“And will you ever get to see the kid?”

  “She included something about that, too.”

  “I don’t believe this,” I said.

  I didn’t know if I was more upset that Donovan was going to be a dad, or that Elizabeth hadn’t picked me to father her child. But it was absurd for both of them to be doing this at such a young age. The whole thing made me sick.

  “She’s been calling me,” he said. “She wants me to stop talking to you, but I told her that was ridiculous. You’re one of my best friends. Besides, you brought us together. She should be grateful.”

  “I’m not sure that was a good thing,” I said.

  “Look on the bright side,” Donovan said, raising his glass. “Maybe he’ll be gay like us.”

  The next morning, Cameron beckoned to me from his office. “There he is!” he said as I came in. “There’s the man! Come into my office. We need to talk.”

  In the past few weeks, those words—“We need to talk”—had never meant anything good, so I was suspicious.

  “I got a call from a friend last night,” he said. “You’ve probably heard, but your script is very hot.”

  “Who told you that?” I said. How did word travel so fast about these things?

  “It doesn’t matter. I’d love to see a copy of it.”

  “I gave you a copy when I first started working here.”

  “I think I lost it. Can you make me another copy?”

  I stood there for a moment, looking out his window at his view of the Hudson. I glanced around his office, at the pictures I had hung, the filing cabinets I had organized, the piles I had sorted through.

  I realized that for the first time, Cameron needed me more than I needed him.

  “I could make you a copy,” I said. “But I’m not going to, because I’m quitting.”

  He sat there dumbfounded, as if I had thrown hot coffee across his desk or told him he was ugly. Cameron wasn’t used to people saying no to him.

  I turned around and walked out of his office for the last time.

  I called Sonia and asked her to meet me for a drink. We chose Fez, because it was close to both our apartments.

  We ordered drinks, and I told her what had happened.

  “I can’t believe you quit!” she said, sipping her martini. “That takes a lot of balls. I’m proud of you.”

  “I’m completely screwed now. I’m unemployed; I won’t be able to get a recommendation from Cameron—”

  “I’ve got an idea,” she said. “Just leave everything to me.”

  It was 7 P.M. and I was already on my second vodka cranberry. In the dark Casbah-themed lounge, it could have been midnight.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” I said.

  After paying the check, Sonia and I stumbled out into the warm light of Lafayette Street. It wouldn’t get dark for another hour or so, but all I wanted was to go home and sleep.

  For my birthday dinner the next evening, Donovan had picked Lucky Strike, the French bistro on Grand Street that was a perennial favorite with the Eurotrash crowd. He made a fashionably late nine-thirty reservation for our group of twenty.

  I was supposed to meet him at his apartment in the West Village beforehand. Jamie, David, and Alejandro were already there when I arrived.

  “We have something for you,” Donovan said, after giving me a hug.

  The two of them handed me a box from Gucci, and I opened it.

  It was a baby blue short-sleeved shirt in my size.

  “Wear it tonight,” Donovan said. “You’ll look hot.”

  “We thought it might cheer you up,” Jamie said.

  “You guys bought this at Gucci?” I said, amazed.

  “No,” Alejandro said. “I made it.”

  “Turn it around,” David said.

  I looked at the back. My name was spelled out in cursive script, studded with Swarovski crystals.

  “It’s perfect,” I said. It was like a bowling shirt designed by a Studio 54-bound club kid, but I loved it.

  I changed into it—it hugged my torso perfectly—and I had to admit I looked good.

  The five of us took two cabs to the restaurant. Soon everyone else started to arrive, including Brett, Sonia, and several other friends from high school and college I hadn’t seen in ages. The boys had also invited a number of cute guys I didn’t know as well to round out the group. The male to female ratio was about four to one, and all the males except two were gay, but the girls didn’t seem to mind. I realized how this had become my world in the past eight months. As far as my social life went, straight people had been rendered a silent minority.

  I looked around at the group gathering: Sonia, the writer-turned-flack; Jamie, who was potentially positive; Donovan, who was about to be a father; David and Alejandro, whose relationship had become physically dangerous; Brett, whose consumption of protein shakes and designer supplements bordered on an eating disorder. These are my friends, I thought.

  Twenty-three suddenly seemed very old to me. I was no longer close to twenty-one, which felt like the cusp of adulthood, and I wasn’t twenty-two, which meant I could no longer pose as a college student, or even as someone who had recently graduated. Twenty-three meant my life had started, and I was already in the thick of it. I had been living in New York for more than six months, and I had no boyfriend, was recently unemployed, would have to testify at a criminal trial, and hadn’t sold my screenplay. Weren’t Matt and Ben twenty-three when they sold Good Will Hunting?

  I wondered if birthdays would be like this from now on. I wondered if they would always remind me time was slipping away. I was beginning to understand why some people avoided them altogether. Looking at my friends, I realized I was in danger of turning into a jaded queen before I had fully experienced my gay adolescence. I was determined not to become old before my time.

  A few other people straggled in and we all sat down. As we were looking at our menus, one more guest arrived and took the last empty seat. He was wearing a white Lacoste polo and khakis; he looked like he had just come from a game of tennis or a sailing meet.

  “Who’s that?” I asked Donovan.

  “Who?” he said.

  “That guy sitting over there, next to Alejandro.”

  “Andrew? You don’t recognize him?”

  “Oh, my—” I slapped my hand over my mouth.

  It was Subway Boy. He had cut his beautiful long hair, but it was still undoubtedly him.

  “How did you find him?” I whispered to Donovan.

  “Brett finally located him through a friend.”

  “Did he go to NYU?”

  “I think he went to Brown.” Donovan went back to looking at his menu.

  I was so excited that I kept tapping my foot frantically under the table.

  “Just relax,” Donovan said. “Relax and enjoy what’s to come.”

  A perverse thought hit me: Subway Boy is a hustler and the boys paid him to show up.

  “How did you convince him to come?” I asked Donovan.

  “He wanted to. He’s excited to meet you.”

  Excited to meet me? That possibility had never crossed my mind.

  I tried to stay relaxed during the meal. I was trapped between the table and the wall, so it wasn’t easy for me to circulate among my guests. When the time came between courses to slip out, I made my way over to where Andrew was sitting.

  “I’m Toby,” I said to him.

  “I figured that.” He smiled, revealing the slightest gap between his two front teeth. It was cute.

  We chatted for a bit. He had graduated from Brown almost two years ago, though we were the same age, and was now an assistant editor of science fiction and fantasy books at a well-known publishing house.

  I told him about my screenplay. I made it sound like there was a virtual bidding war going on.

  “Do you have a day job?”

  “I quit yesterday,” I said.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Write, I guess.” I must sound like an idiot, I thought.

  “You look really familiar. Did I see your picture in New York magazine this week?” he asked, referring to the photo from my recent night at B Bar.

  The main course was about to be served, so I mumbled something about being in the papers lately, and scurried back to my seat. It wasn’t the first time someone had pulled me aside in the past two weeks, though most of the time I told them they must be thinking of someone else. I had spent all this time in New York wanting to be acknowledged for who I was, and now I was being recognized as a person I didn’t want to be.

  My birthday cake arrived glowing with candles, and everyone sang. I felt like I was eight years old again. I closed my eyes to make a wish.

  I wish Andrew would be my boyfriend. And also for lots of fame and success. And to get out of the Gardner trial alive.

  I must have closed my eyes for an eternity, as everyone was looking at me expectantly when I finally blew out the candles.

  “He’s a good blower,” Donovan said, and I blushed.

  The cake was cut. Jamie ate three pieces, knowing he wouldn’t gain a pound, and Brett took a piece, ate one bite, and then covered the rest with salt so he wouldn’t eat any more.

  I ate a few bites, and then stopped.

  You don’t have to be good, a voice said to me.

  But I want to be good, I said.

  You don’t have to be, the voice said.

  I finished my cake. But I wanted to be good. I wanted to be good for Andrew’s sake, if not for my own. He was good, I could tell he was, sitting at the end of the table all in white.

  Splitting a check nineteen ways is never easy, but on the night of my party, it was accomplished with remarkable grace and efficiency. Before I knew it, we were out on the street smoking.

  Someone offered Andrew a cigarette.

  “I don’t smoke,” he said.

  I tried to hide my burning cigarette behind my back, taking furtive puffs when Andrew wasn’t looking.

  It was decided by group consensus that we should all go to Blow Pop, a bar in the East Village that featured a talent contest on Saturday night.

  I got in a cab with Andrew, Donovan, and Alejandro. It wasn’t until the cab started moving that I realized how loaded I was. Donovan had kept ordering me flavored martinis, which, though not a favorite drink of mine, I had been sucking down during dinner.

  The radio in the cab was tuned to an oldies station. The sounds of Petula Clark singing “Downtown” drifted towards the backseat:

  When you’re alone and life is making you lonely,

  You can always go Downtown.

  When you’ve got worries, all the noise and the hurry

  Seems to help, I know, Downtown.

  just listen to the music of the traffic in the city.

  Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty.

  How can you lose?

  The lights are much brighter there.

  You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares.

  So go Downtown.

  Things’ll be great when you’re Downtown.

  No finer place, for sure.

  Downtown: everything’s waiting for you.

  “I love this song,” Donovan said, but I barely heard him. For the first time since I had met him, it was as if he didn’t exist.

  “Have you been to Blow Pop before?” I asked Andrew, who was sitting on the other side of me.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t really go out much.”

  “I saw a picture of you in a bar rag,” Donovan said.

  I laughed, as if I hadn’t seen the photo.

  “Oh, that?” he said. “Honestly, that was one of the few times I’ve been out. That, and . . . what was it called? I went to this really crazy party right before Halloween.”

  “The Naked Halloween Party?” I offered.

  “Right,” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t naked or anything.”

  “I know,” I said.

  He looked at me askance.

  “I think I saw you there.” I smiled. “So you’re a homebody?”

  “No, I like going out,” he said. “Just not as much as you guys. I’m usually really tired when I get home from work. Sometimes I have to bring manuscripts home to read.”

  I pictured the two of us cuddled up in bed, me reading a screenplay, him reading the latest science fiction manuscript. And then I thought, Don’t jump to conclusions. Take things one step at a time.

  “Well, I’ve been to Blow Pop,” I said. I looked at him seductively. “But I’m always up for it again.”

  Actually, I was worried about whether he would like it. Since it had opened in January, Blow Pop hadn’t been known for the most savory of entertainments. Tonight’s talent contest was called Hustle; the acts vied for the play money given to each patron as he entered. The performer with the most play money at the end of the night won $200. As a general rule, the raunchier the act, the greater chance it had of winning. The club had seen everything, from male strippers straight from the boroughs who took everything off, to drag queens demonstrating their deep throat technique on a dildo, to eighteen-year-olds jerking off into the crowd. The club had been shut down several weeks ago after a drag queen lip-synching “It’s Raining Men” had concluded her act by lifting her skirt and spraying the crowd with a champagne enema. The thought of it made me cringe.

  I suddenly felt this was not an appropriate place to bring Andrew.

  “Why don’t we go somewhere else?” I suggested. “It’s always so sweaty and crowded in there.”

  “It’ll be fun,” Donovan said. “Besides, you know how hot the boys are.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard,” Andrew said, as I felt a pang of jealousy. “I’ve always wanted to see this place.”

  With any luck, I thought, the performance will be tame tonight.

  The cab driver overshot Blow Pop by a block. I grabbed Andrew’s hand and we ran down Avenue A together, leaving Donovan and Alejandro behind. Now that I had him alone, we were able to chatter on endlessly. I had the strange feeling I was asking him the same questions over and over again.

  We paid the five dollar cover and went in. Everything was painted black; the walls were decorated with cheap gilt mirrors surrounded by smatterings of glitter. It reeked of alcohol and men. I stumbled over to the bar, as I wanted to fortify myself further. Andrew stayed behind with Donovan.

  The performance started on a little platform in the back, and I saw that it was Lola performing her pussy-money trick.

  When I found Andrew, he was standing with Donovan and talking. They were laughing like old friends.

  I’ve blown it, I thought. He likes Donovan more than me.

  But then Donovan went off to talk to some other people, and the two of us were together again.

  I asked Andrew if he wanted to sit down. I thought it might steady me a bit. God, I was shit-canned. Why did I have to be this way on the night when I met him?

  “Donovan says you used to work with that, uh, person performing. ”

  “She was around the office,” I said. “But we never really hung out or anything.” I didn’t want Andrew to think I was friends with someone like Lola.

  We talked for a moment more, and then my tongue was in his mouth. The world around me didn’t matter anymore. People could be looking, all my friends could be watching, and I didn’t care. It was just the two of us.

  After what was probably only a minute, I pulled away to take a breath. I also wanted the room to stop spinning.

  He smiled. “I never do this.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “Well . . .”

  He punched me playfully. “I bet you do this all the time.”

  “No, really I don’t. At least not like this.” I paused. “You live in Manhattan, right?”

  “Riverdale,” he said.

  “Where?” It sounded like it might be in Westchester.

  “It’s in the Bronx,” he said. “About forty minutes away on Metro North, or an hour by subway.”

  The only thing I knew about the Bronx was that it was where you went when your car was impounded.

  “It’s a nice area. Very quiet. Lots of old Jewish couples.”

  “Do you want to go to my place?” I slurred into his ear. It didn’t seem like a sleazy question. It seemed natural, the next step.

  He looked panic-stricken. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “I think we should wait.”

  I will be grateful for this later, I thought to myself.

  We exchanged phone numbers and promised to call each other the next day. He left and I sat on the bench alone for a moment, stunned.

  Donovan and Brett joined me. “Where did Andrew go?”

  “He left,” I said.

  “Are you going to hang out with us and cruise?” Brett asked.

  “No,” I said, clutching Andrew’s card. “There’s no point.”

  14

  I woke up the next morning feeling like pigeons had picked at my brain. I glanced at my bedside table, where I had put Andrew’s business card. He had written his home phone number on the back. Was 11 A.M. too early to call?

  I decided to wait. I went back to sleep, woke up at one, and ran some errands. When I got back, there was a message on my machine.

  “Hi, uh, Toby, it’s Andrew, from last night? Happy birthday again. Was last night your real birthday? I can’t remember. Anyway, um, it would be good to see you again, like, soon.” He left his work, home, and cell numbers, even though I already had them. I loved that his message was awkward and fumbling.

  I called him back and we agreed to meet on Monday evening at a small Moroccan restaurant on Thirteenth Street.

  Brett called me that night. “Don’t sleep with Andrew on your first date,” he advised. “He’s pretty new to all this, so you don’t want to scare him off. And don’t drink too much. He drinks, but he’s not a drinker, if you know what I mean. You don’t want him to think you’re a—”

 

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