a teacher?” Matt asked.
“Yeah.”
“I just finished school.”
“Really?”
“I just got my master's in government. From Harvard.”
“Well. Somebody's got to do it.”
“Uh-huh,” Matt said. “Hey, I've got to go.”
“Okay.”
There was a shuffling, a nameless transition. Will and Matt looked at each other, shrugged as if they shared a joke. Matt asked, “Do you feel like coming over to my place for one more beer?”
Will blinked. Matt must, in fact, be a hallucination. It did not seem possible that a man like this, a man heavy-jawed and muscular as all his dreams, would invite him home. He didn't live in that kind of world.
“Okay,” Will said. “Sure.”
“So. Let's go.”
They got their coats. As he left the bar with Matt, Will glanced back at Rockwell. Rockwell lifted his daiquiri glass, and Will imagined him at a harbor, standing among the parents and the abandoned sweethearts, watching a ship depart. Rockwell had been handsome once, he'd lived in the network of possibilities, and Will felt, briefly, the plain loneliness that waited for everyone. The little bag of groceries, the long walk up the stairs. Then he stepped out of the bar behind Matt.
Outside, the air sparkled with a fine mist of ice. Matt hailed a cab, and their conversation ended. He gave the driver an address in Cambridge, six blocks or so from the house Will had lived in when he himself was at Harvard, settled into the back seat next to Will, and disappeared inside himself. Will asked a couple of questions, simple ones about school and place of origin, but Matt answered with single syllables and watched the city pass outside the window. To calm his nerves, Will checked Matt for human signs. His fingernails were not well trimmed. His cologne (Will knew the brand) was cheap and ordinary. He would have hopes and an inner grove of disappointments, even with his beauty and girth. He would once have been a child, crying with frustration.
Matt lived in a brown brick high-rise, one of the buildings Will used to pass and wonder, with a shiver, who would choose to live there. The silence held as Matt led Will into the lobby and into the elevator. Matt's beauty was untainted by the harsh elevator light but his face, in its rocky quietude, did not look so open or so calmly benevolent as it had in the bar and the taxi. Suddenly, Will could not imagine kissing him. He began to tell himself, This will pass. Whatever happens, I'll be back on the street soon, back in my life. He thought about what he would eat when he got home. There were bananas, a little overripe. There was leftover Chinese food.
Matt's apartment held only piles of cartons and a beanbag chair. The bare walls glared white in the white light of the ceiling globe. There were no shadows. On one of the cartons the word Records had been written in a steady hand. 'I'm moving,” Matt said. “I'm leaving for Washington day after tomorrow.”
“Oh. Well, have a good trip.”
“You want a beer?” Matt asked.
“Sure.”
Matt went to the kitchen and returned with two beers. The light was steady and colorless as tap water. Enter this, Will told himself. Do it, do whatever happens, and then go. But the air resisted him. This room was the opposite of sex. He felt as if flashbulbs were exploding in his face. He and Matt stood together, drinking their beers. Will felt lost in his clothes. His shoes seemed enormous. It occurred to him that he and Matt had misunderstood each other. Matt had somehow failed to realize that he'd gone to a gay bar. He had simply invited Will up for a comradely beer before he slipped out of his old life and into the new. That idea appealed to Will—he wouldn't need to risk sex with someone so remote and well made.
“What kind of job have you got?” Will asked.
“I can't tell you my boss's name. But he's very high in government, and I'm going to be his personal assistant. It's a great job. I'm lucky.”
“That's good. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
They finished their beers. Matt turned his bottle over in his hand and said, “I haven't done this much. This is really kind of new to me.”
“Oh,” Will said. “You're, like, just coming out?”
Matt raised his shoulders, hefted the bottle in his hand, and Will believed he understood. Here was the sullen unnamed thing, the clumsiness. Everything opened; everything made sense. Matt was new. He'd turned up in the bar because he