“What, my worries aren’t genuine? You think I’m just faking interest? Tell me what the deal is with you and the acrobat.”

“Nothing.”

“See? What am I supposed to do with that? You’re so mysterious, I can’t stand it.”

“Mysterious?” I huffed. “I haven’t understood you since you were five.”

“It’s like you think I can’t handle whatever you’re doing,” he said. “Well, guess what? I can handle it fine. Excuse me.”

He’d gotten louder; I thought he was about to start yelling. But he leaned sideways across the empty stools and reached for Margolis, who was walking past us on his way to the rest room. Frankie’s fingers brushed his forearm.

“Sorry. Just one second. My friend here knows you, apparently quite well, but he’s too shy to introduce us.”

“Frankie, shut up.”

The blood was still swirling behind Margolis’s face from being upside down for so long. He squinted at me through his glasses.

“I told you I didn’t want to see you,” he said in a low rasp. He glanced across the room, where his friends were filing outside onto the patio. “I told you to get lost.”

“Wow.” Frankie darted his eyes between the two of us. “You do know each other.”

“I didn’t know you were here,” I told Margolis.

“Bullshit.”

“You dated,” Frankie said. “Jeez, you two dated. I can hear it in your voices.” He poked a finger into my ribs playfully. “You’ve been leading a secret life!”

“I have not.”

“Look,” Margolis sneered at Frankie, “why don’t the two of you kiss and make up, because he’s a freak, and you can have him.”

“We’re not a couple,” I said. I could have been addressing either one of them.

“I don’t care!” Margolis was practically spitting now, his anger verging on panic. “Don’t talk to me. I’m here with friends, do you understand that? They wanted to come, and they dragged me along. I knew this whole ‘straight night’ thing was bullshit.”

Frankie received all this with a certain alarm, and then lost interest. He gave me a glance that hovered between commiseration and conspiracy—a glance that I instantly loved him for—and, turning back to his drink, said, “Aw, go stand on your head.”

It was so appropriate, so simple and well delivered, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Margolis pushed him off his stool.