initiation of every heroic adventure--fearlessness and
achievement."
  				~Joseph Campbell

	If someone had tried to write a story about everything that happened in the
year and nine months that lead up to the premiere of STAR WARS: A Gathering
Storm, the writer would have had a difficult time deciding about what to
write, about what to include and what to leave out, about what to emphasize
and what to mention in passing only, or perhaps not mention at all.  The
writer would've been forced to survey and sift and sort and select from
countless details, like a person about to move from a home with hundreds of
rooms into a tiny two room apartment. But staring at the blank and eerie
glow of a computer screen, our writer might face more than his insecurity,
his anxiety, his fear, he might face the source of it all, the hardest part,
the part that makes a writer struggle most, and fearful most: deciding
whether to tell the story at all, whether to risk the effort required to
make a story real enough to be believed, or real enough so the reader wants
to believe, or needs to believe, so it is not just a story written (words on
a page), but a story read, and a story lived, and maybe not forgotten, like
it would never be forgotten by the people who had lived it (when it wasn't a
story, but real).

      How would you tell a story like that, wanting to remain true to the
lives that lived it, and made it real, knowing that in telling it so much
would have to be left out, so many details omitted, some accidentally, some
not, and that even if you chose each word with the greatest care, with an
eye only toward trying to get it right, if even then you knew that the story
would fail in some important way to show what really happened, and what was
really felt or thought, could you find the will to write it anyway, to
proceed in the face of near-certain failure, and tell the story still - is
it because the writer must, or is it because a story such as this simply
demands to be told?

	Take this for example:  how would you tell the strange and funny story of a
song, a simple song, sung by two men in love, a duet done almost as a lark,
as a semi-private gift to each other, a song on an album not even yet
released, that gets somehow picked up by an unknown user of a file-sharing
program who was searching the internet looking for an old Pet Shop Boys
song, a user who happened to search the MY MUSIC folder on the computer
owned by a young man named James, the best friend of the son of the two men
who recorded this song.  Would you try to describe the surprise on this
unknown person's face, the surprise of listening to a song he (or she) had
never heard before, except maybe as a Pet Shop Boys song, and how the
surprise gave way to a sweet kind of wonderment, a wonderment that would
lead this person to post the song on a message board, adding the subject
line: NEW 'NSYNC SONG???

	Would you try to imagine how word of the song at first slowly spread,
perhaps in chat-rooms, or face-to-face among friends, picking up speed with
each successive download and re-posting, the song burned onto thousands of
mini-disks and saved and swapped and posted and shared again, faster and
more frequently, until at last the album that contains the song was
released, an 'N Sync album called One More Time, except for that song,
Nervously, was sung by JC and Lance alone. Would you try to describe the
ensuing surprise of Nervously becoming the most downloaded song of the year,
even though it was not released as a single, or at first played on radio,
that is until the album started climbing the charts, selling more and more
copies, going gold then platinum, and Lance and JC are convinced by their
son to do a music video in which Aaron agreed to play the piano, with Neill
Tennant sitting next to him playing too, the two of them side-by-side, and
Lance and JC sing to each other while pictures of them in their youth, from
the time they'd first fallen in love, flash behind them.  Is that a story
you'd try to tell?

	Or would you tell the story of how Aaron pitched his Pony League baseball
team to its first championship season. But maybe instead you'd tell the
story of the two months during the summer he spent in Dublin, living with
Colin Farrell while his parents traveled across Spain, spending a month in
Barcelona, ten days in Sitges, and then driving through the Costa del Sol to
Alhambra, Madrid, Salamanca, Zaragoza, and then back to Barcelona where, on
their last day there, they climbed the narrow stairs circling up inside the
tallest of the four main towers of Familia Sagrada, Gaudi's unfinished
masterpiece.  Would you describe the slow and harrowing climb, how JC held
tight to Lance's hand, making their way slowly up the narrow well-worn stone
stairs, pressed close to the interior wall, afraid to look down the tower's
deep well, and how finally arriving at the top Lance looked out the cut-out
window there, at the stunning panorama that was the vast view from there and
said, turning back to JC, "Nothing is more beautiful to me than you."

	Knowing you could end it here, with perhaps limning a description of the
JC's reaction, how JC kissed Lance, wanting nothing more than to remain in
the midst of this moment forever, embraced  by it as securely as he was
embraced by Lance, knowing that even here, at the highest point in this
ancient city, with the scent of sea-salt filling his nose, the warmth of sun
on the back of his neck, the touch of a breeze on his skin, and the taste of
Lance's kiss on his lips, he might himself, JC himself, be unable to put
into words what he felt, leaving it to you to imagine what he might think or
feel or say - would you write a poem (for him) instead, or perhaps just
borrow the line from a song that he loves, having him hear it in his head,
like a kind of musical refrain underscoring what he felt,

	I saw it in your eyes what I was looking for...

And JC would kiss him, and hold Lance in his arms, there high above the
city, knowing that he belonged to Lance, because you belong to the one that
loves you most, and Lance loved him most of all.

      Or maybe this moment is too private, too intimate to share, this
moment between JC and Lance at the Familia Sagrada, a monument to the family
sacred, so maybe instead of sharing it, or telling of the trip that led up
to it, with all of its spontaneous and unexpected detours, getting lost four
or five times, and how it became a game for Lance to say "This looks like a
nice place to stop for a break" and then they would pull to the side of the
road and make love at first in the ridiculously small backseat of their
rented car, and then later in secluded spots they'd find outside.

      No instead you could tell the tale of a single day - it was a Monday,
you might  want to point out - the day that JC had led Lance to the Bario
Gotic and showed him the room where he'd once lived, the room with
worn-smooth stone floors, and the window that looked out across the
cathedral square, the room from which on his last day in this grand ancient
city JC had watched for a women who failed to appear in the square below, on
her way to somewhere he did not know, but definitely on her way. And so
unlike each and every morning before, JC had stood at the window, watching
but not seeing her, and it was the seeming sadness of this not-seeing that
had made JC feel more lonely than he'd ever felt before, and severed his
link to a place where he had once thought he might want to stay, making him
want once more to be together with Lance, and not alone.

      You could tell the story of how Lance had said, hearing this tale,
standing there in that small cold room with JC, that they should find out
who she really was, and on that day she had not appeared.  You could tell
how on that day Lance and JC managed to track down the son of Senora
Isabella Cavaziel, having found his name on the small For Rent sign posted
in the lobby, he having inherited the building from his mother.  You could
describe the three of them sitting in the musty office where Senor Miguel
Cavaziel tallied the receipts from the various small enterprises that were
his life's work, and his sole distraction from a painful rheumatic condition
that no doctor had ever satisfactorily explained. You could tell this story
as if you were sitting there too, with three of them (which with you would
make four), and could tell how JC and Lance learned from him the truth.
Yes, the truth of how on that day years and years ago it was not that
Isabella had failed to appear as JC watched for her, it was not that she had
decided to remain in her room, wrapped warmly against the cold of an
uncommonly winterish Spring.

      No, it was that she had not decided against crossing the cathedral
square (you would learn).  It was that she had not returned from her
previous day's visit to her lover's grave, a man named Jose Miguel Arcadio,
a man to whom Isabella in her youth had sworn an oath of true undying love,
giving him the solemn promise of her still young heart, doing so even as she
was prevented by her mother from marrying him, this man she loved, and was
forced instead to marry the man who would become the father of her only son.
  (What was this man's name you might wonder.  But it was a name that
Isabella's son did not utter, not out of distaste, but simply because it
didn't seem to matter to the story he was telling, and neither JC nor Lance
bothered to ask).  This man whose name you do not know was nonetheless (you
were told) himself well-known and respected, a man of great wealth and
prestige, a man - Senor Cavaziel said - who smelled always of camphor and
pipe tobacco.

      "My mother was very kind to him," Senor Cavaziel said, rubbing the
swollen knuckles of his left hand with the shaking fingers of his right
hand.  "But you could see that she detested him. Her back always stiffened
when he was near, and her breath would reek of rotten wood.  I do not know
why.  But it did."

      Isabella never said a single angry word to her husband, or ever
treated him ill. This is what Senor Cavaziel told Lance and JC (and you).
She smiled and hummed and  endured, for the sake of her son, and for the
sake of her unfailing faith that, if she did endure this trial, which was
her marriage to a man she did not (and could not) love, that the Blessed
Virgin would one day bless her with the gift of her husband's early painless
death, freeing her finally to be with the one to whom her heart had promised
her, and to whom she had been by life wed in the secret still-unconsecrated
intercourse of her soul.

      Or would you hold back from telling such a tale, unsure that something
as darkly tragic as this - a tale in which Jose Arcadio is killed by a
street car, struck down as he was walking to meet Isabella at the small café
where she awaited him with the news of her husband's death, two cups of
coffee on the table before her (coffee she had ordered before his arrival,
so joyous and eager was her heart to tell him her news), but the coffee on
this fateful day would soon grow as cold as his flesh in death's grip.

      Could you tell this tale, and tell how that Isabella's body had been
found three day's after her own disappearance lying on the grave of Jose
Arcadio, her pale thin arms embracing the cold granite of his headstone, his
name nearly indecipherable from having been rubbed so many times by her
frail white-gloved hands, tell how when they found her body, which seemed a
miracle in itself, because it lay in a dim and lonely corner of a
seldom-visited cemetery, a lonely shadowed place that might never have been
noticed except that a twelve-year old boy, Antonio Macondo, had on this day
been attracted by a swirling cloud of brightly-colored butterflies hovering
near the ground where Isabella lay, softly alighting and then taking flight
again, their parchment-thin wings fluttering like a silk fan in the face of
a wealthy woman on a hot and humid day.  Would you tell how on this day he
had discovered her, Antonio who was truant from his school this day, the sky
having been too bright and full of sun for him to pay attention to his
boring studies.  So he had set out to look for adventure, and found it,
attracted to the cemetery by this spectacle of ever-fluttering color, and
there he had discovered Isabella, looking as if dressed in a gown of a
thousand butterflies, each of which had alighted upon her cold stiff flesh,
as if trying to warm her then lift her up, to carry her aloft, far and away.

      A fantastic story such as this, would you tell it, could you tell it,
swearing along with Antonio Macondo, who when he told this story laid his
hand on his heart and swore to its truth, swearing that he had seen (with
his own eyes, he swore) the butterflies carry Isabella away.  Or instead
would you stay silent, content to know that, even if you chose not to tell
this tale, perhaps afraid that it was too fantastic to believe (or perhaps
because you wanted , your silence would not have betrayed Isabella, or the
spirit of her undying love. You would know this because you would know that
Antonio would tell this tale, again and again until his ninetieth-ninth
year, the tale of Isabella Cavaziel, found on the grave of her lover, and of
the butterflies that Antonio stood and watched disappear into the sky, each
carrying a part of the lady's soul to meet the man she had always loved, to
meet him in a place where they might be together, always.

      Or you could write of something more mundane instead (mentioning JC
and Lance's trips in the postcards Aaron received).  Yes, you could write of
Aaron, and of the time he spent with Colin Farrell in Dublin, of how Colin
had signed Aaron up to play the summer with the St. Mark's Rangers Under-14
football club, and how at every game Colin shouted himself hoarse, cheering
for Aaron and the team, and how after the game they would always go to the
pub near Colin's house, the Six Arms pub, and they'd have a burger, or a
one-and-one (which is fish and chips in Dublin), and a Guinness, of course,
although Aaron could only have only one small glass, while Colin would
certainly have a pint or two.  But, wait.  Since you may have already done a
scene where the two of them sat and had lunch, talking about their day, what
was on their minds, about things both big and small, you might decide to
write about the match instead, the match that the Rangers didn't win, a
final match against Home Farm Athletic, a club coached by an overweight man
with thinning blond hair and sallow skin, a man named Nicky Byrne, a man who
Colin seemed to know, but not particularly like, telling Aaron, "He had a
bit of a go as a pop star once, but nothing brilliant as your aul man had."

      If you were telling the story about the soccer match, about how Aaron
played Left Wing and Nicky's son Liam played Stopper, and how Aaron scored
the goal that tied the match 1-1 fifteen minutes into the second half,
beating Liam to the ball and scoring on a left-footed kick that shot right
past him. That could be an exciting scene, but nothing too challenging (for
the reader, or the writer) either.  So maybe you'd focus on something else,
part of the match, but something more dramatic, and telling too, how the
match was lost at the last-minute when the goalie for the Rangers tripped
over his own feet and missed an easy block on the fifth kick of a shoot-out,
giving Home Farm the win. You'd show Aaron red-faced and angry, pointing at
the goalie, jabbing his finger repeatedly in the air, and yelling "Maybe
next time you best mind yer your feckin' gutties so you ain't be makin' such
a bleedin'hash of it, ya eejit!"

      What about Colin though?  You would have to know Colin, who'd probably
been staring in disgust at Nicky Byrne as he jumped up and down like a fool,
congratulating his son Liam on the game-winning kick, that Colin would have
heard Aaron's tirade, and turned around and seen Aaron angrily kicking the
turf, sending clods of grass and dirt sailing across the field like lobbed
hand-grenades.  It would be at this point you could show Colin running
across the field, taking Aaron by the arm, and half-dragging him to the
sidelines, all red-faced and angry, but taking a long deep breath before
speaking, speaking in a voice so icy and stern it caused the hair to stand
up on the back of Aaron's neck, saying - no, hissing, and doing it through
gritted teeth - "I don't feckin' want to hear you actin' the muzzy and
beratin' a mate like that ever uh-gain. Not while I be tending to you, you
hear me? If your aul man had a been here, he'd been right 'shamed of you,
and I be here to tell you, I be 'shamed for him, feckin' mortified." And
then, if you wanted to tell the story true, even though this part would be a
bit sad actually, you'd describe how Aaron's face turned first pale, then a
deep scarlet, and how stunned he looked hearing Colin talk to him this way,
how ashamed he felt, and how true-sincerely sorry he was, as Colin spun him
around and gave him a push, telling him "Now you go apologize proper to that
fella, and make it right wit' 'im by askin 'im along for lunch."

      Do you think the reader would feel sorry for Aaron, or maybe satisfied
that he was getting the comeuppance he deserved?  Or maybe the reader would
relate to how he felt right then, being forced to walk back on to the field,
knowing everyone was staring at him, waiting for him to apologize to Jack
for how he'd yelled at him, knowing that Colin was watching him too, making
sure he did it (even though Colin knew he would), apologize and try to make
it right, with Jack, and with Colin too, for it was disappointing Colin that
would have hurt Aaron the most, true and sincerely hurt, which of course
Colin surely knew, and felt bad about himself for making Aaron feel that
way, but also knowing that it had been an important thing to do, for the
both of them, a thing that Lance would have expected him to do, and done
himself, for sure.

       If you told this story though, of Colin and Aaron, and of all the
time they spent together in Dublin, and their adventures there, how would
you bring the story to an end?  They have surely said good-bye before, with
tears and all, so why describe that, and risk perhaps, in any case, ending a
brightly happy story with (cliché) tears? So maybe instead you could end
this part of your story by describing the shocked look on Lance's face, and
on JC's too, when they got back to Dublin and for the first time heard how
thick an Irish accent Aaron had acquired, so thick they could hardly
understand him as he asked about their trip.  Or maybe you'd just describe
the way JC's eyes had shined with tears when on the plane home Aaron told
him about visiting the cemetery where Colin's wife and son were buried, how
he had gone there without Colin knowing, to put flowers on their graves,
intending to spend a few minutes there, but then spending over an hour
instead, sitting cross-legged talking to Colin's son - His name is Cian,
Aaron had told JC, just as he told him how he had sat there, in the late
afternoon, sun filtering through the dense leafy branches overhead, quietly
talking to Cian, like he was sitting right there with him, introducing
himself to him, like meeting someone for the first time, someone with whom
he wanted to be friends. And if you ended the story this way, you might even
consider a last line like this: It was easy for JC to imagine Aaron sitting
there, in a cemetery that was for that moment no longer a sad place to be,
but a place of wonder where anything was possible, even a friendship that
transcended the world of the living and the dead.

      Or perhaps an even simpler story would say more. For example, the
story of how Lance, wearing old clothes that JC hardly remembered ever
having seen, spent two weeks last Spring washing, scraping, sanding, and
priming each and every inch of the outside of their house, getting it ready
for painting.  How Lance had then tested 41 different colors, painting
larges swatches of each color on different parts of the house, keeping
careful track of how each color looked at different times of the day and
night, taking a digital photo of each, and printing it out and putting it
into a three-ring notebook he used to keep notes on his project.  How JC had
returned from a five-city small-club tour to find the house looking like a
patchwork quilt of clashing colors with Lance still unable to decide which
one, explaining (despite JC's obvious exasperation) that it was a color
they'd have to live with for ten years, so it was an important decision, to
which JC had replied, "Well, it's an important decision you better make by
tomorrow or I'm making it for you. I'm tired of living in a house that looks
like it was painted by someone on a bad acid trip."

      At this point in your story (assuming you told it) you might have to
decide to tell how Lance had taken Aaron to school the next day, and how
once he got back, he made JC breakfast and brought it to him in bed, and how
after eating it, Lance licked the syrup off JC's lips, kissing him, and then
making love with him, lolling away the morning in bed, all the while with JC
well-knowing that he was being not-so-subtly cajoled into letting Lance have
more time to decide on which color to paint their house, time that he let
Lance have, four more days of time, until finally at last Lance did decide
on a pale slightly-green sapphire blue that JC instantly adored, saying,
"It's like the water off Sitges, remember?" And here would be the easy part,
because of course a good writer would choose to describe Lance's loud and
prideful laugh, and how he had embraced JC and kissed him because that was
the exact thing that he'd been thinking, and the reason he'd chosen this
color; it was not just beautiful, it reminded him of the ten days he and JC
had spent alone in Sitges, living in a tiny stone house on a secluded
stretch of beach right outside of town, never bothering to get dressed
during the day, because no one was around as they floated naked in the
shallows at the edge of the beach, the water splashing over their
deeply-tanned skin, their fingers rarely anywhere but on the other, in a
kind of constant making love that was their play together there, play so
wonder-filled and joyous that it was like the play of a child,  play solely
for the sake of play, and for exploration.

      So, yes, that part would be easy, but this next part would be less so,
because on the first day of painting, which Lance had insisted on doing
himself, what if he fell off the ladder and broke his arm in two places?
Would you want to include that in the story, a story that could just as
easily end with Lance remembering the ten naked love-filled days they'd
spent in Sitges soaking in air and salt and sun and sea of the
Mediterranean?  You might decide to leave this part out, to not risk
upsetting the reader. Or you might look for a middle way, emphasizing (for
example) that the break was not serious, and that the ER physician assured
the nearly hysterical JC that it would heal without the need for surgery,
and of course there was no real risk of dying from a broken arm, that was
what the doctor had said.  Of course, to tell the story this way, you might
want to leave out the part where JC screams, "What do you mean no REAL risk?
  What in the fuck is an UNREAL risk? Like one I'm just IMAGINING?   Are you
saying I'm just IMAGINING this?"

      The other problem with this part of the story, which some readers
might find too conveniently coincidental, even though it is exactly as it
happened in real life, is that just as JC started screaming, that was right
when Aaron arrived at the hospital, himself upset over hearing that Lance
had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance.  So maybe you'd want to
leave this part out, or at least not mention how Aaron started to cry when
he saw JC screaming and so upset, immediately imagining the worst.  Instead,
you might want to consider fast-forwarding a week, to when Lance is in no
more pain, and with just a cast to remind him of his injury.   Or maybe a
fast-forward of two weeks - no three - because that way you would be closer
to Lance getting his cast off, and you'd skip the week-long argument that JC
and Lance had over whether to hire professional painters to finish painting
the house, a move that Lance strongly, even bitterly resisted, and that JC
just as strongly, and just as bitterly, insisted upon.

      On the other hand, if you left this part out you would also need to
leave out the part where Aaron suggests that he and James do the painting,
and how Lance had said, instinctively, and thus without giving it any
thought, "No, it's too dangerous for you to be up on the ladder," at which
point JC yelled, "Exactly! God damn you!" and then stomped out of the room,
leaving Lance standing there red-faced and wondering what had hit him.  Is
that how you'd want the reader to see him, suddenly ashamed for having
discounted JC's feeling because he wanted to paint the house himself, to be
able to take sole credit for it?  Or would you prefer to mention that Lance
followed JC upstairs and apologized to him, asking JC's forgiveness in a way
that only one who'd spent twenty years loving but one man, and never loving
another, could? Yes, that is probably how you want to end it, moving like
life from loving joy, to caring concern, to sadness and fear, then
resolutely back to loving joy again.

      Considering all the many stories you might tell, and trying to choose
among them, unable to tell them all, so maybe telling more than one, you
might find yourself growing concerned about your reader, fearing that he or
she might grow frustrated at not learning more about Aaron's friend, James,
about not hearing of the semester he spent studying abroad at Cite Scolaire
Internationale Lyon, studying French and music on a scholarship he had
applied for without first asking his mother, telling her only when he had
won, and telling Aaron even later, not wanting to see the disappointment and
hurt on his face, or to explain why he wanted to go.  This is a story you
would probably want to tell, because it has so much to say about Aaron too,
because he surprised James by being only happy for him, congratulating him,
and offering his support and encouragement, making James feel guilty for
having underestimated Aaron, and bad for being consciously selfish in
wanting to get away and on his own, to be with Stephane, and to learn better
how to better speak French, a language that he could not speak with Aaron,
and did not want to.

	Does this mean that something has changed in James, in how he felt for
Aaron? If you were writing this, what would you say?  No? Yes? Maybe? You do
not know?  What if he simply wanted to visit France, to see the many places
that Stephane had described in his emails to him?  Maybe he found that the
Cite Scolaire Internationale Lyon was a truly excellent school, and that a
scholarship to study there was too good to pass up?  Maybe he had decided
that being fluent in French (and maybe other languages too) was a goal he
truly wanted to achieve, the ability to travel from country to country, and
in each place to be able to fit in, yes as a foreigner, but as a foreigner
who could speak the language of the place?  Maybe James was coming to
understand that he enjoyed being an outsider, in not entirely belonging to
any one place, or one person, and that already, even at the age of 15, he
was growing restless, wanting to wander, to tug hard against the roots that
held him in particularity to a given locale?  Perhaps if he did not feel
entirely comfortable within his own skin, a stranger to himself even, then
he might embrace the logic of the stranger, la logique de l'étranger, the
logic of one not known by choice, because he fears he cannot be known, and
believes he does not want to be known.

	Was this the elusive, at times impenetrable, at times maddening, logic that
would find James spending six months in a medieval village that was over six
hundred years old, walking the shadow-filled stone-cobbled streets to the
train that each morning took him to school, stopping to talk to Matthieu who
worked with his father in la boulangerie next to the station, the one where
James bought pain au chocolat to eat on the train, the one where in the back
of the store he would, near the end of his stay, kiss a boy for the very
first time, and begin to sink as if by instinct to his knees until Matthieu
stopped him from undoing the front of his pants, shaking his head no, and
pulling James back to his feet and kissing him again, even more intensely,
and whispering into it, telling James, "Non, je ne suis pas prêt," which
made James laugh and loudly say, "Je suis, je suis."

	If you were the writer, and you told this part of the story, about James
and his first kiss, do you think that would illuminate him?  Or do you think
that you might have to go further and risk disappointing the reader's more
romantic expectations, telling the reader (him or her) that James did not go
back again to la boulangerie, and never sought another kiss from Matthieu,
and even risk telling the reader why, that what James wanted was not to be
found in a kiss, that what he wanted was that which Matthieu was not ready
to give, not without coaxing that James, seemingly always in a hurry, was
not prepared to waste his time, at least not right then, with less than a
month left in his stay in Lyon.  Or if you wanted to be blunt, since this
was how James thought of it, and you have divulged quite a lot already, and
already risked the reader's ire, you could explain that what James wanted
was sex, because he was not sure of love, except that he knew if would take
more time than he had, and that if he happened to find it, he'd just be
forced to leave it behind when he left or - even worse - endure being apart
from  one with whom you'd just fallen in love.  So, you see, this was a
thoroughly pragmatic decision that James made - although some people might
call it cold, or calculating - because, of all things that James knew and
did not know, he was sure that he wanted to have sex, and to have it with as
many boys that he could, boys different than Matthieu, riskier
more-experienced boys, or even men, anyone with whom he could discover a
world of solitary sex, a world where he knew he might be the equal of anyone
else, at least for that moment when desire dictated, and not reason, nor the
heart.

	This was how James had felt being followed home from the train station by a
man in his late twenties, a man who looked like he worked with his hands for
a living, a man who he had caught staring at him.  James had boldly stared
right back, giving him a sly confident smile that seemed to say, "I know
what you want. I want it too." And so it was that James and this man hardly
made it inside the back door of the house before ending up on the kitchen
floor, which is where Stephane, having come back early, found his young
friend entangled in a half-clothed, half-naked embrace, the man's cock in
his mouth, oblivious at first to having been seen, and then, when seen (or
knowing he was seen), James saw  himself through Stephane's eyes, saw
himself starkly, in the sad and disappointed look on his face, a look that
took days and days to melt away, despite James repeated promise that he
would never be so stupid or careless again, a promise to which Stephane's
single reply was, "We will see, won't we?" So, now tell me: if all this had
all happened to James (and to Stephane, who had been busy writing a script,
while trying too to be a good friend for James), and you described it all
true and well, would the readerbe mistake to conclude son séjour de six mois
en France was nothing more than a frolic, just an adventure for James, or
was it more a turning point?  Or, worse - a portent?

	But wait - what about JC and Lance and their 20th Anniversary?  The reader
may suspect you weren't going to mention it because you didn't want to be
overly sentimental or make it improbably romantic or, even worse,
melodramatic (like maybe their having a big fight, only to then make-up -
oh, and of course, make love, so there could be sex in it too, which some
few people complained there was not enough of).  That would be one of the
reasons the writer might have to avoid this topic, a 20th Anniversary just
seeming too too symbolic.  And that's what Lance and JC might think too,
maybe they'd make love in the shower, something they used to do nearly every
day, a ritual that had begun on tour, when they were afraid of being heard,
and the noise of the water in the shower (plus the feel of the water on
their skin) felt safer, more intimate, opening up a private place where they
did not worry about being heard or seen or discovered.  And if after making
love, with JC lying on top of Lance, both of them stretched out on the floor
of the shower, the water falling like summer rain, washing the stickiness of
JC's semen from Lance's thigh and hip and arm, if there in their drowsy
half-out-of-breath slackening embrace they said anything - in addition, that
is, to saying "I love you", or "Happy Anniversary" - if in standing up and
grabbing towels and laughing as they dried each other off, if in doing this
the subject of how to celebrate came up, either one of them might easily
have said, "We just did. We just did."  And wouldn't the reader know that
was true?

      Yes, yes, yes, he would.  But the reader would also know something
that Aaron did not, and could not know of their conversation, after making
love.  An inexperienced or uncaring writer might fail to pay attention,
having one character know everything that every other character knew (as if
they knew all the writer knew).  Yet that is not how real life is. (Right?)
In real life we know only what we see, or hear, or feel, or smell, or are
told - although even if we are told, we may not know for sure. (Right?)  So
knowing this, the smart reader would know that Aaron did not know that Lance
and JC wanted only a simple small celebration.  From Aaron's point of view,
which was his and his alone, the twenty years that his parents had spent
together included twelve years with him as their son, and he was not the
kind of boy - or should we be calling him a young man by now? - he was not
the kind of young man to forget such a thing as a 20th Anniversary, or of
the importance of time, its passage, and its celebration.  Perhaps Aaron had
already spoken with his dad, one or the other or both, asking them what they
wanted to do.  And perhaps it had been decided, between the there of them,
that they'd all go out to dinner together, nothing fancy, or elaborate, just
a quiet dinner at the Red Fox Inn, especially now that Luanne owned it and
JC could eat there without having to worry about how things were going in
the kitchen, or at the bar, knowing that just as Shirley had entrusted it to
him, he had been right to entrust the Inn to Luanne, who loved the place
like Shirley had, so that selling it to her (for a good but fair price, she
having insisted on not getting it as a piece of charity) had been the right
thing to do.

      And so the Red Fox Inn it was.  That was how it was going to be, a
quiet dinner to celebrate twenty (or twelve) years together on a date, March
11, 2018, that was nearly in the shadow of the upcoming premiere, and the
steady rise in publicity about the first Star Wars film to be released in
thirteen years. Or that was how JC and Lance had probably thought it was
going to be, because Aaron may have had a different idea; it's possible he
wanted something grander, something noisier, more celebratory and
joy-filled, something he could claim to have planned and pulled off, for his
parents, on their anniversary. If that was how he'd thought about it, he
might have then asked James to help him, and maybe he'd have called Colin
too, who had been planning to be in town soon anyway, and Eric Bana, who
lived in San Diego now, and Justin and Mel of course.  If Aaron had done all
that, and spent one whole day searching through boxes downstairs in the
basement to find the guestbook people had signed at their promising, which
is what he knew his dad had called it, and with Colin and Justin's help, if
he'd arranged for them all to be at the Red Fox Inn, Lance and JC may have
walked inside to have dinner, thinking that was so, but they'd have gotten
the surprise of their life instead. Wouldn't that have been a night to
remember, and something you'd be mad not to want to write about?

	And so, you see, that was how it may have been back then, during the year
and nine months or so that followed everyone's return home from Australia.
So much had occurred, some things important, and some things not, and so
many things had changed, but maybe not so much, not when you looked hard
enough, and close enough, and long enough, enough to try to tell the story
honest and true, that is, if that's possible, because, to really tell the
story of it all, or even several small parts of it, and to do it all
justice, to make it real, believable, and true - how would you tell it? How?
   Because, to be honest, I'd really like to know.

*	*	*	*	*

	"Your home is beautiful," Gabriella said, sitting across from couch on
which JC, Lance, and Aaron sat, side-by-side, facing her and the TV camera
and lighting scrims that were set up just behind her.  "Thank you for
letting us see it."

	"You're welcome," JC said.

	"You've never let it be photographed before," Gabriella said. "Why the
sudden change of heart?"

	"Oh - It's not really a change of heart," Lance said.

	"Actually, yes it is," JC said, firmly. "And it's not something we're
entirely happy about, to tell you the truth.  But there it is."

	"Josh is right," Lance said. "It's not something we're entirely happy
about."

	"Lowering the shields a bit," Gabriella said.  "Is that it?"

	"Well, to use a Star Wars metaphor," JC said, laughing. "Yeah."

	"I'd say doing this interview is really more of a compromise," Lance said,
trying to explain. "It's hard to keep thing in balance sometimes, but we
try."

	"A compromise how?" Gabrielle asked.

	"It just seemed like some of the - I'm not sure how to put it..."

	"Media interest," Lance suggested, turning to look at JC, a strained smile
showing on his face.  "Lots of it."

	"Yeah, media interest," JC said. "It seemed like it was getting way out of
control, or it was about to.  So we felt like we needed to get out in front
of it a bit."

	"So you called me," Gabriella said, smiling.

	"Yes," JC laughed.  "Gabriella, Dateline Goddess, please save us."

	"Oh stop," Gabriella said, waving JC off.

	"Anyway, there's always going to be attention," Lance said.  "We'd be
idiots if we thought the world was just going to leave us alone.  I mean, we
choose to put ourselves out there, so it'd be hypocritical to complain too
much. But..."

	"There are limits," JC said, leaning forward slightly.  "There has to be."

	"And we try to enforce them," Lance said. "For Aaron's sake, and our own."

	"Was there a breaking point of some kind?" Gabriella said, tilting her head
to one side in what was plainly a well-practiced motion. "That made you
decide to give us a call and say, 'Okay, one big interview, an exclusive,
and then that's it."

	"Paparazzi at Aaron's school," Lance and JC said almost simultaneously.

	"Yeah, that was kind of weird," Aaron said, laughing.  "This guy in a big
hat and bad sunglasses taking pictures of me during lacrosse practice, like
what's that about?"

	"You'd be surprised what some people consider newsworthy," Gabriella said.
"Or what kinds of pictures the tabloids will pay for."

	"I wouldn't be surprised at all," Lance said. "Believe me."

	"Lance and I have pretty much seen it all," JC said.

	"Was this something you feared when you decided to let Aaron be in the
movie?  You must have had some big concerns."

	"Huge ones," Lance said.  "I mean, first off, it's Star Wars, and you have
to know that that's mega. And then there's this whole new interest in 'N
Sync again."

	"Lance and I - we're used to it," JC said.  "Like I said, we've pretty much
seen it all.  But Aaron.  That's different. For me and Lance - fine, bring
it. Take your best shot. Write or say whatever you want. But for Aaron, no."

	"See, we understand how it works," Lance said.  "

	"How it's kind of a game."

	"Is that what they've told you Aaron?" Gabriella said, turning slightly in
her chair to better face Aaron.  "That this is all just a game."

	"No," Aaron said. "Not really. But, you know, my dads are real big on me
staying like focused on school and stuff.  They don't want me getting all
stuck up or anything."

	"That'd be easy to do," Gabriella said. "Being on the cover of People
magazine."

	"That was weird," Aaron said, matter-of-factly. "And, actually, I was kind
of mad about that, to tell you the truth."

	"How so?"

	"That article was supposed to be about the movie," Aaron said, his voice
growing more animated as he spoke. "Which it sort of was.  But they turned
it more into this thing about me, and about how it was my first movie, and I
was going to be this big star, like if I wanted to, and how my Dads are all
like famous and stuff.  So that was why I was kind of mad because they took
a whole bunch of pictures of my Dad and me together, and all of us, you
know, Colin and Stephane and Eric - it was really cool."

	"The group photo was supposed to be on the cover," Lance said.

	"That was what we were told," JC added.

	"And so then you're out doing the shopping one day," Gabriella said.

	"That was exactly what happened," JC said, nodding his head and pointing at
her.  "I'm with Aaron in the grocery store. We've got a cart full of stuff,
you know, just like always, and we're in line waiting to check out."

	"You do your own shopping?" Gabriella said, displaying genuine surprise.

	"Gabri-ella," JC said, making a mock exaggerated frown.  "Of course, we do
our own shopping, and cooking. Plus no live-in maid or anything like that."

	"We have a pool service," Lance said.  "If you want all the gory details."

	"Aaron mows the lawn," JC said.

	"For a measly fifty bucks," Aaron grumbled, good-naturedly.

	"Which he promptly spends on video games," JC said, smiling at Aaron.

	"Dad - video games cost more than fifty bucks," Aaron said.

	"Well, anyway," JC said, going on with his story. "Aaron and I were
standing in the check-out line and all of sudden I hear someone behind me, a
girl saying, 'Excuse me, but could I please have your autograph?'"

	"I was pushing the cart," Aaron said.  "We were next up, and the dude in
front of us was just done paying, so I wasn't really paying attention. I
didn't hear her."

	"I did though," JC said.  "And I'm all thinking - okay, this is a bit of a
bother, and I'm already running late, but, you know, I'm thinking I need to
set a good example for Aaron and all."

	"It was kind of funny," Aaron said.  "Because I totally noticed Dad getting
ready to turn around, and he totally had his I'm-always-be-nice-to-people
smile on, which I've seen like thousands of times, and so I'm all about it
and pretty much knew what was up. Or I thought I did."

	 "It was this teenage girl," JC said, starting to laugh as he thought about
it. "And she was way-more jumping up and down than I usually get these
days."

	"She was all like squealing and stuff," Aaron said, laughing.  "And her
face was all pink like she'd been holding her breath or something."

	"She had a magazine in her hand," JC said. "And a pen, which I start to go
for, you know - to sign with. But before I can take it she gives me this
wicked dirty look, sort of like, who in the hell are you, and why are you
trying to steal my pen?"

	 "She didn't recognize who you were?" Gabriella said, pretending to be
shocked.

	"I guess not," JC said, looking disappointed.

	"It's okay sweetie," Lance whispered, as he patted JC on the hand and tried
not to laugh.  "You still have plenty of fans."

	"Oh pipe down," JC said, poking Lance in the rib with his elbows.

	"That was when she handed me the magazine," Aaron said.  "And I was all
like, what's this about - that is until I saw my picture on the front of
it."

	"You hadn't seen it before?"

	"Nope," Aaron said.  "And it was major-league freaky.  I was like, whoa!"

	"Did you sign it?"

	"For sure - her name was Courtney," Aaron said.  "She was pretty sweet.  I
mean, at least she didn't try to kiss me or anything. "

	"Has that happened?"

	"Yeah," Aaron said, blushing.  "I don't much go for people trying to get up
in my face with their, you know, lips and all.  But I try to be cool about
it."

	"It's not that people mean to make you uncomfortable," JC said. "They just
don't stop and think sometimes.  But, believe me, there is pretty much not a
place on my body that hasn't been grabbed at some point or another."

	"The movie comes out in just over two weeks," Gabriella asked. "And when it
does, the attention will only intensify.  Any second-thoughts?"

	"Totally not," Aaron said, surprised at first at the question.  "Sure
things have changed, you know, with me being recognized and all, but making
the movie was a really cool thing for me.  I made some really good new
friends, and got to do lots of stuff that I had never done before.  So, no,
I don't regret it at all."

	"We're really proud of how Aaron's been handling it," Lance said, smiling
at Aaron and then patting him on the knee.

	"Were you worried?  I mean, that he wouldn't handle it so well."

	"Sure we were," JC said.  "What parent wouldn't be?"

	"But we take it as it comes," Lance said, putting his arm around Aaron's
shoulder and giving him a gentle hug.  "Together, as a family."

	"Well let me ask you about that then," Gabriella said. "Because it's not
something I've heard you talk about, your being two gay men."

	"Yes."

	"Partners?"

	"Yes."

	"Almost twenty years.

	"Raising a son?"

	"Yes. An adopted son."

	"How's that been for you?  Two gay men, pretty much out there in the public
eye, trying to raise your son and live a semi-normal life? Difficult, I
imagine."

	"You know Gabriella," Lance said, removing his arm from around Aaron as he
leaned forward.  "With all due respect, that's not something Josh or I have
ever felt the need to talk about, not publicly."

	"Except to say that we love each other very much."

	"And that we are proud of the life we've made together, and of our family."

	"Yes we are," JC said, nodding.

	"But the rest is something we want to keep private," Lance said.  "Not
because we have anything to hide, but because its there just for us."

	"Well, let me ask it this way then," Gabriella said.  "Gay rights have come
a long way since the two of you first came out. Is that something you've
worked to support?"

	"I'm not sure we came out," JC said. "Did we Lance?"

	 "I'll have to check our press-clippings," Lance said, laughing.

	"But seriously," Gabriella said.  "Coming out, that had to be a big deal
for you."

	"We just stopped hiding who we were," JC said.

	"And how much we meant to each other."

	"But there was no press release or anything like that."

	"No picture on the cover of Out magazine."

	"Or being grand-marshal of the San Diego pride parade," JC said.

	"You have to admit though," Gabriella said, still pushing the subject,
unsatisfied by the responses she'd received so far. "It was a risky move."

	"No," Lance said, firmly.  "It was not. Because the only thing that I was
unwilling to risk was losing Josh.  Or hurting him."

	"When we moved to San Diego," JC said.  "We considered ourselves pretty
much retired. We'd left 'N Sync, and, I don't know, the rest was just going
to be time for us."

	"And I had no great hopes about a movie career," Lance said. "Not at that
point."

	"But The Ghost Road?" Gabriella said. "Your acceptance speech."

	"I guess that was a kind of coming-out," Lance said, after pausing to think
first, and then taking JC's hand. "But that was not why I said the things
that night I did."

	"So why did you say those things?"

	"Sometimes the heart insists on speaking," Lance said, his voice quiet.
"And when it does, I've found it's best to let it."

	"And so we fast-forward ten years," Gabrielle said.  "And now you and JC
have a son, Aaron here.  How does it feel to be such a prominent
non-traditional family?"

	 "Oh-oh," JC said, covering his mouth as if to stifle a laugh.

	"I hate that word," Lance said, frowning.  "Non-traditional - what in the
hell does that mean? It's like saying our family is like a three-legged dog
- it walks okay, but it's still missing something."

	"I certainly didn't mean to insult you," Gabrielle said, slightly taken
aback.

	 "Well, it is insulting," Lance said. "There's no two ways around it.  We
are just as real, and just as traditional, as any other family with a
legally-adopted son."

	"We are pretty darned traditional," JC said. "At times, boringly so."

	"How about you Aaron?" Gabriella said, turning back to him. "Has it been
hard being raised by two men?"

	"Nope," Aaron said, grinning at Lance and then JC. "Not at all.  I got the
two best dads in the world.  So I think I'm double-lucky."

	"There you have it," Gabriella said, charmed by Aaron's sincerity. "Next
subject - JC, Lance - 'N Sync winning a Grammy - exciting, right?"

	"It was definitely a surprise," JC said. "Especially winning for album of
the year. But I think mostly it was kind of bittersweet."

	"Because of Joey?"

	"Yeah - that was tough," JC said, his voice softening, and his eyes
beginning to glisten as he looked momentarily away.

	"But your acceptance speech," Gabriella said.  "That was perfect I think.
Lance, whose idea was that?"

	"No one's really," Lance said.  "We seriously didn't expect to win. In
fact, I almost wasn't there.  Aaron and I were in middle of post-production
up at Skywalker Ranch doing these crazy eighteen-hour days with Ang and the
Foley guy.  And, as usual with movies, everything was taking way longer than
anyone thought."

	"It was kind of fun though," Aaron said, remembering it.

	 "So I called JC and he was very cool about it. He said he didn't mind if I
skated on the award show. Still, I was feeling really bad about missing it.
"

	"He and Aaron flew down at the last minute," JC said, smiling.

	"We barely made it in time," Aaron said.  "But Dad drove crazy-fast from
the airport, speeding and stuff."

	"Lance!" JC said, having not heard this before.

	"Sweetie, it wasn't that fast."

	"It was fast," Aaron said, laughing.

	"So the speech?" Gabriella said.

	"We were walking up to the podium," Lance said. "Sort of in shock, really."

	"Chris, and Justin, and me and Lance."

	"And we all just kind of looked at each other - I don't know, it just all
of a sudden seemed  obvious what needed to be said."

	"It was simple really," JC said.  "Like we knew what the point of winning
it was."

	"And so," Gabrielle said, picking up a card and reading from it. "You said,
'We'd like to thank you very much for this award, and the recognition that
goes along with it.  But mostly we'd just like to say, Joey - this is for
you."

	"And it was," Lance said, softly.  "It really was for him, because I know
he would have really loved the album.  It was very much in his style."

	  "It's weird," JC said, his voice serious and thoughtful. "Because when
Justin and I were laying down the lead vocals, and mixing the album, at
first we wanted to update it, you know, keep it current.  But then we
realized - no, it should be old school, stripped-down ballads, lots of
acapella, like we did when we were just starting out."

	"Do you listen to your dads' music Aaron?"

	"When they make me," Aaron said, laughing.

	"Hey!" JC and Lance said simultaneously, and laughing now too.

	"No, some of it's pretty cool," Aaron said. "And being in their video was
fun."

	"Why'd you want to be in it," Gabriella asked.

	"Car money," Aaron said.

	"You're not driving until you're twenty," Lance said, joking.  "Maybe
thirty."

	"He always says that," Aaron said, rolling his eyes.

	"So, Aaron," Gabriella continued. "What's one of the fun things you've done
lately? For the Star Wars film?"

	"Getting scanned for my action figure was way cool," Aaron said.  "I can't
wait to buy one.  You know, not for like an ego thing, but just to say I
have one."

	"You liked that?" Lance said, looking at Aaron with surprise.

	"Totally," Aaron said.  You had to wear this tight blue-rubber suit thing
and jump around and stuff.  It was really cool."

	"What else," Gabriella said, prodding Aaron to go on. "Was there one thing
you liked  best making the film?"

	"Hmmm...that's hard," Aaron said, pausing for a moment to think. "There
were a lot of best things I think.  Like working with my Dad, that was
probably the best. Getting to meet Colin Farrell, that was a totally good
thing too."

	"You spent this last summer with him in Ireland I hear?"

	"Yeah, I played football - or I guess you'd say soccer - for the St. Marks
Rangers in Dublin. I had a blast."

	 "And he learned to swear like you wouldn't believe."

	"Daaaad, it's not really swearing over here."

	"Well, let's not challenge the censors," Gabriella laughed.

	"Okay," Aaron said, blushing again.

	"And Lance, how about you? What did you enjoy best about making this film."

	"Working with Ang is always a joy," Lance said, nodding emphatically.  "But
having an opportunity work with my son, that was definitely the best thing
for me. I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I had no inkling it was
going to be such a joy too. He's a phenomenal talent, and I can't wait for
the rest of the world to see."

	"That's high praise from a man who's already won two Academy Awards."

	"Just wait," Lance said, smiling.  "You'll see."

	"Okay," Gabriella said, standing up and extending her hand to Aaron.
"That's it I think.  Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me."

	"Sure thing," Aaron said, standing up now too.

	"When this going to air," Lance asked, following JC and the others to the
side of the room not cluttered with cameras and lights.

	"The Sunday before the release," Gabriella said, unhooking her microphone
and handing it to an assistant. "It's a ninety-minute 'the making of' show.
We're going to talk to everyone. And show a few clips.  It should be good."

	"Great," Lance said, shaking Gabriella's hand. "Thanks again."

	"You're welcome," Gabriella said, smiling.

*	*	*	*	*
	The general manager peered at him in a way that made him know he was about
to be embarrassed.  Aaron had seen the expression many, many times, but more
so lately.  It was an expression of puzzlement that gave way to recognition,
to surprise, and then to a kind of knowing pleasure, like a person might
display having just filled in the last word on a crossword puzzle. Aaron was
much too polite to show his impatience, and annoyance, at being appraised
like this, so he hid it behind and increasingly well-practiced smile. But
there was, unfortunately for Aaron, nothing he could do to hide his
embarrassment. He invariably blushed when someone said, and people lately
seemed to say it often, "This can't really be Aaron, is it? Look how big he
is!"

	"This is Mr. Valdez," Lance said, extending his hand to him. "He has always
taken very good care of your Dad and me here at the hotel."

	"Dad," Aaron said, finally letting a trace of impatience show in his voice.
  "We were here last year.  Twice.  For the Billboard music award thing, and
for Dad's concert. Don't you remember?"

	"That's right," Lance said.

	"Look at him," Mr. Valdez said, beaming at Aaron. "I do believe he is
taller than you now, Mr. Bass, nearly as tall as Mr. Chasez."

	Aaron seethed inside.  He hated it when people talked to him as if he
wasn't there, as if he was being shown off like a favorite photograph pulled
from his Dad's wallet.  He had gotten used to some kinds of attention, and
mostly ignored it, or politely played along, like when people asked him for
his autograph.  That he could deal with because it seemed more like a game,
or a job, and people were usually nice, and he didn't want to be rude or
unkind.  But this fascination with how different he looked, when he didn't
feel like he looked any different at all, that was what he didn't
understand.

	Okay, that was a lie, because Aaron remembered how shocked he'd been by the
sight of himself halfway through eighth grade, in early February, not long
after turning fourteen. He'd come home from Lacrosse practice and taken a
shower, just like he always did.  There were only two bathrooms upstairs,
the one in his parents' room, and one down the hall next to the living room.
  He was walking down the hall after taking a shower, still damp because the
bathroom was small, and it got hot and steamy in there even if he left the
door open.  The cool air in the hallway felt good on his skin, and Aaron
usually dried his hair and face and under his arms as he walked down the
hall, not bothering to wrap the towel around his waist.

	On this day, Aaron had been in the middle of drying his hair, thinking
about his chances of next year making the junior varsity squad in all three
of the sports he played, an accomplishment he was not sure he could or would
achieve.  His face covered with the towel he was using, Aaron didn't see
Lance enter the hall from his bedroom, and he ran right into him, knocking
Lance to the floor.  Startled, Aaron dropped his towel and kneeled down to
help Lance back to his feet.  Aaron remembered that Lance had pushed his
hand away after he'd helped him to stand up, and that his face was bright
red in what he had first thought was anger and only later recognized as
embarrassment.

	"Are you okay?" Aaron asked, noticing his towel on the floor and squatting
down to pick it up. "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to knock you down."

	"Aaron," Lance stuttered, looking him in the eye and realizing for the
first time that he had to look up, even if only slightly, to meet Aaron's
gaze.  "You should get some clothes on.  You're...uh, you're a little old
now to be walking around like that."

	"Okay Dad," Aaron said, confused at first.  "Sorry."

	"No," Lance said, frowning slightly.  "Don't be sorry. It's totally all
right.  I was just thinking maybe it's about time time we get you a
bathroom, you know, like connected to your room, like me and your dad have.
That way it'll be more private for you, and easier for you to take showers
and stuff."

	"Sure," Aaron said, still confused at what this was all about, and why his
Dad seemed somehow unsettled.  "If you think that's cool."

	"It'll be good," Lance said, smiling.   "Now, how about you getting some
clothes on.  I don't want you catching a cold."

	Aaron had returned to his room, wrapping the bath towel around his waist as
he made his way the rest of the way down the hall. Once inside, he tossed
the towel on the floor next that day's dirty clothes.  Turning around, Aaron
faced his reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the back of his
bedroom door.  He was close to six feet tall, and his skin was the color of
honey.  His shoulders were broad, his chest was smooth and muscled and
tapered to a lean flat stomach.  His hair, having returned to its natural
color, was a light sun-streaked brown that Aaron wore with long bangs that
hung nearly in his eyes with soft loosely-cut curls that nestled against the
small of his neck.  He was shaving now, although it was not yet necessary
everyday.  He had the beginning of sideburns, not yet trimmed or sharply
shaped (although they would be for the premiere). Untrimmed and not yet
fully grown in, his sideburns looked like charcoal thumb-smudges that echoed
the concave slope of his cheeks to his square and deeply-dimpled chin.
Aaron's arms were like a great swimmer's arms, long and strong but not
over-muscled, his fingers hanging well below his hips when he let arms fall
to his side.  His pubic hair was thin but dark, like the hair on his legs.
It looked shaved, but wasn't.

	Staring at himself in the mirror like this, something that for some reason
he did not remember doing before, not like this, as if taking an inventory,
Aaron felt the urge to masturbate, an urge he managed quickly to ignore.  He
had by now been masturbating for nearly a year, and some of its intoxicating
novelty had finally worn off.  So instead of touching himself, as he often
did before or after a shower, instead of coaxing an erection, and massaging
it to climax, Aaron just looked at himself, as if for the first time, and he
was startled at the discontinuity that he had failed to notice.  There had
been, it seemed, no end to the changes his body had gone through; that he
knew better than anyone.  But suddenly the changes had coalesced, as if in
one instant, to transform him into someone he hardly recognized, even though
he knew it was him.  It was like seeing someone you had once known well, but
not seen for years.  At first glance you'd know that you knew this person,
but you might not at first remember their name, not until some clue was
provided, or you recalled something you'd done together, and then - voila -
it was there, the moment of recognition.  That was how it was for Aaron that
day.

	"How do you do Mr. Valdez," Aaron said, extending his hand as Lance had
done, smiling graciously, careful to appear appreciative for the attention.
"It's very nice to see you again."

	"And you as well," Mr. Valdez said, shaking Aaron's hand. "Welcome to the
Four Seasons."

	"Thank you sir," Aaron said, bowing his head almost imperceptibly.

	"Will you be having your usual suite," Mr. Valdez said, turning his
attention back to Lance and JC. "Or, if you wish, we have a nice two-bedroom
suite we've held for you just in case Aaron would prefer a room of his own
rather than sleeping on the pull-out in the living room."

	"Aaron?" Lance said, turning to him. "What do you think? It's your call."

	"I like our usual one Dad," Aaron said, shrugging his shoulder almost in
apology. "It's where you and Dad have always stayed and I like it."

	"Suite 311 it is then," Mr. Valdez said.  "Just like always."

*	*	*	*	*

	As Toni snubbed out her cigarette and tugged at the waist of her dress,
which had suddenly seemed too small, she looked across the room, trying not
to appear bored, and forcing herself to smile.  She'd arrived a few minutes
ago, having worked her way up the red carpet, signing some autographs and
being interviewed before entering the theater.  In the Hollywood food-chain
scheme of things, she knew she would not be the last to arrive, not having
her name above the title, like Lance and Colin did, but she was not the
first to arrive either. Seeing Stephane, she waved him over, not needing now
to pretend to smile. She was happy to see him, and surprised to see that he
seemed happy too.  Gone was his usual glower and his slump-shouldered
wandering walk.  He strode forward toward her, his arms outstretched,
laughing and embracing her, then kissing each cheek in turn.

	"Bon jour Toni," Stephane said, releasing her from his embrace. "It is my
delight to see you again."

	"How sweet of you to say," Toni said, blushing as she softly shoved his
shoulder, as if to push him away, but not really.  "How have you been?"

	"I have been quite well," Stephane said.  "And you?"

	"Working," Toni said.  "Always working."

	"Me, I have taken much time off," Stephane said.  "Staying home for a
change. It is nice, to do nothing, I find."

	"I can't just do nothing," Toni said.  "I go insane."

	"I thought that too. But it was, as I said, quite nice. I read quite a bit.
And I started work on a script, nothing too ambitious, something small and
personal, for a film I think I'd like to direct."

	"That sounds exciting," Toni said.  "Any part in it for me."

	"There is a cuckolded wife, I do believe."

	"Oh lord - no more cuckolded wife-roles for me, thank you very much."

	"Perhaps you are right," Stephane said, laughing softly.

	"So weren't you lonely holed up in Chez Stephane all alone."

	"Ah, but I was not alone," Stephane said. "James spent just over six months
with me, studying French, and the cello.  You remember James, yes?"

	"Now Stephane," Toni clucked.  "You know I remember James."

	"Well yes, I suppose you would," Stephane said.  "He was your favorite
mystery of a few years ago."

	"I don't suppose I'll bother asking for details."

	"But there is nothing much to say," Stephane said, continuing to smile so
brightly that Toni found it suddenly disconcerting.

	"Or nothing much you will say."

	"Yes, there's that," Stephane said, laughing again.  "But I will say that I
have found that James is immensely talented.  He speaks French near-fluently
now, and his cello-playing, it is quite moving.  Often, he would play for me
at night.  Alas, for one his age, James remains - how shall I say - too much
in a hurry to grow up."

	"Some children are just like that," Toni said. "When I was young, I hated
children my own age. My mother was endlessly shooing me out of the living
room at her parties and telling me to go outside and play with my friends.
But what friends?  Childish games just seemed too tedious to me.  I was
always starved for adult conversation."

	"I see," Stephane said, carefully considering what Toni had said.

	"Of course, now I can't stand adults either," Toni laughed.  "So I fear it
really is just a case of me being anti-social."

	"But as they say, even a porcupine must find a way to make love."

	"Oh - I like that one," Toni said, nodding approvingly and putting her hand
on his shoulder.  "I must get that embroidered on a pillow at once."

	"You are too much," Stephane said, smiling.

	"Yes, I am," Toni said. "So will James be attending?"

	"I believe he is here already," Stephane said.  "With his mother, Luanne. I
will need to look for them soon. They are expecting me."

	"You've come alone then?"

	"Yes, as usual," Stephane said. "But I am certainly happy to keep you
company for a little while."

	"Ooh, a beard of my very own."

	"Your what?"

	"Never mind," Toni said, tilting her head and looking over Stephane's
shoulder at the people milling near the entrance.  "I'm here with Ryan
anyway."

	"Ryan?"

      "Sad but true, although sadder for him I hasten to add."

      "What happened with Brendan?"

      "Oh lord," Toni said, shaking her head.  "You didn't hear?"

      "I do my best - how do you say - to stay out of the connection."

      "Out of the loop, dear.  It's out of the loop."

      "All right, yes.  Out of the loop.  So, no I did not hear."

      "Everything was going smashingly," Toni said.  "That is, according to
Ryan."

      "They seemed happy when I saw them at Skywalker Ranch."

      "All true," Toni said, looking at the pack of cigarettes she had
placed on the table next to her, wondering whether to smoke one more before
it got too crowded and made people prone to complain about the smoke.  "I
saw it myself.  I had dinner with them four or five times.  They were all
atwitter about buying a house together.  Ryan had moved into Brendan's place
right after they got back from Australia.  But they said they wanted
something bigger, less of a bachelor pad, if you know what I mean."

      "One that did not smell of past sexual conquests."

      "Exactly."

      "What was it when you saw them, a year together by then?"

      "Just short of it," Toni said, coughing into her fist and clearing her
throat.  "It was all they talked about, 'Can you really believe it's almost
been one year' - blah, blah, blah, blah.  You'd think they'd cured cancer or
circled the globe three times in a balloon.  I mean, let's be serious, even
I've made it past the one year mark.  Several times."

      "It must have seemed like a very long time to them. An achievement."

      "No doubt," Toni laughed.  "Like walking across the room without
falling."

      "You are so cynical."

      "I prefer to call it world-weary," Toni said, lighting up a second
cigarette and then blowing a plume of smoke towards the ceiling.  "It sounds
more sophisticated. And less brazenly callous."

      "So what happened - no, let me guess.  Ryan came home early one day
and found Brendan in bed with the postman."

      "If only it could have been that classic," Toni said, her voice
softening a bit, and a note of sadness edging into it.  "And less
regrettable."

      "Qu'est-ce que c'est - is that sympathy I hear?"

      "Why yes, it is," Toni said, sounding insulted. "I am not all made of
ice you know.  And it's damn sad, actually. Damn sad."

      "Tell me," Stephane said, leaning toward her, half-expecting her to
whisper. "Tell me what happened."

      "Ryan has AIDS.  You knew that."

      "No," Stephane said, frowning.  "I knew he was HIV positive, but..."

      "Well, he has AIDS.  Not full-blown or anything like that.
But...anyway, it's not good thing, obviously."

      "Brendan knew this?"

      "Oh, he knew," Toni said, flipping the hair out of her eyes with the
back of her left hand.  "He knew all right."

      "Because...?"

      "Because Ryan told him," Toni said, wondering why Stephane might
possibly think otherwise. "When they were first together."

      "And Brendan did not care."

      "Not in the least," Toni said, taking a long and noisy drag off her
cigarette, then snubbing it out like she was angry at herself for smoking
it. "He was into barebacking. You know, sex without condoms.  He told Ryan
he never used them, and that he was sure he was HIV positive too. He just
didn't know for sure because he'd never been tested."

      "Ah, if only ignorance was bliss."

      "I can't say I understand any of it," Toni said, shaking her head in
disgust. "In a way I thought they made a perfect pair.  Not a sentimental
bone in either one of them."

      "That is rarely true," Stephane said, frowning.

      "Oh, I know that," Toni said, almost angrily.  "But for some reason, I
was happy for them, you know?  Ryan seemed genuinely affected by Brendan,
maybe even in love, and, fuck, I don't know, it's just ..."

      "You wish you understood what happened. Or why."

      "No, I know what happened," Toni said, putting her hands on her hips
as if trying to brace herself, like part of her expected the floor to
suddenly shake. "And I know why."

      "Tell me."

      "For whatever reason - well, I guess that's the thing I don't know.
But Brendan decided to get tested, and, as you would say - voila - he was
negative."

      "Negative."

      "Yup.  And that, as they say, was the end of it."

      "He left Ryan."

      "Without a word of apology," Toni said.

      "Nothing?"

      "Oh - he said good bye, sure. You know, after he'd told him about the
test results and packed all his things for him, and basically showed him the
door."

      "Nice."

      "It gets better."

      "Or worse."

      "The little fucker's engaged now."

      "Dites cela encore!"

      "Huh?"

      "Say that again."

      "Yeah, he's engaged. Brendan's engaged.  And you'll never guess to
whom."

      "I fear to even try."

      "Alex Bledel."

      "I think I may be ill."

      "Oh, sweetie pie, mama ain't even to the best part."

      "No - it's not possible that she is..."

      "Pregnant."

      Stephane stared wide-eyed at Toni, aghast for reasons that he did not,
or could not, fully comprehend.  None of these people mattered to him, not
in any meaningful way, but he felt both repulsed by them, and saddened for
them. It was like seeing a dog or a cat struck in the street, struck and
killed - disgusted by the gore, but also saddened by the thought that some
person somewhere might stand calling for a beloved pet that would never
return home.  Was this why that he had so steadfastly resisted forming
attachments, why he preferred to keep people at a distance, even if only an
arm's length?  Because he could not bring himself to contemplate the reality
of losing something, someone, that had mattered to him.  But there was
another side to this he realized.  He could understand the pain of this loss
without having experienced it himself. What was that?  He did not know, and
perhaps could not know.  All he knew that suddenly he wished to see James
again, and wanted this more intensely than even minutes before.

      "I don't know why this makes me so angry," Stephane finally said.

      "I'll tell you why," Toni said, picking up her cigarettes and
narrowing here eyes into a sharp piercing stare.  "Because you've got a
heart sweetie.  That's why."

	"Yes," Stephane said, almost to himself.  "Perhaps that much at least is
true."

*	*	*	*	*

	"Josh is an expert at this Aaron, I'm serious, so listen to what he has to
say."

	"First off," JC said, putting his hand on Aaron's knee as their limousine
pulled out of the hotel driveway. "You're Dad's full of it, because he was
always better at these things than me - at least I think he was."

	"Josh - I was not. You know these big hoo-hahs always made me crazy.  My
first premiere I thought I was going to pee my pants."

	"You did great though," JC said, reaching across Aaron and giving Lance a
gentle shove.  "You're sincere. You can't help it. And it totally comes
across."

	"Well thank you," Lance said, grinning, and then leaning across Aaron to
give JC a quick kiss. "I think."

	"Dad," Aaron said, plainly nervous. "We're going to be there in like less
than ten minutes."

	"Okay," JC said. Here's the deal.  You're Dad and I will get out first."

	"Don't get right..."

	"Lance - I thought I was telling him this."

	"Sorry."

	"Like your Dad said, don't' jump out right after us.  Wait for the noise to
settle down a bit, then get out.  The photographers will want to get a
picture of just you getting out of the limo.  You're the new meat."

	"Josh!"

	"Sorry."

	"I'd rather get out with you guys."

	"It's okay," Lance said.  "We'll be waiting like ten feet away."

	"We'll do the carpet and the rope line together."

	"Okay."

	"Make sure your jacket's unbuttoned when you get out of the car."

	"If it's buttoned, it'll squeeze around your stomach and you'll make a
funny face when you get out."

	"This is kind of stupid."

	"Yup," Lance said.

	"But you're going to feel way better about this if you know what to
expect," JC said, his hand still on Aaron's knee.

	"And the good thing about the unbuttoned jacket is that it gives you
something to do once you're out of the limo.  The camera's are going to be
flashing like crazy and you don't want to be looking at that right off, so
look down at your jacket and button it."

	"Okay," Aaron said, nodding. "Look at jacket. Button it. Don't look at
cameras."

	"Not at first ," JC said. " Not until you're eyes have adjusted to the
light."

	"Otherwise you'll squint," Lance added."

	"Right," JC said.  "Then, once you're eyes are adjusted, then look up and
smile."

	"Like you would at a surprise party."

	"Like - Wow, you guys all showed up for me?' Sort of like that."

	"I'm starting to wish I hadn't been in this movie now," Aaron said,
swallowing hard.  "I don't think I like lots of people staring at me."

	"Sweetie," JC said, firmly, but not criticizing.  "It's a little late to be
thinking that.  Being here is part of the job, a job you said you wanted to
do. You should take this just as seriously as you did making the movie
because you don't get one without the other."

	"Your Dad's right," Lance said, putting his arm around Aaron.

	"I know," Aaron said. "I'm just scared. I don't want to look stupid."

	"You won't," JC said.  "In fact, you look very handsome."

	"Thanks Dad," Aaron said. "It was really hard to decide what to wear."

	"You did a good job," Lance said, squeezing the back of Aaron's neck and
then taking his arm from around his shoulders.  "Why'd you pick this one?"

	"I don't know," Aaron said. "The other ones seemed too grown up, and like
sexy.  Like the Prada one, it was way too 'Look at me, look at me, I'm a
player'. This is the one Marc Jacobs made special for me.  I like it because
it's sort of funny, like the uniform I used to wear in elementary school,
with the blue jacket and badge on it, and the grey pants - you know, but
it's really nice material too."

	JC stared open-mouthed for a moment and then shook his head.  Aaron was
right. It looked like a more grown-up, but not too grown-up, version of how
Aaron had dressed in Elementary School, right down to the white shirt that
was not tucked into his pants and black leather oxfords that he wore without
socks and unlaced. JC had always made him tie his shoes and tuck in his
shirt before taking him to school and then watched him as he walked up the
steps to the schoolhouse, pulling his shirt out from his pants and, he knew,
untying his shoes once he got inside. That was always how he looked when he
had picked him up each day.  But JC never said anything. He was amused by
Aaron's small defiance, and approving of it.

	"Dad," Aaron said, nudging JC.  "You're staring at me."

	"Sorry," JC said, shaking his head as if to clear it, and smiling at Aaron.
  "I was just remembering something.  That's all."

	Before Aaron could reply his cell phone buzzed, vibrating in the inside
pocket of his jacket.  Pulling the phone from his pocket, and flipping the
cover open, Aaron looked at the caller-ID screen and smiled.

	"It's Colin," Aaron said, raising the phone to his ear.  "Hey Big Da!"

	"Yeah," Aaron said, leaning forward and looking out the window as he
continued to talk into the phone.  "We're almost there.  Where are you?"

	Aaron turned around in his seat and looked out of the limousine's back
window.  Colin had opened the sunroof in his limousine and the top half of
his body was sticking through it.  He waved and pointed at Aaron and then
gave him the thumbs-up.

	"Yeah, I can see you," Aaron said, laughing.  "What?  No...I'm not nervous.
  I'm not.  Okay - I am, but it's cool. I'll be okay. Dad gave me the 411 on
the red carpet thing. Yeah, he's a pro.  Uh-huh.  Okay. All right.  I will.
Yeah.  Cool.  Later Da."

	"Colin said hi," Aaron said, slipping phone back into his pocket.

	"Hey - you ready," Lance said, noticing the limousine beginning to slow and
then stop. "We're next up."

	"Who's in front of us?" JC asked.

	"Eric and Rebecca, I think."

	"You going to be okay?" JC asked, looking at Aaron and smoothing the hair
out of his eyes.

	"I'll be fine Dad," Aaron said, giving JC a kiss on the cheek.  "Thanks."

*	*	*	*	*

	"Do you have my sunglasses," Lance whispered into JC's ear.

	"Yeah, here," JC said, handing the glasses to Lance and then taking hold
again of his hand.  "It is kind of bright."

	Sliding the sunglasses into place, Lance took a deep breath and looked back
at the limousine.  He and JC had emerged from it a few minutes earlier and
crowd had just now quieted, and the high-speed cameras had stopped clicking
and flashing and whirring and their lenses were pointed away from them and
at the limousine's still open door.  Minutes seemed to pass as no one
emerged from inside the limousine.  A puzzled look formed on Lance's face.
He glanced at JC and then back to where Aaron was supposed to appear.  And
then he finally did, his face poking out with a big antic tooth-filled grin.

	Waving, Aaron stepped out of the limousine, looking down for a moment just
like JC had advised, and buttoning his jacket.  When Aaron looked up, his
eyes seemed full of fear at first, despite his big smile.  But then, just as
Lance was about to be concerned, Aaron plunged his hands into the
side-pockets of his jacket and let his shoulders playfully droop as he bent
to one side, then the other, arching his eyebrows, and slyly smiling, as if
about to mug for the cameras, but not going too far, then giving the
photographers in the press box an exaggerated conspiratorial wink, like he
was saying, "Remember the deal, you're supposed to make me look great." The
crowd, which had loudly tittered before, went wild with laughter and
applause.

	Aaron pulled his hands from his pockets and held them palms up and shrugged
as he rolled his eyes. It was a funny gesture and one the crowd loved.  It
seemed to say that he didn't take any of the ruckus too seriously, but he
still appreciated it.  He stood there for several minutes more, waving
occasionally, and waiting for the cameras incessant shooting to stop, which
they never did.  Finally unwilling to wait longer, Aaron gave the
photographers a final good-natured wave and jogged up the red carpet, his
loose untied shoes slapping the ground, each short stride exposing a bare
ankle and heel.

	"How'd I do," Aaron said, smiling at Lance and JC, and shrugging.

	"You're a natural," JC said, taking Aaron's arm and giving it a quick
squeeze.

	"Scary," Lance said.  "But true."

	"Thanks dad," Aaron said.  "It was fun."

*	*	*	*	*

	JC and Aaron had managed to make it up the red carpet more quickly than
Lance, talking to nearly as many people, with Aaron signing autographs while
JC watched. They seemed to have worked faster than Lance, who had a tendency
to want to find out more about each person he met, and to write something
more personal than "Best Regards" with his autograph.  Glancing toward the
theater's entrance, Lance saw JC and Aaron waiting for him, and he waved
them on, signaling that they need not wait. Aaron waved back and smiled at
Lance, proud of him, and how handsome he looked, and trying to show it. JC
waved too, then took Aaron's arm and led him through the throng of reporters
staked out just inside the lobby.

	Turning back to the crowd gathered just on the other side of the red velvet
rope-line, Lance finished signing another autograph and was about to hand
the pen back when he saw him. Lance didn't recognize him at first, but
somehow knew that he'd seen him before. It was a strange feeling, made
stranger by the fact that it was not so much his looks that seemed familiar,
but the way he was standing there, pressed up against the rope line, a book
in his hand.  It was this scene, and this exact setting, that Lance
remembered. Signing another autograph, instinctively, and without much
paying attention to what he said to the woman, or even her name, which he
somehow signed, Lance smiled at the man with the book, and the man smiled
back and waved.  A young boy stood next to him.  He was maybe seven at the
most and clutching a Star Wars action-figure to his chest.  He looked
frightened.

	Walking over to where the man and boy stood, Lance extended his arm and
shook the man's hand.  The man smiled, grateful that Lance had noticed him
and took the time to stopp. The boy looked up at Lance, still seeming
frightened, but smiling now too.  Lance crouched down and looked at him.

	"What's this," Lance asked, pointing at the action-figure.

	"It's you," the boy said shyly.

	"Can I see?"

	"Yes," the boy said, turning the figure around so it faced Lance now.

	"Do you think that looks like me?"

	"Yes," the boy said.  "Can I have your autograph on it?"

	"What do you say Billy?" the man said, rubbing the back of the boy's head.

	"Please."

	"Sure thing," Lance said, smiling as he took the figure from the boy and
signed it with a felt pen the man had handed him.  "How's that?"

	"Thank you," the boy said.

	"He's a sweet boy," Lance said, standing up and facing the man once more.
"Is he your son?"

	"Yes," the man said.  "My partner and I adopted him when he was a baby,
just over six years ago."

	"That's great," Lance said, about to pat the man on the shoulder and then
realizing who he was.  "Wait - we've met before."

	"Yes we have," the man said, holding up the book he'd been holding under
his arm, a battered copy of The Ghost Road.  "You signed this for me quite a
while ago."

	Lance took the book from the man's hand and opened it.  On the inside cover
he found his signature and what he'd written:

To Jared and Thomas,

BE EACH OTHER'S HERO.

Best Wishes,
Lance Bass.

It was hard for Lance to believe that the book was real, and in his hands,
and that he was seeing what he'd signed so long ago.  It had been at The
Ghost Road premiere, and Jared had said that he and JC were their heroes.
Lance remembered that it had stung him hearing this, because he was feeling
less than heroic right then, having destroyed and lost, or so he had
thought, his relationship with JC.  That was why he'd written what he wrote,
or one reason. It was not just that he felt like no hero then, but because
he had recognized that, if a relationship was ever going to last, it took
near heroic effort to make it do so.

	"You're Jared?" Lance said, finally able to speak.

	"Yes, that's right," he said.  "Thank you for signing my son's toy."

	"Oh, forget it," Lance said, shaking his head.  "It's my pleasure. Really."

	"Well, thank you anyway," Jared said. "I know you should be going.  So I
won't keep you any longer."

	"Wait," Lance said, taking Jared's arm as he started to turn away, and
stopping him. "Where's Thomas? He was with you at the The Ghost Road
premiere."

	"He passed away two years ago," Jared said calmly, only the slight
quivering of his bottom lip giving away the deep sadness he still felt.

	"Oh my God," Lance said, plainly stunned by the news. "How?  I mean, if you
don't mind telling me."

	"No, it's all right," Jared said.  "He'd had leukemia. In fact, it had just
got into remission when we adopted Billy. But it came back, and well, the
second time we weren't so lucky.  He fought hard...but, anyway, it's over
now."

	"Damn," Lance said.  "I'm so sorry."

	"Me too, but we're doing all right."

	"Daddy, I need to go," the little boy said, pulling on the cuff of Jared's
shirt.

	"I better be going," Jared said.  "Billy's been standing for quite a
while."

	"No - I have a better idea," Lance said, smiling.  "Why don't the two of
you come in with me, as my guests."

	"Are you serious?"

	"Hey Billy," Lance said, crouching down once more.  "How would you like to
be the first boy in your school to see the new Star Wars movie?"

	"Really?" the boy said, his eyes growing wide as he looked at Lance and
then up at Jared.  "Can we Dad?"

	"Are you sure?" Jared said, his brow wrinkled as if he was worried Lance
was kidding or would change his mind.  "Because if..."

	"Come on," Lance said, cutting Jared off, but not sharply, and then
unhooking the section of the rope-line that blocked their way.  "Let's go
inside."

*	*	*	*	*

	The momentary tumult of the film's score gave suddenly way too a deeply
eerie near-silence filled with the sound of Lucas trying to catch his breath
as he raced down the corridor to where he sensed his father would be.  The
quick-pounding beat of a timpani drum echoed each breath he took, and it
sounded like the hard-fast beating of his heart.  Aaron remembered shooting
this scene, remembered how many time he'd had to run the more than hundred
yards across one end of the set, in front of a vast blue screen while a
Steadicam on a trolley rolled along beside him, filming him as he ran as
fast as he could, ran in long loping strides, full of fear that he would not
arrive in time.  But now on the screen there was no speed to the scene at
all. The blue screen had been replaced with a computer-graphic-image of the
wall of the corridor leading to his father's office, and the
fast-as-he-could running had been transformed into a scarily-tense
slow-motion scene in which his running figure was all that filled the
screen.  It was as if Ang had somehow known to show, not how fast Lucas ran,
but how slow it felt to him.

	Those viewing the film sat transfixed, sensing that two hours into it the
end was near.  Aaron stared at the screen, part of him not wanting to watch,
uncomfortable seeing himself up there, the other part of him wanting badly
to know how the film finally ended, what had Ang decided.  As his character
continued to run, the shot began to focus more and more tightly on his face,
in profile, his eyes staring straight ahead, seeing nothing but the place he
needed to get to, the place where he needed to be: by his father's side. He
could see himself breathing harder, and hear it. He could see the sweat on
his forehead, sweat from real exertion, and real exhaustion.  Then just as
Lucas seemed about to collapse, from fear or fatigue, the sound of his
breathing, and the beating-heart drum, disappeared from the soundtrack,
plunging the theater into a two seconds of silence.  The silence was shortly
replaced by the lonely wail of a single French horn, the score having
returned.  It was the haunting fugue that John Williams had originally
written as the Luke Skywalker theme in the first Star Wars, a film now well
over 30 years old. It was the theme that had played while Luke had stared
into the distance, watching the double suns of Tatooine sink slowly below
the horizon, dreading that he'd ever be anything other than the adopted son
of two lonely farmers in the outer reaches of the galaxy.

	"You have for a moment my power."

	His grandfather's voice suddenly echoed in Lucas's head, making his eyes
grow wide and stopping him as he reached the corner of the corridor. Lucas
sensed that his father was near, but before he could face the truth of what
had happened, or about to happen, he paused to steel himself, his
grandfather's voice lingering within him.

	"Trust yourself to use it Lucas."

	Reaching under his tunic, Lucas grasped his grandfather's light-saber and
pulled it from where he had lodged it in his waistband. His grandfather had
given him this right before he died.   He held it now in front of his face,
staring at it with a look of puzzlement and fear.  About to trigger it on,
his thumb hovered just above the light saber's handle, his other fingers
grasping it.  Shaking his head no, he slipped the light saber back into his
waistband and covered it again with his tunic.  Lucas then rounded the
corner, rounded it and threw his shoulders back, ready to see what was there
to be seen.

	Sepp Wolff held Jhon Skywalker by the throat, his blaster pointed at his
head. Lucas gasped to see his father's bloody face, and the way he hung so
limply to the floor, as if ready to be tossed aside once Sepp was through
with him.  Lucas stared at Sepp, grimacing at the gaze that he knew had been
waiting for his arrival.  Sepp had sensed his approach, and planned this
set-piece with Lucas in mind, waiting for him to get there before killing
his Jhon, wanting him to see final pain he was about to inflict.

	Lucas was fifty feet from them, and he could see his father's eyes, which
were filled with blood, but no tears.  His lips were swollen, almost
deformed. Sepp must have slammed his face repeatedly against the cold stone
floor. He could see the blood there, and the splatters of it on the wall. A
smile played slowly across Sepp's face and suddenly it was as if there was
no more warmth in the room.  Lucas felt a shudder run through him, followed
by a murderous hate so intense that it seemed ready to justify any act, no
matter how heinous.  He wanted nothing more at that moment but to kill Sepp.

	"Follow your hate boy," Sepp said, hissing at him.  "It will take you where
I want you to go, right to the dark side."

	"Let my father go," Lucas said, not hiding the fear in his voice, or the
anger.

	"Was that a request?" Sepp laughed.  "Because I didn't hear you say
please."

	"Let my father go," Lucas repeated, his words even angrier now.

	"And I ask again, was that a..."

	Sepp's eyes began to bulge and his face turn red.  He was being choked,
quickly and viciously.  Lucas had not moved from where he stood.  He had not
even raised his hand.  But his eyes had narrowed, and his lips pressed
together.  Sepp looked suddenly frantic. He had not expected this from
Lucas, from one not yet trained at all in the powers of the Force.  It did
not make sense, no sense at all, and it plainly angered him.  Sepp had heard
of young Jedi that had displayed precocious powers, but nothing like this.
Never.

	"I will not ask again," Lucas said, but not out loud this time, speaking
instead to Sepp directly, with thought alone, in his mind. "Release him or
die."

	"How can this be?" Sepp thought, releasing his hold on Jhon and letting him
fall to the floor. "How?"

	Lucas moved closer to Sepp, not yet freeing him from the crushing hold he
had on his throat.  Leaning his face forward, close to Sepp's own, Lucas
glared at him, his eyes narrow at first. Sepp clawed at his throat,
desperate for air, his knees close to buckling as he found himself being
pushed now slowly backward down the hall by the force of will alone.  Lucas
followed after Seep, staring at him, shaking his head in disgust until
finally giving him one last hard push and sending him tumbling backwards
into a heap. At last able to breath, Sepp gasped for air in loud and noisy
gulps.  By the time Sepp had caught his breath, and could stand up, Jhon and
Lucas were gone.

	"You will not prevail!" Sepp screamed.

	Picking his blaster up from the floor, Sepp turned and raced down the
corridor in the opposite direction from where Lucas and Jhon had fled.  He
was nearly late for the ceremony formalizing Blake Antilles' ascension to
the chancellorship. It was at this ceremony that the Prime Minister would be
assassinated, putting the power of the New Republican Army solely under
Sepp's control, that is, once General Schirach was court-martialed for
failing to protect the Prime Minister, and Sepp promoted to take his place.
It would then only take word to Windsor Fritsch to stage the putsch that
would overthrow the New Republic and restore the Empire once and for all.

	As Sepp raced to the Senate Chamber, Lucas laid his father on the couch
back in his office.  Jhon's breathing was slow and labored, and his gaze
unfocused and far away, as if he was already looking beyond this life to the
next one.  Lucas felt panic grip him as he held to his father's hand,
willing him to come back to him, and to not leave him alone. He was on his
knees before him, his shoulders slumped forward like a penitent. A long low
moan escaped from Jhon's lips and Lucas leaned forward, ready to hear him,
saying, "Father, I will not leave you. Do not be afraid."

	"Lucas," Jhon whispered, raising his bloodied hand to Lucas' face, holding
it, his fingers pressed against his cheek.  "You must stop Sepp, or the
Prime Minister will die."

	"Sepp cannot kill him now Father," Lucas said, surprised at the certainty
in his own voice.  "He will be found out, I will make certain of that."

	"No - it is not Sepp that will do it."

	His words trailed off, becoming weak and listless.  Jhon appeared to fade
away. Lucas clutched at his father's shoulder's, shaking them, trying to
revive him, to pull him back from the brink of death. Watching this, Aaron
knew that this was the scene where Jhon had died, where he had cried so hard
that he could hardly speak his lines, it being so easy to feel what he had
needed to feel to make this scene real.

	"Father!" Lucas screamed.

	The close-up on Lucas' face is terrifying.  Tears stream down JC's cheeks
seeing it, and he could hardly breathe.  Lance closed his eyes, not wanting
to watch. Jared clung tight to Billy, who held out his action figure, as if
to give Lucas his additional support.  Colin reached forward and puts his
hand on Aaron's shoulder, rubbing it twice, then letting it go. James takes
hold of Stephane's hand and squeezed it tightly, and Stephane leaned his
shoulder against him.  Ryan slumped forward in his seat, and Toni rubbed his
back up and down his spine as he cried softly into his hands.  Lance's back
stiffened as the close-up lingered on Aaron's crying face.  Glancing back at
Colin, smiling weakly, Lance put his on Aaron's knee and held it.

	The movie cut suddenly from the tight shot on Lucas' face to a close-up of
Jhon's eyes, which seemed to move slightly, flutter, and then flicker open.
Taking a long deep breath, Jhon looked up at his son.

	"Father," Lucas murmured, fighting back tears.

	"Son, it is another," Jhon whispered, barely able to speak. "It is our
friend and ally Cassell who will be blamed, and I.  So you must go."

	"I can't leave you, father. I can't.  And I won't."

	"You must," Jhon said, sitting up, finding the strength somewhere, and
startling Lucas with steely force of his words. "There is no hope otherwise.
  And if there is no hope, there is nothing to live for. Nothing."

	"But father, if you die..."

	"If I die, you must go on, my son, go on to be the greatest Jedi ever.
Promise me, Lucas. Promise me."

	"No, I can't."

	"You are afraid," Jhon said, holding Lucas' face with both hand now,
staring up into his pleading fearful eyes.

	"I am afraid," Lucas said, through a choke of tears. "I am only a boy."

	"You are more than that Lucas.  You are my son, and a Skywalker."

	"But Father..."

	"Lucas, it is all right to be afraid," Jhon said, his voice stronger now.
"It is the conquest of fear that gives the courage of life.  Find your
courage, and you may find life, for both of us.  Now go."

	"I love you father," Jhon said, standing up, tears streaming down his face,
cutting tiny rivulets through the bloody handprints there.

	"You will always be my son Lucas," Jhon said, his eyes growing dim. "And I
will always be your father. Do not forget that."

	"I will not," Lucas said, standing and straightening his back. "I promise
you that. And I promise that I will become a Jedi, as you ask, and I will
make you proud."

	"I know you will," Jhon said, his eyes slowly closing. "Now go."

*	*	*	*	*

	The last fifteen minutes of the film were so raucous and so thrilling that
it hardly seemed real.  Sitting on Jared's lap, Billy clung to his father's
arms, thrilled and frightened, but still rapt.  Unlike Jared, who feared the
film was going to end in a way too intense and too upsetting for a boy of
seven to see, he watched almost out of the corner of his eye, afraid of the
tragedy that looked as if it was about to ensue.  Billy had no such fear, he
believed that Lucas would succeed, that he would fight through his own fear
and save the New Republic and his father too.  Aaron had neither faith nor
fear, only dread as the story rushed toward its finale, gasping as he
watched Senator Ribbentrop slipping his blaster from where it had been
hidden in the long loose sleeves of his ceremonial gown and put the trigger
at ready, waiting for Sepp's signal to him.

	Sepp had arrived by now, standing next to Blake Antilles, supposedly as his
body-guard, but secretly as his lover instead.  Lucas had made his way to
the level above where the ceremony was taking place, having just got there.
He edged out onto one of the narrow stone ledges that connected each
senator's station to the next, forming a spiraling ring of discs and ledges
that rose in circular layers like lichens on the inside of a huge hollow
tree.  Watching carefully to see if Sepp sensed his presence, he at the same
time concentrated on General Schirach, speaking in his mind to him, telling
him that he was there, and that he should be prepared to move. Then just as
Sepp winked at Senator Ribbentrop, giving him the signal to kill the Prime
Minister, Lucas jumped, his tunic flapping behind him like wings. He seemed
to soar in a near-perfect arc, landing on Ribbentrop as he pulled the
trigger on his blaster.  At the same time, General Schirach pulled the Prime
Minister out the of the way, the blaster firing into the middle of Blake
Antilles' chest instead.

	Pulling his Grandfather's light-saber from inside his tunic, Lucas took
position next to General Schirach, ready to fight side-by-side with him, and
back to back, as a group of Dark Jedi appeared seemingly out of nowhere,
determined to kill those who had foiled their plot.  Lucas could feel his
grandfather, Luke Skywalker, within him, guiding his hand, but not entirely,
and giving him strength, but not all of it.  At first trying to push his
fear away, Lucas let it fill him, and flow over him, like water, and his
eyes darkened as he began to fight.  Schirach was nearly distracted by the
ferocity of Lucas' fighting.  He had never seen anything like it because it
was not how a Jedi Knight typically fought, which was with a cold and
focused concentration. But Lucas was passionate, intense, and angry, but not
out of control.  It was frightening but fascinating too.  It was as if Lucas
had dared to let that which had for ions fueled the Dark Force flow into
him, but not overcome him. He joined the two, and was suddenly more powerful
than either alone.

	Ignoring the fighting, Sepp carried Blake Antilles' limp dead body away
from the battle and to the top of the building.  His half-brother, Clasen,
waited there for him with a battle-cruiser, and it with that they made their
escape, Sepp unable to speak, wracked with grief and already thinking of
revenge.  They would make there way back to Sluivan where there they would
be for a little while safe.

	Aaron took Lance's hand as the scene cut away from the shot of the battle
cruiser and returned to Lucas and Cassell Schirach walking the long corridor
back toward Jhon's office.  The contingent of Dark Jedi defeated, Senator
Ribbentrop had been arrested, and the Prime Minister was safe.  Now all that
remained was for Lucas to find out whether his father Jhon Skywalker was
still alive.  As Lucas reached the door, he stopped and turned to face
Cassell Schirach.

	"My father has given me his blessing," Lucas said.  "To begin my training."

	"You must go to Bespin then.  And soon. Before the Dark Jedi regroup."

	"I wish to train with you," Lucas said. "To be your Padawan."

	"I cannot."

	"Because you are afraid of failing me?"

	"I was too close to your father," Cassell said, his eyes brimming now with
tears. "His death saddens me too much to think clearly enough to be your
master.  It would feel wrong of me."

	"But Cassell, my friend, he is not dead."

	"He..."

	Cassell did not attempt to finish his sentence.  He turned toward the door,
pushing it open with his foot.  Inside the room, Jhon lay still stretched
out on the couch, alive and attended to by his mother, Mara Skywalker.  She
had somehow known to come, called by a voice that had seemed to speak
directly to her heart. Jhon rose up weakly from where he lay, lifting his
head and then his shoulders.  Lucas rushed to his side, kneeling before him,
and holding his head, and taking his hand.

	"No father," Lucas said.  "You must rest."

	"He is right Jhon," Mara said.  "You are very weak, and nearly died."

	"Thank you for coming Grandmother," Lucas said, looking up at her.

	"I could do but nothing else," she said, smiling at Lucas and resting her
hand for a moment on his head. "When I felt your call to me."

	"It was grandfather too you know," Lucas said, bowing his head for a
moment.

	"Yes, I know," she said.

	Lucas looked back to his father and smiled.  Jhon managed a weak smile in
return and then reached up and touched Lucas' cheek, still smeared with
blood.

	"I knew you could do it," Jhon whispered to his son.  "I had such faith in
you."

	"That is why I could do it," Lucas said.

	Sitting quietly on his father's lap, Billy smiled as he clutched the
action-figure to his chest and nodded, yes, again and again, nodding as if
he was trying to say that, yes, he had known too, known all along, with the
faith of a child, a faith that believed that good will prevail, if it has
the courage to do so.  Jared wrapped his arms around his son's chest and
held him close to him, resting his chin atop his head. At the same time,
Lance slipped his arm around Aaron's shoulders, pulling him closer.  JC took
hold of Lance's hand and squeezed it, tears fogging his vision as he watched
the final scene played out, a scene that was nearly like the one that
started the film, but in reverse, with this time Jhon the one standing alone
on the roof of the tall building in which he lived, watching an X-Wing
fighter not this time arrive, but to depart.

	Watching the ship climb the sky, streaking across the horizon, and then
circling back low to fly once around the building, low enough for him to see
his son inside, his hand waving in a kind of final salute, Jhon waved back,
trying to smile, but looking only sad instead.  He knew there was no
guarantee that he would see his son again, that in the world in which they
lived anything could happen.  But this was the risk he was willing to take
to see his son grow into manhood, to succeed and reach his potential.  And
so Jhon waved, and he smiled, as the ship turned and disappeared into the
distance, far and away.

	The close-up of Jhon's nearly tear-filled eyes faded into a final close-up
of Lucas at the controls of the X-Wing, the shield on his helmet up, and his
own eyes, nearly tear-filled too.  Flipping a switch that would send them
into hyper-drive, Lucas glanced over his shoulder, smiled and said, "You
ready R2? Great. Let's go."

*	*	*	*	*

	"You have everything you need?" JC asked, eyeing Aaron's new messenger bag,
the one he'd bought for him last week.

	"Yeah Dad," Aaron said, smiling.  "I've got everything, and then some."

	"Are you sure you don't want me to give you a ride?" Lance said. "Because
I'd be happy to.  It's no hassle at all."

	"Dad," Aaron said, rolling his eyes, but only a little. "I told you that
James has his license now and he's going to be picking me up.  He's probably
already here."

	"All right," Lance said, frowning. "But make sure he doesn't drive like a
maniac."

	"We're talking James here Dad.  He's like the most careful dude in the
world."

	"All right," Lance said again, not sure what else to say.

	Aaron wore baggy blue corduroy pants, a long-sleeve gray t-shirt, and black
suede puma trainers that were, as his shoes almost always were, unlaced.
Looking at his watch, which he wore with the face under his wrist, rather
than on top, Aaron frowned and then looked again at JC and Lance, and
smiled.

	"I'll be fine guys," Aaron said, leaned forward and giving Lance, then JC,
a quick kiss on the cheek.  "It just high school, okay?"

	"Yeah, okay," Lance said, a little sadly.  "But it's not like we've done
this before, you know. So..."

	"I know Dad," Aaron said, putting his arms around Lance and giving him a
hug.

	"I guess we'll see you when you get home," JC said.

	"I've got lacrosse try-outs after school," Aaron said.  "So it'll be closer
to four-thirty or five."

	"Five?" Lance said, surprised at first. "But...yeah, okay, that's cool.
You're Dad and me will see you then."

	"We can order some pizza for dinner," JC said.

	"That sounds good," Aaron said, turning toward the door.

	"Bye Aaron," Lance said.  "Have a great day at school."

	"I will, Dad.  Thanks."

	Aaron walked to the door and pulled it open, pausing for a moment at the
door's threshold, as if unsure whether to walk across it.  Seeing this
slight hesitation, JC looked at Lance, took his hand, and together they
turned around and walked toward the kitchen.  Hearing the sound of their
footsteps, Aaron knew that they were returning to their coffee, the
newspapers that waited to be read, and whatever chores they had planned for
that day.  Aaron also knew that when he got home, they'd be there, waiting
for him, maybe a little nervously, wanting to hear all about his day.  That
was a good thing to know, he thought, smiling as he closed the door behind
him, and then headed down the driveway to the gate at the bottom.  As he'd
expected, James was waiting there for him, like the other bookend to his
life, his parents on one side James on the other, holding him up, keeping
him stable and cared for, appreciated and loved, and feeling normal.

	Watching Aaron appear from around the final bend of the driveway, James
smiled at him and waved.  He'd only been waiting five minutes and didn't
mind.  He figured that Lance and JC had made a big deal about Aaron's first
day of high school, way more of a big deal than his own mom had made, since
she had hardly noticed.  James laughed as he saw Aaron roll his eyes, mouth
the words 'I'm sorry', then shrug.  Pretending to make light of something
that actually mattered a great deal to him.  It was an aspect of Aaron's
personality that had come to puzzle James, not because he didn't understand
it - because he definitely thought he did - but because it was so
unnecessary.  It was as if since being in the Star Wars film Aaron feared
people taking him too seriously.  If asked what it was like, he tended now
to shrug and say it was no big deal.  Suddenly everything was no big deal.
And this was the part that James understood, the desire to keep real
feelings hidden. But Aaron had never been like that before, and it was what
James had always loved most about him.  Not that he loved him less. It was
just that he'd depended on Aaron to be the more outgoing of the two, the
more spontaneous, the person who pulled him by the force of his personality
from his own shell.  Maybe Aaron was just hunkered down, like when a storm
passed over, waiting for it to end.  James hoped that this was true. He
truly did.

	Sliding into the front seat next to James, Aaron smiled at him and patted
him on the shoulder.

	"You ready James?"

	James nodded and smiled, happy to see Aaron, and suddenly touched by the
force of the attention now focused on him.

	"Great," Aaron said.  "Let's go."