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I shook my head. “I knew it.”

“I have a client coming in. He was supposed to have been here already, but he’s late, and I can’t afford to wait around for him. Can you deliver his test results?”

My mood darkened just a little. “Good news or bad news?”

Mary Lee said softly, “He’s poz, but sweetie, we both know that’s not as bad news as it once was.”

“Still, it’s life changing for anyone who gets that word.”

“I know I can count on you to be sensitive.”

“It’s my middle name.” I smiled. “It’s all right. I’ve done this talk enough times to know how it goes. I’ll be firm, caring, and attentive.”

“You always are. I mean it!”

“I know. Bring me his file before you leave.”

Thirty minutes later, when Harry waltzed into my office, I was immediately fascinated but had no idea he was going to be the man I’d spend the next dozen or so years with. I mean, Harry was nothing like the kind of guy I usually went for—brooding, quiet types, usually Hispanic or Mediterranean or Italian. Butch. Muscles and facial hair.

Over and over, I’d attempted to find my Prince Charming among their hirsute, beefy ranks and always came up empty-handed. There had been plenty of Mr. Right Nows in my life but no Mr. Rights.

You’d think I would have learned.

But Harry? My God, Harry looked like he was barely legal. On a good day, maybe, you might estimate him as being a very recent high school graduate. He had pale freckled skin and a shock of red hair that stuck up in bedhead fashion all over his head. He wore thick glasses that I suppose might be called retro now, but they just made him look like a geek. He was skinny as hell, his jeans hung loose around his waist, and the red Keith Haring “Radiant Baby” T-shirt clashed with his hair.

What a character. I wished I didn’t have to deliver this news to him. I glanced down at his file, open on my desk, and was stunned to see he was thirty. Still, too young….

He plopped down in the chair across from me, swinging one leg over its arm. Before I even had a chance to introduce myself, he asked, “So what’s the good word? Two snaps up? In a circle?”

I laughed, remembering the horridly effeminate film critics, Blaine and Antoine, from
In Living Color
. Even though their shtick should have been wildly offensive, all the gay men I knew just loved it. The video bar, Sidetrack, to this day played clips of them to thunderous laughter. But my laughter died quickly on my lips as I realized that Harry, real name Harold Goldblum, was here to get a thumbs-down on his test results.

My lack of a quick response caused Harry to cock his head. “What? You’re not saying anything. Listen, I have been getting tested every six months since I became sexually active, and it’s to my great sadness that I use that term loosely, but I always come up negative. Because negative is usually the response I get when I proposition a guy.” He snorted, but I could see the fear in his bright blue eyes.

I opened my mouth to speak, for once at a loss in this situation, when Harry stood up. “Let’s start over.”

I watched as he walked backward out of my office and disappeared. I leaned forward to see where he had gone, a little panicked that he had perhaps fled the building.

But then he walked right back in, looking more composed. He sat down in the chair across from me and folded his hands on his lap, staring at me.

I didn’t say anything. Neither of us did as the minutes ticked by.

“This is where you introduce yourself,” he whispered to me, like someone offstage helping a fellow actor remember his lines.

“I’m sorry! I’m Carlos. I just want to share with you—”

He cut me off. “Ah, come on, Carlos. I’m a perceptive guy. The fear on your face gave you away. I’m poz, right? You did all the testing and retesting and there’s next-to-no doubt.” As Harry spoke, the words came faster and faster. He had a big smile plastered on his face, yet there were tears in his eyes. “You’re here to tell me that HIV does not have to be a death sentence. With medication, there’s no reason I can’t have a full and healthy life.” He let out a yip of near-hysterical laughter. “I can go horseback riding, swim, play volleyball. This doesn’t mean I won’t be able to have children.” He bent his head, and I wasn’t sure if he was laughing or sobbing.

I got up, came around the desk, put my hand on his shoulder, and squeezed. He reached up and grabbed my hand.

We said nothing for a long time. Finally he flicked my hand away like it was a bug and looked up at me, smiling. Only traces of tears remained on his face, the pale, almost white eyelashes a little damp. “The fellas never paid much attention to me before. Now I’ll never get a date. Guess it’s time to go to PetSmart and get that guinea pig I always thought about. I think I’ll call him Elmer.”

I couldn’t help it—that last line made me laugh. I returned to my side of the desk and sat. “Listen, Harry, what you said is true.” I opened a drawer, pulled out a sheet of paper, and handed it across the desk to him. “You may be happy with your own physician, but the docs on that list are specialists in HIV, and I suggest you make an appointment with one of them. They’ll do more blood work to determine if you need to go on medication yet and what kind. It’s true what you said—it’s manageable now. I know people who have had the virus for a decade and have never been sick.”

“And you know lots of guys who have croaked too.”

“I do. But that’s happening less and less.”

Harry ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up even more. “No one will want to go out with me now.”

“Harry, do you know how many guys out there are poz? Hell, there’s even a dating website called Poz Personals.”

“Really?”

I couldn’t tell from his expression if he was excited or dismayed by the prospect.

“How ’bout you?” he challenged. “Would you go out with me?”

I chuckled, thinking the question was hypothetical. “Sure I would. You’re a cutie.”

“Ah, that’s what they all say. Just once I’d like to hear ‘handsome’ or ‘studly.’” He sighed. “Instead I get cute or, worse, interesting.”

We were quiet for a moment, and then Harry leaned forward and asked, “When?”

I thought he meant when he should see a doctor. “Oh, I would think it’d be a good idea to make it soon.”

“How about tonight?”

I laughed and then stopped abruptly when I realized his “would you go out with me” had not been hypothetical. I was flustered. The long weekend ahead of me stretched out, no plans. How could I back gracefully out of this? I couldn’t go out with him, could I? It was against all the rules; I didn’t date clients.

“I can’t.”

“Sure. That’s what I thought.” He sighed.

“Tell you what. You like Cuban?”

He eyed me up and down, doing a comical impression of lascivious. “I like you.”

“I mean Cuban food. There’s a little place up on Ashland that makes a Cuban sandwich that rivals anything you can get in Miami or even Havana. You wanna go have one with me?”

“But it’s not a date, right?”

“It can’t be a date, Harry. But I’d like to get to know you better.”

“Because you feel sorry for me?”

“No. I don’t think there’s anything to feel sorry for. You’re a young guy with a good head on his shoulders who’s going to be just fine. I just think you’re—” I groped for the right term.

“Interesting?” he filled in with a raise of one red eyebrow.

I would not let him have that. “No. Bizarre. Strange. Funny. You wanna go now or meet up later?” I shut his file with finality and trained my gaze on him.

I sit back in the same chair I sat in that day over a dozen years ago now. Harry and I never did have a date, but that one dinner, over
medianoches
and guava shakes, led to a life together.

It’s funny. I remember telling him that day it was likely something other than HIV would end his life. Little did I know that pronouncement, meant to be comforting, would be prophetic.

Once Harry had gotten on his drug regimen, he had tested undetectable from there on out. His T-cell numbers were always strong; he was what we in the business call “asymptomatic.” He never got sick. At least, not until the big C raised its head.

I swivel to face my computer. I need to think about other things.

J
UMPY
IS
one of those little ma-and-pa coffee shops that managed to survive the onslaught of Starbucks. It’s in a tiny storefront on Lincoln, a few blocks north of Fullerton, and not far at all from DePaul University.

I arrive a half hour early and debate whether I should actually order coffee or not. The warmth of a nice Americano sounds tempting, but then I think of how jumpy I am myself at the prospect of meeting up with Carlos once again after a few decades have passed. How strange is that? Who can make that claim?

Anyway, caffeine will probably do nothing more than raise my blood pressure, cause my heart to beat through my chest or burst, and probably make me even more nervous than I already am.

Herbal tea wins. I order chamomile from a sweet-looking red-haired woman at the counter and take my seat at a table near the wall. The room is crowded with people, all much younger than myself, DePaul students most likely. I feel older than my fifty-five years and think how my son, Tate, would fit in much better.

I look around. The surroundings are sort of eclectic, I guess you might call it, or maybe retro, or perhaps just dirty. The big plate glass window looks as though it hasn’t been cleaned in years, letting a grayish light seep in and tarnishing the images of passersby, bustling along on busy Lincoln Avenue. The floors are gritty wood, unvarnished and squeaky. The ceiling is pressed tin. This could have been a speakeasy back in the days of Capone.

It’s oddly quiet here. I think how, once upon a time, a place like this would be bubbling with laughter and conversation. But in spite of almost every table being occupied, the only real sound I hear is the new age music playing softly in the background and the occasional hiss of the espresso machine.

Everyone is busy on some kind of electronic device. A couple have laptops open, many are staring or jabbing at tablets, the rest are occupied with smart phones, although, curiously enough, none is actually talking into the device, only texting.

What a world we’ve become. Here we all are, in a space meant for gathering, and each of us in isolation. It’s a little depressing.

Depressing and distracting. I push the Home button on my own iPhone and see that it’s five past the hour of my meeting time.

He’s not going to show up
.

I chide myself.
It’s only five minutes
.

Almost to contradict me, a man walks up to my table who looks vaguely familiar. He’s tall, on the lanky side, with a thick head of gunmetal gray hair. He wears a T-shirt that shows off his thin frame and a pair of khaki shorts. Keen sandals complete his ensemble. I look up at him, and I can see a question in his eyes.

“Are you Andy?” He cocks his head.

This isn’t Carlos. I’m confused. Is this just coincidence? Is this someone I worked with once? Dated years ago?

He repeats, “Andy?”

I am almost dumbfounded. I hurry at last to answer, “Yeah, yeah. And you are?”

“You agreed to meet me.”

I give a sickly smile. Maybe this
is
Carlos. Maybe my memory is faulty and I turned him into someone else. Wishful thinking. I mean, this guy isn’t bad looking, but the feeling persists, this is
not
the guy I met on the ‘L’ all those years ago.

So who is he?

He
does
look familiar. But I just can’t place him. The feeling persists that I have not only seen him before but seen him somewhere recently. I can’t find the space or the peace to concentrate and focus my memory with him hovering over me.

“Can I sit?”

“Of course.” I gesture at the chair opposite. I don’t know what to say, so I spit out what’s in my head, not always the best course, despite what the experts might say. “I thought I was meeting Carlos.”

The man smiles, and there is sadness written across his features in spite of it. His warm hazel eyes meet my own. He touches my hand. “Mind if I get myself a cup of coffee?” He half stands and then asks me if I need anything else.

I shake my head.

While he’s at the counter, it comes back to me—who the guy is. A shiver snakes through me, and I grip the table with knuckles gone bloodless. This is the guy in the Facebook picture. He was the man who Carlos—or the man I think is Carlos—had his arms around. I can see the picture now in my mind’s eyes as clearly as if I had it open in front of me on my desktop screen. I glance over at him at the counter, where he’s laughing at something the redhead said.

It’s him.

A bunch of questions cascade almost simultaneously through my mind. Why has he shown up here instead of Carlos? Was he the one who wrote to me? Is he a jealous lover, spying on his beloved’s Facebook messages and e-mails? Has he come here to set me straight?

I clap a hand over my mouth to hold in the near-hysterical laugh in danger of escaping.
You didn’t write anything to make anyone jealous in that short note you wrote. That’s not why he’s here
.

My mind shifts to another possibility, one I’d had when I first looked at the photo—that I was wrong about which man was Carlos. I look over at him again, now at the condiment table, where he’s pouring cream into his coffee, and think
Are you Carlos
?