Read And Now You Can Go for Free Online Page B

turns on the slide projector and switches off the lights. I've made a point of sitting by the entrance to the room, where the strip of light from the hallway slides under the door.

    The professor clicks through the slides: Ghirlandaio's portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni; Raphael's depiction of Baldas-sare Castiglione; El Greco's painting of his friend, the theologian and priest Fray Hortensio.

    Each time a new portrait is projected I wonder, On a scale of one to ten, how much do the people in the painting resemble what they looked like in real life ?

    There's no way of knowing.

    I decide to go to a Christmas party another student is having. I've heard the red-faced representative of the world is going to be there. I take the subway to where the nice stores are. I try on a black velvet dress I can't afford, and buy it. My plan is to leave the tag on, abstain from red wine, and return the dress the next day.

    I arrive at the party late, hoping the representative might already be there. He isn't.

    I talk to a woman in her forties who's wearing a sequined skirt. Sequined in the back at least; in front, most are gone.

    "I used to wear this skirt when I performed with a guitar," she says. "I wish I could play guitar," I say.
    "Red wine?" she asks. "Sure."
    I talk to a guy I know and his girlfriend, who's just flown into town. He has a politician's smile and, thinking no one can see where his hand is, is stroking the crack of her butt.

    I talk to a woman with too-long hair. She knows about the man in the park. Everyone knows. "I was thinking," she says to me. "Now, with all this going on, do you still want your tutoring job at the Learning Center?"

    I hadn't thought about quitting.

    "Because if you want a break or something, I could take over for you."

    "I'm totally fine," I say. My job is the first thing in a while I've felt like fighting for.

    Frustrated that the guy I have come to find, the guy for whose sake I've bought a dress I can't afford, hasn't shown up, I sneak away to find my coat and there, in the bedroom, is his green coat. It's on him and his back is to me.

    "Hey," I say.

    "Hey," he says. "Are you leaving?"

    "No, no. I just came to get something."

    He looks at the coat in my hand. "I'll walk you home," he says.

    "Don't you want to stay?" I ask. "You just got here." "I came to check up on you." We go back to my apartment and, once inside, I put on a sweatshirt over my dress. "I don't get it," he says.
    "What?"

    "You wear that dress and look like that in front of other people, but when it's just the two of us, you cover up."

    "Yeah?" I say. "Your point?"

    When he goes to the bathroom I take off the sweatshirt and then the dress and then put the sweatshirt back on. I put on pants. I change and put on sweatpants. I fold the dress over my desk chair. Then I hang it up in my closet because I don't want him to see the tag, or worse, rip it off.

    He's taking a long time. When we were teenagers, Freddie said, "You know in old movies when the women say they're going to go into the bathroom to slip into something more comfortable? That means they're putting in their diaphragms."

    When he comes back into the room his breath is fresh. "Which color toothbrush did you use?"
    "I used my finger," he says.

    He sits on the bed next to me and then kisses me. His tongue tastes of Aquafresh, but his lips smell like cigarettes.

    "I didn't know you smoked," I say. "I know. Is it that bad?"
    "No, it's okay." Close-up, his face has little diamond marks, acne scars. Maybe from when he was eighteen and a coke fiend. I kiss his cheek, my lips touching at least ten of those diamonds.

    "Your skin smells good," I say. "Like soap."

    He takes off his shirt, his pants; he removes the rubber band from his hair.

    His underwear is forest green and a cross between boxers and briefs. "My sister bought me these in London," he says. "She works at the Tate."

    "They're nice," I say, wondering if he's gay.

    He puts his hand on my