Agnes's house looked pretty much like Lee expected Agnes's house to look. It was pleasantly upper-middle class in a pleasantly upper-middle class neighborhood. All the houses in the neighborhood were one or two-stories with brick or stone below aluminum or wood siding. Hers was a one story ranch house, brick on the bottom with aluminum siding above that and powder-blue shingles peeking out from under the snow. It had an attached two car garage. They all had chimneys with wisps of smoke rising from them and several still had tasteful Christmas lights trimming their eaves that twinkled through the icicles in the chilly post-Christmas air. One still had a pumpkin on its porch, but that has nothing to do with this story. There were a few evergreens dotting the front and back yards, but mostly bare trees blanketed by snow, waiting for the warmth of spring. Or Godot. The street was curved and winding in a pleasant way. Upper-middle class pleasant. It all reminded Lee, somehow, of a Monkee's song. It all felt attractive in a way Lee had never thought middle-class living would be to him. He had lived an upper middle-class life with Beverly. At least, looking back on it, that's what it seemed to have been, but he hadn't thought about it in those terms at all. It was just life. And it seemed so long ago.

Agnes's front door opened to a small ante-room with benches to sit on while you removed your boots. (But I'm not wearing boots. Then remove your feet and leave me alone.) That opened to a large, airy living room that was bright and clean and polished in a pleasant upper middle-class way. The main things that differentiated her living room from the rest of the living rooms in the neighborhood were the framed theatrical posters on the walls and the baby grand piano in the corner by the French doors that opened to the snowy, pleasant upper-middle class back yard with bare, snow-covered fruit trees and a nice attached deck that was also covered with pleasant snow. Lee was very proud of his new home, but wandering around Agnes's living room made him feel, somehow, a little ashamed of being proud of an old rental, and ashamed even more of being ashamed of an old rental. And even more ashamed of having read Emily Dickinson. And not for a class. He didn't want to think about it.

Around the corner from the living room was a bright, spacious kitchen with tile floors, lots of Formica counter space and plenty of windows. On one counter, next to the big, old, solid, dark-green enameled mixer, was a professional quality silver coffee urn brewing pleasantly aromatic coffee. The enticingly pleasant fumes emanating from the urn wafted through the kitchen, into the living room and down the hallway from which Jim had appeared and on into the three bedrooms and the common bathroom. Lee tried to wrap himself up in the pleasantness of it all in order to avoid looking at Jim or wondering what he was doing at the rehearsal table with a script in his hand, but that made him think about the pleasant middle-classness of the smell of good coffee and how different that was from the faint odor of Twain's kitchen that seemed to cling to everything he had in his own place and flick him in the nose every once in a while when he wasn't looking.

Lee let his mind wander, hoping it would wander to something pleasant but unrelated to comparing his former life with his current life. He reigned it in when it wandered, quite unbidden, to the bills his ex-wife had sent him for Christmas. Damn her. After reigning in his mind, it proved more independent than he would have given it credit for by tallying up what he was spending and what he was taking in and coming up with the thought, completely against his will, that he would have to find other work if he didn't plan on going through the entire settlement from Beverly's antiques in a very short time. He was going to try to reign it in again, perhaps force it to think about I Am Curious, Yellow, when Agnes stood up, welcomed them all to the first rehearsal of the Willow Lane production of The Odd Couple by Neil Simon and introduced everyone at the table. Including Jim. Who was there to play Vinnie. Who was supposed to be one of Roy's best friends. Roy. Who was going to be played by Lee. Lee felt his elbow tremble. Damn Beverly.

Agnes had Kim hand out photocopied rehearsal schedules, and said that if anyone had any problems on any of the dates they were scheduled to be there, they should say so right away so adjustments could be made. She also told the poker playing group that all of their scenes had been scheduled around the performance schedule for Of Mice and Men. It took Lee a moment to register that that was because of Jim. Jim was not only going to be at every rehearsal that Lee would be at, Lee had to bend to Jim's schedule. He was liking this whole thing less and less. But at least it wasn't middle-class, upper or otherwise.

Agnes talked for several minutes about the story of the play, admonished the actors to take their time, that the performances were a long way off, told them that Kim would read all the action and then had them read the first act. Lee actually kind of enjoyed it. The play was really funny. And he got to be snotty. And Vinnie, the guy Jim was playing, was kind of stupid. And even though he and Jim were always in scenes together, he didn't have to talk to him much. But he had felt Jim looking at him through the entire act except for those few moments when he happened to glance Jim's way and catch Jim's eyes dart away. And he felt a strange, unpleasant thrill in his stomach at how many lines he had. He wondered how in hell he was going to memorize all of them. How did people play roles like Hamlet or Stanley Kowalski or Godot? He wondered how horrible it would be if he just sat there in front of an audience on opening night staring blankly at Jim, who blithely remembered every stupid word. He began to picture the front page review in the Bee: "Good Play Ruined by Transient with Police Record". It didn't help that he knew the reviews were always way in the back, under the ads for face cream and River Bend's four adult theaters.

They took a break after finishing the first act and Kim and Agnes went into the kitchen to get coffee and snacks. Lee got up to stretch his legs and calm his gut. He started looking at the objet d'art in the room. (Don't even start, Steve, Agnes would have objet d'art all over the place. I didn't say anything. Well, don't... What's wrong? Steve? You didn't say anything. You told me not to. We can't continue until you say something. We have a rhythm. What should I say? You always say "poop." I want a new word. Like what? Stool? Okay, now we can continue. Poop.) There was a brass urn on the mantle piece. Engraved on it was the name "Dr. Ronald Howard Livingstone" and two dates about fifty-five years apart. That wasn't really middle-class. And looking at it distracted Lee from the ball of nerve endings growing like entwining snakes gathering at the crest of his stomach for a light dinner and drinks. He had the urge to reach out and touch the urn, and was very surprised and slightly disgusted by the urge. As he stood resisting it, Agnes came up behind him and offered him coffee.

"My husband," she said as he picked up a cup from the tray. "We were supposed to grow old together."

Someone was tinkling at the piano. Someone else was playing it. Lee was glad for the cup in his hand. It would keep his hand from straying up to the urn. But the coffee smelled unpleasantly pleasant. It didn't taste nearly as good as the coffee Twain served in the diner, and that calmed and disturbed Lee. The guys who played the rest of the poker-playing foursome were gathered near him, talking.

"I have fifty-eight lines," one of them said.

"I have ninety-eight," Jim answered.

The guy with fifty-eight lines scowled at Jim.

"Maybe I'll speak mine really slowly," he said.

"But your character's name is Speed," the third actor said.

"Right. Make interesting choices," the guy with fifty-eight lines said.

Lee had never known one should know how many lines one had. You learn something about theater every day, one thought. So you should know exactly how many lines there were to forget on opening night. Exactly how many opportunities you had to drag the whole production into perdition.

"How do you count lines?" he asked. "Just the lines printed on a page?"

"No," the guy with fifty-eight lines said. "I just count a whole speech."

"What about monologues?" Lee wanted to get it right. It seemed important. "Is that just one big line?"

"I don't know. I've never had any of those. I guess that's still just one line. Sure. Have to be."

"I just count from a capital letter to a period," the third actor said, rather superiorly. "Unless it's 'Mr.' or something."

"That's not a line, that's a sentence," the guy who counted speeches said.

"Isn't the definition of a line the shortest distance between two points?" the guy who counted from capital to period said.

"No," Lee said. "That's a line segment. A line has no beginning and no end."

"Isn't that a ray?"

"No, they have a beginning, just no end."

"A circle has no beginning and no end," the guy who counted speeches countered.

"Okay, smart guy," Lee said, "how many circles do you have?"

They all laughed and simultaneously took sips of coffee. Except Jim, who shook his head and wandered off with a look of complete bewilderment on his face. (Where else would a look of bewilderment be, Geoff, on his pants? That's where you have yours. Shut up.)

"He obviously never took geometry," one of the actors said as they watched Jim wander toward Agnes.

One of the ladies playing one of the Pigeon Sisters joined them. Actors could smell gossip as if it were the scent of a Siren's song. The only thing they liked more than gossip was talking about it. She leaned against the mantle and watched Jim.

"Yeah, and he can't count," the other actor said, then shook his head. "She's gotta be twice his age."

"How many times does twenty something go into sixty something?" The Pigeon Sister cooed.

"Three something," Lee said. He couldn't resist answering a math question. It was a reflex.

They all shuddered, and Lee wished he had a power tool to turn on.

"Okay, so she's three times his age," the actor who said she was two times his age said. "I hope he's using protection. I would hate to see Agnes's children."

Something about that made Lee's heart stop. Which made the snakes writhe a little less casually. Which made his heart start again, but run at double time with a nice polka lilt.

"I don't know," the other guy said. "I'll bet she was a looker in her day. And he's not bad. For a guy. I mean from what I'm told a good looking guy must look like. From my wife. My beautiful wife, who bore me three wonderful children. When does the break end?"

Lee realized what it was that had made his heart stop. The group continued gossiping about Agnes and Jim and disparaging their ancestors and prospective progeny, and talking about the steadily decreasing age of the men Agnes dated, but Lee's entire mind, even the part that had insisted up until that moment on thinking about finances, and the part that was trying to count his lines, and the part that was being annoyed by Jim, started trying to avoid admitting that he hadn't used protection with Abby. And he had no idea if she was using any. And he had no idea how to ask her. Now the snakes let loose and gleefully jitterbugged all over the inside of his abdominal cavity. If he had any mind parts left, he would have wondered what an urn full of his ashes would look like, but, thankfully, they were all occupied.

The second and third acts were a bit of a blur for Lee. Every time he opened his mouth to speak a line, his first thought was that he could never remember the last one, much less that one. His second thought was that he wished he could go back in time and slap himself silly for diving into a drunken night of rumpled sheets without proper planning. His third thought was to wonder what the fuck Jim kept staring at him for. The humor of the final two acts was fairly lost on him.

The End

(Steve, it's not the end. Sure it is. No. It's not. Okay, then something has to happen. Someone has to die or something.)

After rehearsal, Lee had to wait to pull out from the curb because a funeral procession was passing by, but that has nothing to do with this story. (Happy? Sort of, I guess.)

The End - Part II

There was a low rumble in the wall that signified a flushing toilet, then the squeal and rapid pounding of pipes complaining that they were tired and didn't want to help someone wash their hands. A few moments later, Andrew came in wiping water off his shirt front with a small towel.

"Okay, where were we?" he said as he sat in his Jello-mold chair. "You may have to chill your heels a little with the sale of your house. Might not happen until as late as April or May. No one wants to buy a house in a snow storm. But they're responsible for the mortgage. And you have your share of the antiques which should last you for a while. If you're watching the spending. And you're an accountant, so you're watching your spending."

Lee didn't respond, so Andrew assumed it was because he was correct in his assumption instead of that Lee wasn't paying very close attention. Instead, he was thinking about a horse. I mean Abby. The jumble had finally coalesced and gelled into the firm, barely conscious sensation of what consequences he might have to face from one thoughtless event. Well, two events, one evening. His whole body participated in trying to resist the sensation. His whole body failed rather miserably.

"And they're paying those bills," Andrew continued. "And I've written to the reporting agencies giving them proof that they were all Beverly's purchases and to reflect them on her credit report, not yours."

"Oh," Lee said, hoping that the sound of his voice didn't vibrate strangely. "Thanks."

"Thanks? A week ago you were about to lose a lung over those bills and your credit rating and I work a miracle and now it's just 'thanks'?"

"Thanks a lot?"

He would have apologized for his distraction and shouted that he had had unprotected relations with a woman and didn't know how to ask her if she were still regular if it wouldn't have opened up so many private subjects that he couldn't open up even if he hadn't had unprotected relations with a woman. And didn't know how to ask her if she were still regular. And besides, he hadn't had any sleep. He couldn't even tell Andrew about that, because he would then have to explain why he hadn't had any sleep and the whole "so many private subjects" thing would start all over right from the beginning.

"Um," he said instead. "I got a lot on my mind."

"The play?"

"Yeah, the play," glad of the change of subject. But that made the snakes come back. "And now I have a pet."

"The bird?"

"Yeah, the bird. I've never had a pet."

"It's not a pet, it's a bird."

"What would you call it, then?"

"A bird."

"So," Lee said. "I have a hundred and three lines in the play."

He had counted them as soon as he'd gotten home. He might as well talk about one of the things that was distracting him. Andrew's face did something strange that Lee had never seen it do. He had a great deal of trouble trying to interpret the flow of expressions. He thought he detected surprise, but that was quickly followed by what looked like might be disgust, which was covered rapidly with a studied neutrality. Which slowly melted into amusement.

"A hundred and three, huh?" Andrew said, and the amusement gave way to an impish grin, which was replaced with a little of what looked like anger. Or gas.

"Um," Lee said. His head hurt watching Andrew's facial muscles. "Yeah. Why? Is that bad? I only had two or three the first time. I don't know because I didn't count them. I didn't know I was supposed to."

"Well, dear boy," Andrew said and his face finally settled on a professorial superiority, "counting your lines is a really stupid waste of time participated in by actors who wish to inflate their importance, their talent, or assuage their deep feelings of inferiority and insecurity. It is really the most ineffective way to assess the merits of a role. If there was even any point in assessing a role's merits once you already had the role. Did you know that the best acting job Jackie Gleason ever did was in a movie called Gigot where he didn't utter a single word? Do you think he counted his lines? Do you think he would have given up the part if he had? Are you a better actor than Joe Smith because you have six more lines of dialogue then he does, or is it, perhaps, that you were cast in the role that only had a total of six lines of dialogue because the director thought you were the only one who would bring something organic, original, and, perhaps, innovative to it? Counting your lines. Sheesh."

"Who's Joe Smith?" Lee asked weakly and determined then and there not to say how happy he was that he had more lines than Jim. Or how scared he was that Jim would remember his better then he would. He wished he'd chosen the "so many private subjects" topic. It would have been easier.

"Oh," Andrew said, "I finally figured out why your house felt so familiar to me."

Lee was glad of the change of subject. Confused by it, but glad of it. He wouldn't even mind if they got into a middle-class vs. upper middle-class conversation. Andrew told him that he had been in that house once in the fifties.

"In high school. I had this crush on a girl that lived there. I didn't really know her, but I have been in that house. I knew I had."

"Yeah," Lee said. "Bear said she died of love for some soldier and is haunting my house."

Andrew looked puzzled.

"She never seemed to me the kind who would have died for love," he said. "Killed for it, maybe. Anyways, I think she actually went to Korea as a nurse or something, so if she died for love for a soldier, she'd be haunting some hut in Seoul. Sort of a soul lost in Seoul, huh?"

He waited for Lee to laugh. Lee just looked at him, distracted.

"Their name was Gardner." Andrew continued, his eyes focused somewhere above and behind Lee as he began to put details back in place. "Evelyn Gardner. Had the most amazing black hair. And her laugh sounded like a cross between Lauren Bacall and Mel Torme. Her room was in the basement, I seem to remember. We all thought that was really hip. Weird, but hip. Okay, weird. But she was good looking. So it was hip. How's Abby?"

Lee almost shouted "Pregnant" but stopped himself just in time. The vibration in his chest made his head hurt.

"Fine, I guess. I don't know. How should I know? I don't know how she is. Fine. I guess. I don't know."

Andrew had stopped being surprised by Lee's strange outbursts and invited him to stay for a sandwich.

"You like head cheese, don't you?"

The diner chilled briefly when the bells slapped against the door with their bell slapping sound. Lee looked up to see Abby and Kim come in. It woke the snakes up and they yawned, stretched, and started looking around for something to eat. Abby waved, and Lee stepped out from behind the counter. He returned her hug a little stiffly, and she looked at him, puzzled.

"Hi, there, Lee," Kim said and hugged him, also. He seemed to return hers very fondly. "The play should be really fun."

"Yeah," Lee said, and had a brief image of the stage floor rapidly approaching his head as he fell face first in front of a full house of critics and Libertarians.

He gave Abby a peck on the cheek and told them he'd go get them menus. They took off their coats, scarves, mittens, hats and bras. I mean mufflers. When they sat, Abby stared at Kim for a long time with an inscrutable look on her face. (What is the exact definition of "inscrutable"? Unable to scrute.)

Lee brought them water, coffee and menus, pepper, ketchup, Worcestershire Sauce, napkins, A-1, mustard, sesame oil, malt vinegar, half-and-half, spoons, knives, forks, toothpicks, tea-light candles, wasabi and handy-wipes then went back for salt®. The warm air in the diner carried the usual scent of coffee, burgers, old grease and that morning's bacon, which the patrons bundled around their conversations like the coats and scarves that lay across the backs of the booths and on the coat hooks. The scratchy sound from the old, batter encrusted radio by the stove in the kitchen leaked out on the smells with what could have been Bach, The Replacements, or Bob Marley. Lee refreshed the coffee cup of the man with the John Deere™ hat, then wiped the spilled cream off the counter in front of the man from Butte, who was pouring sesame oil on his french fries. Having Abby right there on the other side of the room made his abdomen queasy. He really didn't like having a queasy stomach about Abby. He would much rather feel the other sensations he'd had around her, which he'd taken entirely too much for granted while he was having them. And which had gotten him in all this turmoil in the first place.

Peter came in and sat at the counter.

"Hey, Peter," Lee said as he set water and a coffee cup in front of him, then pointed toward Abby and Kim with his chin. The queasiness turned upside down for a moment.

"Afternoon," Peter said to Lee, then turned and waved.

Peter studied the menu while Lee went for Abby and Kim's order. Lee didn't notice the chilled air around their booth. He was too busy not paying attention to the queasiness. Kim noticed it, but wasn't sure what it signified. Abby ordered an open faced meatloaf sandwich and a Fresca.

Matt came in with a cute young girl and grandly led her to a booth. Lee brought them menus, glad to be focused on a different part of the room.

"Hello, Matt. No school today?"

"Hello, Mr. Harris. Lunchtime," he said then presented his companion, who looked like she wasn't quite one of the smart girls and wasn't quite one of the popular girls, and probably played the oboe in band. "This is Jan."

"Yeah," Jan said. "My father liked the Rockford... " (Steve! The Brady Bunch? No, Steve, her father is dead and they can't afford a TV. Ow.)

"Hello, Jan," Lee asked, steadfastly refusing to realize that Matt was desperately trying to impress his young friend. "Don't you get lunch there?"

"Too many freshmen," Matt said off-handedly.

"Yeah. Darn kids," Lee said, and waited for them to smile at his little joke. When they didn't, he wondered if his support hose were drooping down around his ankles. Then he wondered if Kim would help him out by not having to go to the lady's room so he wouldn't ever be in the position of being able to have a private conversation with Abby. "But you're here all the time. Why didn't you go to American Bun Stand?"

When Matt looked at him, horrified, he added, "What can I get you?"

"She'll have a cheeseburger, no onions, fries and a Coke. I'll have a cheeseburger, no onions, fries and, um..." Matt said, looking at the man with the John Deere™ hat pour sugar into his coffee and stir it with the handle of his spoon, "... coffee."

He beamed proudly at Lee.

"Ah. The usual," Lee said, finally letting the whole high-schoolness of the situation filter in. He remembered trying to impress a girl once. He had done it by ordering tea with lemon. It hadn't worked. He rubbed the sudden rheumatoidal pain in his shoulder and went to fill their order.

Abby and Kim were eating silently, and Jan was daintily dipping the end of a french fry into a small dollop of ketchup. She ate like a bird. A small yellow one. A sparrow.

"My bird doesn't eat," Lee said to Peter.

(Nice segue, Geoff. Thank you.)

"What?" Peter said, not noticing the transition. Damn him.

"My bird. The one Agnes got me for a house warming. It doesn't eat."

"Oh."

"Actually, it doesn't do much of anything. It's a stupid bird."

Peter asked if he had named it, yet, as if that may have had some bearing on its behavior. Lee hadn't. Peter chewed thoughtfully on the edge of a piece of lettuce from his garden salad. He told Lee he once got a puppy for his birthday and the thing always bit him.

"When's your birthday?" Lee asked, grabbing any subject that wasn't Abby.

"The day after Christmas."

Lee looked at him, shocked, almost hurt.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why, so you could make a fuss about not getting me anything for my birthday like you made a fuss about not getting me anything for Christmas?"

"Oh," Lee said, even more hurt. "Um. Thanks for the fireworks. I set them off on New Years. Want a bird?"

Peter laughed out loud, and Lee smiled.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Ninety-eight."

"I'll get you something when you reach a hundred."

"Okay," Peter said. "When's yours?"

"Birthday? April fifteenth."

Lee refreshed the coffees of all the patrons who had coffee. Except Matt, whose cup was still full, quite cold and quite pale with cream that had begun to congeal on the surface in an unpleasant pattern. When he got back behind the counter, he just leaned on it near Peter, who had finished his garden salad and was on to his iced tea with lemon. Lee's glance kept wandering on its own accord toward Abby and his brow kept furrowing. Peter turned back to look at them. Abby picked at her meatloaf in silence. Kim ate a bit of the crust from her tuna melt. He looked back at Lee.

"Thanks for inviting me over to watch the fireworks with you," he said because he couldn't think of anything else.

"You're welcome," Lee said.

"Okay, what's going on?" Peter asked.

After a moment of painful indecision, Lee asked Peter to go back into the kitchen. Peter looked around for Twain.

"He's out getting filters for the air conditioner," Lee told him.

"Now? In January? He's a strange man."

"They're cheaper, now."

"You're a strange man."

Abby watched them leave, then turned on Kim.

"What the hell are you doing, Kim?"

Kim was so surprised that she stopped separating the tuna from the melted cheese.

"What?" she said and ate a piece of cheese that still had bread on it.

The chill around the booth warmed, then heated, then began melting the Formica on the table top. "You're making a play for Lee," Abby said. "You weren't even interested in him at all until I found out that I liked him and all of a sudden you're all over him."

"All over... What?"

"All over him. Just now. And at the party last Saturday." Her voice grew quieter as she went, as if the force of it caused her throat to constrict until only a small, laser focused beam escaped past her clenched teeth. "You were chatting him up all night. I watched you. I couldn't quite believe it then, but that hug just now was too much. I finally found someone and you can't stand that. I'm finally with someone and you have to prove you're the good looking one. You've been doing this since high school. I like this guy. Lay off. Kim."

Abby's cheeks were red with the heat, and her forehead was white with pale green edges. Kim's cheeks were white. Her forehead pulsed.

"What the hell are you talking about, Abby?" She also whispered intensely. The kind of whisper designed to keep a conversation private that resulted in everyone within a click knowing your entire life story. "You think I'm making a play for Lee? For LEE? Harris? Lee Harris?"

Abby just stared at her. The sting of that peck on the cheek pulsed with a life of its own, quite separate from the rest of her face. She felt like Lee's lips were still there, burning disinterested acid into her skin. She would never forgive Kim for that peck.

"Okay, Abby." Kim no longer even bothered to whisper. "Just for the record, I was being nice to Lee at the party because I'm thrilled at how happy he seems to be making you. Stupid me, I was thrilled to see you happy. It made me happy. And I hugged him just now because we're in a play together and that's what people in plays together do. They hug. I'd hug Agnes the same way. In fact, I do hug Agnes the same way. Abby."

The red in Abby's cheeks started seeping out to the rest of her face. The peck on her cheek started to itch. All ears in the diner were tuned in to their booth. Even the batter encrusted radio seemed to stop to listen.

"I can't believe that's what you think of me," Kim said as she stood and put on her coat and scarf. "I thought we were friends."

She reached into a pocket, threw a few dollars on the table, picked up one last bit of crust and left while putting on her gloves.

"Oh," Abby said. "Shit."

She grabbed her stuff, threw some more money on the table and followed Kim out. The radio quickly found a song and joined it in progress. It was Boogie Man by K.C. and the Sunshine Band. The man from Butte nodded his shoulders back and forth to its beat and spilled more cream.

Peter stood by the center prep island and Lee stood on the other side of it. They stared at each other, completely oblivious to the theater out front. Peter waited patiently for Lee to start. Lee didn't know how. Peter waited a little less patiently. He looked around.

"You know," he said. "If Twain finds me back here, I'll be the next special. My goose will be baked. So to speak."

"Um..." Lee said. "You know Saturday? After the party?"

Peter knew that much.

"I mean, you know Abby and I... I mean... You know..."

Peter blanched. He stammered that he had assumed. He hoped Lee hadn't asked him back here to talk about that kind of stuff.

"I, um..." Lee said. "Didn't use anything."

Peter didn't understand at first and was about to ask what he was talking about, then realized that Lee had, indeed, asked him back here to talk about that kind of stuff. Why did straight men always want to talk about that kind of stuff? He really, really, really didn't want to have a conversation with Lee about that kind of stuff. Especially in Twain's kitchen. He looked around to see if he could find a graceful way to extract himself from the conversation, but then realized that Lee really needed to have the conversation for some strange reason, so he thought about it point by point in a logical manner. Or at least in as logical a manner as he could think about Lee in that context. Okay. Lee had spent "time" with Abby. Okay. And he hadn't protected himself. Okay. That meant that he was worried about...

"You're not worried about... catching... something... from..."

"Oh. No. No, no. No. Not that. No. Like what? I mean no. No."

Lee was now sure that this whole coming into the kitchen thing had been a horrible, horrible idea. He could feel the edges of his face close in around his eyes, and he looked around the room to see if he could find a graceful way out of the conversation. But he really needed to talk to someone. And the only people he could think of were Andrew, and he somehow didn't think Andrew would understand, and Bear, and he and Bear had more of a "cool power tool" friendship and he'd like to keep it that way, and Twain, and that would just be weird in too many ways, so Peter was it. And Peter would understand. He was gay, for God's sake. They always talked about that kind of stuff. And shoes.

"Oh," Peter said, trying to see where his logic had gone off track. It would be a lot easier if Lee just came out and said what he was worried about. But that would be really, really, really hard to deal with. I mean, if Lee had gone and knocked up some...

"Oooohhhh," he said, his face burning right through his scraggly beard. "Oh. Is she..."

"I don't know!" Lee shouted. It was drowned out by the strains of Boogie Man, which had just been joined already in progress.

"Oh," Peter said, a sharp pain in his chest bouncing off his ribs and spine as he thought about the ramifications of that dilemma and glad for perhaps the third time in his life that he was gay. "Oh. What are you... going to... do?"

"I don't know! That's why I'm talking to you."

"I don't know what you should do," Peter said. "I'm gay. We worry about other things."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. I wasn't at that meeting."

Lee offered him an Altoid, noting that they were curiously strong©, quite sure, now, that this had been a mistake. A huge one. Peter took one because he could think of nothing else to do. Then he spit it back out into his hand.

"Cinnamon," he said and wished he could wipe his tongue off with something clean. "Cinnamon is a stupid Altoid."

Peter tried to think of something, anything, that he could say to his friend that would make some sort of difference, that wouldn't make his own mind think of Abby and Lee, you know... together, and that would get him the hell out of the room. Lee tried to think of a way that he could go hide his head in a bucket of cold water. Filtered, cold water.

Twain came in, dressed in an old fur coat, carrying a box of air conditioner filters and a small bag of peanut butter Jelly Bellies. Lee looked at Peter, hoping he wouldn't choose that moment to stop being dense and start giving him advice, not now, please, for God's sake, of all times, with Twain right there. Peter stared at Twain, frozen like a small yellow bird, one that did eat, and quite often, staring at the mouth of a hungry alley cat. In a fur coat. His mind raced to find ways to assure Twain he had been nowhere near the recipe box. Twain stared at Lee, wondering why he didn't help with the box of filters.

"I should just," Peter said to Lee. "I was just," he said to Twain. "Oh, God."

He put his arms out to be cuffed. Twain offered him a Jelly Belly. Peter ate it. He didn't spit it out, but he did think that peanut butter was a stupid Jelly Belly. He realized that Twain's entrance excused him from all that conversation about all that. If he were a Judy Garland kind of gay man, he would have clicked his heels three times.

"Bye," he said quickly and left.

Twain set the box of filters down on the center island and looked at Lee's face.

"You worry too much," he said.

The two men exchanged candies.

When Lee got back into the dining room, the first thing he noticed was that Abby had left without saying goodbye. When he went to clear their table, the first thing he noticed was the money they left on the table. They had stiffed him for at least half the bill.

Lee and Abby drove together in silence. The Saturday afternoon sun glinted off the frosty trees and washed over the surface of the car. The wonderfully hot air from the car heater played with the cold at the edges of the passenger compartment in what would have been an enticing experience for both of them if Abby hadn't been so preoccupied with what to do with Kim and Lee weren't so preoccupied with what to do with Abby.

Abby sighed deeply, and Lee glanced over at her, not quite willing to look at her face too fully.

"I really blew it," Abby said. Lee didn't respond, so she elaborated. "Kim is my best friend and I really insulted her. But what was I supposed to think?"

Lee shrugged in a noncommital way. Abby looked at him piercingly for some time.

"This is important to me," she said.

"Yes," Lee said. "I know. Kim. Important."

"What's going on?" Abby said.

"Are you..." Lee said after thinking for two more unproductive seconds how to proceed. "Um. Okay?"

"No," Abby said, certain that she had already quite demonstrated that she wasn't.

This frightened Lee in a way that he never considered a single word could frighten someone. Then some unpredictable, spontaneous synaptic connection made him realize she was talking about Kim. They had had some sort of fight. He would have to deal with that in a moment, but he couldn't stand this tight knot of baby cobras eating his stomach lining, so he decided he may as well just jump in, just head bravely out to the gallows. He breathed in, straightened his back and gripped the wheel.

"Have you..." he said.

Abby turned toward him, frowning.

"You're not..."

"What?" Abby said impatiently.

"Have you... had... your...," he said. "Monthly..."

Abby's glum mood shifted.

"My... ?"

"Monthly... "

"Is that what this is all about?" She said, the confusion and despair about Kim melting and transforming instantly into something quite different. "Is that what this silence all afternoon is all about? Is that what this fucking cold shoulder has been all about all week?"

Lee felt like what a small guppy looks like when it makes that one bold move and ends up on the table top gasping for some reason for it all. He tried to stop his mouth from opening and closing with no sound coming out. When he couldn't achieve that, he decided to simply add sound.

"Cold shoulder?"

It was better than nothing.

"Cold shoulder," Abby said. "You barely pecked me on the cheek at lunch on Thursday. You haven't said peep to me since you picked me up today. You want to know if you knocked me up? Is that it?"

It was something like that, but it sounded, somehow, very different coming out of her mouth. Lee had the good sense not to say anything for a moment. Whatever he said now couldn't possibly be productive. And in any case, Abby seemed to be gathering her own steam without any help from him. He noticed that the sky was a startling blue and was sure that he shouldn't be noticing that at this particular moment.

"You sleep with me one night, you get your kicks, you hang around long enough to make sure I'm not pregnant and bye-bye, Abby? Is that it?"

"No," Lee said. He knew he had to say something. He wasn't sure how it had all gone so wrong and he had to get it back on track before he was consumed from the inside out by vipers. "No, no, no. No. I mean... No, it's just... we... no. I didn't just go... It's just... We didn't... No. I didn't mean... Abby, we didn't... I really..."

"Well, I don't know if I'm pregnant. How about that?"

He had been calling it snakes. Now he realized that it was fear. Pure, simple fear. He had to pull the car to the side of the road. It slid a bit before it came to a complete stop, which seemed, somehow, appropriate. The sky was really, really blue. He couldn't get his hands to unclench from the steering wheel. There had never even been a scare the whole time he had been married to Beverly. Not even that time in Barstow. The panic in his eyes was so complete that Abby was about to open the door and defiantly tromp her way back home, forgoing men for the rest of her life in favor of gardening or target shooting.

Then Lee's face did something strange. The terror remained but was joined by something else that went through several odd transformations that Abby couldn't interpret at all. Then the dread faded and the something else finally settled on simply being that strange puppy dog look, but with a glimmer of a surprised smile. His right hand left the steering wheel and wandered in the direction of her belly, then pulled back and hid in his lap. A small flicker of fear momentarily clouded the childlike flicker in his eyes, but it was a different sort of fear altogether. It was almost endearing, like the fear of a small boy who isn't quite sure that nod you just gave him means he can actually have that fresh cookie right from the oven. His glance darted from her belly to her face and back to her belly. His hand looked like it wanted to wander out again, but wouldn't, or couldn't. And shouldn't. Abby forgot her anger watching the permutations of his movements, then remembered it again with a sudden jolt.

"No," she said, completely embarrassed that she had fucked with him. "I was just trying to give you your macho stuff back to you. You sounded like such a guy. I'm not. I mean I don't think I am. I mean I won't be sure for a week or so, but I'm not. I'm sure of it."

He just looked at her, like a man who might actually end up being a really good father someday. As long as there were no matches lying around.

"Isn't the sky beautiful?" she said, because she could think of nothing else to say. And because she had just noticed that it was a startling shade of blue. It's all good, she thought.

"Drive," she said, and put a cassette tape into the player.

"Where?" Lee said weakly as the piano duets made their way into the warm air of the car.

"Just drive. I'll point the way."