Page 22 of Like a Love Story
Of course he didn’t. I feel frozen.
“But if I didn’t,” he continues haltingly, “then we can only do this on one condition, which is we tell Judy. Because I can’t live lying to her.”
Hearing him say the word “live” reminds me of what he represents. What all men like him represent. Death. I can’t do this. I have to stop him before it goes any further.
“I am sorry,” I say, my heart breaking a little more with each word I utter. “I think you are mistaken.”
“Oh,” he says, clearly hurt. “Okay.”
We stand in silence for a moment. I wish I could disappear.
“I wasn’t gonna say anything,” he says, shaking his head. “I guess I thought... I mean, the other day in the record store... and then I held your hand on the subway.”
He wasn’t holding my hand. His finger touched mine, that’s all. Now I worry, and I search his finger for any sign of a hangnail. If his hangnail touched my hangnail, and he has AIDS, which he probably does, then I have AIDS, and I have destroyed my mother’s life.
“I think we should go,” I say. “Can we please go?”
“I’m so confused,” he says. “What’s up with the Madonna thing?”
“I have a crush on her,” I say. “It’s normal. My mother’s first crush was on a French actor.”
He nods. Then he looks at me with anger in his eyes. “Just wipe the wordnormalout of your vocabulary, okay?” he says. “I hate that word.”
“And I hate being here,” I say, becoming angry myself. “I was supposed to take a taxi with air-conditioning. I was supposed to not arrive sweaty, and not arrive with you.”
“I didn’t make you come with me, you know,” he says. “All you had to say was thanks, but no thanks.”
“I thought you were my friend,” I say.
“I am your friend,” he says unconvincingly. “I guess I was just stupid, or selfish.... I just thought we could be more.”
I want to touch him and tell him how I feel. I long to take his rose, put it in water, and tuck it into my copy ofThe Odysseywhen it dies, so it will be forever preserved. But I can’t, not without the fear.
“I wish you hadn’t said anything,” I say.
He looks at me for a long time, as if challenging me. Then he says, “Me too.” After a short silence, he adds, “I’m sorry. I guess I... I don’t know what got into me.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I say.
And then he says, “Don’t tell Judy about this, okay?”
“I thought you could not lie to her.”
“That was when I thought we might be a thing. But if we’re not a thing, then why would we tell her?” His voice shakes. “To humiliate me more?”
He walks in front of me. I don’t know what else to do but to follow behind him.
Art
What the fuck? No, honestly... WHAT THE FUCK? I know I read the signs right. MADONNA! The posters, the T-shirts. Then I second-guess myself. Maybe straight men can like Madonna. I do some quick math in my head.Like a Virginwas the first album by a woman to sell five million copies in the United States alone, and is close to ten million now. How many people live in this country anyway? Could all ten million people be queens and women? Maybe, or maybe not. And I know he was flirting with me. It couldn’t have been a coincidence he was outside the stock exchange. And he let me put my hand on his. Well, okay, it was just a finger, but I know he felt the electricity. He didn’t pull away like a straight dude would. But maybe men from other countries are different. Stephen told me once that in Cuba, men hold hands all the time. The irony of José’s life in Cuba was that all the straight men would hold hands with eachother, and the gay men were too afraid to. Maybe it’s a cultural thing.
He’s walking behind me. I thought he’d run away. But he’s still walking behind me. He’s so proper and polite. I’ve figured it out. He wasn’t flirting with me. He was just being POLITE!
I turn around just before we get to the apartment. “Why don’t we go in separately?” I say. “It’ll be less weird.”
“Oh, okay,” he says.
“Okay,” I say.
