In One Person

noticed that the books were for me; there was a note inside the box, but some years had passed before Bob read it.
    “These books are by your forebears, Billy,”
Aunt Muriel had written, in her unmistakably assertive longhand
. “You’re the writer in the family—you should have them.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t know
when
she was intending to give them to you, Billy,” Bob sheepishly said.
    The
forebears
word is worth noting. At first, I was flattered by the company of the esteemed writers Muriel had selected for me; it was a highly literary collection of works. There were two plays by García Lorca—
Blood Wedding
and
The House of Bernarda Alba
. (I hadn’t known that Muriel knew I loved Lorca—his poems, too.) There were three plays by Tennessee Williams; maybe Nils Borkman had given these plays to Muriel, I’d first thought. There was a book of poems by W. H. Auden, and poems by Walt Whitman and Lord Byron. There were those unsurpassed novels by Herman Melville and E. M. Forster—I mean
Moby-Dick
and
Howards End
. There was
Swann’s Way
by Marcel Proust. Yet I still didn’t understand why my aunt Muriel had gathered these particular writers together and called them my “forebears”—not until I unearthed, from the bottom of the box, two little books that lay touching each other: Arthur Rimbaud’s
A Season in Hell
and James Baldwin’s
Giovanni’s Room
.
    “Oh,” I said to Uncle Bob. My
gay
forebears, Aunt Muriel must have thought—my not-so-straight brethren, I could only guess.
    “I think your aunt meant this in a
positive
way, Billy,” Uncle Bob said.
    “You think so?” I asked the Racquet Man. We both stood there in the downstairs hall, trying to imagine Muriel putting these books in a box for me in a
positive
way.
    I never told Gerry about her mother’s gift to me—fearing that Muriel might have left nothing, or worse, for Gerry. I didn’t ask Elaine if
she
thought Muriel had intended these books for me in a
positive
way. (Elaine’s opinion of Muriel was that my aunt had been
born
a menacing ghost.)
    It was the phone call from Elaine—late one night, in my River Street house—that reminded me of Esmeralda, gone from my life (but not from my mind) these many years. Elaine was crying into the phone; yet another bad boyfriend had dumped her, but this one had made cruel comments about my dear friend’s vagina. (I’d never told Elaine my unfortunate, not-a-ballroom appraisal of Esmeralda’s vagina—boy, was this ever not the night to tell Elaine
that
story!)
    “You’re always telling me how you love my little breasts, Billy,” Elaine was saying, between sobs, “but you’ve never said anything about my vagina.”
    “I
love
your vagina!” I assured her.
    “You’re not just saying that, are you, Billy?”
    “No! I think your vagina is
perfect
!” I told her.
    “Why?” Elaine asked; she’d stopped crying.
    I was determined not to make the Esmeralda mistake with my dearest friend. “Ah, well—” I began, and then paused. “I’ll be absolutely honest with you, Elaine. Some vaginas feel as big as ballrooms, whereas
your
vagina feels just right. It’s the perfect size—perfect for
me
, anyway,” I said, as casually as I could.
    “Not a ballroom—is that what you’re saying, Billy?”
    How did I end up here again? I was thinking. “Not a ballroom, in a
positive
way!” I cried.
    Elaine’s nearsightedness was a thing of the past; she’d had that Lasik surgery—it was as if she were seeing for the first time. Before the surgery, when she’d had sex, she always took her glasses off—she’d never had a really good look at a penis. Now she could actually see penises; she didn’t like the looks of some of them—“of
most
of them,” Elaine had said. She’d told me that, the next time we were together, she wanted to take a good look at
my
penis. I thought it was a little tragic that Elaine didn’t know another guy well enough to feel comfortable about staring at his penis, but what are friends for?
    “So my vagina is ‘not a ballroom’ in a
positive
way?” Elaine now said on the phone. “Well, that sounds okay. I can’t wait to get a good look at your penis, Billy—I know you’ll take my staring at your penis in a
positive
way.”
    “I can’t wait, too,” I told her.
    “Just remember who’s the
perfect
size for you, Billy,” Elaine said.
    “I love you, Elaine,” I told her.
    “I love you, too, Billy,” Elaine said.
    Thus was my