"Of course he won't be here," one of them said. "He knows we all hate him."

"I don't hate him," someone from the far corner called out.

The basement rec room was large and well lived in, and decorated, if you could call it that, in a strange mixture of styles and taste. There was a dusty, mounted deer head with one broken antler on one wall, under which sat a sewing table with an old, very used Singer® on it. Across the room was a small counter that served as the bar for the closing night party. On the floor next to that was a pile of weights which looked like they hadn't been used in a long time. On the wall next to it was a poster of a generic eighties rock band, which looked like it had been. One book shelf had a pink boom box and several model cars and airplanes in various stages of completion, another had camera equipment, a pile of old Barbies and an ancient G.I. Joe with a melted arm, and in one corner, the one farthest from the stairway, was a pool table with enough room around it to actually play.

There was a small area partitioned off from the room with unfinished sheet rock which held a deep freezer and washer and dryer units. The whole basement held the slightly sweet smell of detergent and the clean, scorched lint smell from the dryer that both made themselves known through the subtle underground earthy smell and the swirls of cologne, perfume, beer and wine brought in with the party. Generic dance music poured from the two small speakers chained to the ceiling, but it wasn't so loud that conversations couldn't be heard.

"Hey," someone shouted. "Hey!"

"What?"

Okay, it was loud. So somebody turned it down to make this installment possible.

"Anyway," one of the poker playing guys said derisively, "it's his last night at the Willow Lane."

"Why?"

The small group of actors and tech people gathered around the sewing machine swayed slightly to the music as they gossiped, two of their favorite pastimes.

"Didn't you hear?" the first guy said. "He's opening his own theatre. Peter got fired because of him. I thought everyone knew."

Kim Anderson shook her head as she took a sip of her beer.

"No," she said emphatically as she swallowed, "Lee and Peter are not opening their own theatre."

"How do you know that?" one of the Pigeon Sisters asked. She was sitting precariously on the edge of the sewing table, but was dainty enough that it not only didn't look like she might topple it, it actually looked charming.

"Because Abby told me," Kim informed her.

"Who's Abby?" The sewing table started to shift and she stood. Daintily.

"My best friend," Kim said as she put her beer down on the sewing table and leaned against the wall.

The walls of the room were dark faux wood paneling, the kind with grooves cut every few inches to look like the wall had been made with unevenly sized planks of thick wood instead of very evenly sized, thin sheets of plywood, and there were slight gaps between the sheets through which the sheet rock they were tacked to showed.

"And how would she know?" the Pigeon Sister asked again, and looked longingly at the sewing table, knowing she could never sit there again.

"She and Lee are sleeping together," Kim said, nudging something sort of distasteful on the floor with the tip of her shoe. She hoped it was a crouton. "She was the one who told me they were opening one, or at least thinking about it, but it turns out it was just idle talk and they aren't."

When the thing on the floor moved, it sort of looked like a small avocado green Hershey's® Kiss™. Kim toed it again and it rolled a little and she realized it was some sort of wooden game piece. She didn't realize it was a Parchesi™ piece, but only because she'd never heard of Parchesi® and would probably think it was a stupid game if she had.

"Oh, wow," the Pigeon Sister said, "and poor Peter got fired for that?"

"He quit," one of the poker playing guys said. "But he would have been fired. And it's all Lee Harris's fault. So it better be his last performance here." He took a sip of beer with an air of superiority. "You sure he's not opening a theatre, because I heard he was."

Kim assured him he wasn't, and he seemed a little disappointed. He was trying to think of another way to bad mouth Lee, but the rest of the group had all stopped talking because Agnes walked by and nodded. She was followed closely by that young guy with the tattoos. Agnes was something, all right. Even her perfume was mature and intriguing. Subtle. Alarming. She was wearing Locker Room Afternoons. By Tom Arnold. The same stuff Twain was wearing in Installment Twelve. Remember? It's funny. It's a callback. Anyway.

"It is his last performance at the Willow Lane, Dear," Agnes said as if she had been part of the conversation from the beginning. She always sounded like she had been part of the conversation from the beginning. It was part of her charm. "Whether or not he's opening his own theatre. He won't be welcomed back."

Agnes moved on with Ron in her thrall, and the focus of the group shifted. Agnes also always became the focus of whatever group she was in, and lately whatever group she had just left. That was the rest of her charm. That and her bosom. Which also became the focus. Especially to Steve. (Hey! What, you disagree? I'm not sure. Well, then.)

"I just don't get it," the Pigeon Sister said, unable to pull her gaze from Agnes and Ron, and they all launched into a lively discussion of the relative merits of dating older women, almost completely forgetting Lee for the moment.

Kim picked up the game®™ piece to examine it, then blithely set it on the edge of the sewing table. The table toppled over, spilling spools, bobbins, notions and pins all over the floor. Kim walked away very quickly. The floor of the rec room was fine, gray Bardiglio Italian marble (Steve!) I mean faux tile Linoleum that had been rolled out and glued to the concrete floor many years before and there were small gaps between the sheets where dirt gathered and the concrete showed. The walls and floor looked like they could have been put up by some guy who might play Murray the Cop. Which was entirely possible, since the basement was in the house he shared with his wife and two teenaged children.

People at theatre parties always separated into groups very quickly, and the members of one group would often talk about the members of another one until one of the members of the other one joined that group. Then they would praise him on his performance and fashion sense. Some of the groups at this party only had two or three people, some had several, and each group had its own feel and energy, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Bursts of laughter mingled with the thrum of conversations and the music and the distinctive sounds of glasses filled with ice and of bottles clinking together as people lifted them from the old, ice filled wash basin behind the bar. As Agnes and Ron moved and mingled through the various groups, the conversation in each group momentarily stilled, then, as she moved on, turned toward discussing the titillating, slightly repulsive mating habits of their resident randy old woman.

"My God," the other Pigeon sister said to her group as she picked up a bon bon from a bowl, "Remember when she was doing Jim? I thought Jim was weird enough, but this guy. He's even too young for me."

As she bit into the bon bon she surreptitiously surveyed the room and spotted Jim in the far corner playing pool with someone she didn't recognize. Stella Swann, the lady from the front office, was leaning against the wall watching them, looking bored, playing with a few ends of her hair. When Agnes and Ron moved toward them, Stella stood up, smoothed her hair down and went to Jim, who was leaning on his pool stick watching his opponent run the table, and hooked her arm under his elbow to watch with him. Jim looked at her and smiled, completely missing the irony of her only paying attention to him at the moment of his humiliation. Then he noticed Agnes and nodded and smiled and the Stella woman grasped his elbow ever so slightly tighter and flipped her hair. The Pigeon Sister snickered. (Why can't she Baby Ruth? Okay.) The Pigeon Sister Baby Ruthed.

"He hasn't done much better since she dumped him for that bartender, poor guy," she said as she wiped chocolate from her lips. "He's kind of cute, I guess."

"I know," someone in her group said while picking all the green M&Ms from a bowl. "And Headline is so gorgeous it just gave me the creeps. But this guy gives me the willies. I wonder if his mommy knows."

There was a moment of quiet, then the music changed to generic show tunes. The air was light in the large room. Every happily disparaging remark helped lighten the air even more. Suddenly, something shifted and the air felt heavier. Conversations quieted and people looked around to see what had changed besides the music.

The solid but bare-bones wooden stairway ran down about three quarters of one wall. It had open treads made from two by twelves and the banister was made from two by fours supported by two by four railings that were painted dark brown to match the dark paneling. The side of the stairway away from the wall was zig-zagging wood, and under it were boxes labeled "X-Mas Decorations" and "Dress Patterns" and "To Go Through - '87" and "Nat'l Geograph" and "Grandpa's Spleen". The source of the strange drain in the air seemed to be centered around the stairway. Slowly descending it, in his winter coat and khaki pants, was Lee. The further down the stairs he got the quieter the room became, and the quieter the room became the slower he moved. When he got to the bottom step conversations seemed to start up again like the revving of a stalled engine that had suddenly caught, and no one seemed to be looking at him any more. No one at all. They were making a point of it.

Bear walked down the stairs behind Lee, patted him on the back as he passed and was engulfed by the people in the room as if he belonged to them, as if he were suddenly their favorite person. At that moment, anyone who was not Lee would have been their favorite person, but he was a little confused by the attention. Lee stood on the bottom stair wondering what to do. He saw Kim, leaning against the horrid paneling and considered moving toward her as a sort of safe harbor, but even she wasn't looking at him, and was doing it in such a way that it seemed she knew he knew she wasn't, and was glad of it. The only thing that was looking at him was a horrific, dusty deer head. It seemed to smile invitingly as if to say, "this could happen to you."

Bear turned to offer to get Lee a beer, but realized he wasn't with him. He surveyed the room to find him. When he saw him standing forlornly on the bottom stair, he looked at him, puzzled. Lee stared at Bear pleadingly, then subtly indicated the rest of the room. Bear looked around, not getting it at first. Then he saw how pointedly everyone was not looking at Lee but seemed to be focused on him completely, nonetheless. Then he remembered Lee saying how everyone hated him. Then he got it. He went back to Lee.

"I'm sorry," he said, sort of unused to having to understand group dynamics and not liking it very much.

Lee shook his head. I really hate theatre, he thought.

"I'm going to go," he said quietly, and Bear nodded.

Lee sighed heavily and turned to slowly ascend the stairs. As he did, the murmur in the room followed in his wake.

"Lee," someone shouted above the music and murmur. "Where you going, Big Guy?"

Lee moved faster.

"Lee. Come back, Lee."

Lee got to the small landing at the top, looked back once, catching one face turn away from him quickly, then went through the door and into the kitchen. The wife of the guy who had played Murray the Cop was bending down, taking a tray of pizza puffs out of the oven. She looked over when she heard Lee come in and they nodded to each other.

"The bathroom is through there," she said pleasantly and pointed.

"What?" Lee said. "Oh. Um... Thanks."

The sound of the television filtered in from the front room and as Lee moved toward that, the sounds from the party faded slightly, although he could still feel the beat of the music through the floor. The blue light from the television in the living room illuminated the faces of a boy of about eighteen, who was slumped on the couch with his leg over the arm, and a girl of about fourteen who was sitting in an over-stuffed chair chewing on the ends of her hair. On the television screen some monster was fighting some other, smaller monster, and the two kids seemed bored by it all. Just a few moments before the boy had let him in and had seemed very pleasant. He'd pointed the way to the party and asked if Lee wanted him to take his coat. Now, even the children were avoiding him. He went out the front door into the cold night.

As he opened his car door he saw Jim in the doorway of the house, silhouetted by the blue light of the living room. Below and to the left of him was a small basement window through which the lights and the music and the sounds of people enjoying Lee's departure glowed. Jim watched Lee get into his SUV and drive off. He waved and watched Lee drive away, then turned and went back into the house. When he got back to the basement, he heard someone ask Bear how well he knew Lee.

"We've worked together for a few months," Bear asked. "Why?"

"Is he or isn't he opening a theatre?"

Bear looked surprised by the question.

"I gotta go get a drink," he said and looked around for the bar.

"I knew it," said the poker playing guy, who then turned to Kim, who had rejoined the group under the deer head. "I knew it. They are. I knew it!"

He turned away from her and directed his attention to the rest of the group and Kim understood she wasn't welcome. I hate actors, she thought, and went in search of Agnes. She found her by the bar. Ron was getting her a glass of white wine, squinting in distress at the strains of Send in the Clowns© oozing down from the speakers and pouring all over his head like syrup.

"Hello, Dear," Agnes said to Kim. "How are you enjoying the party?"

Kim shrugged and opened another beer.

"I gotta take a leak," Ron announced.

Agnes winced slightly, told him the lavatory was probably upstairs and excused him. He nodded and dashed up the stairs, humming Sondheim. The woman of the house was holding a tray of pizza puffs, so he grabbed one, then asked her where the laboratory was.

"Through there," she said, pointing, then she smiled and went downstairs.

The small room was filled with assorted beakers and petri dishes and smelled like rotting flesh (Steve!) had a little bowl of multicolored rose and shell shaped soaps on the counter. When Ron was finished, he picked out a nice pink shell and washed his hands with it. After he rinsed his hands he wasn't quite sure what to do with the remaining bit, so he put it back in the bowl, on top of all the other pristine pieces. It looked very sad there, but he didn't notice.

On his way back through the living room the show about the monsters caught his attention so he stopped for a moment to watch.

"Hey," the kid on the couch said.

"Hey," Ron answered, thus the two young men bonded.

"That was pretty nice of you," the guy said as he moved to give Ron room on the couch. "Driving your grandma to the party."

"What?" Ron said, puzzled, then realized he meant Agnes. "Oh," he said. "No, she's... um... uh... my... "

Ron wasn't used to examining his life but at that moment he thought of Agnes and the image he saw wasn't of the amazing woman he'd been with for a month or so, the one who made him shudder and get hot every time he thought about her, this woman who did such unbelievable, amazing, unbelievable things, it was of a woman with slightly flabby arms and pale, thin, blotchy skin on her face and breasts that flopped a bit when she perched over him. He shuddered, but this time he became cold.

"Thanks," Ron said finally. "Yeah, she needed a ride."

"Wanna sit or what?" the guy asked, and the girl in the chair offered him a bowl of potato chips.

"Oh. No. I gotta go back down to... Um... My grand... Sure. Thanks."

Ron sat on the couch and took a handful of chips just as the big monster finished eating the little monster. He shuddered again. Yet, his pants still tented. Damn them.

Across town, three things were warring with Peter's mind, mingled with the sounds coming from the Donovan album that played on the turntable, as he sat on his tattered couch, which wasn't unusual. If he had added the thought that three things were in there fighting each other, he might wonder if brains could bruise and if so, how bruised his was after all those years, but, thankfully, that thought hadn't entered his mind. The most powerful of the three thoughts, of course, was of his future with Lee at the Renaissance. Every time that thought came to the forefront, he experienced both trembling excitement and quaking fear. Both experiences felt almost exactly the same, the only distinction being the relative lightness or darkness of the image associated with the vibration.

The second thought that fought its way up his consciousness was that it was closing night at the Willow Lane. He had kept a running time line going in his head starting from the actors' arrival at the theatre, through the opening curtain, the intermissions and the closing curtain. They were probably all at the closing night party right at that moment. A closing night party that he couldn't go to. Not that he would have gone if he still worked at the Willow Lane, he rarely went to closing night parties unless a good friend like Andrew or Lee had been in the play, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he couldn't. And he hated that. He hated being unwelcome, excluded, from anything. Being unwelcome or excluded from anything tore him apart even more than trying to decide if he were excited or afraid of his new venture. Along with the running time line, he had been thinking that it was the last Willow Lane production for which he had designed the promotion and with which he had assisted a director and of which he had counted box office receipts.

Then there had been that phone call. From his brother saying his mother had died. (Steve! What? First of all, he has no brother. Second of all, his mother is not dead. And third of all, stop it. You didn't let me finish. You never give me the benefit of the doubt. I was going to say his mother dyed her hair. Why would his brother call to tell him that? He doesn't have a brother.) At about seven forty-five, fifteen minutes or so before the curtain would have been going up on the last Willow Lane production with which he had anything to do, he had gotten a phone call.

"Peter!"

"Yes?"

"It's Fred. Og. Fred Ogg," Fred Ogg said. "Your mom died (Steve!) I mean, hi."

"Oh," Peter said, and tried to hide the flush in his face, then realized Fred couldn't see him and tried to hide it from his voice, instead. "Hi. What's up? How are you doing? How's it going?"

Cliche had been asleep on the couch, but woke up to watch the strange colors passing over Peter's face just above the beard line. He was certain that last one was Alizarian crimson. Whoever Peter was on the phone with was making him all warm and fuzzier than usual. Cliche was a cat, after all, and drawn to warm spots, so he got up, casually smoothed out the hair on his left shoulder with his tongue and ambled over to Peter's lap. Peter was so nonplused by the phone call that he didn't even notice.

"I'm really sorry I woke you up that night," Peter said.

"No, really," Og said. "I told you. I'm glad you did."

"Yeah," Peter blushed into the phone. "I'm glad I did, too."

Peter and Og talked about a little of everything and a lot of nothing. Peter twisted the phone cord over his finger as they talked, but didn't notice what he was doing until he tried to pull it off and couldn't. He tried to untwist it without being distracted from the phone call, and was mostly successful until he noticed that now the cord had a place where the loop went backwards for a couple of turns, which he hated. He idly wondered how it was so easy to do that but so hard to undo. They talked about books and movies and food and furniture and the Renaissance and each asked other how the other was about six times. That was too much for Cliche and he went in search of some inanimate warm spot.

"I looked up River Bend on a map," Fred said, sort of shyly and coyly.

"Oh," Peter said and twisted the phone cord on his finger again. "Well. We're right here."

"One of my stores is actually in a town very close to you."

"Oh," Peter said quietly, pulling at the cord.

"And I'm... " Og said. "Um... Going to be there next week. Monday, actually. All week."

"Oh," Peter said very quietly, letting the cord stay where it was.

"And I'm checking into my motel late tomorrow. And I thought I might, you know, come early. Tomorrow. And see you. Is what I thought."

Peter was afraid to talk because he was starting to hyperventilate.

"Sure," he squeaked.

"We could meet somewhere near your place. And spend the afternoon together before I have to check in."

"Sure," Peter squeaked again. "Oh, wait, no. We're starting to clean the theatre. Lee and I. All day. Tomorrow."

"Oh. Okay," Fred said, disappointed, then, after a brief pause, added, "Well, We could meet after you're done. You could come to the motel. They have a nice coffee shop right next door to it and we could have a bite. Maybe see a movie. If it's not too late. I have to be at the store kind of early. Do you mind driving at night?"

Peter assured him he didn't, but didn't tell him how odd he thought the question was. They made arrangements to meet at the coffee shop as soon as Peter was done at the Renaissance the next evening. Fred gave him directions, then they avoided hanging up for a while. When they finally did, Peter pulled the cord from his finger and started working the backward curl down to the end.

It took almost a half an hour after the call for Peter to stop vibrating and when he did, he started thinking about the Renaissance, which made him start vibrating all over again, so he settled on thinking about closing night of The Odd Couple, which only made him feel sort of sad and hurt and angry and sorry for himself. That lasted him until late in the evening, then he went to bed.

The next morning, as Lee drove through town, the Sunday afternoon sun glinted off the drips from the snow and ice that was beginning to melt from roofs, tree branches and gallows. Peter had told Lee he would go early and start cleaning, then meet him at the Ren as soon as the lunch rush was over. Besides being annoyed that the name of his new venture had already been truncated into a cute nickname, Lee had agreed. He also decided he would never call it the Ren. Ever. No matter how many people said it, he would always call it the R. I mean use all three syllables.

The front door of the Ren was propped open. He went inside, carrying a tool box just in case, while chastising himself for even thinking Ren. Peter was in overalls, leaning against a push broom, looking at the raised platform with far away eyes. There was a little pile of stuff in front of the broom, but other than that, little had been touched. Peter turned when Lee's body blocked the light from the front door. The electricity wasn't on, yet, and it was the main source of light in the room.

"Lee," he said, with a huge smile. "I've been thinking. If we pull the platform out a little, extend it a bit that way and in front, we could actually curtain off a bit and have a backstage area, and I don't think it would cost too much."

Lee looked at the platform, then at Peter.

"Peter," he said. "I thought you were going to start cleaning. When did you get here?"

"Eight, I think. It was still dark in here. We'd probably have to have poles on the sides of the stage for lights if we did that, though. I don't know about lighting, yet, because it's too dark to see what they have on the ceiling, we have to look at that when we get some electricity in here. But, here, look," Peter said and pulled an old, wrinkled, torn piece of brown paper bag from his pocket. He unfolded it and showed Lee the intricate sketches he had done of multiple variations on a possible design for the stage. There were also some strange shiny patches of pale green and brown wax on the paper. "I've tried out a bunch of ideas. If we build it higher and are careful about how we brace it, we could actually have some trapdoors, but that might be too much, I don't know, we'd have to talk about it, but we could do some really fun things to make the stage more alterable, you know, modular, so we could change it depending on what the production needed, and look at that thing they have there. Sheesh. I mean what could you put on there except a monologue or a very stilted love scene?"

"Peter," Lee said. "I thought you were going to start cleaning. We can't build the stage until we clean up in here. We can't do much of anything until we clean up in here."

"I also spent a bunch of time in the kitchen," Peter said as if he hadn't heard Lee, which he probably hadn't because the vibration he'd been feeling all day was firmly on the excitement side of things. He pulled another piece of the bag out of another pocket. "I have some ideas about the prep area."

Lee realized it was going to be a long afternoon. It was hard not to catch Peter's excitement just a little, though, and he allowed himself to start imagining himself acting on the stage that Peter was busy designing while Peter puttered around the kitchen.

"Come on, we gotta clean," Lee said, trying to keep Peter on track.

Peter grabbed his arm and pulled him into the kitchen to show him some of his ideas for there. The available light in the kitchen came from the filthy window above the counter by the battered refrigerator. Lee started to plan the strategy to get that clean, it probably opened out onto an alley and he'd have to do some investigating to find out how to get back there, but Peter started talking about possible menus and wether he'd design them to sort of match each production or just have a general menu that they served all the time. He started to describe different meals (we won't. Come one, Steve, you never let me have any fun. I let you say tit. You just won't let that go, will you?) and Lee finally succumb to the fantasy. They talked about possibilities and probabilities and planned and discussed plans and went back and forth between the kitchen and the main room, carried back and forth by the carefree ebullience of the conversation. By the time Lee remembered they were supposed to be cleaning it was getting dark and freezing and he had to get back to the diner for dinner.

While Lee and Peter had been talking about the building of their theatre, Bear had been at the Willow Lane supervising the striking of The Odd Couple set. The stage was now empty and he was shutting everything down, but as he went through the men's dressing room toward the scene shop, he smelled smoke. He stopped and put his whole attention into his sense of smell so he could figure out where the smoke was coming from. After being led around the room by his nose for a moment or two, he realized it was coming from Roger's Room.

He stood at the doorway looking into the dark room, wondering if he should just call the fire department. The place was very old wood, though, and it would be completely gone by the time they got there. And if they get here and it's nothing, he thought, they'll think I'm a real wienie. He stepped into the little anti room, then stopped at the next doorway. Holding on to the door jam he looked really hard to see if he could distinguish any shapes in there. The only thing he could see was a slight, thin glow from the pilot light, but that was really disorienting because he couldn't tell how big it was or how far away it was, and it shifted and danced a little as the air currents caught the flame.

He knew there was a light with a pull chain dangling from the ceiling. It was in the middle of the room, but he couldn't see it. Another wisp of smoke floated past his nose, so he held his breath and stepped into the room. Every molecule in his body was trying to give his eyes more power, but that only made the darkness in the room glow around the edges of his eyesight. It was the only room in the theatre he didn't know every inch of.

He took a step and his shin connected loudly with something hard.

"Damn!" he shouted, then closed his mouth tightly as the sound of his outburst echoed around the room with a rhythm that conflicted with the swift throbbing that was radiating up his leg.

He forced himself to calm down and took scuffing steps, feeling along the floor with his feet, waving in the air above his head with his hands, groping for the light chain. Something clicked and he stopped moving. His heart pounded in a different syncopation to the pain in his leg. It's just a click, he told himself. Furnaces click. It's what they do. He started shuffling and groping forward again and, after encountering a few cobwebs and violently shaking them off his hands, hit the chain. It started swinging and clinking against the light bulb and he had to grope in desperate circles to find it again. He could feel sweat dripping off his fringe of hair and spreading across the back of his shirt. The chain hit his hand three times before he was able to grasp it and pull.

The sudden light from the sixty watt bulb blinded him and he had to squint his eyes tightly closed until the painfully bright and dark spots faded from his wounded vision. He slowly opened them and looked around the room. He didn't see any smoke, so he tried to locate it by smell. It was difficult because the whole room was dusty and old furnaces smelled smokey even when they were working properly. He circumambulated the furnace and finally located the smell at the back. After some investigation, he figured out it was coming from the filter, which probably hadn't been changed in a while. Leaning against the back wall, just beyond the shadow that the furnace cast, was a stack of furnace filters. Good old Peter, he thought. Peter usually had a volunteer go in and take care of changing the filters and always had plenty on hand, but Stella had no clue about the need to change furnace filters. As he put the new filter in, he made plans to make sure Stella put it on her list of things to do. Of course, now it wouldn't matter. He had conquered his fear and could do it himself from now on. He felt like a man. Roger's Room had no power over him anymore. His pants tented. He looked around the room, taking it all in.

He realized the whole thing had been very silly, but not nearly as silly as standing in a furnace room being proud of having been able to change a furnace filter. He pulled the chain and the light went out. And something cold brushed against his cheek.

He stifled a shriek and ran very quickly out of the room into the relative safety of the reassuring smells of musty costumes, pancake makeup and dust of the men's dressing room, panting furiously, his heart trying to escape the confines of his chest and blood racing through his ears down into his throat, leaving the taste of rust on the back of his tongue. He determined that he would never again, under any circumstances, ever go back into Roger's Room. Ever. The next time, he would just let the place burn to the ground. He could get a job anywhere. He had tools.

The diner was called Marge's in loud neon that pointed in an arcing arrow from the sky toward the front door. The front of the building was rounded and mostly glass, supported by a wall of large, pale rocks about waist high. The sweeping, cantilevered roof hung low over the curved window like the bill of a baseball cap, but the bright flourescent lights from inside made the whole front glow into the dusky evening. Peter went in and stood at the "Please Wait to be Seated" sign, looking at the patrons to see if he could pick Fred Ogg out. The curving, waist high rock wall continued inside and snaked through the place creating intimate dining areas that were also strangely open and invitingly public. Someone on the far side of the room caught his eye and threw it out the window (Steve!) caught his eye. Although the person looked nothing like what Peter remembered, he knew it must be Og. Peter seemed to have caught his eye, also, because he got up from his booth and wended his way along the rock wall. When he stood, Peter saw how tall he was and knew it was Og. He had been tall and thin with a sort of shock of straight, light brown hair back then. He was still thin, although his face had filled out and he had developed a bit of a paunch. His hair, once full, was neatly cut but thinning and he had a thick, well trimmed, low level corporate moustache, which was new. He wore brown Perma Press™ twill pants and a white dress shirt with a tie.

"Peter?"

"Fred?"

The violin music swelled and they ran toward each other in slow motion, arms outstretched, through a field of wheat. (There is no wheat field in the diner. Wild flowers? No. Corn? No field. Sally? Steve. Come on, I've always wanted to do that scene. Film school? First year. They showed us Elvira Madigan. I loved it. You did? You sure you're straight? Did you like it? Not even a little. I am, then.) They awkwardly shook hands and Fred led Peter back to the booth. The place didn't smell like Twain's; it had a twinge of charbroiled ground beef mixed with the sweetness of meringue and toast. And a hint of the rich, bitter scent of brewing coffee. And fudge.

"You look really different," Og said. "But I knew it was you right away."

"Oh," Peter said as he squeezed into the booth. "What way different?"

"I don't know. Your... You have... You're... ," Og said, then shrugged and picked up a menu. "Different."

Peter picked up his menu and scanned it just as the waitress came up holding her order pad. She was young, maybe twenty-three. Her blond hair was pulled back in a pony tail and she wasn't overweight, but probably would be in a few years.

"You guys ready?" she asked and tapped her pencil point against the pad like a proper cliche, ready to take their order.

"No," Fred said with a smile. "We still need a minute."

She regarded them, nodded and walked away.

"What's good, here?" Peter asked as he looked at the entrees.

"Pretty much everything but the food and the service," Og said.

Peter looked up, surprised, then laughed nervously.

"No, actually, they do good for a coffee shop."

Peter wanted to start a conversation, but had no idea what to say, so instead he studied the menu really hard. It was large and laminated in plastic and the corners were tattered and bent with frayed paper sticking through a little and there was dried egg or ketchup or oatmeal or something on one of the shiny pages. He fingered the edges of the menu and looked at the cute drawings of steaming coffee cups and chickens and cows and pie. It was going to be a long meal.

"Ready, yet?" the waitress said, interrupting Peter's avoidance.

Peter was about to say he wasn't, yet, because he hadn't even really looked at the actual words on the menu, but Fred said he was, so Peter looked over the choices very quickly, something he really, really hated doing, especially where food was concerned, and impulsively chose. Fred ordered the Yankee pot roast, and he ordered the Babi Asam Pedis. As soon as the waitress walked away, Peter noticed three other things he would rather have ordered. He put the menu down very quickly.

"So," Peter said now that he no longer had a menu to distract him. "You travel a lot?"

Og nodded a little. Then he kept nodding. He didn't know what to talk about either. This was going to be a long night.

"It's been a long time," Og finally said. "Since I've seen you."

Peter nodded and wished he'd ordered melted cheese. He had a spoon right there.

"So," Fred continued. "You're opening a theatre."

Peter nodded again. The two phone calls they'd had since that one that fateful night had been so promising. It seemed they had used up all their conversation material on those and nothing at all was left, which was really sad. He was beginning to see why people hated dating so much. It was going to be a long life.

While Peter and Fred Ogg waited uncomfortably for their food to arrive so they could have something besides each other to concentrate on, Bear sat in his sparse living room, strumming his guitar absent-mindedly. He was thinking about the conversation he'd had with Lee the previous evening, partly to distract himself from the whole Roger's Room thing, but mostly because the conversation was very real to him. He wasn't used to talking about his life like that, especially with a relative stranger, and it had made his situation with Dee Dee both more real and more untenable. At least talking about it out loud had made it not quite swirl in his head as much as it had been. He looked over at the phone a few times. It looked back.

"What are you looking at, Goober," it said.

Bear sighed heavily, put the guitar down and picked up the phone.

"Hi, it's me," he said when Dee Dee answered.

"Hi," she said and didn't sound like she minded too much that he'd called. "What's up?"

"I was just thinking," Bear said softly. "Um... Let's think about starting to really see each other again."

"Oh," Dee Dee said.

"I mean, I don't want to exchange keys, yet, or anything. Necessarily. But we're both obviously still thinking about each other. Still... care about each other. A lot. I mean I do."

"Oh," Dee Dee said, sounding like she was glad he had brought it up, but still a little unsure. "Gosh, I don't know. I mean, I've been thinking about it, too, but I don't know. Can I think about it? I mean, I have been but that was before I thought you were thinking about it and I want to think about that."

"Oh," Bear said. "Um... sure. Give me a call in a day or two, okay?"

"Yeah," she said, then added, "I care about you a lot, too."

After he hung up, he picked up the guitar again and strummed, but the cords he was playing were much more vibrant, somehow. More England Dan than John Ford Coley.

While Bear strummed in his living room, Fred and Peter sat across from each other and stumbled through a stilted conversation. When their orders arrived they were both thankful to have something to put into their mouths. They ate quietly for a while, occasionally commenting on how good the food was and nodding politely. And not looking at each other. Peter couldn't remember when he had ever felt so uncomfortable. Oh, yes he could.

"Remember Last Tango..." he said just as Fred said,

"Remember how awful that movie... "

They both laughed and the air brightened a very small amount.

"Last Tango in Paris." Og said. "Yeah. My God, that was terrible."

They talked about how bad the movie was and how dreadful Brando™ was in it and they talked about the butter scene and they both shuddered and laughed and Og did a bad Brando imitation and Peter topped him with a worse one, sounding like a cross between Mel Tormé and Al Pacino.

"And remember how bad... ," Fred said, "I mean awkward that date was?"

"I wasn't even sure it was a date," Peter said, shaking his head. "I was really nervous."

"I was nervous, too," Og said. "Just like tonight."

"Me, too," Peter said shyly.

"Really?" Fred asked and Peter nodded earnestly. "You're not going to throw up, are you?"

Peter was startled, then laughed out loud. His rumbling, robust laughter filled the whole room and everyone in the place stopped what they were doing for a moment to see what the commotion was. He tried to quiet himself a little when he noticed that, and ducked his head down, but the laugh was still spread all over his embarrassed face.

"That's what I remember," Og said and Peter cocked his head. "Your laugh. I loved your laugh. It's why I started talking to you at that party."

Peter blushed all the way through his beard and Fred Ogg laughed out loud. It wasn't as robust a laugh as Peter's, but it was equally as heartfelt, and Peter joined him. He didn't care if people looked. The air around the table opened up and breathing became almost unnecessary. They both ordered pie for dessert.

After they had scraped more of the remaining pie juice than was possible from their plates (what kind, Geoff? Blueberry. No, I meant what kind of plate. Blueberry. My favorite. Go home, Steve. I will, you know) and wiped their hands and faces more than was necessary, they sat looking at each other across the pile of blueberry stained napkins, neither wanting it to end.

"Well," Og said. "I have a meeting first thing in the morning."

"Oh," Peter said sort of sadly. "I guess I should let you go."

Fred nodded again, then nodded longer, but this time it was because he wanted to prolong the moment before the goodbye. Peter got up and squeezed out of the booth, then Og joined him and they walked together out of the restaurant. Og walked Peter to his car. Peter got out his keys, and turned to look at Fred who was standing still, looking at him with his head cocked. Peter really wanted to pull him into a big bear hug, but just stood there in the public parking lot, knowing it would never happen. At least in a public parking lot. Or a private one. After a moment of indecision, Og shook Peter's hand boldly, then Peter opened his door, then turned to look at Fred. He really, really wanted to give him a huge kiss. Instead, they both nodded once and Peter got into the car and started it. Fred stood watching the whole time Peter drove away, then turned and walked back to his motel.

That night, Peter slept really well.

The next morning, Peter met Lee at Twain's just after breakfast. Twain's smelled like Twain's and Peter smiled. He and Lee were going to get their business license and open the joint business bank account. Peter had never had a joint account, business or otherwise, with anyone, and that also made him smile. It took a long time to get all the paperwork done and signed and all the funds transferred so they decided Peter would go get the electricity and gas turned on, put the water in their name and order phone service while Lee worked lunch.

"How many phone lines should we get?" Peter asked.

He was still smiling. They were opening a theatre. Peter was amazed at the amount of things he was finding the last few days that could make him smile.

"What do you mean? We need a phone. One phone."

"No," Peter explained patiently. "We need at least one main line, a fax line, an information line, which I suppose could double as the box office line. One for the scene and costume shop? Probably. That's at least four lines to start and I don't know how hard it is to add more later."

"Oh," Lee said, a little bewildered by the thought of how many things they were already thinking of that they hadn't planned on. "Can we decide about the phones in a day or two after we've figured out if we even have a scene and costume shop?"

Peter smiled.

"Oh," Peter said just as he was about to drop Lee off at Twain's. "I had a date. Last night. With Og."

Lee looked at him, just a little bit surprised.

"No wonder you keep smiling," he said.

Peter blushed, which made Lee blush, which made Peter blush even more.

"No," Peter said. "I mean, yes, partly, but no, we just had dinner. And stop it. I'm smiling because we opened a joint bank account. And because we have a theatre. And because of the way Twain's smells. And because of dinner last night. Life is good."

Lee nodded because it was the only thing he could think of to do. Peter deserved reasons to smile, he thought. He told Peter he could tell him all about the date that afternoon at the Renaissance.

When Peter picked Lee up after lunch, Peter was practically glowing. His cheeks radiated warmth and a small amount of pain from being forced into an unfamiliar position for such a long time. When Lee got into the car, Peter happily told him about all his experiences at the utilities companies.

"What's next?" Peter asked as they drove. The snow on the sides of the streets was beginning to melt and the chill in the air had a strange warmth just under it. The sky was azure. "Should we handle the business permits, now?"

"No, clean and paint first," Lee said.

"Okay," Peter agreed quickly because he wanted to start getting the feel of the place set. Everything they had done so far was removed from the actual theatre part of the venture. "Then permits. And we have to choose our first play."

Lee looked at him very strangely.

"That's way down the road" Lee said. "We have to get the place ready, first."

"Lee," Peter said, a little patronizingly. "When we open, we have to open with a play. We're a dinner theatre."

"Oh," Lee said softly. "Yeah."

"We have to choose a play right away. And it can't have a big cast. And it should have a really simple set."

"Oh. Yeah," Lee said a little more softly.

"And we have to find a director."

"Oh, yeah," Lee said quietly.

"And cast it," Peter continued. "And start rehearsing. While we're cleaning, and painting and setting up and getting tables and napkins and hiring waiters and designing a menu and buying food."

"Oh, fuck," Lee said, really quietly.

Peter parked in front of the building and they got out of the car. Lee's whole body was being really quiet as he processed the conversation, once again wishing he had the power to stop processing things. Maybe if he got more used to it he could have more control over it. As they approached the front door, he glanced longingly over at The Petting Zoo and wondered idly if Amber was working.

Peter unlocked the door to the Ren and they stepped inside. He found a light switch and flipped it on so they could really see the place illuminated for the first time.

"Oh, no," Lee said in a small whisper.