I was waving my hands furiously to get her attention.

“Nora? Andy says they cancelled, that they’re going out of town this weekend. Thanks for telling me, mister,” she said, laughing. “We’d love to.”

I needed to square this little white lie with my mother, pronto, before she called and told Alice they were looking forward to seeing us this weekend and she’d gotten tickets to the garden show for the two of them.

I got a fresh haircut Saturday afternoon and bought a new shirt that brought out the color in my eyes.

“I’ve been meaning to call you all week, Andy, and make a date to go swimming, but the days just got away from me,” he said.

“Oh, I’d forgotten all about it, to tell you the truth,” I lied.

“This week definitely.”

“Not good for me. I’ve got a sales meeting with a distributor in Atlanta.”

“Damn. Soon, then.”

“I’ll be back Wednesday night,” I blurted.

Alice and Nora finished the house tour.

“Andy, you must see it,” Alice said. “The Wilkinses have the most beautiful things.”

If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought Alice had a bit of a crush herself. Nora was so self-assured, a take-charge blonde, slightly butch in a female golf pro sort of way. I made it a point to be more conscious of her, notice her mannerisms, memorize one of her offhand remarks. She was bossy, but in a way that was more brisk and efficient than aggressive, as if she’d already considered and rejected all the alternatives to her way of doing things before you had an opportunity to propose them. She must have reminded Alice of her sisters, which explained why she was so immediately comfortable with her.

“Brian, it’s time to light the grill. Andy, you go with him.”

Aye, aye, sir…er, ma’am.

Central Casting would never have selected Brian Wilkins as the catalyst for my downfall. Hollywood ’s idea of a seducer was everything short, fair, and nearsighted Brian Wilkins was not. That’s not to say Brian wasn’t attractive. Years earlier, he might have been voted Cutest Boy by his high school graduating class. Best Looking would have been a classmate with a more classic profile, better bone structure, and features that would only improve with time, unlike Brian, whose chipmunk cheeks were thickening even before middle age.

A minor inferno erupted when Brian tossed a match on the charcoal. His hand flew up to my chest and he pushed me back from the flame.

“Someday I’ll figure out how much lighter fluid is too much.”

I drank a little too much that night, enough that Alice insisted on taking the wheel to drive home. And the more I drank, the less I’d cared that it was obvious our wives might have been dining in another solar system for all the attention we gave them.

“I told you you’d like them,” Alice said triumphantly as I rolled into bed. “I knew it.”

Brian called the next morning. He was wondering when we might get together for that swim. Too bad this week didn’t look so good. Hey, how about today? This afternoon. It’s clear for me. How about you? We can burn off some of that alcohol. Let’s make it two o’clock. Give me the directions. I’ll find it.

That’s how easy it was. Alice ’s Sunday was committed to yet another shower-either bridal or, more often those days, baby. Her forced cheeriness at the breakfast table meant, yes, definitely, it was another celebration of the imminent arrival of Joshua, if it’s a boy, Sarah, if it’s a girl. She was genuinely delighted for Becca or Susan or Shelley, the glowing mothers-to-be, a happiness untainted by envy. Only once did her armor crack, when her friend Carolyn announced that she and her husband had settled on the name John for their son, after his father’s father. Sure it was old-fashioned, but they were going to call him Jack. We still have lots of time, I consoled her. We can start trying to get pregnant again, as soon as she was ready. Yes, she agreed, soon, sometime soon. Little did we know that a low sperm count would turn out to be a minor obstacle compared to the events set in motion that perfectly ordinary Sunday afternoon.

I hadn’t expected him to be so nervous. He dropped his lock twice, fumbling through the combination. He turned his back to me when he stepped out of his briefs and into his trunks. His shoulders were wide without being impressive. He coughed and bent down to swipe the soles of his bare feet. He finally turned to face me, red in the face and stammering.

“Andy, I’m really sorry about this.”

“Sorry about what?” I asked, truly confused.

“I’m a terrible swimmer. I should have told you up front.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I wanted to come swimming with you.”

His forwardness made me self-conscious. I knew then why I had impulsively chosen to bring a pair of baggy gym shorts instead of my usual racing trunks. I was conscious of my naked chest and limbs as we walked to the pool. I took long strides, moving quickly, forcing him to keep pace, anxious for the protective cover of warm, chlorinated water. I chose my lane, dove quickly, and swam away.

He wasn’t a bad swimmer; not in my league, but, of course, I was a former state high school champion in the breaststroke, the rare high point in an adolescence distinguished mainly by my ability to achieve new standards of awkwardness. He’d taken the next lane and I passed him many times, coming and going, always averting my eyes and immersing myself in my laps. Half an hour passed. When I pulled myself out of the pool, he was waiting on the deck, his arms wrapped around his knees and his toes inches from my nose. He had huge feet and, before I could censor my thoughts, I wondered if the old wives’ tale was true-big hands, big feet, big everything.

“You’ve got a beautiful stroke,” he said. “I could watch you all day.”

Barely thirty, Brian Wilkins was progressing on his March to the Sea. He’d started in the tiny market of Rochester, Minnesota, fresh out of school, as associate producer of the ten o’clock news broadcast; he’d made his way south with an unbroken string of triumphs at small stations in the heart of the Midwest. The network had taken notice when he drove our local Greensboro affiliate’s eleven o’clock newscast to first place in the ratings in nine short months by dumping the venerable local anchor for a former drum majorette with big tits and a blazing white smile of after-dinner-mint teeth. He knew it was his certain destiny to command network operations in the District of Columbia, finally capping his career in Manhattan as executive producer of a national broadcast.

Brian was self-effacing and falsely humble and always positioned himself so that his rivals and enemies would underestimate him. His work ethic was legendary. His instincts for what sold in the broadcast journalism market were remarkable. The fortress of his personal life was unassailable. His Valkyrie wife excelled at fulfilling the responsibilities of corporate wife and was willing to overlook his lack of interest in conjugal intimacy in exchange for a seat on the rocket launch to the top. They’d already accomplished one daughter, and a little brother or sister was scheduled to be in development in the near future. There was only one slight problem and a potential pitfall Brian Wilkins was determined to avoid. Brian had certain needs that none of his successes could satisfy. And so he chose me as the successor to my predecessors abandoned in Rochester and Springfield, Illinois, and Lincoln, Nebraska, all of us married men with too much at stake to risk indiscretion and potential exposure. Later, when he told me he’d accepted the network’s offer for the number-one position at the Pittsburgh affiliate, I asked him how he’d known to pursue me.

“It was easy,” he said, his smile almost a sneer. “You’re smart. You figure it out.”

I’d kept my mind a blank slate when it came to homoerotic attraction and proclivities. I would immediately extinguish the occasional, no, frequent, disturbing thoughts before they had an opportunity to reveal their nature, before they could identify themselves as attraction or desire. Brian Wilkins must have caught me in that split second before I put the fire out, my eye lingering a second too long before I blushed and looked away.