Perfect Flaw, page 2
“I have to go,” Demetre said, clicking off his phone.
“Mr. Kostas?”
“Yes,” he replied, smiling. Demetre walked over and stood very close. Angelo noticed he was slightly taller, about five foot ten. Angelo tried to maintain eye contact although he was fixated on Demetre’s buttery forearms as he crossed them over his chest, the taper of his waist and the curve of his thighs against his jeans. His body was perfectly proportioned. “You must be new.”
“Yes, yes,” Angelo stuttered. “It’s my first official day.”
“Does that mean I’m your first official patient?” Demetre’s fascinated eyes seemed to graze Angelo from head to toe like he was studying a piece of art he was thinking of acquiring.
Angelo grinned but felt a traitorous blush rising up his face. “Yes, you are,” he replied awkwardly. Angelo glanced down at his crumpled lab coat, now bearing a chicken piccata stain like the scarlet letter of a slob.
Demetre leaned against the doorjamb. The intensity of his expression unnerved Angelo. “I’m your first,” he repeated, slyly and under his breath added, “does this mean I get to pop your cherry?”
Angelo stood, staring at Demetre. How long? He didn’t know, but one thing was fixed in his mind, a concrete moment sharply etched in his memory; Demetre had taken his breath away.
“Ciao, Demetre!” Stanzione shouted from down the hall. “When did you get back?”
“Yesterday, and I’m so jet-lagged.”
“Come in. Come in.” Stanzione threw his arms around Demetre’s neck and hugged him for what seemed like an inappropriately long time. Then he tore the chart from Angelo’s hand. “I’ll see Demetre,” he said through a rictus smile. “He’s an old friend.”
Together, they walked with arms slung over each other’s shoulders, carrying on like school chums until they disappeared inside one of the exam rooms.
“Demetre, huh?” Jill muttered. “Hubba-hubba.” Tiffany giggled. “Am I right Tiff? Talk about a Greek god. That is one handsome man.”
The art of fine dining was a concept lost on Angelo, having been brought up on hotdogs, macaroni and cheese, tuna-noodle casseroles, and meatloaf stuffed with so much bread it hardly tasted of beef and more like cardboard doused in ketchup. Walking into Duran’s, Angelo knew that he was in for a treat. The two-story restaurant had a barrel-vaulted ceiling. A giant waterfall stood in the center of the main dining room. Every table draped in white tablecloths and accented with an arrangement of white peonies and roses.
The maître d’ sidled up to Jill. “You have a reservation?”
“Abrams party.”
The maître d’ escorted them to a table on the second floor.
“Regulars get the prime real estate.” Jill jutted her chin toward the raucous out-of-towners exiled to the far corners of the main dining room. Angelo wended his way past tables, observing the other guests as if they were museum artifacts. Deep-pocketed executives in designer suits, insouciant model-types texting, and elderly women with hair like butter frosting and lips plump as shiny as labias. Each one looked at him as he passed, giving him a brief, ravenous appraisal, and then they looked away.
Jill had brought her husband, Ted. A man with chiseled features and solid body but much shorter than Jill. Stanzione sandwiched himself in between them. Angelo sat across the table next to Steven.
At once, a serious looking server presented their menus. Angelo opened the wine list by accident, his face burning at the prices. The cheapest bottle started around fifty dollars and there was a dessert wine priced at five hundred dollars.
Jill took the lead, ordering appetizers for the table and the first round of cocktails, while Stanzione ogled her husband. Since Ted was a rep for a medical device company, he was proficient in the art of making conversation. Although Angelo suspected his line of work didn’t lend itself to much gay interaction, he handled Stanzione’s advances well.
Angelo cringed as Stanzione stared into Ted’s eyes with the intent focus of an actor on stage, gently touching his wrist to emphasize a point or wrapping his arm around Ted’s shoulders with varsity camaraderie at the slightest joke.
They carried on as though they were the only two people at the table, and Angelo felt obligated to keep Steven occupied by rating the comparative cuteness of the servers zipping around their table. But the more he tried to engage Steven in conversation, the clearer it became that he hardly had any opinions about anything outside of the office.
They dined on fluke carpaccio with cashew puree, pickled egg yolk, charred cuttlefish, and sweet carrot soup. Stanzione took the reins from Jill, ordering a different wine pairing with each course, consulting with the sommelier. “We have lots to celebrate tonight,” he said. Jill offered Angelo a weak smile, but her eyes shifted nervously at the wine list, which Stanzione had placed by his feet and out of her reach.
“Congratulations, Angelo,” she said holding up her glass.
Stanzione looked momentarily befuddled. “Oh yeah,” he said, clinking Angelo’s glass, “but I’m saving the big surprise for later.”
By the time their entrees arrived, Angelo had so many glasses in front of him he felt as if he was a glasspiel virtuoso about to perform on the vaudeville stage. Jill had ordered an appalling amount of food. Their table was a hub of activity with servers constantly clearing away plates or filling up wine glasses. After they finished their main course, Steven nudged Angelo under the table.
“I would have rather had a Big Mac than another piece of raw fish.” Being a corn-fed boy from Nebraska, Angelo suspected Steven felt just as out of place as him, maybe worse since he was wearing a T-shirt and corduroy pants. Everyone else was in business attire. Still, Angelo felt a sense of impoverished solidarity with Steven, and the two managed to have fun, shifting uncomfortably on fuchsia velvet chairs like two mischievous boys seizing an opportunity to sit on a king’s throne.
Stanzione monopolized most of the conversation. Jill and Ted were rapt, or at least convincingly feigned it. Holding court outside his castle, Stanzione seemed enlivened by the prospects of the additional attention. At one point he leaned across the table and slapped Angelo’s hand. “Better pass your internal medicine boards, kid. Otherwise, our deal is off, and you don’t want to give up this life now that you’ve had a taste.” Turning to Jill, he added, “You get to work with beautiful, smart women and gorgeous men like Ted.” Stanzione then cupped his hand right over Ted’s left pec. It was an awkward moment covered up quickly by Ted’s exuberant laughter.
“Now, now, that one’s taken,” Jill chided. “You have a handsome hubby.”
Stanzione’s face soured, but then he offered an appeasing smile. “Oh sure, sure. Steven is great.” Then he turned to Ted and whispered, “Talk to me after you two have been together for fifteen years.” This caught Ted in mid-swallow. He laughed so hard he almost choked.
“Come on,” Jill said. “Steven is gorgeous.”
Stanzione ignored her. He was on a roll, despite the strained expression on Steven’s face.
“You know what’s gorgeous. This dinner. I want to meet the man responsible.” If Stanzione’s red face hadn’t revealed his total inebriation, the slight slur would have. He beckoned the server to him. “I want to speak to the chef.”
Angelo watched a harried expression on Jill’s face emerging from behind her mask of composure.
“I’m serious,” Stanzione insisted. “Get him out here right now. Do you realize how much money we’ve spent tonight?”
The server shot Angelo a look of rebuke, a warning to keep his drunken father in check, but the evening had taken a detour, and Stanzione was turning purple. He moved to stand up but lost his balance and immediately sat back down.
“Did you hear me?” Stanzione pointed his finger at the server with one eye shut. “I want to meet the chef. Go and get him now!”
Suddenly, Angelo was aware of the maître d’, lurking nearby, listening with interest. “May I be of some assistance?”
Jill attempted to diffuse the situation, but Stanzione pushed his chair away from the table, knocking it backward so that it crashed to the floor. He stood up, wavered slightly, but then steadied himself by gripping Ted’s shoulders. “We’ve spent a great deal of money here tonight, and we would like to thank the chef personally.”
“But if he’s busy . . . .” Jill interjected.
Stanzione clapped his hand on Jill’s shoulder, silencing her. “Tell the chef he’s got some big fans waiting to meet him.”
“Happy to oblige,” the maître d’ said.
A hush befell their section of the dining room.
“See that,” Stanzione said as their server hastily righted his chair. “That man understands.” Stanzione teetered for a moment or two, then sat back down. Angelo was spellbound watching this mammoth man trying to commandeer the room, imagining that from his perspective it was like reclaiming his youthful charisma. Steven remained impassive, as though his partner’s behavior was something he had grown to accept and ignore.
After several awkward seconds, during which Angelo sipped the remaining drops of wine from the glasses propped in front of him, Jill stood up and excused herself. Stanzione glanced at his watch. After five minutes, he exhaled with exasperation.
“Where the hell did they go to get him?”
Then magically, the maître d’ reappeared, escorting a handsome young man dressed in white. The man exhibited a hint of annoyance in his eyes, forehead coated in a thin layer of sweat. “May I introduce Chef Steven Duran?”
Stanzione shook his hand eagerly, and then went into a longwinded compliment, something about being something of a chef himself. Jill returned minutes later and reacted as if a celebrity had stumbled up to their table. The chef kissed her on the cheek, and then he handed out signed menus to each of them before he graciously disappeared back into the kitchen.
The maître d’ remained at the table, hands clasped behind his back, smiling smugly. “Will there be anything else?”
Steven placed a hand over his mouth. A gesture that portended he knew what was about to happen.
“Yes, a bottle of your finest dessert wine.” Stanzione looked around the room magnanimously. “Spare no expense.”
“Of course,” the maître d’ said.
Jill strained to smile through her anxiety, knowing Stanzione had just ordered a five-hundred-dollar dessert wine on her tab.
“This has been an amazing night,” declared Stanzione, wrapping his arms around Jill and Ted like a proud father. “We have a lot to celebrate. Not only do I want to welcome Angelo to our practice, but it looks like we may have found a solution to our problem downstairs.”
Jill gasped. “You found someone to rent the space?”
Stanzione grinned, nodding his head in slow emphasis. “Fingers crossed, but I spoke to an old friend yesterday. He owns his own aesthetic practice. You know, laser hair and tattoo removal, and all sorts of facial rejuvenation procedures. He just got back from visiting his family in Greece and said he was thinking about moving his practice. I showed him the suite downstairs and he loved it.”
“Greece?” Jill asked. “Not that Greek god who was in your office yesterday?”
Stanzione snickered lecherously. “Oh, you remember him?”
“How could I forget?”
“Sexy, right?” Stanzione said. “We used to spend summers with him on Fire Island. Remember Steven? Hot, hot, hot.” Stanzione shook his fingers like they were on fire, and he was trying to put them out.
“You’re unbelievable.” Jill swatted him playfully.
“I’m serious. Everyone wanted to sleep with him. Demetre was a go-go dancer. That’s how he put himself through school.”
“More like a stripper if you ask me,” Steven said.
“But with the goods to back it up,” Stanzione added, elbowing Ted in the ribs. “Know what I mean?” Then he bit his knuckle.
“Okay, simmer down now, mister.” Jill pointed a thumb at Steven. “You’re making your hubby jealous.”
Stanzione waved a dismissive hand. “I’m telling you this is kismet. Having Demetre in the office will change everything.”
“How so?” Jill asked, curling her fingers under her chin.
“If Demetre comes on board, we will eventually combine practices and open a medical spa.”
“Well,” Steven said. “Nothing’s definite yet.”
“Oh, it’s definite,” Stanzione said. “I know it.”
The server arrived with fresh glasses for everyone. The sommelier presented the bottle. “Who will do the tasting?”
“We’ll have none of that,” Stanzione said. “I’m sure it’s great. Just pour. Vino per tutti.”
Chapter Two
Two weeks after that disastrous dinner with Jill, the five-star drug rep, Steven appeared in Angelo’s office doorway, fanning himself with a white envelope.
“Is that what I think it is?” Angelo asked.
“Don’t spend it all on one place,” Steven said.
After work, Angelo went shopping at the local specialty market and liquor store. He walked back to his alcove apartment on West Twenty-Third Street, grocery bags filled with assorted cheeses, meats, a baguette, and wine to make a charcuterie board like the one he had read about in the New York Times. He was hosting his colleague, Tammy. They were celebrating his first paycheck since joining Dr. Stanzione’s practice. Although they had taken divergent paths when it came to the types of practices they favored, it hadn’t driven a wedge in their friendship.
Tammy craved the jolt of the emergency room, the dazzle of flashing ambulance lights, the whirl of sirens and a tension so palpable it seemed to envelop you the moment you stepped inside its white-tiled corridors. For no good reason, Tammy just assumed her best friend would follow her down the path of caring for the impoverished. So, it was a complete surprise when right before graduation, Angelo informed her at brunch one day that he had accepted a position at Dr. Stanzione’s practice.
Tammy had nearly spit up her Bloody Mary. “You can’t do this to me,” she had pleaded. “Learn about real people with real-people problems.”
Of course, he knew, she would never understand. She’d grown up the daughter of a wealthy lawyer and a stay-at-home mother, living in a suburb of Illinois on Loon Lake and enjoying the riches of a well-padded lifestyle, one that ensured the children didn’t have to work after school, spent summers Jet-Skiing on the lake and snowboarding in the mountains in winter.
Maybe if Angelo had Tammy’s childhood, he would have felt the same privileged guilt and chosen to spend his career slaving in a poverty clinic. But Angelo had lived a childhood going to those clinics, waiting for hours with the other poor, unfortunate people like him, dreaming about a world outside of the one he had been assigned.
Angelo fished in his pants pocket for his key, dreading the suffocating August heat that would hit him like opening an oven. At the precise moment he heard the lock disengage, an ominous foreboding tightened around him like a sphincter. He stepped slowly inside. Though the room was dark, he sensed someone was there. Cigarette smoke lingered in the air. Blondie—Greatest Hits played softly from the alcove bedroom. “Who’s there?”
That question went unanswered, but Angelo already knew.
He stepped closer, peeking his head around the corner. Lying in his bed was a man. Pin-striped suit. Tasseled loafers. Ray-Ban sunglasses. It was his ex-boyfriend, Miles Scribner. Angelo turned on the lights.
“Hey buddy.” Miles held a cigarette in one hand and an empty bottle of tequila in the other.
Gloria Gaynor’s song immediately came to Angelo’s mind. I should have changed that stupid lock.
“What are you doing here?”
Miles pressed out his lower lip. “You’re not happy to see me?”
Angelo returned to the kitchen and began unpacking the groceries. Miles came up behind him. Gripping Angelo’s hips, Miles thrust his growing erection firmly against his buttocks. Angelo didn’t resist at first. If he had learned anything that year they had dated, it was that an inebriated Miles was as unwieldly as a stack of dishes. A brusque twist of the nipple caused Angelo to recoil. “That hurts,” he said, pushing Miles away. “You stink of liquor, and you know you can’t smoke here.”
Miles heaved an exasperated sigh. “Okay.” He walked to the window and opened it. After one last puff, he flicked the cigarette into the balmy night.
“Are you crazy?”
Miles shrugged, dumbly. “What?”
“Someone could get hurt.” Fortunately, no one was walking by when the cigarette butt hit the ground, still glowing red. He glared at Miles. “Take off those stupid sunglasses. You look ridiculous.”
“Name calling already?” Miles removed his sunglasses to reveal bloodshot eyes.
“You look like shit,” Angelo said, assessing Miles’s face for other signs of intoxication.
“Come on. Let’s have a drink.” Miles staggered to the counter and removed the wine bottle from the bag. “Red wine,” he said, disappointedly. “My, how you cling so ferociously to your Italian heritage. Don’t you have any real hooch?”
“No,” Angelo replied, reclaiming the bottle. He glanced at his watch. “You have to leave. Tammy will be here any minute.”
Miles rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “I see you’re still playing house with Peppermint Patty.”
“I would advise you not to call her that.” Angelo resumed unpacking the groceries. When he turned around, Miles was snorting cocaine from a small brown vial. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
