The mid-40s are that time in a gay man's life when his major paradigm shifts from sexy to Sansabelts. But when Barry Grooms's partner of twenty years is killed on Barry's forty-fifth birthday, his world doesn't so much evolve as it does explode.<br><br>After navigating through the surreal conveyor belt of friends and family, he can't eat another casserole or swallow much more advice on what constitutes grief. Still numb, he leaves his homestore and design business in the care of others as he escapes to Key West, then New York. There he gets a thankless new job working for a crazy lady in a poncho, then has too many drinks with a narcissistic Broadway actor. Next it's a nude exercise class that redefines flop sweat, and from there he's on to a relationship with a man twenty years his junior.<br><br>Yet no matter how great the retreat from the man he used to be, life's gravity spins Barry back to the small town where he grew up for one more ironic twist that teaches him how to say goodbye with grace.

The Cool Part of His Pillow

As I find my napkin, Ryland asks angrily, “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”


Something soured his mood while I was away. It happens. “I’m sitting down.”


“Someone’s already sitting there.”


“Did you not hear what I said?” Ryland demands.


I stand up. I should have known, when he made that big deal about actually having a Peter Luger charge card when we claimed our reservation.


“Wait! Wait! Is that you, Barry?” he then asks. “I thought I’d memorized your voice. I should tell you that I suffer from something called face blindness.”


Aunt Sarajane, if she actually got a whiff, would salivate over this one.


Ryland continues. “What happens is I don’t recognize people when they walk away.”


So he probably won’t notice that I just did.


Chapter 64