Bill, a young gay man living in California, returns to Boston in the summer of 1987 to visit his old college roommate and briefly lover, David. He, David, and their buddy Lou drive to Provincetown for a week's gay vacation, where the old ties of friendship among them deepen. But their good time is threatened by increasingly volatile personalities and a growin AIDS epidemic encircling them in an ever tighter grasp.<br><br>Their emotions explode one evening with the unexpected arrival of George, whose added presence brings to a head the simmering anxieties, fears, and resentments these friends have long harbored but have not openly shared. Will their friendships fall apart? Or will they discover a deeper love that binds them together?

Maid Service

A van slowed to let him cross. Large women were in it.


He walked up a side street. There were a couple of boutiques and one bodega close enough to Commercial to attract foot traffic. Their air conditioners were blasting hot air into the already hot midday. None of them had awnings to offer shade like the places on the main street did, and sun bore down hard on what else Bill saw: empty beer kegs, a couple of bicycles, someone’s baby carriage with no baby in it.


The side street’s real estate soon gave way to homes, pretty places with brightly painted trim and shutters, little curbside gardens full of well-watered flowers in bloom. One of the houses had three vintage iron pinwheels, rusted, but which might have been spinning were there a breeze. Bill kept walking, but slowed down the farther he was from the Bull Finch. There was a slight incline, and he wasn’t used to East Coast humidity anymore. He used his shirt to wipe the sweat from his underarms.


Chapter 16