When she opened the door that sad day, instead of offering a hug, Cullen took off the silver bracelet she was wearing and handed it to me. When I was trying to woo her, I'd once asked her to do that. It was the only real physical intimacy we would ever share: her warmth, my only moments of owning it. Although she'd blushed when I first told her that, since then it had become her way of saying, I'm here, friend. I'll do what I can.
"How're you doing, Weber?"
"Not so good. Where's Mae?"
"Inside with Danny. We haven't told her yet. You know how much she loved Phil."
"Such a nice man." I started to cry. "You want to know something strange as hell? The last time Phil stayed with me here, on his way back from Yugoslavia? He slept on the couch and wore my pajamas. When he left the next morning, for some strange reason I took the pajamas and put them up to my face so I could smell them. Smell him. I don't know why I did that, Cullen. He was there. He's gone. He was everywhere."
She put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me gently into the apartment. Almost as soon as the door closed behind us, a little black Cairn terrier that looked exactly like the dog in The Wizard of Oz came trotting importantly from another room. Her muzzle was completely, comically white. She'd obviously just been rooting around in something thick and foamy.
"Mama! Negnug ate all the whipped cream!" Mae James, age five, came running in, arms windmilling, tongue stuck out, big eyes delighted. "Weber!" She leapt up on me and wrapped her legs around mine.
"Hiya, Mae! I came over to say hello."
"Weber, you cannot imagine what just happened! Negnug ate all the whipped cream Mama made for the cake."
Danny walked in with his great warm smile on, something I always liked to see. He stuck out his hand and we shook hard. After a moment, he put his other hand over mine. "I'm glad you came, Weber. We were worried about you. Let's have a drink."
"But, Pop, what about the whipped cream? Aren't you going to spank Negnug? If I did that, you'd spank me! Now she's probably going to throw up all over the rug, like she did last time."
A small fire burned in the grate in the living room. The dog was plopped down on its side nearby. It looked pleased and exhausted. Mae walked over and, hands on hips, shook her head disgustedly at the furry traitor.
"Now our cake won't be half as good because of you, stinkpot."
Cullen and I sat on the couch, Danny in a paisley-covered armchair nearby.
"Mae, honey, would you do me a favor and go see if the tea is ready yet? Just tell me if the water's boiling, but don't touch anything, okay?"
"Okay, Mom."
When the child had left the room, Cullen spoke quickly. "Fool around with her a little, Weber, okay? Then she and Danny are going to the movies. You and I have to talk."
"About Phil?"
They looked at each other. Danny spoke. "About a couple of things." He reached down and pulled a box from beneath his chair. "We got a package from Phil in the mail a couple of days ago. We thought it was Christmas presents for Mae. But when we opened it, this box was inside along with two others. It's got your name on it."
I sat forward. "It's from Phil?"
Danny shrugged. "We didn't understand it either, except he knows we all spend Christmas together. Cullen thought maybe he wanted us to open our presents from him together."
"The water's just beginning to boil, Mama," Mae called from the kitchen. "But I didn't touch anything. Not even the potholder."
Cullen started to get up. "He was a sad man, Weber. Had absolutely no patience with the slowness of the world. You know that better than anyone. He did everything quickly and well, but that's always big trouble. Because then you're always disappointed no one else can follow suit. I loved Phil, but what happened doesn't surprise me."
"That's a pretty hard-ass thing to say, Cullen."
She was walking toward the kitchen but stopped next to me. "There are two things that don't leave you alone, Weber – love and disappointment. You can't turn either of them off like a fan or twist the direction of their flow a little to one side.
"I'll tell you something. Once when he was in his cups, Phil called, said one sentence, then hung up: 'Life is comprised of fuck-ups and fuck-you's.'"
"Sure, but at the same time I've never known anyone as full of life as he was. He was curious about everything."
"True, but that doesn't keep your heart full."
"What about Sasha?"
"Mom, come on. It's boiling!"
"They weren't living together anymore. Wait a minute. Let me get the tea and I'll be back." She touched my shoulder and moved on.
"Do you want to look at the package?" Danny held it out to me.
"What do you think, Dan?"
"I saw Phil last week."
"What? He was in town?"
He nodded. "Asked me to come and meet him at the Pierre but didn't want you or Cullen to know."
"Why not? Christ, what'd he say?"
"Okay, everybody! Teatime!" Cullen walked in carrying a big tray full of tea and cakes. I looked fast, then at Danny again. He shook his head, said only, "Look in the package."
"That one? The one from him?"
"Yes. We'll talk about it after you see."
"See what?"
"The videos. You want some help with that, Cul?"
There was a new log of applewood on the fire. The room had been silent for some time while Cullen and I looked into the flames. I shook my head. "He wanted to be liked and admired. He wanted to be left alone."
"Who doesn't? You know what fame is, Weber. When it comes, it's like a crazy fan who won't leave you alone. And who can be damned scary! It gets obsessed with you in all the wrong ways. You know that old line about how the woman catches her man? 'He ran after me till I caught him?' Well, that's the same thing with fame. You want it, but once you've caught it, you realize it's been waiting for you all along . . . like some kind of monster from one of Phil's films. Like Bloodstone! Philip Strayhorn wanted to be a very famous man but stay private, live his own life. Good luck with that, as we all know.
"Look, you guys got exactly what you wanted, what you dreamed about when you were at Harvard. Or so you've told me. But what did you two do with this fame you wanted so badly? You threw it over to direct dying people in obscure plays. And Phil? He shot himself. They're not new stories, Mr. Gregston."
"You're really showing your teeth today, huh?"
She sighed. "No, it's just coming up through my brain like a slow fog that sweet Phil Strayhorn is really dead. That makes two of my friends who've died violently. I hate it. Neither of them deserved that."
"Phil killed himself."
She rubbed her mouth. "Do you believe that, Weber?"
"Yes. He talked a lot about suicide."
"Shit. I believe it too. I wish I didn't. You know what I can't stop thinking about? The lovely, exact way he peeled an orange."
I opened my package from Phil before the elevator had reached the ground floor of the Jameses building. As Danny mentioned, three videotapes were inside but nothing else. I wanted a note or some kind of explanation, but there were only the three tapes, each 240 minutes long, labeled FIRST, SECOND, THIRD.