They walked together to the door and out into the buzzing hall. In the hall, they parted, going in opposite directions between its brownish, ivory-painted walls. Just a few minutes, Gay was thinking … a very few … since he came into the room and spoke to me … time … weeks, days … what does it matter? What matters, he answered himself honestly, is that he's friendly. I know I'm going to like him. I knew I'd like Bob, too, but it took so long to know him … years … and this has only been a few minutes … funny …
He cut between his classmates and for no reason glanced back over his shoulder. Beyond and over the sea of moving heads, he saw Rogers turn and wave. He sensed a piercing intimacy and wondered why … wondered if the other boy felt it too. Then Rogers turned and was lost in the moving sea.
Gaylord let himself be pushed passively along until he stood against the gymnasium door. It wasn't hard to enter this morning … for some reason he wasn't thinking about those on the other side … He was thinking of the boy he had just met and of two deep dimples.
A girl had described Glenn Rogers to perfection when she had cried excitedly, "Gosh, Mother, doesn't Glenn make a handsome cowboy? Isn't he cute?" She had said this to her parents one Sunday afternoon on the Rogers' farm.
Rogers, straddled across a lively brown horse, romped over grounds laid heavy with cow manure, and the large loop of rope, circling his head, had come down and caught the front foot of a calf. He had jerked the rope quickly, bringing the animal down to the ground. A thrill had rushed through her as she watched the boy quickly dismount and walk nonchalantly toward the wheezing animal. He had looked at her, grinned modestly, and tipped his stained cowboy hat, showing a pale streaked forehead, and damp, dark, plastered hair. The flexed muscles in his slightly bowed legs showed beneath the skin-tight blue jeans, and his hands, she had noticed, were large with long, lumpy fingers. His nose, wide at the nostrils, had a little hump. It didn't detract, only added to the sparkling blue eyes. And while the upper lip was narrow and tightly drawn, the lower
