Remembering Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

starts rehearsals for a revival of Gypsy in a couple of weeks. He’s playing Herbie. You’ll like him.”
    James’s summer housemates were in the midst of auditioning for a one-night stand or maybe even something a bit more enduring, like an invitation to attend the opening night of Gypsy with the leading man. Felix, scowling by the fireplace, had obviously failed his tryout. Thomas, Philip, and Edward were still in the running, surrounding Archie Duncan in a half circle, laughing too loudly at every amusing syllable that tripped off his tongue.
    â€œI’m not really in the mood for this,” James announced to Alex and, instead, drifted over to pay his respects to Leo who was standing alone, admiring the tree.
    James, the only one of the housemates with a legitimate reason to hate his host, was, in fact, the only one who genuinely liked him. His fellow refugees from unhappy adolescences in the Deep South or the Midwest openly sneered at the gritty native’s slush-pile Queens accent and his roughshod table etiquette. Graduates of elite institutions of higher learning—the Yale School of Architecture, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the Rhode Island School of Design—they had come to New York with their polished pedigrees, claiming the city as their birthright, reserving a subtle contempt for the sons and daughters of the natives who had built the metropolis with their sweat and blood, preparing Gotham for their arrival. Leo’s coarse manners, unremarkable in the son of a labor organizer and a kindergarten teacher, hadn’t deterred the Wharton School of Business from conferring a Masters of Business Administration on him or Goldman from offering him an entry-level position or the Lazard brethren from inviting him to join the fraternity after the financial press praised him as the reigning genius of derivatives. His former housemates, who had only voted Leo a share when one of the original number dropped out to take a job in Los Angeles, bitterly resented his galvanic rise in the larger world outside their isolated little bubble. Needing some excuse other than envy to justify their antipathy, they claimed to have never forgiven him for crimes against James, refusing to believe that James had actually been relieved when Alex moved into Leo’s bedroom in the Island house, never to return to the one he’d long shared with James, knowing Leo was far better equipped to handle Alex’s frequent mood swings and perpetual philandering. The longevity and happiness of their partnership was the proof in the pudding.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, buddy? You look like you’ve lost your best friend,” Leo asked.
    â€œOh, please, don’t you start too.”
    â€œI won’t. I promise you. Now you better get on over there and get in on the action before one of those ugly bitches spoils Alex’s carefully laid plans for you.”
    â€œI don’t think I’m interested,” James protested.
    Archie Duncan (né Dombroski) was handsome enough in that bland, television leading man sort of way, like George Clooney, with that same studied, unthreatening, puckish twinkle.
    â€œI agree,” Leo conceded. “I don’t know what all the fuss is about. He laid there like a dead fish when Alex and I had him after the Broadway Cares Christmas benefit last week.”
    â€œYou probably said the same thing about me.”
    â€œDon’t be rewriting history, baby. I was invited into your bed if I remember correctly. I don’t think you were ever attracted to me at all.”
    â€œMore than you ever knew, Leo. More than you ever knew.”
    â€œI expect you’ll find yourself seated next to him at dinner, like it or not.”
    As if on cue, Armando entered the front room and, with great flourish and intonations worthy of the Great Bernhardt, announced that dinner was served.
    Archie Duncan proved to be a far more charming dinner companion than his