it was. And I really enjoyed it. I can’t wait to read the mall book.”
I waved a dismissive hand. “Even I don’t think The Brewster Mall is poignant. It’s just fun.” Which reminded me. “Of course, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be displayed in Hanover’s window.”
He didn’t seem to mind that I lunged right into business.
“I think it can be arranged.” His smile flickered for just an instant, as if he was trying to remember all the strings that come attached to promises. Then, out of the blue, he asked, “Did you always know you were gay? Like Grant in the book?”
“Did you always know you were straight?” I replied, too glibly and maybe too defensively. He just looked at me blankly, the smile fading away, so I continued. “Yeah, I did. As soon as I graduated from high school, I couldn’t wait to get out of Allentown and come to New York. This was a wild town then.”
“I thought it still was.”
“Not like then,” I said, digging back in my memory to my early days in Manhattan. “At least, not for me. Maybe it’s just that I’m getting older. But I think AIDS has changed things a lot. I moved to New York before anyone knew any better, and…well…things have changed.”
His brow creased and he awkwardly asked, “Are you…um…okay?”
“Yeah. But just because I was lucky, not because I was a Boy Scout.”
“Did you know a lot of people—?”
I interrupted him tersely. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
“Sorry.” He returned his eyes to the Hockney print.
And I gave myself another lecture. Oh, good. This poor, confused, beautiful guy walks into my life, and even if he is straight, he wants to be friends and he may be able to help me sell a few more books. And just because he asks a few obvious questions to help educate himself about gay people in general and me as an individual, I cut him off. Open up to him, dammit!
“A lot,” I said quietly, this time obeying the lesson of my lecture.
“Huh?”
“I’ve lost a lot of friends.”
He looked at me, and then at the floor, mumbling an apology for asking in the first place.
“Don’t apologize. It’s just that it can be difficult to talk about.”
“I know that feeling,” he said, still staring at the floor. “Not about AIDS…but about other things.”
“Like?”
“Things.” He finally lifted up his head and looked me in the eye. I thought he was about to open up—maybe he did, too—but all he did was mutter “Things” one more time.
We sat there, looking at each other across six of the eleven feet of my living room, not speaking for the longest time, studying each other.
He broke the spell with a laugh and shook his head. “I must be fuckin’ crazy.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, holding back from joining in his laughter.
“I’m—You’re…Ah, geez…We’re not—I mean…It’s just—crazy!”
I allowed myself a small smile. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
He stood and stretched his well-proportioned frame, still laughing and shaking his head, and set his barely touched beer bottle on the coffee table.
“I gotta get home. I’m sorry I kept you up so late.”
“No problem,” I said, playing along. “I’m glad you came over. And thanks for your help with Hanover’s.”
“I liked your book. I wouldn’t have offered to do it if I didn’t.”
I walked him to the front door and was just starting to turn the knob when he stopped me by putting his hand over mine.
“I want to be friends,” he said softly, his face very close to mine. “I really like you. Uh…as a guy.”
“Friends,” I agreed. “And I promise I’ll stay a guy.”
His eyes never left mine, but his hand, still over mine, started to turn the doorknob. When we heard the click of the latch, he released it and shook his head again. “I must be crazy…”
“What?”
The Frank smile returned, this time just six inches from me. And then, although the smile began to slip away, his face was five inches from mine. Four inches…three inches…two…
Oh, God.
Ohhhhh…
And the amazing thing—the thing that once again kept me up most of the night playing the scene over and over again in my head—is that Frank was the one who took the initiative and kissed me.
And that Frank kissed me on the lips.
And that Frank let the kiss linger.
And that Frank slipped me his tongue.
“Don’t tell me. I distinctly do not want to know.” That was how David Carlyle greeted me as I dragged my ragged body into the offices of PMC the next morning, a half-hour late for work despite the fact that I’d barely slept since 1:00 A.M.
Four or five hours of sleep over the previous two nights had left me a mental and physical wreck. Deep, dark semicircles were etched under my bloodshot eyes, my skin was ashen, my back ached, my posture sagged from exhaustion, and my brain activity faded in and out like bad television reception.
And despite David’s protest to the contrary, he did want to know, which is why he followed me as I hauled my broken body through the office to my cubicle. He waited until I slumped in my chair before he spoke again.
“I think you were better off when you were heartbroken and miserable. Please tell me that you’ve just been very sick, and that this Frank fellow hasn’t been the cause of all this.”
I leaned back in my chair and focused my tired eyes on David. “I know that you’ve got a problem with him, but…”
“Oh!” he exclaimed as his suspicions were confirmed, throwing his arms wildly like a two-year-old in mid-tantrum and attracting the attention of at least half the people in the office. “You’re just too much, you know that? Just because Ted left you doesn’t mean you have to—Good Lord, Andrew! Have you lost your mind?”
“He’s not anything like you think he is,” I said, feebly trying to defend Frank even though I wasn’t quite sure what he was really like. “He’s just a nice guy.”
Exasperated, David sputtered and threw his arms around some more, unable to verbalize his disgust with me, Frank, and the whole situation. Finally, he calmed down enough to say, “You have a bright future as a writer, Andrew. I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical at first, but I’m warming up to the reality of your talents. Good things are starting to happen to The Brewster Mall and, if we can keep things rolling, maybe your next book will be your breakout novel. But I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble if you’re going to throw everything away on some low-life nightclub owner who’s just screwing around with your head! I might as well just go back to my office right this minute and call Hanover’s and tell them not to waste their precious window space on you!”
With that, David stormed away from my cubicle. It took a few seconds for his individual words to filter down into my brain and reform themselves into sentences, but when they did, a second wind whipped through my body.
“Hanover’s?” I gasped to myself, before I leapt out of my chair and chased through the office after David. “Did you say Hanover’s?”
He was almost to the elevators. Calmly, he turned and nodded. “They called this morning. Apparently, someone over