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thought much about Victor, but now he became this exciting person because he was Blanca’s brother. Victor thought of me differently, too, more as a member of his family. As if Blanca and I were already a couple. He invited me over to a family-style dinner with Blanca and their parents. It was in an old people’s home, and Mr. and Mrs. Caesar-Sanchez were the oldest people I’ve ever met who were still alive. The food they ate was all intravenous. When I asked Mrs. Caesar-Sanchez where her daughter was, she looked so incredibly confused that I let it go. There was a picture of her on the wall, not Blanca but her mother, as a girl. She had Blanca’s look in her eyes: come hither, come yon. Victor talked to his parents as if they understood him, but I knew they didn’t. He gave them each a purse, the popular SOHO-style shoulder tote in pebbled leather. It didn’t seem like his parents would ever stand again, and shoulder totes really demand standing. Walking, living, needing, caring, toting. It seemed they were so far beyond these things, but I don’t know, my parents died before I was old enough to give them anything. Victor and I ate the Chinese fried chicken that we had brought with us, and then we all watched a show where couples compete at remodeling their kitchens. Victor drove me home, and we did not speak in the car because what was there to say. For the eighthundredthmillionthtrillionth time, she hadn’t shown up.
    I had never been in love, I had been a peaceful man, but now I was caught in agitation. I accidentally hurt myself with my own body, as if I were two clumsy people fighting. I held on to some things too tightly, ripping pages as I turned them, and let go of other things too suddenly, plates, breaking them. Victor sat with me at lunch all week and tried to interest me in things that were not interesting. Finally, he invited me over to his apartment to have drinks with Blanca. I could tell this was it. I had wowed their parents with my comfortable silence. Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I’ve never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I will ask myself: Is it worth it? And it just isn’t. I wore the same thing I had worn all the other times I thought I was going to meet her, the all-beige, but this time I was more careful. I tucked my shirt into my boxers before I pulled up my pants, and when I pulled them up, they stroked the hairs on my legs. I was noticing everything, I was electric.
    Blanca, of course, was late. Victor and I laughed about this, and I really laughed because now it was really funny in a way it had not been before. Goddamn that girl! She knew how to tease a guy. Victor and I toasted to Blanca and her lateness. I filled her cup and drank it for her, here’s to my girl! My little girl!
    At midnight Victor cleared his throat and said there was something he hadn’t told me.
    She’s not coming?
    No, she’s coming.
    Oh, good.
    But I had a little plan for tonight, for you and Blanca.
    What.
    I have E.
    What?
    E.
    What’s E?
    Ecstasy.
    Oh.
    Have you ever had it?
    No, I’ll just stick with my beer.
    You’re gonna like this.
    I had a joint once and I didn’t feel right for a whole year.
    This isn’t like that; it’ll make you nice and loose with Blanca.
    I don’t think she wants me loose.
    Trust me, she does. She’ll have the third tab when she comes in.
    Blanca likes this stuff?
    Of course.
    Is she like a … wild, out-of-control teenager?
    You know she is.
    God, I thought maybe she was, but I didn’t want to ask.
    Just put it under your tongue, like this.
    Okay. Is she seventeen?
    Yeah. Now let’s just listen to the music and wait for it to kick in.
    We sat on Victor’s couch and listened to Johnny Cash or someone who sounds like that. A cowboy singer singing his cowboy song. I thought about Blanca and could feel her coming closer. I could almost hear her shoes on the street below, the sound of her running