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agent. I needed professional experience. My life was in a vacuum.
    Finally Bree and I planned to have coffee. I was very excited because I hadn’t seen her in three weeks. Not since the day we had kissed in the park. I hoped she hadn’t forgotten the kiss and that she still liked me. We planned to meet at Buzz Coffee on Santa Monica Boulevard, which was near her apartment. She was still working on the movie, so we planned to meet at 10 p.m.
    I waited at Buzz. The night was hot. The café was full of gay men in T-shirts and tank tops. While I waited, I read
A Streetcar Named Desire
. I almost read the whole thing, and then at 11:30, I got a page. I went outside to the payphone. I checked my messages. One was from my scene partner, Ben, who wanted to rehearse; he had a David Mamet scene he wanted to do. He worked in a bar and got off at 2 a.m., and wanted to rehearse at 2:30. The second message was from Bree. It was her voice, but I hardly felt any of the light-blue stuff. It was there but hidden deep below her words. She said that she had an early call the next day and couldn’t make it to Buzz and that she was sorry.
    I went back into Buzz and read
Streetcar
. I was feeling very alone and was on the last page when a guy sat next to me. He was tall with wiry arms and hair all over them and his hairline was receding but combed to the side in a sleek way. His presence was like a gazelle’s.
    He was pretending not to look at me, but when he saw that I was looking at him, he turned to me and said, “I love that play.”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “Tennessee,” he said, shaking his head like there was somethinghe just couldn’t get over about Tennessee Williams. “He was a tortured soul.”
    “Yeah,” I said, and tried to read the last page, but the guy started talking again. His voice was high and had a slight whiney upswing at the end of his sentences.
    “I heard that Tennessee was Blanche in that,” he said. “That he was refined and sensitive like her, but that he also was attracted to the brute side of things, and that is why he wrote Stanley—because all his boyfriends were brutes like Stanley.”
    “That’s interesting,” I said.
    “I’m John,” he said, and put his hand very close to me.
    I shook it and said, “Pete,” thinking of my roommate.
    “What a funny name, Pete. Ha, how did you get
that
name,
Pete
?”
    “I don’t know. It’s just a name. Normal.” I knew that this hairy guy wasn’t going to let me finish the last page, so I got up. “Nice to meet you, John. Sorry I have to go; it’s past my bedtime.”
    But the guy followed me outside.
    “It’s so hot out,” he said, but I didn’t say anything. I just kept walking. I walked to the parking lot behind the café. The guy was pretty nice, so I wasn’t scared, but he wasn’t going away. When I was almost to my car, I turned to him and said, “Can I help you with something?”
    “Oh,” he said. “I’m just an artist, and I thought maybe I could paint you some time.”
    “Paint me? Like naked?”
    “Oh, well, I was just thinking about your face, but sure we could do that too.”
    “No,” I said.
    “Oh, well, are you an actor?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Yeah, I can tell. Oh, man, you are so hot, you are going to go so far,” he said, standing close to me, making his breath heavy. “Brad Pitt has nothing on you, baby,” he whispered. “You are going to be a motherfucking star.” And then he leaned in and kissed me on the lips, and for a second I let him. His stubble pulled me out of it. I put my hand on his chest and pushed him away. His gazelle body was full of energy, but I got away from him and to my car.
    He was still by me.
    “Fuck
off,
” I said over my shoulder. I got in my car and slammed the door, but he was standing right there at the window. He stood still as marble as I pulled away.
    There was a 7-Eleven close by. I went in and got a rose with plastic around the stem. The gay kiss made me excited, like life was