I’d always secretly felt that Frankie owed me one for playing the gay card just when I was beginning to figure things out for myself. Even as I observed the world’s slowly growing tolerance, I understood that, with this one announcement, he’d used up all the allotted gay goodwill in the family. No one had two in one household, in one generation. Gertrude Stein’s mother had Leo. Even Liberace’s mother had George. Just what I would have done if Frankie had turned out to be straight (or had kept his mouth shut) was difficult to imagine; if nothing else, I had earned the right not to have to answer that one. Such was my occasional righteous moment.

He called a few days later and said he was glad I’d shown up at the party. I thanked him for inviting me.

“They’re great people, right?”

“Really great,” I said, trying to sound convincing.

“Oh, and for the record, I don’t know what Chip told you, but don’t listen to him. He exaggerates.”

“Chip didn’t tell me anything.”

“No?” He seemed caught short by this. The line went quiet.

“What would he have told me?”

“Nothing, I guess.”

“Something, or you wouldn’t have said that.”

“You know, just stuff.” Frankie cleared his throat and started talking faster. “Just that Chip can be a real sourpuss sometimes, you know, saying stuff about people—like, he says most of those people are ‘vapid,’ stuff like that. He got so bent out of shape that night, later on. Brian wanted me to go home with him, and it’s not like that hasn’t happened before, and Chip said fine, but he was really wasted and probably wanted it to be a threesome, I don’t know. Anyway, he got pissy about it. But I’ve never really been big on the guessing game, you know?”

I felt like we were playing a version of it now.

“Hey, do you swim?”

“I taught you to swim,” I said. “I taught you how to body-surf.”

“I mean swim. Like, in a pool. For exercise.”

“Sure.”

He told me he did laps several mornings a week and asked if I wanted to join him.