Caregiver Read online

  Copyright Published by

  Dreamspinner Press

  382 NE 191st Street #88329

  Miami, FL 33179-3899, USA http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Caregiver

  Copyright © 2011 by Rick R. Reed

  Cover Art by Paul Richmond http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 382 NE 191st Street #88329, Miami, FL 33179-3899, USA http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

  ISBN: 978-1-61372-208-4 Printed in the United States of America First Edition

  October 2011

  eBook edition available

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61372-209-1

  For Jim, who left an indelible mark on my heart. I hope you have found rest….

  Prologue

  FROMDan Shoemakers Gmail

  Adele ODair to me show details 2:49 PM (1 hour ago) Hi Dan,

  Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on the CAREGIVER manuscript. Dan, I think this is a wonderful, innovative, and heartfelt piece of writing.

  But.

  Memoirs, which were all the rage just a couple of years ago, are becoming a bit passé these days and, to be blunt, I really dont think I can find a suitable market for it. As your agent, I feel its my responsibility to tell you when something works and when it doesnt.

  CAREGIVER was really touching (even a crusty old Brooklyn broad like me teared up at a few of the scenes), but youre about art and Im about business and I just dont think, from a business standpoint, the time for this is now.

  Of course, by walking away from this, I am giving you my tacit permission to shop it around yourself (just dont go to another agent behind my back, okay? Otherwise, Ill have to come out there and kill you).

  Now, send me some more of that romance you were starting to write. That, I can sell!

  Best,

  A

  “What the fuck?” Dan whispered to himself, staring at the passionless prose facing him on his monitor screen. He had spent the last year and a half pouring his heart, his mind, his soul, and sometimes even his sweat into the manuscript.

  The story was solid. It made you laugh. It made you cry. It made you think. There was timeliness and social relevance to it. It resonated. It had “sand,” as his old college creative writing teacher would have said.

  What did that bitch Adele know anyway? He contemplated just hitting reply and summarily firing her ass. He could probably do better on his own. After all, what had she done for him, other than sell a popular line of romance mystery novels that had landed him here, in a house on a bluff above Seattles Lake Union, with views of not only the water but the Cascade Mountains as well, when the sun deigned to show itself? Yeah, what had she done for him other than ensuring he was set for life, even if he never wrote another word? What had that bitch done for him other than help to spawn a legion of fans that eagerly awaited his next book… as long as it wasnt Caregiver?

  Not much. Dan rolled his eyes.

  He got up from his glass-topped desk and peered from his second-floor office out at the perfect June day spread out before him. The sun shone brightly. A few cumulus clouds floated high up, just enough to break up the monotonous, crystal-clear blue expanse of sky. The Cascades, in the distance, looked slate-colored, still topped with white snow. On Lake Union, a seaplane landed and sailboats lazily cruised the calm waters. Just another day in paradise, here in the Pacific Northwest.

  A day that had no deference for Dans mood, which was lousy.

  Adele had been the first person he had allowed to read Caregiver. The book had been too personal, too close to his heart to let anyone else see it, including the able-bodied gentleman who shared hearth and home with him and who was, right now, downstairs, sunning himself on their deck. Now he certainly would have had an interest in the story, but the time wasnt right for sharing it with him.

  And she had called it a memoir! When had he said it was a memoir? He plopped back down at his desk, brought up his correspondence folder, and looked at the submission package he had sent her the week before. And there it was, right in the first line of his note: a novel. Not a memoir.

  So what if the story was set in Tampa, where he had lived? And big deal if the main character shared the same name, the humble yet forthright Dan, with him! And who would care that Dan had actually been thirty years old at the start of 1991, a new transplant to Florida from Chicago, and had joined the Tampa AIDS Alliance Buddy Program as a way to meet people and make some friends? All those attributes were the same as his protagonists, but that didnt mean that main character was Dan Shoemaker.

  The book was a novel, a story, a romance, just as Adele wanted. Literary agents! They were business people. What did they know— really—about literature?

  He clicked through his documents folder and found Caregiver. He brought it up on the screen and began to read.

  It was just fiction. So why, with the very first line, was his vision blurred by tears and his swallowing blocked by a lump the size of an orange in his throat?

  Chapter One

  THE sun glinted off Dan Calzolaios windshield as he made his way west along Route 60 toward his two oclock appointment with Adam Schmidt, the guy hed been assigned through the Tampa AIDS Alliance Buddy program. Dans pulse raced and his adrenaline was high with a combination of nerves and anticipation.

  The sun was merciless and Dan questioned why he had set up his first appointment at midday. It was July, for crying out loud. The Ford Escort rumbled along, its air conditioning long dead, making Dan sweat as he breathed in the warm air rushing in his rolled-down windows. On the radio, R.E.M. sang their new song, “Shiny Happy People” and the rhythm was sinuous and entrancing enough to make him—almost—forget the heat and the whine of his engine as it strained against the heat.

  He sang along with R.E.M. to calm his nerves. For the three Saturdays before, hed gone through the AIDS Buddy training program at the Tampa AIDS Alliance headquarters on North Dale Mabry highway, getting a crash course in the disease he was passionate and compassionate about and that he secretly feared (didnt all gay men? After all, a positive diagnosis was akin to a death sentence). AIDS was a killer, there was no doubt about that, and the man he was about to meet, this Adam Schmidt, recently relocated down here from Chicago (just like Dan!), suffered from a checklist of symptoms they had discussed in Dans training. He had early stages of Kaposis Sarcoma and had weathered two bouts of pneumocystis carinii, the pneumonia that was all the rage with AIDS victims these days. And, as the thin little file Dan had on the seat beside him said, Adam was depressed.

  Severely depressed.

  Really?

  Who wouldnt be? Dan wondered. The guy, only twenty-six,

  was dying. What must that be like? Dan pressed the gas pedal down farther and imagined himself getting his own AIDS diagnosis. What would he do? He knew: hed come to just this stretch of highway, with its two lanes and long straightaways, rev the car up to 90, and then, when he saw a semi headed his way, hed jerk the wheel to the left and— boom!—it would be all over. No pneumonia, no long hospital stays, no wasting away to a skeletal wraith, covered in lesions, as he had seen in pictures.

  Dan shook his head. Thoughts like these would put him in the perfect mood to meet the depressed Mr.
Schmidt. The two could have a good cry together and then Mr. Schmidt would call up the AIDS Alliance and ask to be assigned another buddy. He would say that he had enough on his plate without some clinging Gloomy Gus hanging around and making him miserable, thank you very much.

  And Dan couldnt blame him. He had learned in training to be upbeat and positive. They had told him to be a good listener and try to determine what his buddy needed—whether it was a shoulder to cry on, someone to take him on an outing to the beach, a cook, a confidant, a personal shopper. The job description for AIDS buddy was short and simple—just be there for your buddy and do whatever you can to help him (or her) out.

  But above all, Tampa AIDS Alliance buddies were expected to be cheerful.

  “Cheerful, right,” Dan whispered, wiping sweat away from his forehead with his hand and then rubbing his palm on the thigh of his denim cut-offs. Was he dressed too provocatively? He had worn only a gray tank and the shorts, which even he had to admit were cut a bit too high. Jesus, what was he trying to do here, anyway?

  He had not donned the clothes to look seductive or trashy, but to beat the heat, which today hovered around 95, with the humidity probably in the same range. Dans dark brown hair, wavy, curled at the nape of his neck and clung to his forehead, pasted there by sweat.

  Still, he was surprised Mark had let him out of the house showing this much skin. His man had a jealous streak a mile wide.

  Dans thoughts came to a rude halt when he saw the turnoff for the Brandon subdivision where Adam Schmidt lived. His Escort also came nearly to a screeching stop as he slowed too fast to try and make the right-hand turn. Tires squealing and throwing up a cloud of dust, Dan took the turn too quickly and too wide, heart pounding and grateful there were no other cars in the intersection. He barked out a short laugh that had nothing to do with humor and everything to do with nerves bordering on hysteria. Now dont piss yourself, boy!

  In no time, he pulled up in front of the small, pink stucco home on Hibiscus Street and put the Escort in park. He sat in the car for a moment, slowing his breathing, as he listened to the engine tick down and then grow silent.

  Other than its bright pink color and its sago palm in the front yard, the house looked pretty much like every other home on the block. Pure Florida west coast suburban—single story, screened-in backyard that may or may not contain a pool, a broad front window with either blinds shut tight against the sun or jalousies pulled the same way. The neighborhood was silent and the hum of air conditioning units gave testimony to the fact that everyone was hiding out inside, trying to stay cool in refrigerated air. Either that or they were hidden away in their privacy-fence-enclosed backyards, doing the same heat-beating routine in a pool filled with sparkling, turquoise water.

  Dan had come to know Florida neighborhoods pretty well in his three months as a resident of the state.

  And this neighborhood, shame on him, was not one where he would have placed an AIDS victim. Dan shrugged, mentally berating himself for his prejudice, but this hood simply seemed too Florida Donna Reed for a young gay man dying of AIDS. When he first started the program, he would have imagined his buddy living in a squalid apartment on Armenia, near 2606, the leather bar he had heard about up there.

  Thoughts like these were just what he had been cautioned about in his training. People with AIDS, or PWAs, could be any size, shape, or color; they could come from any walk of life. They could be gay (and in all probability, were), but they could also be straight, as Michelle, one of the women he went through training with, had discovered. Her buddy was a single mother of four who had dabbled with IV drugs. Dan wondered how that was going.

  “Enough speculation, enough random thinking,” Dan whispered to himself. Youre just delaying the inevitable. You wanted to do this. Now get out of the car and march on up to the front door. Adam is waiting for you, and youre ten minutes late already. Hes probably looking out the window at you right now, from between slatted blinds, wondering what kind of nutcase hes let into his life. Enough! Go!

  And so Dan hopped from his vehicle.

  He started up the walk, not knowing what to expect, but imagining someone very weak, emaciated, whose skin was marred by KS lesions. No matter how bad he looks, Dan, you will be cheerful and friendly. You will not let the effect his appearance has on you internally show externally. Got that?

  Dan rang the doorbell.

  When the door swung open, Dans grin disappeared and his mouth dropped open, yet nothing came out. He cocked his head. His eyebrows furrowed.

  “Well, dont just stand there,” a seductive, Bette Davis voice intoned. “Get in here. I am not about to pay to air condition the great outdoors, especially not when the great outdoors happen to be located on the Gulf Coast.”

  Dan still didnt know what to say as he followed the feminine figure inside the little stucco house.

  Mentally scratching his head and desperately wanting to act as though he was in on the joke, Dan stood near the doorway and took in what he supposed to be Adam Schmidt, since it didnt appear anyone else was home.

  Adam wore the classic little black dress, a string of pearls, black leather kitten heels and sheer black nylons. His nails were painted a shocking red, a shade the gayest side of Dan was absolutely positive would have been called “Jungle Red.” Adams wispy blond hair had obviously been blown dry and sprayed into place. His angular features had been enhanced with a good concealer, a little blush, mascara, pale green eye shadow, and slash of red across his thin lips that perfectly matched his nails.

  Adam put a hand on one hip and gave Dan the once-over. “Since you appear to be speechless, Im going to assume youre Dan something-or-other, something Italian. Youre going to be my new best friend, my buddy, right? But not my fuck buddy—God forbid!” Adam may have had AIDS, but it had no effect on his ability to weight his words with sarcasm.

  Dan smiled and forced himself to move into the room. “Sorry. I, um, the cat had my tongue.” He stuck out a hand, feeling like an idiot. “Yes, Im Dan Calzolaio. And Im looking forward to getting to know you better, Adam.” Had a single human being ever sounded more nerdish, more square? Dan felt his face going hot, despite the wintry chill from the air conditioning. He regretted once more his nearly naked ensemble. He looked down at the goose bumps rising up on his forearms.

  “Isnt that sweet?” Adam turned toward the living room, which continued the surreal theme that had begun as soon as Adam opened the door. It was done all in shades of pink and vibrant green, with overstuffed rattan furniture that appeared as though it had been swiped from the set of The Golden Girls. “Come on and have a seat, Dan. I made us a batch of Mai Tais. You like Mai Tais, hon?”

  “Oh yes. Love em.” Dan tried to recall when he had actually had one of the tropical drinks and drew a blank. He hurried to grab a seat on the couch, hugging himself to keep warm.

  Adam observed him with an impish grin. “Cold? Ill be right back.” Dan expected Adam to go into the kitchen to get their cocktails (Mai Tais at noon?), but Adam headed down a hallway. Dan could hear drawers being opened and shut.

  Adam returned and flung a pair of sweatpants and a longsleeved T-shirt at Dan. “Put some clothes on, sugar. As fine as all that tan flesh is to look at, it pains me to see you so chilly. Why, I can even see youve got your headlights on!” Adam giggled and Dan looked down at his chest, where Adams gaze was directed. His nipples poked through the thin cotton fabric of his tank like two pencil erasers. He hurried to put the sweats and T-shirt on over his clothes. “Whose are these?” he wondered.

  “My boyfriends. You and he are about the same size.”

  Adam disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a tray upon which were two tall glasses, each garnished with a Maraschino cherry, pineapple wedge, and a lime peel. Adam paused before Dan. “I know. I know. Its kind of early for cocktails, but when time is short, you reprioritize. And I think the time is always right for a Mai Tai. Dont you?”

  Dan was surprised at Adams casual mention of time bein
g short, but snagged a drink from the tray and sipped. “This is delicious.”

  Adam set the tray down on the coffee table, picked up his own cocktail, and sat in the chair opposite Dan. “Oh, I make a mean Mai Tai, along with a whole bar full of other drinks. Its one of my many charms.” Adam sipped, his blue-eyed gaze meeting Dans over the top of his glass. “So what prompted you to do the Sister of Mercy thing and keep me company in my death throes?”

  Dan nearly choked. But Adam smiled serenely at him, and there was something, at that moment, Dan noticed about the man across from him. In spite of the drag, the bravado, the sense of poise, Dan could see that Adam was scared. Instinctively, he picked up on the fact that all of Adams mannerisms and his outrageousness was a carefully orchestrated screen to hide his terror.

  No, Dan wasnt psychic. He simply knew people… and maybe thats what drew him to do the “Sister of Mercy” thing. “Ah, good question,” Dan replied, relaxing a bit, feeling the alcohol (he wasnt much of a drinker) and warmth from his new ensemble. He leaned back into the cushions and spread his legs out. “I thought it would be a good way to meet dying folks.”

  Adams carefully tweezed eyebrows went up.

  “You know, get in their good graces, so I could get in the will. Easy money, my new friend, easy money.”

  Silence hung in the room for a moment and Dan feared hed gone too far. Then Adam guffawed—no, he exploded with laughter. He pointed at Dan. “I suspect you and I are going to get along just fine.”

  The two men began to talk and the afternoon light rose and fell as they shared who they were with each other. They each described in-common memories of Chicago, wondering if they knew the same people. They had both hung out at Sidetracks and Roscoes (Adam also admitted he had been a regular at the Unicorn, the Halsted Street bathhouse, and Dan held back his own such admission, although he could have easily described the layout of both the first and second floor). During the course of their conversation, Adam forced three more Mai Tais on Dan, made him laugh more than once, and Adam finally let down his guard enough to tell Dan about contracting AIDS and what it had meant to him. “I remember when I first got a clue. There was a little bruisy-looking thing on my ankle, so tiny.” He reached down and touched his ankle. “I thought it was a blood blister. I had gone hiking the weekend before at Starved Rock. Turns out it was my first KS spot.” Adams gaze had gone faraway as he remembered, and Dan wondered if he was sad. But Adam laughed. “Hey, it really came as no surprise.” He shook his head. “Me and my tomcat ways. As my Mama used to tell us, „Those who stick their hands in the fire must expect to get burned.”