Free The Passionate Attention of an Interesting Man by Ethan Mordden

in his arms and hold him until he felt ashamed by the might of such disappointed trust.
     
     
    Winter blew in, as usual, from the Arctic and Canada, and Lloyd knew he ought to buy a heavy coat. He was short of funds, however, even now that Tom had lowered his rent to one dollar a month. Fearful of slipping into plastic debt, Lloyd tried to pretend that going around in his Ralph Lauren September-light Polo jacket was dashing.
    Tom commented on it one Saturday morning over coffee, and Lloyd evaded the subject by asking what Tom was giving Lucy for her birthday.
    “A meatball shaper,” said Tom.
    “What?”
    “So she can make meatballs with your spaghetti recipe. And now, suddenly, the kids like it, too, though they get more spaghetti on their—”
    “Tom, you cannot give your girl a meatball shaper for her birthday.”
    “Why the hell not?”
    “Girls like emotional presents . Give her the shaper, sure. But on her birthday, you’ve got to address her heart.”
    Tom grinned. “Okay, professor. For instance?”
    “Have you got a photograph? A nice one?”
    “Got a tasty shot of old Jake in his running shorts,” Tom replied, turning the newspaper over. “What a build on a guy, huh?”
    “I meant of you and Lucy.”
    Tom sat there for a bit, then laughed outright. “Boy, you are easy,” he said.
    “Oh. I get it. Another of your crazy jokes. And I fell for it, so—”
    “Yeah, but that’s her present? A snapshot?”
    “In a beautiful frame accompanied by poetry.”
    “Roses are red,” Tom began, “violets—”
    “No, Tom. You quote from, like, Byron or Keats. ‘She walks in beauty like the night.’”
    “Do what?”
    Then Lloyd had an inspiration. “Why don’t you fix her a frame? You must have all the makings in the tool bay. And we can pick up some poetry online.”
    Tom always did like making things in his father’s old workshop, so the two of them pulled a photograph from Tom’s souvenir box and took it into the garage, where Tom gathered materials like a high-school genius generating a science project. Metal. Glass. Cutting tools. “You like it plain or peanut?” Tom asked.
    “Which means?”
    “I can frame it in plain. Steady. Cool. You see this here? A sample.” Tom showed Lloyd. “Or the gold. Fake but shiny.”
    “The genuine. Shiny stuff makes a great first impression, but it doesn’t last.”
    Tom began then: measuring with a T-square, locking his subject in the vise, judging the cut.
    “Gosh, Tom, you really know how this stuff goes.”
    Working away in his Irish fisherman’s sweater, Tom said, “It’s cold out here. Where’s your sweater on?”
    “Oh, I just…”
    “You can wear one of mine.”
    “I have sweaters, Tom.”
    Tom put down the jigsaw and turned to Lloyd. “Go inside,” he said, “and come back wearing one. Go along, now. You don’t want me getting righteous on you.”
    When Lloyd came back, in a navy-blue V-neck, Tom was soldering the frame bottom to one of the sides.
    “Lucy will love this, Tom. It’s an honest-to-gosh love present.”
    “‘To gosh’?” Tom echoed.
    Lloyd shrugged. “Leftover orphanage stuff.”
    Watching Tom securing the glass and photo inside the now finished frame, Lloyd said, “With that expertise, I’m amazed you never did raise up your own model railroad.”
    Tom said nothing, so Lloyd went on. “We keep talking about doing it, but each time…because you…Still. We could just do it. Just start in and build a table in…” Careful, Lloyd. “In your dad’s room. Now that the…door is open to it. You said so yourself.”
    For two minutes after that, Tom buffed the frame before saying, “What gauge would it be?”
    “Absolutely HO.”
    “I’m almost done here. You…you want to go looking at the trains in The Hardware next?”
    “I would love that, Tom. I would love to look at the trains with you.”
    Now Tom handed the framed photograph to Lloyd for inspection: Tom and Lucy happy at some street festival, his