He shakes his head from side to side, and his bangs fall into his face. He pushes them back. It’s okay, he says, looking relieved to have shared some of his secrets. You had no way of knowing. I should have told you, but it isn’t something you can simply bring up in casual conversation.

And no one since Steven? I ask. What about all of those people onstage?

Not for real, no. Theater is different, he says. That isn’t me.

For the first time ever, I feel sorry for James.

Sorry that he’s turning his back on everything I want.

Sorry that he’s afraid.

Sorry that I don’t think I want to live my life in fear.

After James leaves, I call Gabriel and leave a message on his service, wondering why someone who has to work delivering balloons even has a service. Or a pager.

Then I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

He calls me back long after I’d given up hope, long after I stopped pacing in front of the phone and looking side-eyed at my mother when she said she needed to call the dry cleaners to see when my father’s suits would be ready. He calls when I’m in my room hunkered under the covers, Connor’s hand-me-down Walkman playing Joy Division on repeat, telling myself that Gabriel isn’t going to call and I need to get over it.

I was thinking about you, he says.

Why?

I was thinking about when I was kissing you on Christopher Street.

Oh.

I was thinking that I wanted to do it again.

Oh.

The Islanders win their fourth straight Stanley Cup, but I don’t care. It isn’t that I don’t like hockey, it’s that their constant winning has gotten kind of boring.

And it hard to care about things like sports at the moment.

James has been busy. Always out. Always working.

He’s sleeping during the day, rehearsing and plotting lights and weighing in on costumes and lines and meanings, all night.

At least that’s what he tells me.

I finally reach him and ask if I can come over to watch 20/20 since Geraldo Rivera is doing a report on a friend of a friend of his, a lighting designer with AIDS. It’s the first network report on the disease, and there is no way I’m going to get away with turning it on at home. My father would probably throw the set through the window, worried that he could catch something through the screen.

I’m not watching it, James says when I ask him. I just can’t. But you’re welcome to come over here anyhow; I’m sure the boys will have it on.

Which is what I do.

I sit on the couch (Steven’s couch) with Rob, while Ted leans expressionless against the wall behind us.

No one is flirting tonight. We’re barely breathing.

The guy being interviewed is twenty-seven. Eleven years older than me.

In his “before” photo, he’s someone I might have found myself attracted to.