greets me. I smile and shake her hand, thanking her for watching the station. Ray rolls his eyes. This rarely happens to him, but I guess he’s used to it happening to me. It’s those bus ads and billboards, I tell you.
We pass a cashier standing in front of a wall of books and magazine racks. We make our way deeper into the store. In the back, a small group of chairs form a circle and we see about ten men sitting there. This must be it. Ray and I sit down side by side, and we make ourselves comfortable as some classical music softly plays in the background. This is quite cozy. I’ve been to Books & Books on Lincoln Road, but guys use the books there for towel weights for the beach. It’s also a stopping ground when guys get to Score too early. They come in to mosey around the store and pretend to eye some good book or magazine when they’re really eyeballing each other. I know this because I’ve done this myself. But I do pick up the Wall Street Journal there sometimes and Newsweek. I’m more of a newsmagazine guy.
The Gables Books & Books is much larger, with a courtyard in the middle. It’s really quiet in here. It reminds me of the kind of place that makes you want to sit on the floor, hide in a corner, and read a good book, like I did back at the Sandwich Public Library on the Cape when I was younger.
“They have some coffee. Want some?” Ray offers, getting up from his seat.
“Sure, low-fat milk. I’m trying to watch my figure, Ray.” He rolls his eyes again at me. With his glares, Ray should be called Captain Obvious or Sarcastic Martinez.
I’m sitting here in a half-moon group of chairs, and the ten other guys are waiting for the book club organizer to arrive. Some of the guys start introducing themselves. I hear a Todd, Omar, Tom, Bill, Jose and Mark among the exchange of greetings. Not the handsomest bunch with their beer bellies, big noses, receding hairlines and unkempt hair. Most of the guys here appear to be in their thirties and forties. This could easily be a meeting for the Unlucky In Looks club, but I shouldn’t talk.
“Hi, I’m Ted Williams. Nice to meet you all. This is my first time at a book club meeting.”
“Hi, Ted!” the group greets me back, as if I were in an AA meeting or something, not that I’ve ever been to one.
Ray returns back with two small coffees from the little café inside the bookstore and hands me my drink.
“This is Ray everyone!” I say.
“Hi, Ray!” the group responds. Ray nods, smiles, and sips his coffee as if embarrassed by all the attention. The guys all smile at him.
I see a tall handsome man, in his forties I suspect, approach the group from the backroom of the store. He sits in one of the chairs with some books in his hands. I’m smitten. This man has salt and pepper cropped hair, icy-blue eyes, thick charcoal eyebrows, and a chiseled jaw. He’s got some crow’s-feet around his eyes, but it works for him. I notice his biceps framed by the snug navy blue Polo blue shirt and beige khaki shorts. (We match!) He’s about to speak. I elbow Ray in his side so he can check out the guy.
Ray widens his crystal blue eyes to give me another one of those will-you-stop-it looks. This reminds me of our time at UM where I wrote him silly notes during our Law and Ethics or Feature Writing classes.
“Hello everybody! I’m so glad you all could make it to our inaugural Books & Books Gay Book Club gathering. We’ve wanted to do this for a long time. My name is Richard, and I’m a manager here at the store. Let’s all introduce ourselves.”
We already did that but we do so again because it’s what Richard asks, and if he asked me to, I’d give him my car. He’s that hot! He reminds me of some of the older Irish guys in Boston with their blue-collar street hunky appeal.
We all introduce ourselves, and as I say my name, Richard’s eyes lock on me for one…two…three seconds. He’s interested. I knew it! I may have an exclusive here, people.
Richard continues with the formalities.
“Since this is our first meeting, I wanted to bring some new and old gay literary books that we could decide to read. The idea is to pick two books out of the batch and then we’ll meet up in a month and dissect them. Forgive me if you have read any of these. I tried to choose a wide range of gay novels,” he says handing out a list of ten books for us to choose from.
He holds up each book and talks a little about them. There’s the Anderson Cooper memoir Dispatches from the Edge. I notice some guys make some smirks and tsssks. One guy makes a gagging vomiting sound in the corner. Luckily, I’m blessed to work for a station that embraces and encourages me being open in public, but then again, I’m not an anchor. Just a reporter and a co-host of Deco Time. I wonder how they would feel if I was the main anchor?
Richard holds up a fairly new book called Boys of Boston by Tommy Perez, a former News writer now at the Boston Daily. I knew him peripherally, and I’ve heard through the gay media grapevine that he’s a good guy, but I’ve never officially met him. He worked in Fort Lauderdale. My stories are mostly in Miami.
“This one’s a debut novel, about dating in Boston and told through the viewpoints of three different guys. Like a Same Sex in the City. A fun read that explores various issues among today’s gay men,” Richard says enthusiastically.
That sounds like a good book. I’m sure Ray and I could relate. Me because it’s in Boston, and Ray, because he’s Cuban-American, like the author who worked at his paper. Richard continues to rattle off the other books. There’s Where The Boys Are by William J. Mann, an author in Ptown not far from where I grew up on the Cape.
“This is about three guys finding their place in each other’s lives amid the drug circuit party crowd,” Richard explains. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of these books. I don’t have time to read but if I want to keep seeing Richard, I’m going to have to squeeze in some reading rainbow time.
Richard goes on to name the other books, Mysterious Skin by Scott Heim. Ray looks at me and whispers to me that he saw the movie and gave it three stars but wouldn’t mind reading the book to compare the differences.
Richard mentions two other books that don’t seem to stir any interest.
“I vote for Boys of Boston,” announces a stocky guy with a shaved head and brown doe-eyes. He reminds of Charlie Brown, the cartoon character, all grown up. Omar, the Dominican guy with the crew cut and the reading glasses who gagged on the Anderson Cooper book, chimes in, too.
“Yeah, those seem like two different books. Let’s give them a try,” he says.
Richard seems encouraged by the interest among the guys. He leans and holds up the nominated novels.
Just as he does this, I hear Sadeness by Enigma playing in the background. You know the song. It came out in 1991 with the French woman breathing and speaking French to an addictive flute hook. I remember everyone buying the CD to have sex or at least a massage to it because it’s very sensual. I zone out Richard for a second and pick up the song in my head. I see Ray just noticed the song as well. We look at each other with a smirk on our faces and we read each other’s minds. We start to sing some of the French lyrics outloud.
We forget about the book club and start giggling, and some of the other guys give us nasty looks. That’s probably the most French we’ll ever know.
“Um, excuse me fellas. This isn’t a karaoke bar. It’s a book club. Can we get back to the book list?” Richard says, gesturing with his hand for us to join him back to reality.
“Sorry, Richard. Ray and I used to always make fun of that song in college,” I say.
“We couldn’t resist,” Ray says.
“So what’s it going to be?” Richard asks.
Ray and I are elbowing each other to speak up and to stop laughing from our Enigma or un-enigmatic performance. We’re like the male versions of Laverne and Shirley.
“I think those two books would be a great start for this book club, right Ray?” I turn to Ray who catches my drift as I point to