Agnes's house was noisy and festive. Benny Goodman flowed seductively from the speakers in the corners at just the right volume; loud enough to set the mood but not so loud that it made conversation hard. There weren't many guests, yet; the play had ended only a short time before. The cast members needed to get out of costume and makeup and the crew needed to close the theatre before leaving for the opening night party. Agnes had left the theatre as soon as the final curtain fell, after a quick trip back to both dressing rooms to congratulate the cast and say she'd see them all at the party, in order to see that everything was satisfactory at the house before anyone arrived. People began trickling in shortly after she got there; those who had been in the audience, theatre folk who weren't involved in this production, friends and family of those who were and those who knew opening night parties were a good bet for free food and alcohol. Peter had been one of the first to arrive, which was to be expected, but wasn't put immediately to work, which wasn't. Everything was well in hand and Agnes had everything under her control, which is what Agnes did. Peter stood in a corner not knowing how to act at a party where he wasn't put to work. He decided to greet people as they came in. It wasn't real work, but it was something.

Headline came in shortly after Peter, went straight to Agnes and kissed her. Everyone within their immediate vicinity shuddered, but no one turned away. Theatre was theatre wherever you found it. When he was done kissing her, Agnes patted him gently on the shoulder and moved away to greet more guests. Headline stood awkwardly for a moment. He wasn't used to feeling awkward in any situation. He kind of liked it. Finally, he got bored with awkwardness and found the banquet table covered in a fine table cloth and heavily laden with almost as much booze as he kept behind the bar at the Office. He fixed himself a Seven and Seven. He used real Seagram's instead of the well bourbon he used at the bar when making a drink for himself. Then he mingled. Usually, in a crowd, he was behind the bar and any interaction was chatting up customers to get a good tip. He decided he liked mingling. It was turning out to be an interesting night for him: attending an opening night, feeling awkward, mingling and drinking real Seagram's. He hoped this thing with Agnes would last.

A young man wearing a tuxedo with pants shiny from use, shirt front a little dingy and listless and jacket cuffs slightly frayed, was circulating among the guests serving hors d'oeuvres from a tray. His pants were bunched under the belt in back, making his bottom look very odd, and his hair didn't seem to want to stay slicked down around the back of his part, which was crooked. He wore a white glove on his left claw. Peter sampled a stuffed mushroom cap from the tray. It wasn't very good. He would have used brie in the crab stuffing instead of cream cheese and he would have parboiled the mushroom caps then painted them with drawn butter before baking them so they stayed pale and smooth and didn't shrivel in that unsightly way like the legs of a woman too old to wear shorts or a man too hairy to wear Speedos or George Hamilton™. He took two more mushroom caps before the young man moved on, then followed him long enough to take one more.

When the cast began to arrive, the energy and decibel level in the house rose. Jim arrived with Stella. She had her hand daintily placed at his elbow, which was gallantly held slightly away from his side. For a brief moment it looked like he was wearing a driving jacket and gloves and had a handlebar moustache, and she had on an Easter bonnet and they held a parasol above and slightly behind their heads. In the Good Old Summertime floated out from the speakers in the corners. That only lasted a moment, though, before everyone in the room shook their heads and went back to their conversations. He was wearing a knock-off designer jacket and she was wearing a stupid smile and the music was It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing). And it didn't.

Agnes greeted them and welcomed them to her home, which felt very odd to Jim, who had spent many nights there as the king of the castle. Well, maybe the duke. Then Agnes moved away, passing Headline, her hip surreptitiously glancing against his thigh as she did. Jim's eyes glazed over for a brief moment and he pressed his elbow to his side to remind himself of Stella's presence. She breathed in and sighed pleasantly at the movement. Jim calmed and they joined the party.

Abby escorted Lee in by the arm, but they didn't fade to a simpler time. She led him to a chair and deposited him, then went in search of food and drink. Mostly drink. Lee wasn't in a good mood at all and she needed to anesthetize her natural response to that before she popped him a good shot in his tail bone. When Lee lowered himself to the chair, he expressed his bad mood.

"Fuck," he said.

Agnes appeared as if from nowhere and handed him a ceramic bank shaped like an apple, a slit cut in the top near the stem, and the word "Cuss Bank" lettered on the side.

"You're kidding," Lee said.

"Twenty-five cents, Dear," she said.

"But you say 'shit' all the time."

"Not at parties. Fifty cents."

"You said twenty-five."

"That was for the first one."

She smiled sweetly and Lee pulled two damp quarters from his right pant pocket and slid them into the slot with an almost inaudible mutter.

"What, Dear?" Agnes asked.

"I said you're all nuts," Lee said defiantly and tried to find a position to sit where his butt didn't throb like a submarine engine or the lowest note on a baritone saxophone or a throbbing butt. Agnes patted him suggestively on the shoulder and disappeared back to wherever she had appeared from, fifty cents richer.

Lee looked around to see if he could locate Abby. Her hair was hard to miss and he finally spotted it. It had its back to him and was talking to Kim. Lee momentarily wished those two were still fighting so Abby would get a drink to him faster. He felt guilty about it briefly, but then Veronica Park came in, followed by a young man that looked vaguely familiar and a young woman who looked vaguely skanky. Veronica looked briefly in his direction, then her face did something funny and she looked away. Then she seemed to make a decision, turned back with a smile planted on her face, and marched determinedly toward him.

"I really enjoyed what you did tonight," she said, "Mr. Harris."

"Mr. Harris?" Lee blurted, flummoxed.

This woman whom he had kissed, who had brought him to her place and he had almost gone to bed with except that her roommate was noisily going to bed with someone else just a floor away, oh, that's who that guy is, her roommate, he was naked the last time he had seen him, was calling him "Mr. Harris."

"Um..." he added. "Thanks."

Abby appeared as suddenly as Agnes had and thrust a drink into his hand. She seemed to have that special talent that some women have where some trigger on the surface of their skin buzzed when a better looking, younger female was in proximity to their mate. (Insert very funny argument between Geoff and Steve about sensitivity and gender stereotypes with lots of topical references and intellectual allusions here.)

Veronica's own trigger buzzed and she moved on into the party. Lee looked sadly up to Abby.

"She called me 'Mr. Harris'," he said.

Abby smiled and sipped her Fuzzy Navel. Then she sipped her drink. Then Steve hit Geoff and he promised to behave himself. Peter came over with a plate of hors d'oeuvres and handed it to Lee.

"You looked incapacitated and Abby seemed encumbered with your drink," he said. "Don't waste your time with the mushroom caps. Hi, Abby."

"Peter," Abby said.

"Thanks," Lee said.

"You were good tonight," Peter said to Lee.

"Oh," Lee said, confused. "I'm not even sure how I got all of my lines out. Thanks."

Lee sat considering the compliment, then decided Peter was just being nice, so he added, "I had a hundred and three of them, you know."

"Are you okay?" Abby asked Peter.

"Yeah," he said. "I guess. Today a couple of board members came in to the theatre just to feel important and I was up to my armpits clearing a clogged toilet because Stella's volunteer never showed up. Great impression. Ah, well. We had a brilliant opening night, so it all evens out."

Just then Bear and Dee Dee came in.

"Wow," Peter said, and Lee and Abby looked at him for an explanation of the interjection. He noticed them waiting and explained that Bear never came to opening night parties. "He works so hard during hell week, I guess. After he closes the theatre down, he probably just goes home and dies."

Peter bustled over and greeted Bear.

"Hey, Peter," Bear said. "Oh. This is Dee Dee."

Peter's eyes got really wide. He really wanted to say "Roz's sister Dee Dee? Your ex-wife Dee Dee? The reason for all that social discomfort in the car Dee Dee?" but he just said "Hi" and left it at that.

"Dee Dee came to the play tonight," Bear said. His voice was a little odd when he said it.

"Oh," Peter said, really confused now. Weren't opening nights why they got divorced? "How... nice."

Just then the energy in the room shifted suddenly into the blue and all the noise slowed and quieted. Every face seemed to be slowly aligning like iron filings that had just discovered a magnet. Peter was one of the last to catch the field, but his face finally lined up properly. A spark of energy like a charged proton accelerated across the room toward a young man that almost no one in the room knew, a thin young man with tattoos on his arms. Those who did know him knew him as Ron.

The proton was Agnes and when she reached him, she attached herself to his arm and the energy from the two particles meeting burst out in a flash and re-animated the room, having diverse effects on the diverse occupants, each a distinct particle with its own properties and relationship to a metaphor stretched far beyond its physical and logical limits: Bear and Lee, across the room from one another, both shuddered and thought of power tools; Peter thought of men using power tools. Then he shook his head and searched the room for Jim, which didn't make much sense to him, but, hey, it was a molecular reaction; Jim watched Agnes pull the young man to the drink table and his stomach felt really fluttery and painful all of a sudden, which confused him. He looked at Stella, with whom he was very happy, hoping that would make his stomach behave. It helped a little. Stella saw the look on his face and her own face started brewing a storm, and Jim's stomach went even more funny.

"You're with me, now," She said coldly.

"What? I know. Of course. What do you mean?" Jim said stupidly.

He leaned over and kissed her, which calmed her slightly, but he kept one eye open and trained on Agnes and Ron.

Veronica had only one reaction.

"Eeeeww," she said.

Ron's skanky girlfriend agreed, grabbed Veronica and planted an open mouth kiss on her, just to make the point.

"Eeeewww," Veronica said again.

Headline caught sight of Billy, who was there as a device, and brought him a drink.

"How about that?" he asked, and Billy agreed. "I never thought I'd be too old for a sixty-year old woman." He thought about that and added, "I never thought I'd say that." He thought about that and added, "Hell, I never thought I'd be with a sixty-year old woman. Even when I'm sixty. Especially when I'm sixty. If I make it to sixty. But that has nothing to do with this party. What was I saying? Agnes. Wow."

"Nice ride while it lasted, though, huh?" Billy said.

Headline agreed, and wondered distractedly if he should be devastated. Billy moved off, waiting for another moment when the writers would need him to get a point across, and Headline checked to see what his reaction really was. Billy had been right, it had been a great ride. He spotted Kim and brought her a drink. It was really convenient being a bartender and knowing what everyone usually ordered. He had the perfect device to mingle. And now that he had been to an opening night and an opening night party he had a whole new perspective on the theatre crowd he had been serving all these years. Being a bartender added to his experience of the party, and now the party was going to add to his experience of work. He could mine this information for greater tips. Life was good. Agnes was already becoming a fond memory.

Lee thought about the moment a long time ago when he had seriously considered dating Agnes. At least sleeping with her. And it was only a few months ago. He shuddered again. He was too old for Veronica, which made some sort of sense, but he was too old for Agnes, which was too much to handle. He would have begun brooding about it like an old man, but Cole Porter's Where Would You Get Your Coat started playing.

"Hey," Abby said. "Our song. Let's dance."

"You've got to be kidding," Lee said. "Of course. It's you. You're kidding."

"No," Abby said. "Actually, I'm not. Step out a little."

"I can barely stand."

"But," Abby said, "you can stand. That's all I need. And you're already moving your toes to the beat, you sneak."

Lee looked down at his feet and discovered that he was, indeed, moving his toes to the beat. Stupid toes.

"And besides," Abby added. "I've seen you dance. Your back won't make a difference."

"Thanks a heap," Lee said and with her help, struggled up.

She led him into the middle of the room, planted him at a position that suited her, grabbed his hand, pulled it up to shoulder height and started twirling and dancing in a convincing jitterbug. Lee started laughing, which felt really good. He was good at being a curmudgeon, but laughing was better.

"You don't even need me," he said.

"No," she said, "but it's nicer with someone. And you're kind of cute in an accountant, old man sort of way."

Lee blushed and Abby spun under his arm.

The front door opened, and the energy in the room changed one more time. The guy playing Felix came in with a stack of newspapers, followed by a satisfying swirl of snow. Lee had learned from Look Homeward Angel that some eager actor was always sent down to the paper on opening night to get copies of the Bee fresh off the press to bring to the opening night party so they could see the review. After the review was read, the party usually broke up and everyone went home, which seemed reasonable, since the paper didn't hit the stands until around four and that was late enough for anyone to stay up who had just gone through opening night. Lee looked at his watch. Three fifty-two. The paper was early that morning.

"Extra, extra," the actor shouted, and everyone gathered around, grabbing copies and fumbling for the arts page. Agnes, with a stunned Ron slightly behind her looking like what a puppy dog must look like if confronted by a weaving cobra, politely took a copy from someone and elegantly found the page.

"Calm down, everyone," she said, cleared her throat, and began reading.

She paused briefly when she saw the headline, which didn't portend good news, then she steeled herself and spoke.

"An Uneven Odd Couple," she said evenly. "By R. Pendleton Smythe."

"Oh, man," someone complained.

"He always pans everything," someone consoled.

"He always tries to be so clever," someone else said, bitterly.

"He should stick to bake sales and the financial page," someone else exclaimed.

"Get your hands off my mushroom cap," someone else interjected.

After they all agreed that the review was useless and that it would be pointless to take anything it said seriously, and why bother even reading it because it was all tripe and trash anyway, they urged Agnes to continue. The first paragraph simply talked about the play, and someone said that he was just outlining the plot, not writing a review.

"Agnes Livingstone directed, and the set and lighting were designed by Bear Pugh..." Agnes continued, then read a list of actors and the parts they played, and someone scoffed that he just listed the actors, but didn't say anything about them, and that it wasn't a review, it was a book report.

"... Jim Ackerman who debuted in Of Mice and Men last month..."

Lee's back stiffened a little, which wouldn't have seemed possible before hearing Jim's name mentioned in a newspaper.

"... and Lee Harris, who was delightfully scathing as Roy, the accountant in the group of poker playing friends, and is a welcome addition to the River Bend theatre scene, gave this lackluster production a few moments of shining professionalism. He is someone to keep an eye on."

There was a stunned silence and no one seemed to be keeping an eye on Lee. Then Agnes quickly finished reading the review which continued with the address of the theatre, the dates of the play and phone number where tickets could be reserved.

"Now we'll never be able to live with him," Abby said into the silence, and several people laughed, grateful for the break in the tension.

As Lee made his way back to the chair, several people came up to him and congratulated him with what sounded a lot like false enthusiasm. Lee didn't realize that feeling good could feel so awkward and, unlike Headline, he really didn't like feeling awkward. Even the waiter with the bunched pants, who had nothing to do with the play and shouldn't have cared, walked by Lee too quickly and with his tray held too high for Lee to grab even a lemon wedge from it. When Peter came up and congratulated him, though, that felt genuine.

"I told you you did good," Peter said, then looked around at the people pointedly avoiding him. "Don't mind them. Beware of the green-eyed monster, my lord, it mocks the food it feeds on."

"Meat," Lee said.

"What?" Peter asked.

"Meat," Lee said. "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on. Othello. Act III."

"I was just trying to be nice," Peter said. "Asshole."

"And then there was one," Abby said with a smirk, and brought Lee his coat.

Lee showed up at Twain's just before the lunch rush on Saturday. There were already three people at the counter, and one booth had a couple drinking coffee and sharing a newspaper. Lee wondered if they were reading his review. He made a strange arc into the room so he could casually glance over their shoulders. The guy was reading the want ads and the woman was reading the obituaries. They were all for men, once again, except for the one woman who, allegedly, had been disposed of by her husband, who then, allegedly, disposed of himself. There was a picture of Judge Darling on the page. He hadn't died, he was promoting a book signing. It was a book by someone else, but he was going to be at Comma, Colon and Dickens signing it. Lee never realized how much you could glean from a casual glance of a newspaper page over someone's shoulder. He had gleaned that more people needed to read his review.

"Hi, Mr. Harris," Matt said when Lee got back to the kitchen. "Who drove you today?"

"I decided to drive myself. It felt good to drive. Now I'm exhausted and need to go home."

Matt laughed. Twain came back just then and asked what was funny, so Matt explained Lee's joke. Twain looked at Lee, trying to decide if it had been a joke. Lee wasn't laughing, after all, and he was already sitting on the stool he had brought into the kitchen for those moments when his back flared up and he didn't want to go out into the diner. Lee sensed the question behind Twain's look.

"Hey," he said with a growl, making fists, bending his arms and swinging them very slightly in front of his transversus abdominis in an absurd parody of a muscle man at a beach or Popeye anywhere or George Hamilton. "I'm a real man."

"With dishwater hands," Twain said.

"Oh," Matt said, "I saw your name in the paper. Congratulations!"

Lee's chest swelled. Then it fell a little while he looked around to make sure none of the other actors from the play were in the kitchen with them. Then it swelled again. It had been a great review, and he had been the only one praised in the whole production. But it would be unseemly to brag about that. But he was the only one they praised.

"Yes," he said. "Thanks. It was a good review, wasn't it? I was the only one they praised in the whole production."

Twain went back out front, not sure if there was enough room for him in the kitchen with Lee's humility rattling the teacups and taking up all the room back there.

"Cool," Matt said, and copied Lee's parody of the strong man with a laugh. "I'm a man!"

Matt went back about his work, very proud at having bonded with Lee. The lunch crowd wasn't very big, for which Lee was thankful. He was able to keep up with the dishes and get all the table paraphernalia filled.

He had to rest before facing the drive home, however. It had been more than he should have attempted. That night backstage, most of the cast members were strangely distant, which really annoyed Lee. He wanted to be able to celebrate his review, but with everyone being distant, any celebration would look like gloating. Everyone except Jim, of course, which was even more annoying. Jim actually congratulated him on the review, and seemed to want to hover while he put on his makeup and costume. Lee had grown fond of having an audience, but not backstage while dressing. It wasn't done. One of the things that made it possible to undress and dress in front of all these guys was that none of them noticed each other doing it. In fact, they made a point of not noticing each other doing it. Lee briefly considered ducking into Roger's Room to change, but just as he considered it, a strange noise fell out of it. It was probably just the furnace rumbling. He wasn't going to be the one to find out.

"Don't you have makeup to get into?" he asked Jim, who seemed to wake up somehow, as if he really had forgotten that he had to get ready, also.

Lee took advantage of the distraction and got changed.

By Wednesday, Lee wasn't afraid of sneezing, tying his shoes was almost no challenge at all and he was able to drive himself to work without troubling his back because Steve was really tired of the whole bad back thing. He was still tentative about getting out of bed in the morning, and very careful about how he sat down and stood back up because Geoff wasn't, yet. He was really looking forward to the time when he could actually take for granted all those things that people who hadn't fractured their coccyx took for granted, just to tie it all up.

During a lull at the diner, Lee called Andrew to see if the check from the house had come, yet. Andrew told him it hadn't and to have patience. He also congratulated Lee on the review.

"Thanks!" Lee said, enthusiastically.

"You should be proud," Andrew continued. "You did do a good job."

Lee's chest, which was already really swelled and had been for so long it was beginning to hurt, swelled a little more. Just then Matt, who had come in with Jan for their lunch hour, walked by and did the strong man thing with a big grin. Lee laughed out loud.

"It might be time to take some acting classes," Andrew added.

"Huh?" Lee's chest imploded.

"You're getting good, you want to get better," Andrew said. "Now comes the work. Anyways, you don't want to be like George Hamilton, do you?"

"Whadayamean?" Lee said defensively, "I loved him in The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing."

"Well, sure," Andrew said. "But then he did Zorro, the Gay Blade. And did you see Godfather III?"

"Oh," Lee said.

"My point exactly. Take a class."

When he got off the phone, Lee asked Twain if the mail had come, yet.

"No," Twain, who had watched Lee while he was talking to Andrew, said. "The postal service is on strike."

"You're kidding!" Lee said, his heart pounding, his brow glistening and his toes curling as if he were living in some satirical soap opera or something where bad things just always happened to him all the time.

Twain just walked away.

Ten minutes later the phone rang, and Twain called back to the kitchen to tell Lee it was for him, letting him know by the tone in his voice that he was spending entirely too much time on the phone.

"The check just came," Andrew said.

Lee said he'd be right over and hung up. Then he looked at Twain, who had heard him say he'd be right over, and asked if he could go run a very important errand. Twain toyed with him for several moments before he scowled and said not to take too long because there had been a lot of dishes piling up while he was on the phone. Although he said it with a lot less words than that.

About forty-six and a half minutes after Lee left, Abby came into the diner for lunch. She sat at the counter and ordered a cheeseburger, fries, Tang™ and a wedge of hot apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream because Geoff is on a diet and has to live vicariously through a fictional straight woman who doesn't watch what she eats. She asked Twain where Lee was and he just gave her one of his looks and filled her water glass.

She was starting on the pie when Lee got back and she got up and gave him a big hug, then stepped back far enough so he could see the sweatshirt she was wearing under her coat. It said "Baby" and had a big arrow under that pointing down.

"Cover that up!" Lee whispered loudly and tried to close her coat front.

Abby laughed and pulled away from him.

"Everyone will think it's true," he said in a desperate whisper, trying to button the coat. "Everyone will think it's me!"

"Is that so bad?" Abby said with a wicked grin and took her coat off.

She laid it on the stool next to hers, sat back down and asked Lee to come around and fill her water glass again.

As he filled it, he looked around to see if anyone had noticed the sweatshirt. No one had. Until, of course, he'd whispered for her to cover it up. He continued to talk to her in a whisper hoping that would make everyone else in the place just fade away. Abby asked him where he'd been.

"Oh," Lee said, still whispering but not quite as much. "The check came. For the house."

"Wow!" Abby said. "Let's see it!"

"I already deposited it," he said, and Abby looked at him funny. "I have a photocopy, though."

Abby looked at him even funnier.

"You make photocopies of your checks?"

"Yeah," Lee said, slightly confused. "And the deposit slips. Don't you?"

Abby shook her head slowly, once again amazed at this strange man she had somehow found herself with.

"So what are you going to do with it?" she asked instead of telling him again how weird he was.

"I've always wanted to invest but I've never been able to except for Beverly's stupid antiques. When I was married, all our money went into those and cars and our lifestyle."

He stopped for a moment to think about that. Their lifestyle. Their stupid, boring, safe lifestyle. He missed it for a moment, then shook his head before thoughts of Beverly and the Jerk could flow in to ruin everything again. Damn her.

"I'm going to find a good broker," he continued, "one who has a good reputation for careful investing and build a nice blue chip portfolio."

"You're really boring," Abby said and smiled.

"What?" he said. "No. I used to be. Now, I'm a delightfully professional actor. I got a review."

"Congrats on getting the check."

She looked at her watch, said she had to get back to it, leaned over the counter to give him a kiss which he accepted with embarrassment, looking around to see if anyone was noticing the public display. Then Abby pointedly put her coat back on and buttoned it all the way up.

Lee went back to attack the dishes that had piled up since the phone call. There weren't that many of them, he thought. Twain didn't have to get all "I'm the boss" on me. He was halfway through the first sink of steaming suds when Twain came back.

"Sorry I got all 'I'm the boss' at you," he said.

Lee thought, Who are you? but didn't say it out loud. He had a feeling Twain understood anyway.

In the late afternoon, Peter came in. A blast of cold air followed him into the diner, which accentuated his foul mood. He sat at the counter and the cold seemed to hover around him. He hunkered into his coat and slumped his shoulders and eyebrows. Twain plopped a menu down in front of him, which he ignored, and poured him a cup of coffee, which he didn't. After putting entirely too much cream into it, then stirring in almost an entire dispenser of sugar so it became sludgy, more like warm coffee flavored ice cream than hot coffee flavored coffee, he tasted it and found it satisfactory. Twain watched him, thinking, Who are you? Peter didn't notice or care. Instead, he ordered meatloaf. And green beans. And mashed potatoes with gravy and a large salad and side of fried eggs with toast and a strawberry milkshake and a flan.

"Hey, Peter," Lee said when he was about to set the order on the serving window. He brought it out rather than setting it there. "How's it going?"

Peter glared up at him from under his eyebrows and harrumphed.

"My check came," Lee said, then, when it looked like Peter didn't know what check he was talking about, added, "From the house. Beverly and mine. That we just sold."

"So," Peter said, wondering why Lee never seemed to be able to read even the most obvious moods and feeling a small pang of pity for Abby, "you going to buy a Ferrari?"

"What?" Lee said, startled even by the thought. "There's hardly enough for a Ferrari."

"Okay, a Porsche?"

"No, I put it in the bank. I'm going to invest it."

"I thought guys always wanted to buy Ferraris or Porsches when they got a windfall."

"No," Lee replied, confused by almost every part of that statement. "I'm going to invest it."

"God, you're boring."

"Not you, too," Lee said, in his own version of a hurrumph. "You're a guy. Would you buy a Ferrari with it?"

"No, I'd get as far away from the Willow Lane Theatre as I possibly could."

"I thought you loved theatre," Lee said, then finally noticed the slump and scowl and general cold air surrounding Peter. "You okay?"

"No, I'm not okay," Peter exploded.

"Oh." Lee said. Then he realized something was required of him in this situation. See, I can learn, he thought. "What's wrong?"

"Stella," Peter said dramatically, "got a raise."

Peter let that statement hang in the air as if it explained everything and needed no elaboration. Lee had no idea why that piece of information would cause someone to scowl and slump so and be so surrounded by cold. Peter breathed in as if he were about to elaborate, then sort of deflated back into himself.

"I haven't had a raise in three years," he said quietly, almost to himself. "And that was only twenty-five cents. And Stella gets one." And then less quietly, still not quite to Lee, he added, "Because she flips her fucking hair at the board of directors." And then he gave up all pretense of quietness. "The only reason the stupid theatre hasn't folded and imploded into a dark stinking hole in the earth is because I always check her fucking work." Then he noticed Lee standing there listening. "You know. You looked at her books that first day you were there. She's a lousy book keeper. With a glass eye." (Steve, she doesn't have a glass eye. Then what was that I felt?)

"If you need some money..." Lee said, really trying to help.

"No. No, no, no. No, that's not what I mean. No. How much?"

Lee laughed then said, "I'm serious. If you need anything..."

"No," Peter continued. "Thanks, but no. And anyway, that's completely beside the point. I'm at least worth what Stella makes. I put up with her moods and her arrogance. I fix her mistakes and cover her ass. I put up with her grabbing every volunteer who walks in the door. I do twice the work she does on my own without even doing hers and then I do hers and I never complain about it and then she gets a raise for it and they think her fucking shit doesn't stink."

"Why don't you ask for one, too?" Lee asked in a slight whisper. It seemed like a logical question, but he hoped when Peter answered it, he'd quiet down before he started attracting an audience. It was bad enough with Abby, and he wasn't sleeping with Peter.

"Because I've seen the books!" Peter exploded. "I know how much money we make and how much money it costs to put on a play and how much money it takes to maintain the building and I know we're just scraping by. I should be running that place. The board of directors has no idea what the fuck is going on, they just want to be able to say they support the arts and get a glow in their pants when Stella flips her hair at them."

Peter seemed to run out of steam at that. He couldn't compete there. When it came to getting a group of men to do just what she wanted she had all the tools and he didn't have any of them. In fact, the tools he did have seemed to have just the opposite effect. He glanced over and noticed that Twain was looking at them, sharpening a cleaver, scowling, and the cuss jar had been placed on the counter next to him. Peter dropped several quarters into it. Twain still scowled. Peter dropped a bill into it. He didn't even notice whose picture was on it. Twain gave the cleaver one more swipe with the wet stone, then walked away.

"I'm sorry," Peter said to Lee. "You're at work. I should just eat my fucking meatloaf and green beans and mashed potatoes with gravy and large salad and side of fried eggs with toast and strawberry milkshake and a flan and leave town."

He wanted to shout all that, but the man with the cleaver was still somewhere nearby, so it lost much of its power by coming out in a hushed whisper.

"Why don't you come by tonight," Lee asked. "I'll have some snacks and we'll get bombed."

"Really?"

"Sure. It's been, like, ten installments. You need to drown your sorrows and I want to celebrate. It's perfect."

"Sure," Peter said after a brief moment thinking how good it would feel to just go home and feel sorry for himself all by himself. "Okay. What time?"

"I leave around four-thirty. I'll stop and get some stuff. Be there around six. Mind if Abby's there, too?"

"No, the more the merrier. Misery loves more people."

Lee didn't even try to correct him.

"Thanks, Lee," Peter said. "Oh. And you are at least going to take Abby out for a nice dinner, aren't you?"

"Tonight?"

"No, stupid, with your windfall."

"Oh," Lee said. "Yeah. Of course."

"You hadn't thought of it, had you?"

"No," Lee admitted. "Um... Thanks."

Lee put away groceries and David Byrne's odd, Byzantine voice conga-ed out into the room. Abby bounced slightly to it. She was still wearing the sweatshirt that said "Baby" with an arrow pointing down. Lee disappeared into the bedroom with one of the bags for a moment. When he came back out, he was wearing a tee shirt, which was weird enough, but on it was emblazoned "I'm With Stupid™" with an arrow pointing to the right. Abby burst out laughing. Lee stood on her left so it pointed directly at her for a moment, then went back toward his bedroom.

"Where are you going?"

"To change."

"No, you're not."

"Peter will be here any minute, Abby."

"Exactly," she said and grinned.

They argued good-naturedly for a moment while Lee built the fire. Building fires was what Lee did. It was ablaze in less than five minutes. They finally compromised: He would wear the tee shirt, but would put another shirt over it. That way Abby would be able to know he had stepped out, but he wouldn't have to step out to the point that he embarrassed himself in front of his friend. Lee also tried to get Abby to cover up her sweatshirt, but she simply refused. He would just have to deal with the embarrassment for that. There was only so much compromise available, it seemed.

After he got suitably covered, Lee tossed another log onto the fire and sparks spiraled up towards the flue with angry hissing and popping. He used the fire irons to arrange the logs and looked like a wizard in his lair conjuring some dangerously mythical beast. A spark popped loudly and leapt toward him, but Lee got the screen in place just in time. He laughed demonically.

At six-oh-one, Peter knocked on the front door. Phish was now dripping out of the CD player. Peter's afternoon grump had evolved into an evening numb funk. He moved to the fire as if it had physically pulled him into the room. A spark popped loudly and he jumped.

"Hi, Peter," Abby said as he took off his coat. "See what I brought?"

She held up a Risk game. There was a big green rubber band holding it together that looked like the kind of rubber band on one of those big punching balls. The corners of the cover were all ripped up the seams and the white that surrounded the big red "RISK" on the top had long since faded to a pale ochre. On one side panel someone had scratched out the "er" on both Parker and Brothers, so it said "Park Broth s", which looked like it was trying hard to mean something but was probably just done by some child like Steve.

"You're kidding," Peter said. "You've obviously never played a board game with Lee."

"Why?"

"He never loses. And what the hell are you wearing?"

Peter laid his coat on the arm of the couch. He was wearing a badly hand-knit sweater made from yarn with alarmingly mismatched colors that bunched in all the wrong places. His cologne smelled of peppercorns.

"I," Abby said, "have never lost a game of Risk in my life. A sweatshirt, why?"

"Well, it should be an interesting evening with neither of you losing."

"Consider the source," Lee said. About the sweatshirt, not the losing thing.

"Here," Peter said to Lee and handed him a card and small gift-wrapped box.

"Consider yourself at home," Abby said.

Lee looked at Peter questioningly, then shook the box next to his ear.

"Just open it," Peter said peevishly. "Sheesh." Then to Abby, said,"consider yourself one of the family."

"We haven't a lot... to spare©," Abby said.

Lee tore the paper off the box. It was a red Matchbox Ferrari.

"Who cares... what... ever we..." Peter continued.

"STOP!" Lee demanded and opened the card.

It said, "Because you won't do anything interesting with all that cash. Congratulations, Peter."

Lee laughed and handed Peter a shot, which he'd already poured. Once he noticed a mood, he knew what to do to help. Especially if helping involved booze. Peter drained it in one gulp.

"Mmmm," he said warmly, "Canadian."

"Crown Royal," Lee corrected him.

Peter handed the shot glass back and Lee poured him another, then poured one for Abby and one for himself.

"To all that money," Abby said, raising the glass high above her head.

"To all that money," they answered, raising their own glasses.

They drank, then Abby added, "Not that you're going to do anything interesting with it."

Lee gave her a look and she smiled innocently.

"To all that money," she said.

Peter raised his glass again and said, "To misery and company!"

They toasted that. The smooth, burning whiskey vapor smelled earthy, like good clean topsoil.

"To err is human," Lee toasted.

"'Er'?" Peter asked. "Isn't it 'ere'?"

"No," Lee said. "It's 'err'. Not 'er' or 'ere'."

"Sounds like you don't know what you're saying," Abby said. "Er... Um... what I meant to say was air."

"Okay," Lee said, changing the subject, "we have snacks."

"We have booze," Peter agreed.

"And we have board games," Abby concluded. "Game."

Lee set out snacks, which Geoff will resist describing so Steve doesn't hit him, and Abby set up the game. She had to move the newspaper clipping of the review preserved in a plastic sheet protector to the end table. Abby and Peter sat on the couch, and Lee brought a chair from the kitchen for himself and sat across from them. Led Zeppelin rang out and circumambulated the room. There was a small movement over by the television which caught Lee's eye. He glanced back in time to see Charlie bobbing his head to the music. He either liked it or was in pain. Stupid bird.

A sudden gust of hungry wind rattled the house. The hollow sound of it made Peter and Abby shiver, but the house braced itself, making the room feel even more warm and secure, more solid. This house was built by someone who was going to live in it.

"How many houses do I get?" Peter asked.

Abby and Lee just looked at him for a very long time.

"What?" Peter wasn't in a mood to be looked at.

"They're armies," Abby said, then she smiled a wicked smile.

"Patsy," Lee added to that, agreeing with her smile.

"Fine," Peter said, "How many armies do I get? Nancy."

"Thirty-five," Abby and Lee said simultaneously. Then they both laughed and said, "Nancy."

"I want the boot," Peter said. They looked at him again and he said, "It was a joke. A joke. Like saying I hope the Raiders win the World Series or I hope George Hamilton wins an Oscar. A joke. What I really want is the wheel barrow. Especially if it's old enough so the little wheel turns."

"How about a shot?" Lee said.

Lee chose green. Abby chose blue. Peter asked what colors there were.

"Mauve, chartreuse, egg shell, off white, white, cream, wheat, cream of wheat, crimson, periwinkle, harvest gold, avocado and plaid," Abby said.

"I'll take brown," Peter said, sounding sort of brown.

"Okay," Lee said. "Do you remember how to play?"

"Um..." Peter said. "Sure. I think. Tell me."

"Well, we each throw one die and the winner goes first, then we put one army on a country in turn until all the countries are occupied. Then, when they're all occupied, we fortify our countries until everyone has placed all thirty-five armies on the board..."

"Then," Abby cut in, "on the first turn we don't get any new armies, but on each other turn you do. You get one for every three countries you have and several for each continent you completely own. You also get some if you turn in cards. When you have three of a kind or one of each kind of card, you can turn them in for armies, but you don't have to turn them in until you have five cards."

"How do you get cards?" Peter asked. He was sure he had already missed something vital. He hoped his eyes hadn't glazed over. He wouldn't want them to think he wasn't paying attention. Which he wasn't. The box top said it was a game of world conquest, and that seemed appropriate, somehow, given his day. They were still talking. He had to focus.

"If you took a country in your turn, you get a card at the end of your turn," Lee explained. "The first person to turn in cards gets four armies, the next gets six, then eight, then ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, etc. And if you own the country that's on the card, you get two for that, but even if you have more than one card that matches your armies, you only get two extra armies, and you have to put them on that country. Get it?"

Peter was sure he didn't get it, but was also sure that if he said so, they would try to explain it again. He glanced at the box top again. It said for ages 10 to adult. He silently dared any ten year old to understand one word of all that nonsense. He would have dared them out loud, but there weren't any ten year olds present and if there were, they might show him up by actually understanding, and then where would he be? Some wind came down the chimney, stirred up sparks, and blew a little smoke into the room. Peter sipped some whiskey and watched the fire. Then he realized they were still explaining.

"Okay," Abby said, "on the first turn you don't get extra armies, then you fight, then, when you're done fighting, you can move any amount of armies from one country to an adjoining country that you're already occupying to fortify that for your next move and you get your card."

"The attacker uses the red dice," Lee said. "And can use one, two or three, but you can't use more armies than you can lose and still keep your country, and when you win a country, you have to move as many armies to it as how many dice you threw. The defender uses the white dice. Got it so far?"

"Let's just play," Peter said wearily, hoping it would all make sense in process. He ate a chip.

Abby laughed. Lee turned the box top upside down and threw a die into it. It bounced and chattered to a stop and came up six. Peter threw one and it came up one. Abby threw a six and laughed. The contest was on. Peter was already fascinated. Two people who don't lose. He expected fireworks by the end of the evening, and would be greatly disappointed if he didn't get them. Maybe they would add some sparkle to his world view. Of course, tonight that would take a lot of fireworks. Tonight, that would take a lot of friends. Tonight, let it be Lowenbrau.

"Ladies first?" Abby tried.

Lee threw the die again without even commenting. It came up five. Abby's came up three. Lee put an army on Brazil. Abby put one on Eastern Australia. Peter put a house on England. I mean a flat. I mean an army. (That's why they don't allow gays in the military. They let you in.) As they took their successive turns, Abby began spreading out from the lower right hand corner of the world, Lee from the Western edge, and Peter was all over the fucking place. He had put one on Indonesia thinking that would be a good way to keep Abby from getting a whole continent. She laughed and told him he was just wasting an army. He put one on Peru because Lee seemed determined to have South America, and Lee didn't say anything but looked like he thought Peter was just wasting an army. Abby put an army on Alaska and Peter asked why she laughed at him for Western Australia if she were putting one on Lee's continent and Lee said it was because she just wanted to fuck with him. Abby smiled knowingly.

"So," Abby said after placing an army on East Africa, "You had a bad day at work, I hear."

"Yeah," Peter said. "I guess. It's just a lot of things. Those idiots on the board just don't have a clue. And then, this afternoon when I was driving around avoiding getting back to the theatre, I passed the old Renaissance Inn and it's all boarded up. Did you ever go there?"

"Sure," Abby said as Peter put an army on Iceland. "Dinner and a play for twenty-three bucks. Saw I Do! I Do! It didn't."

The last continent occupied was Asia. Peter took the last country, which was Irkutsk. He had always wondered how they came up with the names in this game. Then the fortification rounds started, and on the next three turns Abby put more armies on Alaska, and each time Lee said, "See?" but Peter didn't see.

Instead, he said, "When I was in college, there was this great old movie house. It was huge, with a great big screen and big cushy seats and lots of gaudy gingerbread everywhere. I saw one movie there my first semester. They broke it down into three screens in November, covering up all the decorations. By my sophomore year, they were only playing dirty pictures there. By the middle of my junior year it was closed. It became a flea market. They kept the theatre front, though, so every time I passed it I'd get upset."

On Lee's first move, he attacked Iceland from Greenland. Peter felt slightly betrayed.

"What movie did you see?" Lee asked.

"Huh?"

"The first semester. At that movie theatre."

"Last Tango in Paris," Peter said, sadly, and put down his Laughing Cow cheese wedge. It had caraway seeds in it anyway, so he probably wouldn't have finished it.

Lee went after several of Abby's countries, but both lost whole battalions before any country fell. On Abby's first move, she attacked Western Australia from Eastern Australia. Peter felt picked on. The dice clattered in the box top. It only took one roll to remove him from her path. He felt like he was a speck of beige lint that had been flicked off a tan shirt. They'd been right, he had just wasted two armies. He ate the cheese wedge. Then Abby went after Lee and the bloody battles intensified. Another gust of wind shook the windows, trying to get in on the game. Even the weather had more interest in it than Peter.

"You have all that money," Peter said when it looked like Abby was going to conquer Brazil. "You could buy a flame thrower and burn all her armies."

"I already have one."

On Peter's first turn, he realized he didn't have one country with more than three armies, and most had only two. He didn't have a lot to fight with. On his first throw, one of the dice bounced out of the box top and on to the floor. Abby picked it up for him and he threw it again. He tried to get Iceland back from Lee by attacking it from Scandinavia. He failed miserably. This promised to become a two player game very quickly. Peter sat very close to the Crown Royal and chips. That was a war he could win.

"If I'd just sold a house in Chicago, I could buy a stealth bomber and get Iceland back," Peter said miserably.

"I'd just buy a couple of politicians and have them stage a bloodless coup," Abby said. "Not nearly as messy."

"Or as fun," Peter said glumly.

"You're both really good at spending my money, here."

"It's all just fantasy. What would you do with it?" Abby asked. "If you hadn't already said you'd invest it in boring stocks?"

"Invest it in boring stocks," Lee said.

"No," Abby said. "It's a game. Play for a minute. Don't be such a blue chip fart."

"Okay, I'd buy fireworks and liquor."

"You've already done that."

"I bought him the fireworks," Peter said and ate a Ritz cracker with Cheddar cheese. Steve hit Geoff for describing the food.

"I'd invest it in boring stocks," Lee insisted defiantly. Peter and Abby gave him one of his own looks. "Okay, how about a howitzer?"

"How about a Wurlitzer?" Abby asked, and decimated Western Europe. "Or a Pulitzer?"

"Real estate," Peter said as he gave up after trying vainly to make a dent in Egypt and ended his turn without getting a card. "A skyscraper."

"A private jet," Lee said and placed twenty-five armies on Brazil.

"A public jet," Abby said, bracing herself for the onslaught with a shot of Crown Royal.

"Proctor and Gamble," Lee said as he started his attack on North Africa.

"The stock?" Abby asked as she fought back with sticks, stones and a flame thrower.

"No, the company," Lee said as he moved his armies onto North Africa.

"Too blue chip," Abby said as Lee rolled to continue his advance into the continent of Africa. "How about Columbia Records?"

"I'd buy a defunct theatre," Peter said.

"Sure," Lee said. "What would you do with that?"

"Put on plays. I'd buy the Renaissance."

"We could do I Do! I Do!," Abby said. She was beating Lee back and regaining ground.

"Hal David and Burt Bacharach," Peter said. He looked at his sad collections of armies scattered piecemeal around the world looking lonely and detached. They were all the little I-Beam armies. Lee and Abby had little III's, V's and X's. Peter imagined the plastic being extruded and cut like pieces of pasta. Then he wondered how interesting it was that simply making pasta into a different shape changed the way it tasted. Then Abby attacked Italy. Well, Southern Europe, but it contained Italy.

"No, that's Promises, Promises," Lee said, allowing himself to take a slight break while Abby systematically removed Peter from Europe. "I Do! I Do! is Tom Jones."

"'THE' Tom Jones?" Abby asked. Europe was hers, except for the forty-three armies Lee had on Iceland.

"Well, certainly 'A' Tom Jones," Peter said, hoping Lee would just finish him off on his next move so he could stop being distracted by this stupid game and just get on with drowning Stella with Crown Royal and cheese dip.

"Tom Jones the singer?" Abby insisted. "I knew he sang My Cup Runneth Over from that show, but I didn't know he wrote it."

"No, Tom Jones the novelist," Peter said. He wasn't paying as much attention as he could be. Lee had just whomped Irkutsk and was advancing on Siberia. After that, all he had left was China, which should mean something with as many people as China had, but his China only had three armies on it and wouldn't last another winter.

"Tom Jones was the novel," Abby said. "The novelist was Thomas Fielding. I had to read it in college."

"Henry Fielding," Lee corrected her. "Tom Jones the play write. Who wrote I Do! I Do! He also wrote The Fantasticks. Which is where Try To Remember came from. Which is what Tom Jones sang, not My Cup Runneth Over, which Ed Ames sang. And now China is mine and I get all of Peter's cards."

Peter handed him his cards with a touch of sadness, which surprised him. He had been looking forward to getting out of the game so he could just sit in his funk, drink, eat snacks and watch Lee and Abby destroy each other in an obscene, glorious, plastic bloodbath. He sadly gathered up his houses and put them back into their little plastic box. He only felt sad for a moment, though. Then he sat back with his shot glass and thought about spending Lee's money. The scent of burning wood was mingling nicely in his forehead with all that Canadian.

"We could serve food that had to do with the play," he said. "Like doing A Doll's House and serve Swedish food."

"Mmmm. Lutfisk. We'd close before the first act ended," Lee said, then threw three sixes, whooped once and waited grandly while Abby took all her armies off of Yakutsk. When she was done, she leaned over and unbuttoned Lee's shirt. He tried to brush her away halfheartedly while he moved his armies to the newly vacated Yakutsk. The music had moved from Rolling Stones through Benny Goodman and had landed on Leon Redbone. The gravelly voice was grinding into the carpet and scraping the paint off the walls.

"What the hell are you wearing?" Peter asked him.

Lee looked down, then looked at Peter. He seemed to be having trouble focusing and that sweater was making it harder.

"A tee-shirt," he said matter-of-factly.

"What would we call the theatre?" Abby said. "How about Aunt Abby's Playhouse and Condom Emporium?"

"How about Peter's Theatre," Peter said.

He liked it. It had a nice ring. Stupid board of directors. His head was beginning to swim a little. The world was almost evenly divided between blue and green armies. The green armies were neatly arranged on North and South America, most of Europe, and some of Asia. The blue ones were haphazardly piled on Australia, Africa and the rest of Europe and Asia. The border between the two seemed to shift and move, snakelike, but didn't really change substantially for a long time.

"It's my money," Lee said as he collected his card, carefully examined it with the rest of the cards, then neatly placed them all just under the edge of the board. "If we call it anything, we should call it Lee's Theatre. Which we won't because we aren't buying a theatre."

"Let's call it Barbara," Abby said. "And serve only bad hamburgers and cheese fries and put on Aida."

"Yeah, with real elephants in the processional scene," Lee said, swaying his shoulders in uneven syncopation to Frank Sinatra. "But we'll serve ermine under glass."

"Wha'ja say?" Abby asked.

"I said 'we'll serve pheasant under glass'," Lee said. Then he stopped. He wasn't sure what he had said. He wasn't even sure what they were talking about. Something about Ed Ames. "Yeah. 'Pheasant under glass'."

"And how the hell do you know about the processional scene in Aida?" Abby said.

"We could do Hamlet," Lee said. He had read somewhere that every actor wanted to play Hamlet. And he was an actor. Who had gotten the only good review.

"I got a good review," he said, and picked up the clipping in the sheet protector to prove it.

His eye knew exactly where on the page his name was. He pointed toward it to Abby. She nodded patronizingly and threw the dice.

"That play has like a hundred characters," Peter said, ignoring the review thing and hoping Lee would put it down and forget he'd ever gotten it. "It's a dinner theatre. You want everyone to eat while they watch everyone kill everyone? How about Sweeney Todd?"

"It's my dinner theatre, I could put on anything I wanted to. Anyway, death is good for the digestion. I could hire Laurence Olivier to play Hamlet."

"He's dead."

"So is Hamlet. And I have money, damn it, we'll get Laurence Olivier and do Hamlet," Lee said and took a drink. Then he looked at Peter, who had a sort of far away look in his eye and added, "you know we're only goofing around, don't you?"

"Of course," Peter said, sounding kind of disappointed but accepting in a drunken, emotionally numb sort of way. Maybe just being resigned to everything for the rest of his life would help, somehow. Maybe Alka-Seltzer would help. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. Things go better with Coke. A silly millimeter longer. Okay, we're done. You're soaking in it.

"We could do a tuxedo night," Abby said after whacking Lee in the left shoulder for attacking Egypt again.

"People have to come in tuxedos?" Lee said, and whacked Abby back but not as hard. He was, after all, a gentleman. And she'd probably kick his ass.

"No, we give away a tuxedo with each ticket, like at a ball park."

"Okay, I'll buy a porch," Lee said. "I mean a Porsche. And then I'll spring for a hair transplant for Steve." (Hey!)

There was a strange whimpering sound which made the small hairs on the back of Peter's neck stand up and wiggle. He rubbed the back of his neck, leaving four trails of sticky, phosphorescent orange corn curl dust.

"Quiet, Gable," Lee said offhandedly and re-took Brazil, which Abby had re-taken in the last move. Then he advanced on North Africa, which had changed allegiances almost as often as Malta.

It was strangely quiet for a moment. Peter tried to figure out why. The wind was still blowing in syncopated gusts, so it wasn't that. He finally realized there was no music. All the CD's in the changer must have played. He stumbled up from the couch and looked through Lee's collection. He put on The Rite of Spring, but Abby threw a cushion at him, so he took that off and put on Joni Mitchell's Mingus album.

"We don't seem to be making any headway," Abby said. "Should we call it a draw?"

Lee looked at her in utter disbelief.

"You're not getting off that well. I mean easy. I mean nice try," Lee said.

"You're already very drunk," Abby said reasonably.

"He got quetzals when he could barely speak," Peter tried to say as he sat back down.

"What the hell's a quetzals?" Abby asked.

"It's a bird from Central 'Merica," Lee informed her with a slight nod. "Green and red feathers. Plural."

"And it's four hundred poinch," Peter said. "If you put it on a triple letter score. I mean square. You guys are an irresistible object and an immovable object. I mean force. A forceful object and an irr... imm... er... can I have some more Crown Royal? Wait. Who's Gable?"

Peter woke up at five thirty-six, very thirsty, wondering where he was. He was on a couch, covered with a blanket. There was a large glass of water on the coffee table next to the Risk board which still seemed to be in play. There was a weight on his feet that felt like Cliche had gained several pounds. He wondered why he had gone to sleep on his couch. Then he remembered they had played Risk at Lee's. The last time he had played a board game with Lee, it had been at his house and he'd had to tuck Lee in on his couch. Lee had obviously paid him back. Well, probably Abby. Okay, bearings. What day was it? Wednesday night. Actually, it was Thursday morning. He had to go to work in a few hours. Work. Damn it. Well, it's what you do, isn't it, he thought. He'd get over it. So Stella could charm her way into a raise. He knew how important he was to the place even if the board didn't. He pushed the blanket aside and sat up, then was sorry he had because his head kept sitting up long after his body was already there. He drank the water in one long drink and that seemed to help.

He stood, making sure he didn't spin and fall, then made sure he could move relatively normally. He really didn't remember the end of the evening. He hoped he hadn't been rude. He hoped he hadn't been weepy. He hoped his butt didn't look too big in those pants. He wondered if he had slept through the fireworks he had been so looking forward to, but looked at the board and realized there probably hadn't been any. Then he found his coat and put it on. He looked around to see if there was anything else he should take. His keys were on the coffee table, so he took those. And his shoes were on the floor by the couch. He sat back down to put them on. He went quietly into the kitchen to pour himself another glass of water, gulped it, then left, quietly closing Lee's front door behind himself.

Twenty minutes later, Lee sat up in bed very suddenly.

"Fuck!" he shouted.

"What?" Abby said, coming instantly awake. "Is it your back?"

"No!" Lee said. "It's Peter. Him and his damn theatre. I've been thinking about it all night! I can't even get to sleep. Damn it!"

Abby looked at him very strangely.

"You're just drunk," she said. "You'll feel better in the morning."

"No," Lee said. "I won't."