LITMIR.BIZ

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grade, or pushing a toddler in a shopping cart, or raking some suburban lawn. The kind of guy you’d expect to find pretty much anywhere other than here.

      But here he is, an average Joe in a crowd of outrageous Josephs and Alexanders and Joneses—which is, I suspect, precisely the reason Raphael is so attracted to him.

      “Joseph!” Raphael cries, moving forward. “I love the sarong! Yours, too, Alexander! And you…whoever you are, I love the sweater. Banana Republic?”

      “I’m not sure,” the guy says, wrinkling his nose a little.

      He is pretty adorable. And I see that his eyes, which I assumed from a few feet away were brown, are actually greenish. He looks Irish.

      Raphael is momentarily taken aback at his idol’s lack of label awareness, but he recovers swiftly. “We’ve never met,” he says, thrusting his hand forward. “I’m Raphael Santiago—the birthday boy. And this is my friend Tracey Spadolini.”

      “I’m Buckley O’Hanlon. Nice meeting you, Raphael. Hey, Tracey.”

      “Hey,” I say, noticing a bowl of tortilla chips on a nearby overturned cardboard box serving as a table. I’m starving. I skipped dinner, feeling guilty about that massive diner lunch with Will.

      I take a step closer and dive in, scarfing a couple of chips while Raphael manages to work into his next few sentences the fact that he’s available now that he and his lover Anthony have broken up, that he works out at least five mornings a week and that he recently went to Paris on business. Until last August, he was an office temp. Now he’s an assistant style editor for She magazine.

      The job isn’t as glamorous as you might think. Plus, the Paris trip was last September. But Raphael manages to make it sound as though he just blew into town on the Concorde with Anna Wintour.

      “What do you do, Buckley?” Raphael asks.

      “I’m a freelance copywriter.”

      “A writer? You’re a writer! Buckley, what do you write?”

      “Copy,” Buckley says with a faint grin. “Trust me, it’s not that exciting.”

      “Buckley is writing the copy for our new brochure. That’s how we met,” Alexander says, taking out a pack of cigarettes. He hands one to Joseph before putting one between his own lips. Raphael, a notorious butt-moocher, snags one out of the pack before Alexander puts it away.

      I reach into the pocket of my blazer and take out my Salem Lights. Alexander clicks a lighter four times, and we all puff away.

      Buckley shakes his head. “Guess I’m the only nonsmoker left in New York.”

      “Oh, I’m going to quit tomorrow,” Raphael announces.

      “Since when?” Joseph asks.

      “Since I turned thirty. Joseph, I want to live to see forty. That’s not going to happen with a three-pack-aday habit.”

      “Oh, please,” Alexander says, and he and Joseph shake their heads and roll their eyes. They know Raphael well enough, as I do, to realize he’s full of crap. Still, Raphael is trying to impress Buckley, and I think we owe it to him to play along. Or at least to change the subject. Which I do.

      “So what’s up with your new brochure?” I ask Alexander and Joseph.

      Naturally, they jump right into that one. They love talking about their business—a gourmet boutique on Bleeker Street that specializes in organic preserves. They recently decided to design a Web site and add mail-order.

      “If all goes as well as we expect,” Joseph says, clasping his hands over his ribs in anticipation, “we’re going to start looking at houses in Bucks County in the fall.”

      “That’s great.” I glance at Raphael.

      He looks envious. I’m not surprised. That’s the big thing in their crowd—for longtime lovers to buy a house in rural Pennsylvania, then spend years renovating and decorating and furnishing it.

      I have to admit, even I’m jealous of Alexander and Joseph as I watch them exchange delighted glances, hauntingly similar to the expression I remember my sister Mary Beth sharing with Vinnie back when they were newly married and had just announced that they were expecting their first child.

      I want to be in that kind of relationship.

      Not the Mary Beth-Vinnie kind that ends in misery and divorce. The Alexander and Joseph kind, where anyone—except maybe Dr. Laura and the Reverend Jerry Falwell—can see that these two souls belong together.

      According to Raphael, Alexander and Joseph, who must be in their mid-thirties, have shared a rent-controlled one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea for ages, since before Chelsea became overly ridden with celebrities and suburban-style superstores. Alexander is a tall, bearded, Ivy-league-educated African-American from a white-collar Westchester family, and Joseph is a short, community college-educated Italian from a blue-collar Staten Island family, but at this point they share so many mannerisms and inflections that sometimes I actually think they look alike.

      Jones passes by and hands out fresh daiquiris all around. This batch is even rummier than the last, but it goes down just as easily and I’m feeling a little buzzed. Buzzed enough to find it necessary to either chain smoke or devour the entire bowl of tortilla chips.

      I opt for smoking, lighting a new cigarette from the ember of the first.

      “So what do you write besides brochures, Buckley?” Raphael asks coyly.

      Usually, he does coy pretty well, but it’s not working tonight. At least, not on this guy, who doesn’t seem interested in Raphael. Or maybe he’s just oblivious—although how he can overlook Raphael’s breathless flirtation is beyond me.

      The only other option is that he’s straight. But somehow, I doubt that. I have to wonder—as a trio of newly arrived drag queens sporting grass skirts and coconut shell brassieres wander by—would a straight, reasonably adorable guy be at a party like this? In New York?

      No way.

      “I write jacket copy for books,” Buckley says with a shrug.

      “You’re kidding! Buckley, that’s wonderful!” Raphael screeches, as though Buckley just told him he’s landed a walk-on on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

      “Trust me, it’s really not that interesting,” Buckley says, looking a little sheepish.

      “What kind of books?” I ask.

      “Everything. Suspense, romance, self-help, gay fiction, cookbooks—you name it.”

      “Gay fiction? Have I read anything you’ve written, Buckley?” Raphael asks, bubbly as a Brookside cheerleader doing high kicks at halftime.

      “I just write the cover copy,” Buckley points out again, squirming a little.

      “I always remember cover copy. It’s why I buy the book,” Raphael tells him.

      Kate joins us, toying with a strand of long blond hair. She’s got it stretched across her upper lip, futilely trying to hide the blotchiness.

      After Raphael introduces her to Buckley, she pulls me aside and says she has to leave.

      “I don’t blame you.” I glimpse the slash of angry pink skin above the painstakingly applied pink lipstick that matches her pink tropical print sundress. “It looks like it’s getting worse.”

      “You think?” she drawls sarcastically. “I look like I’ve been mauled. I can’t believe you let me out of the house like this, Tracey.”

      I can’t, either. But I didn’t want to show up solo at the party after Will backed out. I’ve always had this thing about going places alone. Even after all this time living in New York, I’m still not over it. It’s one thing to live alone and ride the subway alone and shop alone, but I don’t think that I could ever go to a movie by myself, or a

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