"Yves, Yves," I woke up to find that he was smiling at me, but from above. Standing by the bed and dressed in grubby jeans and a fresh shirt, he held out a coffee cup to me. "I must to go," he said. "They start the work early. Tell me, please, when I should to be home to go with you."

"Four o'clock or so," I muttered, taking the cup. "Or sooner if you want a massage." He smiled and vanished. I took a sip of the coffee, put the mug on the floor and went blissfully back to sleep.

The telephone woke me. My mother, with a list of provisions I was to bring from the city. Artichokes. Smoked salmon. A Reblochon, my father's favorite cheese. Fennel. I wrote everything down and added to her list the American peaches I hoped were still for sale and brioches from my favorite bakery. "We'll be there by seven, Maman," I said. "Maybe earlier. Maman, my friend, Dmitri, well, he likes to be called, Mitya. Maman, he's getting over a terrible tragedy, so not too much teasing, please."

"Will you tell me the story, darling?"

"Not now. Maybe up there. You might be able to help him. He can be so sad."

"Comme tu veux, mon ame. Drive carefully." She made a kissing sound and hung up.

After breakfast and a call to Tommy to arrange timing, I did the shopping, took the twins' portrait to be framed, packed for myself and Mitya and put the drawing of Rifat and my sketch pad and pencils in a carrying case that Tommy had given me for my birthday last year. Wondering if Mitya played, I got out my two tennis rackets and some balls. I knew he didn't have white shorts and shirts, but we could buy them at the club.

Just as I finished lunch, the doorbell rang. It was Jean-Pierre. He gave me the money for the portrait. I gave him the receipt for the framers. And then he just stood in the doorway, shifting from one foot to another, head down, about to say something but not able to get it out.

I ached for him. "Come on in, Jean-Pierre. I have some iced tea. You do want to talk, don't you?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, please." He looked at me and smiled a little. "If you have time, Yves."

Once we were safely on opposite sides of the kitchen table, I reached across it and took his hand. "I'm only 23, Jean-Pierre. I remember what it's like to find out that you're different. It's awful, I know, but it gets better."

"When?" His eyes were brimming. "And I don't think it's awful to be… well, to be different, like you said. What's awful is to have to pretend all the time and to be afraid you'll get caught."

"You," I hesitated, "you aren't doing anything with other boys, are you? Or men?"

"No. I want to. You know that. But that's not what I mean. Getting caught is having one of the guys I like catch me looking at him. I can't help but look. And then I wonder if he could be like me and be hiding, too. How do you find that out, Yves? Without coming on to somebody, I mean?"

"Is it one friend, in particular?"

"He's not really a friend. We just met roller-blading. He's really good. Like, maybe the best in the park. And he's nice. And he has big, brown eyes, Yves, like Mitya's. Maybe not so dark. And his lips…"

"You really go for him, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely. But he doesn't pay that much attention. Except that he thinks it's funny that he can't tell me and Luc apart."

"Have you seen him with any girls?"

"No, but roller-blading isn't much of a girl thing. There's a bunch of dudes he hangs around with."

"Do you know any of them?"

"No."

"Or where he lives?"

"No. It must be somewhere around here. LaFontaine is pretty much for this neighborhood."

"Well, then, I think the park is where you have to work things out. Try talking to him the next time you're both there."

"About what?"

"His family. How long he's lived around here. What school he's in, since it's not the same as yours. I don't know, Jean-Pierre, could you ask him to help you get better at blading?"

The boy's face lit up briefly. Then gloom clouded it again. "Well, I saw him helping a little kid once. Maybe it was his brother. But I couldn't ask for help. That would make me a wuss."

"You said he was nice."

"Yeah. He's real polite. And he's always smiling."

"Then, I don't think he'd mind being asked for some help. You're good. I saw you. He must know that. So, he'd probably be flattered."

"You think so?"

"It's worth trying, isn't it? If you think you're in love with him."

Silence. "It isn't love, Yves. You're the one I think I love. I dream about you sometimes. With him, it's different. I just want to …, well, I want to do things with him and feel what it's like. He's not as tall as I am or as strong, see, and I want to hold him up against me. And put my hands all over him."

He was blushing deeply. I'm sure that Jean-Pierre had never told a living soul what his fantasies were. I hoped that just telling me would help him come to terms with himself, but I could see that the boy was miserable. I squeezed his hand.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Jean-Pierre. And with the right person, somebody who wants to be touched and held that way, it's really special. Worth waiting for."

"How long did you wait?"

Uh-oh, I thought. I should have seen that question coming. But I wasn't going to lie. Jean-Pierre had to trust me, and I'm terrible at lying about anything important. "I was 14 and a half, but it was with my best friend. We'd been best friends since the first grade. I wasn't afraid that he'd be angry or wouldn't let me touch him."

"But he did?"

I nodded. I tried to remember that magic night in the cabin at the lake. Tommy and I were both in pajamas. He was lying on his bed reading, and I was about to get into mine when, without thinking, completely on impulse, I bent down and kissed him. He didn't act surprised or offended. He just calmly put the book on the floor and then drew me down beside him and kissed me back. "I'm so glad you did that, Yves," he said. "I've wanted to kiss you for a long time."

"I love you, Tommy," I whispered.

"I know, Yves, and I love you, too."

That was all we said, but we slept that night in each other's arms and many, many wonderful nights afterwards. "I was pretty sure it would be all right," I told Jean-Pierre, "and it was."

"Do you still see him?" the boy asked.

"All the time."

"Are you still in love with him?"

The inquisition was getting to some tender places. "I thought we were going to talk about you, Jean-Pierre." I ducked.

"Well, I asked because … because I need to know if," he was chewing on his lip, "if, well, someday you think you could feel that way about me, the way I feel about you."

"I already love lots of things about you, Jean-Pierre. You are incredibly good looking and you're smart and you're really nice. Most of all, I love the fact that you felt you could tell me about yourself and your feelings. That makes you very brave, on top of everything else." I stopped. But that wasn't enough. I could see from his expression that I had to be really honest, even if it hurt.

"Jean-Pierre," I groped for the right words, "you'll always mean a lot to me, but I don't think that we'll be lovers. Right now, I'm in love with Mitya, even though I'm pretty sure that his strongest feeling for me is gratitude. And when you asked me about being still in love with my friend, you made me think. I'll probably always be in love with him. If he would let me, I'd give up everything for us to be back together the way we were."

"Is your friend the skinny brown guy who comes around a lot?"

"Do you really think he's skinny?"

"Well, he's tall and thin. He doesn't look as if he works out much. But his eyes are terrific. Really fine."

"Yes, they are, and yes, that's him. Tommy. So you see why I don't think you and I …"

"Yeah." The hurt look surfaced again. I got up and walked around the table to him.

"Can we hold each other, Jean-Pierre?" I asked. "It's just a hug, but I'd like to be able to hug you."

He stood up and opened his arms. I stepped into them and put mine around his back. "I'll always love you, Yves," he muttered into my shoulder.

"And I'll always admire you," I stroked the back of his bent head as I felt his chest heaving with sobs he wouldn't let out. "You're a wonderful, beautiful kid and, Jean-Pierre, I dream about you, too, sometimes."

He squeezed me and then he let go. "I oughtta go," he mumbled. "I'm supposed to meet Luc and do some 'blading."

I smiled at him. "Good hunting, Jean-Pierre. If he's as nice as you think, I bet things will work out. Just don't rush it."

He grinned, the first real sign of happiness and ease he had shown since he came through the door. "Yes, sir." He stood at mock attention. "I'll tell you what happens. If anything does…"

After he left, I wondered if I'd given him the right advice. Maybe I should have told him not to take any chances. To wait. He might meet a great girl and see that his crush on me was just hormones racing down the wrong trail.

I'd been so lucky. Tommy was always there. My parents loved me enough to respect my declaration when I was 15 that I was gay and wouldn't change. A couple of people at school did hassle me, but mostly I was accepted.

Jean-Pierre would probably have a harder time. Luc, for instance. He was a tough, no matter how much the portrait had gotten to him. If he turned on his twin brother, the boy would be desperate. And the parochial school that he went to was full of doctrinaire Catholics, intolerant, mean, probably brutal. But it was his life, and he was the only one who could live it. I couldn't do it for him.

As I was going back and forth, the front door opened and Mitya came in. He was beaming and, if possible, grimier than he'd been the day before. In his left hand he had a shopping bag that clinked as he walked somewhat uncertainly toward me. "A miracle," he declared boisterously as he set the bag down on the kitchen table and pulled a bottle out of it. "My new friends took me to a store that sells things which are from home, and look, Yves, look!"

I looked. The label was in an alphabet I couldn't decipher. I shrugged.

"It is shlivo, the liquid of the Balkans. It is made from a fruit." He looked around the kitchen. "Purple."

"Grapes?" I asked.

"No. Larger. They grow on trees. Very sweet when they are matured."

I groped for a name. "Plums?"

"Yes! Yes!" He kissed my forehead. "It is brandy from plums. I hope your mother and father will to like it. I could not to find another something to give them."

"I'm sure they will, Mitya," I said, not sure at all. "But you didn't have to…"

"It is not polite otherwise to be a guest. To bring something is necessary, and look I got a something for you and for Tommy. It is from the same store." He delved into the bag and produced a reddish miniature baseball bat. "Sausage!" he roared. "From Serbs."

"That is wonderful." It looked like a war club. I prayed that Tommy would not go into his vegetarian mode when he saw it. "Mitya, you are too kind. And too dirty. And maybe just a little drunk. Have you been sampling some of the brandy?"

He grinned, a huge, dopey, slightly pixillated grin. "Just a little. See?" A second bottle emerged from the bag. It was only about half full.

"Just a little?" I queried, eyebrows rising.

"My friends, they helped. We celebrated that we are friends. It was very good."

"I bet." I pointed to the stairs. "Shower. Hot, lots of soap. Then cold. And we have to hurry a little. Tommy will be waiting, and I'd like to beat the rush hour."

We did, but Mitya didn't enjoy the scenery. He crawled into the back seat of Rosinante after we picked up Tommy and went to sleep almost immediately. As we left Montreal behind, he began to snore lightly at first and then not so lightly.

Tommy leaned over and whispered in my ear. "Doomed," he gloated. "The love of your life, and he sounds like a threshing machine. It will never last. You're too light a sleeper."

"You've never been near a threshing machine," I rejoined. "And he only snores when he has been drinking. And, besides, Tommy, you'll always be the love of my life."

He gave me an odd, inquiring look. "You've slept with him when he was sober?"

I nodded.

"Tell all."

I did and I didn't. I told Tommy about the funny, weird coincidences between the first conversations both Rifat and I had had with Mitya in bed. I told him the sex had only been oral. And I told him that Mitya's gratitude wasn't overflowing into love.

"But it still could," Tommy said, consolingly. "You're truly lovable, after all."

My turn to give him an odd, inquiring look, but he didn't notice. Sorting through my CD collection to find some music for the rest of the trip, he settled on Mylene Farmer. We both loved her voice and her bittersweet songs. But we played them quietly so as not to wake Mitya. " Tout est chaos à côté/ Tous mes idéaux: des mots abimés/ Je cherche un âme qui pourra m'aider/Je suis d'une génération désenchantée. "

Only as we were nearing Mont Tremblant, did we turn up the volume and, when that didn't work, Tommy gently shook Mitya awake and explained that it was time to admire the scenery. Which he did. Sort of. "I thought they would be taller," he said, looking at the hills, "but they are very much green, like in Slovenia except not so tall. In Montenegro, many hills are very tall, but they are mostly rock. It is dramatic, yes, but it is not so calm and beautiful as here."

I didn't reply. Slovenia? My knowledge of world geography got very fuzzy once past London, Paris and Rome. And unless film, poetry or art was a notable export, Tommy knew foreign countries in terms of their political irresponsibility but not their topography. We all lapsed into silence as we passed through the tarted-up streets of the resort town, but Mitya became vocally enthusiastic when a glistening sheet of water appeared below us.

"It is so beautiful, Yves. Is it your lake?"

"I wish. No, it is a park for everybody. Our place is on a smaller lake just the other side of this one. The glaciers left these big bowls, I guess, in the ground thousands and thousands of years ago, and they all have springs that feed them still. What's fun is to swim around going from the water on top that the sun has warmed to the really cold layers underneath that surprise you because they hit you without warning."

"Like the turtles," Tommy said. "You can see a watersnake coming and get out of the way, but the turtles are sneaky."

"It was just one turtle," I protested. "And it had no way of knowing that your toe was attached to you or the air mattress you were being lazy on."

"I'm not being bitter," Tommy said, sounding even so, as though a minor brush with nature's predatory side 12 years ago remained a formative memory. "I just think Mitya should know what can be hiding under the calm and the beauty."

"If you will to be my turtle watchman, Tommy, I'm sure all will rest safe," Mitya chuckled. "And I would like to see a real turtle not in a zoo or a picture book. I will keep guard, though, on my toes."

If he was prepared for the wildlife, he was clearly not prepared for Summerfields, the Sinclair vacation compound. I heard him draw in his breath as we drove through the stone gate - I've always thought it was pretentious - and up the driveway to the big house, a fieldstone pile that should have had a moat to go with the turrets. My father's grandfather had built it when the railroad line he owned opened the way into these then-virgin woods. Mitya let out his breath. "It is a palace, Yves. Not even our prince bishops lived so, never."

"The Sinclairs weren't princes, and certainly not bishops," Tommy said. "Just barons. Robber barons, of course. And the only things living on the second floor now are small mice and big spiders. You'll see. We sleep in a cabin that is simple and rustic except for the sound system."

"Rustic. It means?"

"Plain, like a farmer's house," I explained. "Made of wood, well, logs actually. It was the ice house a long time ago." I stopped the car and opened my door to get out. "Mitya," I turned to him in the back seat. "I hope you will like it here and will like my family. They are just like everybody else…

"Except richer," Tommy put in.

"… and it will make me very happy if staying here with us for a few days makes you happy, too."

"You are my doctor for the heart," Mitya said. "And I like your sanatorium already very much."