“Not how it works, is it?” David smiled.

“Oh Lord, no!” said Iris’s dad, a genial guy in an oxford shirt.

“Nowadays … ”

“Good food!” her mother said. “David, how’s your food?”

He nodded with his mouth full. “David picked this place,” remarked Iris. “Good job, babe.”

“Can you pick our breakfast for us, too?” her mother teased.

“Oh!” said the genial dad. “Because we made the wrong choice this morning, didn’t we?”

“That restaurant was awful. I thought I’d puke.”

“Where’d you—”

“I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” said Iris’s mother. “David, where are we going after this? Cocktails?”

A life opened up like a sky in front of David that evening on the Pambiche patio. He saw a future of himself with long, flowing hair, his skin wraithlike and light to the touch, going to dinner with Iris and her parents in different cities. He and Iris could visit them in Boston, and they could visit wherever she got a university job while David taught high school, and they could do this for the rest of their lives. It wasn’t hyperbole, David knew, to think this way. It was so possible.

Later, after cocktails, when he and Iris were at the bus stop, he was bent over himself in his suit jacket and khakis. “I need to get out of these clothes,” he said nervously.

“But you look so handsome,” said Iris.

That morning, Iris’d told him to dress nice, and he’d said, “Like a suit? I don’t like wearing suits.”

“Well, it’s my parents.”

“It’s okay. I don’t care about doing a show for them.”

“Well, I do.” So he’d put this on, and she’d kissed him and said, “You look hot.”

After David had come out to Iris, he’d thought (naively, in retrospect) that the hard part was over. That she would understand, for example, that though he could deal with wearing clothes like suit jackets, that did not mean he was eager to do so. She knew he had gender issues. Couldn’t Iris understand that? Why couldn’t Iris understand that?!

Then it hit him the next day as he brooded on this: Just like a fucking dude. Sure, everyone should just naaaaaaturally understand you. Dumbass.

It became a rock rattling around in his head, a rock he was determined to shake out. Because (checkmate, David) he could’ve just said plainly, “Thank you, sweetie, and I know you’re being nice, but I don’t like being called handsome.” He could’ve said, “I can compromise: I won’t wear a dress, but I can’t wear a suit.” But he didn’t say either of those things.

Next time, then. He really did love her. The next morning, David woke at Iris’s house and she had already left. He stayed in bed feeling his skin on her sheets for a long time. Alone in her clean, airy room, stretched out under her heavy blankets, the sound of a lawn mower outside. And there, still, was the life awaiting him on the patio below the bay window.