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“Because I don’t truck with lesbians.”
I rolled my eyes even harder and elbowed him. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“Fine, I’ll admit that’s prejudiced and hateful. I’ll move on to something we can all agree is much more important than Bernie’s sexual preference. Does she dress well?”
Jennifer flipped her hair. “Better than you.”
Minty smirked and snorted under his breath. “What shoe size does she wear?”
“What? Why?”
“If she’s such a snazzy dresser, I might want to borrow from her sometime. Hags do that, you know. Let their fags borrow their stuff.”
She flipped him off, putting the picture back into her purse.
Minty capitulated. “All right, all right. The two of you can meet me and the gang at the front door of Tilt-a-Whirl at ten-thirty tonight. We’ll see if we’re party compatible.”
“Thank you!” She clapped her hands together.
“No problem. Oh, and two rounds are on you. Got it?”
She rolled her eyes but nodded. “You’ll be there, too, Peter?” she asked.
Part of me wanted to say no, because I was exhausted from the night before, and I had the opening shift at the library in the morning, but part of me yearned for the heat and smell and smoke of the club. I missed Antonio, Windy, and Renée. I missed the pounding music. I missed feeling gay and free.
But I had to work…
ButI loved to dance…
Thinking of Bobby, I knew what he’d tell me to do. “Sure,” I said. “Count me in.”
Minty gave me a high five just as Donnie entered and the room fell silent.
“I’ll talk toyoulater,” Minty whispered in my ear. “I’ll find out who you fucked.”
Gazing down at Donnie Huggins’s nervous mug, waiting to see if he’d run out of the class to throw up again, or if he’d manage to stick it out, I resigned myself to it. There was no way Minty was going to let it go.
Donnie began to discuss Bruno Bettelheim’s relationship with the work of Sigmund Freud—even though that was decidedly not on the Psych 110 syllabus.
After class, I said, “It was Daniel. I was with him last night.” I’d already gathered my things while Donnie had been wrapping up the lecture, so I stood, leaving Jennifer and Minty behind. There. It was done. I’d have to tell Daniel I’d told his best friend about us, but at least Minty wouldn’t keep bugging me about it.
On the sidewalk, Minty caught up to me and grabbed my arm. He was strong. “You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?” I said, pulling away. I started off toward my second photography class with Marta Neuheim. The first had been great. She’d laid out all the assignments for the upcoming semester, with the final being a self-curated exhibition of our best work.
Minty dogged me. “You can’t just lay a bomb on me like that and walk away.”
“If you want to talk about this, you can follow me,” I said. “But I have a class to get to.”
Minty glanced in the direction of his next class, which was in the opposite direction of the Art building, but he fell in step beside me.
Taking the many stairs that led us into the valley before we’d go back up another set of stairs to reach the side of campus nearest to the Art building, he said, “If you think for a second I’m going to let you fuck him up, then—”
“Why would I want to fuck him up?” I interrupted. “I care about Daniel. We’re good. We could maybe work.”
“Oh, that’s really encouraging,” Minty said, sneering. “‘We could maybe work.’ If that’s not the declaration of love that Daniel deserves, then I don’t know what is!”
I was tempted to stop on the stairs and face him, but I kept going instead. “I’m not going to fuck him up.”
