He asked me how I got there, and I told him about being from California, being at Harvard, coming to New York for the holidays, but not the rest.

“A Harvard man,” he said. “I’m even luckier than I thought. I was sure you wouldn’t pick me.”

“Who should I have picked?”

“One of the younger guys.”

“I like older men,” I replied. “We should exchange numbers. We can meet up the next time I’m in town.”

“That’s sweet, but you’re just saying that ’cause you’re new. You’re hot and blond and you’re even smart. There are too many guys for you to sleep with instead of little old me.”

He refused to take my number, but I managed to get his and a name, Marvin, on a page in the back of my Filofax, before I put my clothes back on and returned to the street, now dark, wondering if I really could think of myself as hot. Maybe I was becoming more attractive as I acclimated to America and got buffer. But part of assuming the mantle of a smart and hot white man was the confidence that came with it, the feeling that I could conquer the world. My attitude needed to catch up.

9.

Even as the world began to affirm my body as a masculine gay man, this only made my mind flow further into the fantasy of being someone else. I found a partner in these flights of fancy, a boy named Jamie Park who was part of a musical singing group called the Noteables, which I briefly joined before I got too busy to make rehearsals. It turned out he loved Miss Saigon too and even owned recordings of the show in several languages, which he offered to let me listen to. He came up to my room with his CDs one Sunday afternoon in March.

Soft-spoken and pensive, Jamie confused me because he didn’t strike me as a closeted gay man even with his love of musical theatre, but I felt immediately close to him in a way I couldn’t account for. We sat together on my single bed with my boom box and the Laura Ashley floral sheets I’d gotten on a whim, which I deemed too feminine and replaced with a navy blue set whenever I had male company that wasn’t Jamie.

“I’ve been obsessed with how low Lea Salonga’s voice gets,” he began.