On Thanksgiving morning Ray sat in a long line of cars at a Garden State Parkway tollbooth. Why not come up for the holiday weekend, his old best friend Michael had suggested. Since Ray's job had kept him on the road for years, little but Christmas cards had passed between them. Ray popped his Derek and the Dominoes CD in and closed his eyes on the stationary cars when the exquisite guitars began. He had never granted that playing "air guitar" was a skill until he saw Michael do it freshman year to "Layla." From an embarrassing kind of boy thing, like pumping one's knee up and down, air-guitar was elevated by Michael to an art.If Ray's requested transfer to New York City came through, he and Michael might be close again. He was hungry for a new life as a seasoned, divorced man who appreciated culture. Michael, too, with kids aged four and six, would be feeling overdue for some Saturday night sabbaticals in the City. Certainly they would attend a play that was opening off Broadway soon, "Look Bank in Anger." It was "their" play. Michael and Ray had played the male leads of Jimmy and Cliff in their college production, with Michael charging the performance with Jimmy's tortured passions and resentments. Long and exacting rehearsals of John Osborne's fiery lines had brought a tremendous rush that resulted in drinking, pacing and talking until three in the morning.Michael and Amy had a French au pair, Sylvie, who would stay a year as their previous au pairs had done. When Ray had asked how she was working out, Michael had boomed, "good, good!" But something in his voice made Ray think of people who contended it was oh-so-gay-and-bright to spend an exhausting, expensive day Christmas shopping. Having a different au pair every year was stimulating for the kids, Michael asserted. They developed adaptability.In Bergen County the green light failed at the tollbooth when Ray's turn came, a potentiality for which official provision existed. "Blow horn and wait ten seconds, then proceed." Ray did so but the incident unnerved him. Paranoia that he had suddenly and inexplicably landed in the criminal class drew his eyes to the rear view mirror several times.He saw no one walking on the quiet, residential streets of Michael's town. "Drive on," the upscale homes seemed to say. "We are behind sacred doors with loved ones and Our Turkey. Several cars were lined up before Michael and Amy's big white house with forest green shutters. Dogwood trees stood in the front yard, their delicate branches exposed by the leafless, taupe landscape of late November.A young woman Ray guessed was Sylvie appeared on the front step. Her eyes flickered up and down his body in rude appraisal. "The streets here all look the same," she disparaged with European resentment of America, when Ray inquired how she liked it. Her starchy hairdo, eye make-up and highly lacquered fingernails consumed God-only-knew how much maintenance time. It required a prodigious leap of faith to believe she was much interested in childcare.The front door opened again and Ray felt a twinge."Ray!" Michael stood smiling at him, dressed in a plaid shirt and khakis. There were little lines around Michael's eyes and the modest waistline expansion that only the most determined man over forty could avoid. His smile still made Ray think of a child receiving a prize at school.Michael took Ray's duffel bag. "You look great, Ray. Let's go in. Want you to meet my family."Years before Ray would have whacked his buddy's arm and said, "I already know your family, airhead." Michael meant Amy's family.Her relatives were in the living room, some on the sofa with their feet under siege by numerous childrens' toys. Ray smiled with diplomatic inclusiveness at several pairs of eyeglasses and double chins. Shrieking children ran by him."You're from Washington," Amy's mother said. She held a plate bearing a large wedge of pumpkin pie, something Ray was sure he would not be tasting until after dinner."Yes, well I'm based there now.""Lot of crime down there," she said accusingly.Ray tried to look charming."Not in my section.""Oh, it's everywhere!"Michael chuckled and prodded Ray toward a guest room sanctuary on the second floor."Gosh, it's good to see you," Michael said on the landing, as if the tactlessness of his mother-in-law had infused him with warm memories of their friendship and wild times."Likewise.""I could bring up a bottle of port and a couple of glasses. While you unpack....""That would be terrific," Ray gushed, thinking of the play. "You know, I wanted to ask you -- no, no, go ahead and get the port first."Michael ran downstairs and reappeared in a flash, holding the bottle up high with an air of triumph. Suddenly a child's light, clunky little steps were heard on the stairs."Daddy! Daddy!" The steps came closer and sounded ominously persistent, putting Ray in mind of a convict dragging along in leg irons. Ridiculous, he thought, but the interruption removed any real desire to chide himself.Michael chuckled again. "Up here, baby! Daddy's up here with Ray!"A little girl with a flaxen bob and brown eyes appeared."You haven't met Miranda! Say hi to Miranda!" Michael cried, addressing Ray and the child in the same tone.She looked at Ray, then pressed her face against Michael's leg."Come down, Daddy!""Oh, how about in a minute, precious? Daddy's busy."Miranda removed her face from a newly damp spot in the folds of Michael's khakis and eyed Ray with a small child's hostility concealed by an angelic, pristine countenance."No!"Michael shrugged and grinned at Ray. "See you in a bit," he said conspiratorially. Then he handed Ray the bottle and turned toward the stairs with Miranda.Ray noticed that family clothes in the closet had been pushed back and empty hangers made available in front. A generous pile of clean towels was on his bed. He pictured Amy flying around Wednesday evening, getting ready for company. Pouring himself sherry, he thought of his childhood home. He remembered the strict functional border between the spotless living room, where his parents had entertained adult company, and the comfortable basement family room, where television had been watched and youthful hell raised.Downstairs the cacophony of dinner preparation became louder. Pans banged and drawers slammed. Amy's mother was lamenting a misplaced dish towel and avowing the importance of having a place for everything. Another stampede of children was followed by a thud on the floor, automatic crying and high-pitched accusations of "pushing." Somewhere below Michael yelled "whee!" and a child howled in ecstatic terror. Ray thought of going downstairs but did not wish to get in the way of a woman carrying a platter to the table or have to explain his job to the men. Sipping his drink, he contemplated a clump of handsome trees in the yard across the street and watched a flock of blackbirds diving and circling over the rooftops.At dinner Amy blushed and smiled when Michael boisterously challenged all to say they had ever tasted better turkey. Aunt Lillian was indignant that her pie had fallen short of its usual perfection. She recited every move she had made in connection with the pie's creation, begining with a telemarketer's call that had delayed her departure for the grocery store. Miranda and her brother, Kyle, sat at an adjacent table with five-year-old twins from next door. Amy's food got cold as she arose numerous times to satisfy continual demands for foods less "icky" than whatever was on the childrens' plates.For hours the kids' racket continued unabated until the neighbor punctured the juvenile foursome's balloon by announcing it was time to go home to "beddy." Led toward the place where their coats lay in a heap on the floor by their tensely grinning parents, the twins threw a screaming, stamping fit that would have earned Ray and Michael sore behinds at the same age. The two had talked of such things over the years along with many other subjects. Michael's eyes met Ray's from across the room, then shot in the direction of the departing neighbors. Yes, bye bye, thanks for coming over, such fun.By ten o' clock Ray's head was throbbing, but he waxed about the great day they had coming up, Thanksgiving Friday. Amy and Michael glanced at each other."We're working tomorrow," Michael said.Ray thought about it. Five hours and failing lights on the road, screaming kids, solitary drinking, and they were working Friday. Well, okay, vacation days were precious. But Michael had been enthusiastic on the phone about Ray being able to stay until Saturday. "Oh," he managed finally, striving for the good-sport tone of someone who has just been told he had finished as runner-up candidate in a contest."I'll be home later," Michael said pointlessly."And Sylvie will be here," Amy put in brightly.Michael rose from his chair to say goodnight. He uttered the slight grunt that began sounding around the same time of life that a man's hair began thinning and attractive young women started ignoring him.Friday Ray stayed in bed until Michael and Amy had left for work. He lay awake, smelling coffee and listening to the hectic weekday morning departure. Michael demanded his keys of Amy, saying she had had them the night before. Kyle was trying to explain to his father how the good-guy starship had achieved victory in a video. Finally the last "give Mommy kiss" and door closing took place, and there was sudden quiet and emptimess. Then the shrill voice of Amy's mother struck Ray's ears as she sat down on the stairs close to his room."Come up here, Miranda! Let Nana put your shoes on!"Ray showered and dressed. Miranda stopped at the foot of the stairs to watch him descent, then covered her face with a downy little blanket and ran off when he said hi. He found Amy's mother sitting with folded hands at the kitchen table. Minutes before he had heard her loading the dishwasher and exhorting Kyle to stop feeding his toast to the dog. She seemed to have taken up a position of ambush upon hearing Ray on the stairs."My kids were always dressed before they came downstairs," she said, glaring at him. She was holding Miranda's miniature shoes and socks in her lap. "Morning." Ray spotted a coffee in a glass pot on the stove and felt a leap of gratitude. He reached into the sink for a reasonably clean looking mug. Amy's mother sprang up, opened a cupboard door with a proprietary flourish and produced a clean, dry mug. She set it down firmly in front of him."That's not clean," she snapped. She snatched the improvisation out of Ray's hand and restored it to the sink.He escaped for the day to the Franklin Roosevelt estate up the Hudson River. Having intended to visit Hyde Park for years, he now yearned to be in the richly cultivated environment of the great man's letters, furnishings and handsome pictorial records of naval history."She's a widowed homemaker," he thought kindly of Amy's mother as he drove northward. He had noticed how she kept walking around after the dinner dishes had been done and all the big plates put away, looking for minor tasks suited to her experienced, temporarily idle hands. Still, it had only been after he himself had been irritated by her that he recalled her disrespectful dogging of Amy and Michael . "No, not that way, this way. Don't use soap on those. If your friend leaves his car there, somebody will hit it. You better tell him to move it."Perhaps respect for Amy was withheld because she did not devote herself full time to the home and therefore did not seem worthy of being its mistress. Older people had such notions. Michael might be viewed as not master of his house. More likely it was something every generation faced: the uncomfortable task of asserting oneself to parents who would not let go. Ray remembered a particular Sunday of his childhood. A courageous expression had appeared on the face of his mother, who had been about thirty-five at the time. His grandmother had been bustling about in the kitchen when suddenly an unpleasant exchange erupted between the two women and he was told to go out and play. After that Gran had still visited but was quieter and spent more time in the living room.Ray knew that generational demarcations were fuzzy for many Baby Boomers like himself. They prided themselves on permissiveness and flexible attitudes in general, which unfortunately could lead to a lack of real respect for them from both their parents and their children. Having once resolved to never get old, they were loath to become parents of the go-to-your-room-young-man variety. It made them feel enlightened and loving to follow their childrens' leads. Michael's four-year-old had successfully denied her father permission to have a drink with an old friend. At Hyde Park Ray considered a fine portrait of FDR's mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt. She looked capable of asserting herself.It was dark when he got back. He felt guilty when he saw Michael peering out the living room window."You almost missed supper," Amy's mother said.Supper was a bowl of spaghetti chopped up into little pieces. "For the kids," Michael explained, somewhat embarrassed. Ray thought of his internship summer with Michael in New York City. On a budget, they had cooked spaghetti often, extra long strands purchased from a neighborhood Italian grocer that eventually were wound many times around the fork."Why not just cut up the kids' portions," he asked, throwing caution to the winds.Michael shifted in his chair. "I guess we don't even think about it."Ray wondered if Michael and Amy ever ate a restaurant meal anymore."I don't like spetti, Mommy!" Miranda cried. "I want ham'ager!""We don't have hamburgers tonight, darling. Nana fixed this nice spaghetti just for you.""For me, too!" Kyle weighed in hotly.Miranda clanged her fork on the plate. She demanded cereal and received it.Amy and her mother went upstairs afterward to prepare a pile of clothes for drop-off at the church. Michael and Ray sat in the living room with every light on, each holding a glass of wine. "Mind if I kill this light?" he asked Michael, reaching in back of his chair. He felt a comical similarity between the anxiety inherent in this audience with his friend and the tension he remembered feeling as a teenager trying to slip his arm around a girl on the sofa."Go ahead." Michael picked up a small yellow truck at this feet and held it in his lap. He kept spinning the little black wheels as Ray talked about "Look Back in Anger.""How about I get tickets for a night when you could go?""Ray, you live in Washington!""I'd make the trip for that. We could go into the City early, maybe have dinner in the old neighborhood...""We never get into the City.""You go every day!""You know what I mean.""Sure. I just thought we might catch the play. It sure would mean more to us than to most people in the audience. Remember, after our last performance, how everybody stood up and kept on -- ""Oh, cripes, Ray," Michael groaned, as if it were a shameful memory of being picked up early from kindergarten because he had wet his pants."What do you mean, cripes? You were great. I wasn't too bad myself.""Yeah, yeah," Michael said, standing up abruptly. He began to pace. "I remember! But geez, Ray, you have to get beyond that." He threw his head back and drank deeply, emptying his glass.Get beyond it! As if one couldn't fully participate in a Lilliputian existence of wall-to-wall toys and cut-up spaghetti and still go to a play."Michael, I never thought of the theater as something one had to get beyond. It just seems like you don't have any life. I thought this play would be ideal -- ""No life!" Michael sat down as if he had been pushed. "Me?! I'm the one who does have a life! Wife, kids, house. I have a normal life, Ray. The kind a normal man wants. You're the one who's running around, dating women, going to concerts and harking back to old glory days at school!"Ray said nothing, cut down to a vulnerable shell of himself. The previous week his dreams of rekindling friendship with Michael had kept him flying like a new flag in a strong breeze. Was the life he led -- reasonably balanced, he thought, with work and fun -- merely a disguise for an aging boy's harking back? Had society evolved without him into a normality in which formerly free-loving, now atoning Boomers obeyed children? He felt for the "Layla" tape in his pocket, making sure it was deep enough and wouldn't end up behind the sofa cushion.Amy's mother appeared before them, her hands resting on her ample belly in the way people rest hands on bellies they have had for years."Yeah, what, Mom?" For the first time Ray heard Michael being short with her."I forgot to tell you," she said to Ray, "that someone called you here when you were out for the whole day. Mr. Moran.""Oh!" Ray blurted, rising to his feet. "My boss! Well, thank you for the message." His thoughts raced. Bud wouldn't call him here for a routine communication. He consulted his watch."Oh, call him!" Michael encouraged. Helpfully he located a pad and pencil and conducted Ray to an extension offering privacy.Listening to Bud's phone ring Ray looked out through a pretty window at the back yard. Neon colors of a jungle gym's bars and rings were discernible in the dark. Treetops swayed in a gathering wintry wind.Ray listened to Bud, his heart beginning to pound with excitement. Bud had approved his transfer to New York."Thought I'd call, since you gave me the number, while you're up in that neck of the woods," Bud said. "Maybe take a swing around the City, huh? Check out apartments.""Sure, sure! You made my weekend, Bud. I hope you've had a great Thanksgiving."Ray hung up the phone and sat for a minute, resting his eyes again on the murky blackish-green of the yard. Stars had appeared in the night sky. In quiet exultation he felt newly assured of his place in the world. It would be easier, more natural now, perhaps, to re-connect with Michael. Michael's face had registered such disappointment at his mother-in-law's omission concerning the phone call that Ray had almost completely dismissed his hurtful words.Amy had come downstairs. She was putting away a freshly laundered table cloth into a dining room chest of drawers."Not bad news, I hope," Michael said, with his broad, expectant smile. "No heads up that your job won't be waiting for you when you get back?""Actually, that was the message in a sense. My transfer to New York was approved.""Oh, hey! Amy, isn't that great?"Amy smiled, nodded and carried a pitcher to the kitchen."So," Ray enthused, rubbing his hands. "Let me get ensconced in my new mansion overlooking Central Park West. Ha! Like in the ads -- pre-war doorman building, maid's room, views on three sides. Yeah, right. Anyway, I'll get settled first. Then if the play is still a possibility, I'll see --""I wouldn't worry about it," Michael interrupted. "I don't think we can make it." He picked up another toy and fiddled with it.Feeling again exposed and conspicuous, Ray found himself remembering a cloudy day on the Staten Island Ferry, his last date with a girl he had liked. He recalled how she had leaned on the railing and squinted out over the choppy waters, then announced that she didn't want to go out with "anybody" for awhile. People didn't say, "it's over." They pretended to be interested in the view from a boat or picked up toys.Amy's mother came in with Scrabble, claiming with reproach that "most people play games in the evening.""Okay!" Michael exclaimed, leaping at the chance. "We don't want to be dysfunctional!"During attempts to place high-value letters on the double-word score, Ray stole looks at Michael from time to time. He seemed hardly recognizable now from the carefree guy who had stood in a bright kitchenette, draining spaghetti and crooning on that day Ray had arrived home dejectedly from the kiss-off on the ferry. He packed his bag that night and rose at seven on Saturday."Hittin' the road early?" Michael asked, sitting down to breakfast with appetite. He had made pancakes and accepted the patronizing accolates reserved for a husband's domestic efforts. "Probably for the best. You have a ton of stuff to do." "Yup."The family walked him to the car. Night wind had forecasted a blustery day. Grimacing with cold, hands in his pocket, Michael looked at Ray and swallowed. We may not see each other again, both were thinking. Different paths are taken in this life. Finally Michael began to speak, but Miranda interrupted him, holding his pants leg as she had done in the dim light of the upstairs landing."No, Daddy, I wanna talk.""Okay, precious," he said, sweeping her up into his arms. "What?"She leaned against him, regarding Ray serenely. With the simplicity and boldness that only a child could pull off, she said what there was to say."Bye, Ray."As he drove away he saw again the town's bare dogwoods and blue spruces, which on Thursday had lacked the poignant appearance they were invested with now. Then he stopped for gas and drove by a house the station attendant had urged him to eyeball because a 1950's television star had lived there with his glamorous wife. Ray admonished himself to cheer up as a feeling of helplessness and regret coursed through him. It was normal. Like the proverbial All Things, it would pass. A new life was before him now. He would not look back in anger.
