What I Loved

and gave him a kiss. Mark didn't blush or look away. He eyed her confidently, and after a couple of seconds moved on to another guest.
    I had grown used to Mark and was becoming more and more fond of him, but several of Matt's old school friends were among the guests, and as I recognized them one by one, the permanent ache in my chest sharpened into pain. Lou Kleinman had grown at least six inches since I had last seen him. He stood in the corner with Jerry Loo, another buddy of Matt's, snickering over an ad for phone sex he must have picked up in the street, because it had a heel print on its upper-right-hand corner. Another boy, Tim Andersen, hadn't changed at all. I remembered that Matt had felt sorry for the stunted, pale kid who wheezed too much to play sports. I didn't talk to Tim or even look at him, but I seated myself in a chair near where he was standing. From that spot, I could hear him breathing. I had just wanted to take a look at the boy, but instead I sat with my back to him and listened to his asthmatic lungs with a sudden terrible fascination. I hung on to each noisy exhalation as proof that he was alive—frail, runty, ill, maybe—but alive. I listened to the hoarse, greedy life in him and let it torture me. There were so many other noises—one voice on top of another talking—laughing, the clink of silverware on plates, but all I wanted to hear was the noise of Tim's breathing. I yearned to get closer to him, to bend over and put my ear to his mouth. I didn't do it, but I realized that I was sitting in the chair with clenched fists, swallowing audibly to keep down a quaking misery and rage, and then Dan saved me.
    Disheveled and dirty, Dan was heading toward me with long strides. He bumped a woman's elbow, spilled her wine, apologized loudly into her startled face, and then continued toward me. "Leo!" he yelled from a distance of no more than four feet. "They changed my meds, Leo! The Haldol was making me stiffen up like a board, and I couldn't bend." Dan held his arms out in front of him and finished his walk toward me like Frankenstein's monster. "Too much pacing, Leo. Too much talking to myself. So they hauled me into St. Luke's for an adjustment. I read my play to Sandy. She's a nurse. It's called Odd Boy and the Odd Body ." He paused, leaned over, and said confidingly, "Leo, guess what? You're in it."
    Dan was very close to me, grinning with his mouth open so that I looked directly at his badly stained teeth. I had never felt so moved by him or so grateful to be near him. For the first time, his madness felt curiously comforting and familiar.
    "You put me in your play?" I said to him. "I'm honored."
    Dan looked sheepish. "Your character doesn't have any lines."
    "No lines?" I said. "Just a walk-on?"
    "No, Leo's lying down through the whole play."
    "Dead?" I said.
    "No!" Dan boomed at me. He looked shocked. "Sleeping."
    "Oh, I'm a sleeper." I smiled, but Dan didn't smile back.
    "No, I mean it, Leo. I've got you in here." He tapped a finger to his temple.
    "I'm glad," I said, and I was.
    After everyone else had gone home, Dan and I were sitting on the sofa several feet apart. We weren't talking, but we had staked out a place for ourselves together. The insane brother and the broken-down "uncle" had formed a temporary alliance to survive the party. Bill seated himself between us, putting one arm around each of us, but his eyes were on Mark, who was in the kitchen picking frosting off what was left of the cake. It wasn't until that moment that I remembered Lucille. "Shouldn't Lucille and Philip and Oliver have been here?" I said to Bill.
    "They wouldn't come," he said. "She gave me an odd explanation. She said that Philip doesn't want Oliver in the city."
    "Why on earth not?" I said.
    "I don't know," he said, and wrinkled his forehead. That was all that was said about Lucille. Even at a distance, I realized, she had a way of stopping conversation. Her peculiar responses to ordinary talk or, in this case, a simple invitation, often left others in bewildered silence.
    I was standing over Mark when he ripped the paper off my gift and saw the chessboard. He leapt up from the floor and threw his arms around my waist. It had been a long, hard birthday party, and I wasn't prepared for his excitement. I clung to him and looked over at Bill, Violet, and Dan, who were all on the sofa. Dan was sound asleep, but Bill and Violet were both smiling with tears in their eyes, and their emotion made it much