I met this handsome guy who moved in next door to me in 1986. When he was in his twenties, he modeled in Houston and showed me the proofs in a folder. I developed this terrible crush on him; I was thirty-seven and he was thirty-three.

He could sing quite well and typed 190 words a minute on a computer. He had a genius IQ and was a hell of a cook and decorator. His name was Bill.

Bill told the very best jokes ever and had a come-back for anyone's ridiculous scarcasm. We hung out together and I wished he would kiss me, or even ask me out. I heard he didn’t like pudgy women. I lost twenty-eight pounds, trying to be more attractive for him. Then, his sister told me he was gay.

Well, that didn't end our friendship. We started boy-watching together: men working on rooftops, fixing the roads, etc.

We played guitar and sang together, went swimming, bowling, played pool and enjoyed each other's company for several years.

While I attended college, working on my teaching degree, I met this cute guy named Tracy. His father taught my Educational Psychology class . Besides being gorgeous, he flattered me walking to classes and carried my books like a high school sweetheart. We ate lunch together and became great friends. I had no idea he knew my next-door-neighbor.

I was surprised to see Tracy leaving Bill's house one morning on the way to school. It dawned on me that Tracy was Bill's lover. I felt sort of jealous but kept my cool, hanging out with both of them.

My son and the neighbors on our street liked Bill although we knew he smoked a lot of pot. Still, we were cool about it. I just never knew why he did it because he had a great job and it would have been terrible for him to lose it over a drug screen.

Eventually, Bill moved to a larger city for a better job and I didn’t hear from him for a few years.

I ran into him at Wal-mart in 1997. He looked quite thin and his hair turned completely gray. We hugged each other and tried to catch up with each other’s lives, but our time was limited. He said he had an appointment he had to keep.

He was receiving treatment for AIDS and the pot took away his nausea.

Bill died later that year. My son overheard about it in a conversation at the corner grocery store from his brother, Larry.

"We lost William last week."

Bill's sister was a social worker and headed the AIDS foundation in the Grayson County, Texas area for several years after his death. I saw her responding to an interview on the local news.

A month later, I heard Bill's twin half-brothers Terry and Larry both died, driving while intoxicated in two separate incidents. The sister who informed me of his homosexuality is a lesbian. She and Bill were the only ones in an extended family of five children who had the same mother and father. I thought it strange that they were both born gay. The other siblings were heterosexuals but had a different father.

I miss my best friend.

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