Free The Best Little Boy in the World by John Reid; Andrew Tobias Page B

success. And if Hank ever asked, I just might suggest that things had gone a little farther than Hillary wanted to admit.
    Of course, I began to wonder why Hillary wouldn't let me do anything. Not that I wanted to—just that I wanted to know what was wrong with me. That is, what other people perceived as being wrong. The bad breath syndrome.
    It was not bad breath. Once after the play or the post-game party, back at Hillary's hotel room, on the same floor as Hank's girl's room, I got my hand around her shoulder and started moving it across—and Hillary explained that she liked me well enough, but she just couldn't let herself go with me because she thought I was only interested in her body. Hah! I hadn't opened up to her, she said. She didn't know the inner me.
    Hank would usually get home from these evenings around three, and for all he knew, I had come in only a few minutes earlier. Sometimes I would wait up for him. We frequently had the post-game beer parties in our suite (all the more reason for needing a date), and I would clean things up while I waited. How was it, Hank? "Good." How was it, he would ask. "Good." (If you are wondering why Hank came home at all, as well you might, I have to say, first, that sometimes he didn't, but second, and mainly, try to remember how much different things were just a few years ago. Short hair, no dope, all-male schools... very few years ago.)
    Though I managed my way through these evenings with Hillary, I didn't enjoy them at all. I didn't enjoy pretending. It went very much against my superhonest instincts. But I didn't enjoy always getting home before Hank, either. Why did I have to be the social cripple? What were he and my other roommate going to think if I always got home before they did?
    One evening I decided it was time for me not to be the first one home. I was walking back from Hillary's hotel. Instead of going back to the dorm, looking first to see that no one was watching me and feeling tremendously guilty—I ducked into another hotel and asked for a room. No luggage, sir? No luggage, I gulped, feeling exposed, guiltier still, but determined. Then you will have to pay in advance.
    I went up to the room and tried to sleep, with only moderate success. There was no clock or radio in the room, and no phone. When the sun in the window woke me, I had no idea what time it was. I waited in bed as long as I could, and then went out into the street—again stealthily to be sure no one saw me. It is unlikely any of my friends would have been up that early on a Sunday morning. It was seven fifteen.
    That's what the clock above the newsstand said. So I walked around feeling guilty for two hours and then went to make my grand unshaven entrance in last night's wrinkled clothes, hoping my roommates might possibly have woken by this time and noticed that my bed was made, and no me anywhere in sight.
    Of course, they were asleep, so after turning on the lights in my room for extra effect, I went stealthily back out and walked around for another hour.
    At quarter past ten they were still asleep. I hadn't slept much myself and was exhausted by my ridiculous fraud. But I had invested $12 and lots of energy in it and had to have it go as planned. Finally, on my fourth attempt, just before noon, I walked in and saw my roommates were up and reading the Sunday Times. I walked past them into my room as nonchalantly as I could, with a simple, "Morning." I waited a minute for the applause, or at least for a question or two. After all, we had been living together for nearly two years, and this was the first time I had ever stayed out all night with a girl. My best friend Hank should have had something to say.
    Hank kept reading the paper. I took off my tie and jacket and sat down with them to read the paper. Nothing.
    A couple of days later I broke down and asked Hank, "Hey, didn't you notice that I didn't come home Saturday night?"
    "Oh, yeah?" he asked. "How was