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wasn’t even made for AIDS. It’s an old cancer drug that’s been sitting on the shelves for years.”

    The speed with which Kevin talked excited Lee. Deceptively embodied in a blonde gym bunny was an encyclopedia of treatment programs, drug trials, and toxicity rates in pharmaceuticals. For all the incomprehensible talk, Lee couldn’t help but notice how being so over-informed made Kevin ... sexier.

    “You should go with us,” Kevin suggested. “It’ll be great fun.”

    “Don’t they ... arrest people for that?”

    “Oh, sure,” Kevin shrugged it off. “That’s the fun part, sharing jail cells with hunky boys.”

    Lee grinned at the idea. He’d seen the type on the street; short hair, Doc Martens, black bomber jackets. They had seemed distant as another species, and Kevin had simply invited him in.

    “I don’t know how you can be so radical and do these jobs,” Lee said. “I mean, what if you were working some party full of rightwingers? What would you do, handcuff yourself to a chair leg?”

    “Maybe.” Kevin grinned. “If I had legal support. Besides, we serve those people all the time. See, the problem with a protest like that would be the focus. Everybody’s got something to scream about. It’s much stronger when you bring a couple hundred of your best friends.”

    “I see.”

    “You should come to a meeting sometime.”

    “Yeah, I’ll try to, if I’m not working. Seems Fabulous always call me for Mondays.”

    “I’ll call to remind you,” Kevin grinned.

    “Yeah, do that.”

    Kevin glanced toward the entrance of the library wing. A ruffled pink gown with a wire-thin woman inside it floated through the doorway, escorted by a corpulent man in black.

    “Here they come,” Kevin murmured. “En garde.”

    Brian once again fought the urge to swipe a bottle of Bollinger and hide out in a back room. His B waiter had failed to show up at their table, which, since it lay close to the exit, turned out to be the source for the other waiters to snatch a needed fork or wineglass. In addition to the missing utensils, the sticks of sourdough bread, so stiff as to be practically inedible, left that incriminating dusty residue on the crimson napkins.

    Infected with the disease of Perpetual Neatness, he brushed off the napkins, giving each a harsh blow.

    “What are you doing?” quizzed a thin blond waiter who resembled a young J. Crew model, because he was a J. Crew model.

    “A little house cleaning.” Brian jerked up, at first nervous. Upon giving the waiter a once over, he realized his rank. “Are you my B waiter?”

    “Is this your table you’re blowing?”

    “Yup.” Brian placed his hands authoritatively behind his back, staring the kid down while holding back a giggle at his remark.

    “Then I guess I’m your B.”

    “Terrific,” Brian said, glaring over to Neil Pynchon, who supervised the third shifting of the tables. He did this just to piss me off, he thought. That’s what I get for never calling him back after fucking him. “Listen, we need three forks, a water glass and a new napkin. Why don’t you go get them while I hold the fort?”

    “Where do we get those?” the rookie asked, slightly panicking. Brian took a bottle of red wine from his hand and gave him his white, since he had unwittingly taken two reds.

    “Never mind, I’ll get it. Just ask them if they want red or white, and only pour half a glass.”

    “But what’ll I do until then?”

    “Fake it.”

    The young man stiffened as a tall imposing woman sat at their table, folding her white mink stole over her chair as her husband stood near her, blocking access to her wineglass. The young waiter cringed silently. His pathetic look left Brian wondering how Lee was doing in the other room, whether he had adjusted to the slimy glamour of the job.

    Brian spent the evening considering his fate, and the fate of others who’d been hurled into his little world. Only Ed cut through it. Didn’t Lee