I locked up my bike in front of an ice cream shop and showed the old bear in an embroidered vest my ID, ordered a beer from a cute twink wearing rows of jeweled studs in his ears.

As he handed me my change, he said, “I’m Amber, by the way,” and he—she—tossed back her head, so maybe she was trans/femme. What did I know?

I settled into a booth to stare at the nautical homoerotica: a huge mural of Billy Budd, a collection of dried sea cucumbers. Only a few patrons were around at four in the afternoon on a Wednesday, old men not stooped over like in str8 bars but sitting erect, in crewneck long-sleeve shirts and printed shorts, speaking of a certain queen’s adventures in Italy.

“Did you see her on the Gram with that gnocchi-maker?” one of the gays sneered, which caused the gold chain against his chest to shake.

“She certainly does not go in for gnocchi,” another laughed, referring to her love of big D.

She sounded very Genet, and it seemed like they worked in PR.

I sipped my beer. I didn’t see how I was going to find anyone there to have sex with. I ordered another beer. The bar started to fill.

I was about to leave when a hooded woman came flying into my booth, sloshing her drink onto my table.

“Do you mind if I sit here?”

I looked around. There was one open booth left.

“Um, I guess not.” I did mind, but I didn’t know how to say that. Blame girlhood socialization.

She pulled down her hood, and there was R in front of me, but also not in front of me because we were in the valley of the real, and her face was not so smooth as on TV.

Not only was I not star-struck, I was annoyed. Don’t celebrities have plenty of private islands and bungalows to throw themselves into?

“What are you doing here?” I said, not straining the annoyance out of my voice.

“Hiding.”

“From who?”

“Beard. He’s str8 and would never come in here.”

I didn’t follow enough celebrity gossip to know which B-list actor would have been assigned to her. I figured R was probably the type of glamorous lesbian who only dated beautiful women whom she could share Ari-Efi purses with, stuck in a nineteenth-century fantasy of lesbianhood, only vaguely sexual, and more concentrated on a bosom-buddy friendship, the trading of flower crowns.

She did not interest me in the slightest because her life was so readily available, in some form, on the internet.