know. But you’ll probably never see him, so don’t worry about it.”
“What if he’s in costume and I don’t recognize him, and I accidentally pick him up?”
“I see you’ve got your creative imagination back up and running. And speaking of that, we’ve only got two weeks to come up with some stunning costumes! An event like this is see and be seen, and we have to be seen at our best. I want to be ravishing!”
“Do you want the front end of the horse or the back end?”
David’s imagination was flowing now. “I see us going as French aristocracy. Or pirates.”
“Nothing with too much makeup. It makes me break out.”
“Well, you’re a sorry excuse for a faggot!” he shot back.
“Ain’t I, though?”
David stopped so abruptly I walked into him. When I looked up, I saw why he’d stopped. There, directly across the street but not seeing us, were Ted and a twink I presumed to be Nicholas.
Strangely, despite the fact that I was obsessed with Ted and had been for several years, it was Nicholas I noticed first. But then again, he was hard to miss. He was very young, very cute, very thin, and very, very bleached. His hair, stripped of almost all of its natural color, looked almost white.
“Um…” David fumbled for something to say, coming up with, “Let’s go the other way, Andrew.”
“No, I’m fine,” I said, and was a bit surprised that I almost meant it. “Small city, huh?”
“Far too small.”
Seeing Ted after all these weeks didn’t have the jarring effect I feared it would. Seeing Ted with Nicholas didn’t even pierce my heart. But I did realize I was transfixed; I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
“Was Ted that animated when he was around me?” I asked David.
“Nothing animates a man like coming home to a twenty-three-year-old body,” was his wistful reply.
We watched them window-shop, talk, and laugh for several minutes from across the street. They didn’t move far; we didn’t move at all. And then Ted turned and spotted us.
“Uh-oh,” said David. “Our cover’s been blown.”
Playing it casually, I waved and called out, “Hi, Ted.” He—no, they—waved back. Then, horror of horrors, they started to cross the street toward us. I froze a smile on my face and David let out a long moan under his breath.
And then they were in front of us, within easy striking—or strangling—distance.
“How have you been, Andrew?” Ted asked. I said I was okay, which was more or less true, but nevertheless was the only thing to say. One never admits to one’s ex-lover that one’s been devastated.
“Hi,” said Nicholas. “I’m Nicky.”
No, you’re not. You are and will always be Nicholas.
But I said nothing, of course. Instead, I bit my lip and gamely shook his hand, as did David.
“So, what’s going on?” asked Ted. He was clearly uncomfortable, his fidgeting hands jammed deep in the pockets of his baggy khakis.
“Nothing,” I replied sadly.
“Oh, come on!” said David, bursting in between us and grabbing Ted by the elbow. “Guess what we’ve got?”
“What?”
Again, the black and pink squares emerged from David’s pocket. “Only the hottest passes in New York!”
“Oh, my God!” gasped Nicholas. “I’ve seen those. Aren’t those passes to the Halloween party at Benedict’s?”
“Benedick’s,” mumbled David. “One and the same.”
“Let me see them, dude,” said Nicholas.
David gingerly handed the passes to Nicholas, who treated them as if they were holy relics.
“What’s Benedict’s?” asked Ted, and I was very happy to be farther ahead of the curve than him on the news of the newest, hottest club in town.
“Benedick’s,” I said, and was greeted with an approving wink from David. “It’s a new club, opening on Halloween.” I said this as if I’d known about it forever. “Those passes are for a very exclusive grand opening party.”
“It’ll redefine the meaning of the word exclusive,” added David.
“We’ll give you five hundred bucks for them,” said Nicholas.
“What?” shouted Ted. “You don’t have that kind of money!”
“I’ll pay you back,” said Nicholas without shame.
“It doesn’t matter,” said David. “They’re not for sale. And I don’t think the people at Benedick’s would ever forgive me if I started trading their passes on the black market.”
“A thousand dollars, dude!” offered Nicholas, in the true spirit of a person who can’t handle or doesn’t understand money and the relative value of club passes.
“Nicky!” snapped Ted. “Stop trying to spend my money like that!”
David took the passes out of the young boy’s hand and slipped them back into his pocket. “Sorry, but it’ll be open to the public the following night.” Then, after glancing at his watch, he added, “I didn’t realize how late it was. We’ve got to get going, Andrew!”
We said our good-byes and left them standing curbside, Ted staring at Nicholas and Nicholas staring at the pocket where David had stashed the passes.
When we turned the corner, David said, “And that’s how you handle the ex-lover and his new boyfriend.”
“I’ll give you a billion dollars for those passes, dude!!” I screamed, and we dissolved into hysterical laughter as we slumped onto someone’s front stoop. “A zillion!! Please! C’mon, dude!! Please!”
“He certainly picked himself a young man of substance. And that hair! What an interesting shade!”
At dinner, David planned our costumes for Halloween. I tried to contribute but spent most of my time trying to think of a way to drown Nicholas in the Hudson River without anybody knowing I did it. Finally, I decided that it was impossible. That’s the problem with premeditated murder; the person who did it can’t help but become a suspect.
David watched me over the rim of his wineglass. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Why do you keep dropping cauliflower in your gravy and holding it under with your fork? Are you afraid that, if it floats back to the surface, it’ll scream for help?”
Oh. I was doing that, wasn’t I? I was committing the premeditated murder of cauliflower. And unless I killed the witnesses—David and Randy, “our server for the evening”—I’d become the prime suspect. Since I didn’t have enough gravy to kill them both, I speared the cauliflower and rescued it.
David nodded approvingly at my rescue effort. “So, what do you think about the costumes? Drag?”
“I don’t do drag. I’ve managed to live in this city for almost eighteen years as an openly gay man without ever dressing in women’s clothing, and I’m not about to start now.”
“But your features are so fine. I think you’d be devastating.”
“No.”
“I’ve never seen you undressed. Are you hairy?”
“No. But it doesn’t matter because—”
“In that case, you