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Mr. Müller got up and poured himself a generous drink. Julie sometimes wondered out loud if her father had a drinking problem, if that was why his career had stalled and he'd ended up as a low-level manager at Prudential instead of the bigwig executive he seemed cut out to be.
“Why did you want to know?” Dave asked.
Mr. Müller eased himself back into his seat. He tasted a mouthful of the scotch as though it were a fine wine. “Know what?”
“Why did you ask me if I liked to fish?”
“Just curious. I was wondering what you do for fun. If you have any hobbies and so forth.”
Dave shook his head. “Just the music, but that goes way beyond a hobby. It's the only thing I really care about.”
“Julie tells me you're in a wedding band.”
“The Wishbones. I've been playing with them for two years.”
“Good money in that?”
Here it comes, Dave thought.
“Not bad, actually. About fifty bucks an hour when you break it down.”
“Must be interesting,” Mr. Müller observed, “going to all those weddings.”
Dave nodded. “You learn a lot about people.”
“I bet.” Mr. Müller shoved one hand into his pants pocket and jingled some change. “What about DJs? Give you much competition?”
“Not really. There's no real substitute for live music.”
Mr. Müller gazed contemplatively at his beverage. “A kid I work with is a DJ. He calls himself Rockin’ Randy or some such.”
Before Dave could reply, Julie opened the door and poked her head into the room.
“Dinner,” she told them.
Mr. Müller jumped up from the couch like he'd heard a gunshot.
“Chowtime,” he said, looking deeply relieved.
Later, after her parents had gone to bed, Dave and Julie went down to the rec room to watch TV. Dave channel-surfed for a while, stopping to watch an Amy Grant video on VH1. He'd never told anyone, but he thought Amy Grant was the sexiest woman alive. The fact that she was born-again just made fantasizing about her that much more exciting.
Julie snuggled up next to him like they were back in high school. “Well,” she said, “that wasn't so bad, was it?”
Amy Grant was dancing against a chaste white background, wearing a succession of cute hats, looking like she was having the time of her life. That was the secret of her appeal, Dave realized. She just seemed so ecstatically happy to be herself, beautiful and dancing on VH1.
“Was it?” Julie asked again.
“The food was great. You outdid yourself.”
“My parents were good, too, don't you think?”
“They were fine.”
In fact, the evening had been fairly painless, much easier than Dave had expected. Mr. and Mrs. Müller were surprisingly civil with each other, and Julie hadn't snapped at them once. No one made even a veiled reference to the sex incident. Julie slid her index finger between two buttons of Dave's shirt.
“It's amazing how excited they were when I told them. How did your parents take it?”
It had always interested Dave how some artists were able to make videos that captured their sensibility, while others couldn't even come close. As a general rule, the cooler you were, the less likely you were to succeed on video. You couldn't really imagine Chrissie Hynde or Natalie Merchant dancing around in twelve different hats.
“Dave.” Julie snatched the remote from his hand, erasing Amy from the screen. “I asked you a question.”
“Sorry. I got a little distracted.”
“What's wrong? You act like something's bothering you.”
He swallowed hard. It was now or never.
“There is,” he confessed.
She moved away from him, sitting up straight and watching him with an alertness that was fierce, almost animal.
“What?”
“I feel awful about this.”
“Go on,” she said. There was the faintest quiver in her voice.
All at once, he knew he couldn't do it. He'd never be able to. They'd live together for fifty years and be buried side by side before he'd be able to explain that it was all just an accident.
“Go on,” she repeated.
“It's the ring,” he said. “I can't afford to buy you a good one.”
The tension drained visibly from her face; she slumped back against the couch and shook her head.
“I don't care about the ring,” she told him.
“I do. You deserve a nice one.”
“I really don't care, Dave.”
“Well, I do.”
She terminated the discussion by reaching behind his head, pulling his face against hers, and kissing him in a way that normally would have made him forget everything else.
“Julie,” he said, when she finally came up for air, “I was wondering about something.”
“Hmm?”
“Do you have any photo albums I could look at?”
“Now?” she asked, kissing him again.
“Yeah,” he said. “If it's not too much trouble.”
“Right now?” she asked, tracing the grooves of his ear with her tongue.
“Uh-huh,” he murmured. “As long as it's not a problem.”
“This very minute?” she asked, sucking on his earlobe while tugging with gentle efficiency on his belt.
“Whenever,” he told her.
YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND (#ulink_178fd160-974d-515d-816e-62a6fbda7af7)
On the way to Phil Hart's wake, Dave told Buzzy about his engagement.
“That's great,” Buzzy said. He was wearing a black pinstripe suit with a black shirt and a skinny white leather tie, an outfit that made Dave vaguely embarrassed on his behalf. “I'm really happy for you.”
“You mean that?”
“Why wouldn't I?”
“I don't know. I'm not sure it's such a great idea myself.”
“Why?” Buzzy turned to Dave with an expression of dawning comprehension. “Her old man answer the door with a shotgun?”
“Nothing like that.”
A couple of seconds went by. “So how'd it happen? You get down on your knees and all that crap?”
“I don't know.”
“You were there,” Buzzy reminded him. He looked at Dave more closely. “You were there, right?”
“I was,” Dave admitted. “I just didn't mean to do it.”
“Ah,” said Buzzy.
Dave's chest felt constricted, as though he were wrapped from armpit to navel in Ace bandages.
“I'm up the fucking creek,” he said. “She's already reserved the church.”
Buzzy laughed. “Tell her you have a gig that day.” When Dave didn't respond, he rolled his window down and spit a wad of gum into the street. “It was easier for me. Jo Ann was pregnant with Zeke. That kind of made the decision for me.”
Of all the Wishbones, Buzzy had come closest to the big time. In the mid-eighties he'd been part of Flesh Wound, a locally popular speed metal band that had been on the verge of signing with one of the major labels when the guy they were negotiating with got fired and the deal collapsed. Flesh Wound's lead singer and lead guitarist split off to form LasseratoR, which had since become a fixture on the local club circuit, but Buzzy had retired from serious rock ‘n roll in favor of marriage and family.
“Jesus,” said Dave. “Look at this.”
Warneck's Funeral Home looked like the scene of a good party. Cars lined both sides of the street in front of the imposing Victorian mansion; well-dressed people stood in clusters on the porch and lawn, taking advantage of the balmy evening.
Dave parked on a nearby side street. He and Buzzy walked in silence down a sidewalk sprinkled with a confetti of white blossoms already going brown along the edges. There was a greenish fragrance in the air, a soft springtime smell that made him nostalgic for high school, the feeling of endless possibility that stretched out in front of you every time you left your house on a night like this.
“Are you glad you did it?” he asked.
“What? Get married?”
“Yeah.”
“I'm forty-one,” Buzzy replied, after a brief hesitation. “I got a house, a wife and kids, and a job that doesn't make me want to buy a gun and go wreak havoc at the mall. I get to play music on the weekends and drink a couple of beers every once in a while. Things could be worse, Daverino. They could be a helluva lot worse.”
“I hear you,” said Dave.
A couple of teenage girls nearly bumped into them as they rounded the corner to Warneck's. The girls were nothing special, a pair of giggly fifteen-year-olds in baggy jeans and tight cropped shirts that exposed their navels, but Dave and Buzzy parted like the Red Sea to let them pass, then turned to watch them continue down the street, the air still vibrating from the mysterious power of their bodies.
“Damn,” said Dave.
“Sweet Jesus,” said Buzzy.
Just then, for no reason at all, the girls turned in unison and waved. They exploded into a fresh round of giggles when Dave and Buzzy waved back. Buzzy tugged on the sleeve of Dave's sport coat.
“Come on, let's go talk to them.”
“Okay,” said Dave.
Despite their agreement, both men remained motionless as the girls receded into the distance, finally disappearing around a corner. Without further discussion, Dave and Buzzy turned and walked the rest of the way to the funeral home.
Stan knew he was going to be late for the fucking wake, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had to give Susie her goddam birthday present. That was the important thing. If Artie didn't like it, Artie could take his shiny saxophone and ram it up his managerial ass.
He uncapped the bottle of Jack Daniels between his legs and took a long pull, keeping his eyes trained all the while on the door of the handsome white clapboard house with the wraparound porch that doubled as the law offices of Joel Silverblatt, attorney-at-law.
“I'm Joel Shysterblatt,” Stan mumbled, “and if you suffer from hemorrhoids or tooth decay related to an automobile accident, I've got important information that you need to know.”
When she first started working for the guy, Susie had loved it when he did his Joel Shysterblatt imitation.
“That's him,” she'd say, covering her mouth to hold in the laughter. “That's Joel to a T.”
Then, all of the sudden, she didn't find it so funny anymore.
“Joel's a sweet guy,” she'd tell him. “He's not like you think.”
“Come on,” Stan would say. “The guy's a shyster. He gets rich off other people's misery.”
“You know what?” she'd tell him. “You don't know the first thing about the contingency fee system. It works to protect the little guy.”
“The guy's a shyster, Susie.”
“And stop using that word. It's anti-Semitic.”
