Chapter 7

“Is he out?” Zvika persisted. “Or upstairs?”

Joe looked at him but said nothing. Then he got up. “I’ll see how he is.” When he had gone, Zvika and I again exchanged looks.

“Trouble?” I suggested.

Zvika shrugged. Then he seemed to remember something. “Why did you react that way, when he—you know?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Well, I mean when he grabbed your hand. He was being playful. Why not go along with it?”

I stared at Zvika. Suddenly I felt embarrassed, seeing where he was coming from. It made me feel, as I so often did, the odd man out among George’s friends, the “straight” player in the troupe. Ginger, George’s Sikh friend, sometimes even called me White Bread as a kind of insult.

“He wasn’t being flirtatious, you know,” I said.

“Could have fooled me.”

I didn’t elaborate. Zvika had a reputation for being someone always on the prowl, someone who could pick guys up on the subway. While I found that a little disgusting, I rather envied it too.