'You want to have 'em over?' Sandra asked.
They were lying side by side on lounges near the pool. It was Sunday afternoon, the only time of week that all the compound residents tended to be at home. Steve the naked landlord was waist-deep in the water. Peter and Claude were sitting at their little table, having herb tea and scones in their undies. Wendy and Marsha, chaste, fuzzy, and bookish in one-piece bathing suits, traded sections of the New York Times. Luke, in deference to the sociable Sunday gathering, had taken his headphones off his ears and looped them around his neck. Lucy the beautiful Fed was quietly swimming laps in a pair of boxer shorts.
'What's want gotta do with it?' Joey asked. He tried to keep his voice low, so as not to make the conversation communal property. But on certain subjects he could not keep himself from becoming emphatic. 'This is family, Sandra. Want's not the issue here.'
'Then what is?' She pushed herself up on her elbows. In keeping with the compound's blithe attitude toward the exposure of skin, she'd bought a two-piece bathing suit. Not a bikini but a squared-off baby-blue top and bottom reminiscent of the Gidget movies. The panties went full down to the little arc where the leg joins the buttock; the bra had sturdy-looking straps and built-in cups that left Sandra plenty of room to breathe. Still, a two-piece it was, and Sandra felt pleasantly risque in it.
'Obligation,' Claude piped in. 'That's the issue.'
Joey, whose back was to the bartenders, rolled his eyes.
'I don't agree,' said Peter. He wiped a crumb of scone from the corner of his mouth. 'I mean, it starts as obligation, sure, but then as you get older, as people accept each other more, you realize you can really enjoy seeing family.'
Joey turned over on his lounge. In the languor of afternoon, with the sun beating down through the palm fronds, the act took considerable effort. 'Guys, listen, you can have your opinions and all, but with my family, things are, like, a little different.'
'Honey,' said Claude, 'what about with ours?' He widened his eyes as if posing for the cover of Vogue. 'My father's career air force. You don't think that makes things a little weird?'
Marsha shook the Arts and Leisure section, then peeked out over the top of it and over the top of her reading glasses. 'All families are weird,' she pronounced. 'Don't claim it as a special privilege, Joey.'
Was this meant to be comforting, or was he under attack? It often happened that Joey wasn't sure. 'Privilege?' he said. 'The aggravation I have with my family, you think I think it's a privilege?'
'You'd think so if you didn't have any family,' said Steve. He waited his usual beat, then started to smile; the smile was half formed when he seemed to realize it didn't go with what he'd said.
'My family, when I see 'em, it's a treat.' This was Luke talking. It was so rare that Luke spoke that everyone looked twice to make sure of where the sound was coming from. 'They're way up in Rochester. It's always snowing when I see 'em. I love 'em, my folks, but it's like I can't picture 'em without shivering.'
'Shuddering?' said Wendy. She was doing the crossword puzzle, making associations.
'Speak for yourself, babe,' Peter said, and everybody chuckled.
'Well, look,' said Joey from behind his sunglasses, 'all I know is that where I come from, there's like certain things you do, and one of 'em is that ya live somewhere, ya show your family where ya live. Ya have 'em over, ya give 'em food, ya show 'em. It's, like, expected. Am I wrong?'
No one could say he was, and Joey, encouraged by the tacit and unaccustomed approval, lifted himself onto an elbow and went on, getting more emphatic as he went.
'So like, with my brother, my half brother really, I mean, I know up front he isn't gonna be crazy about this place. For him, it isn't fancy enough. I mean, ya know, fancy. Like, sharing the pool, that kinda thing. And another thing, I don't know exactly how to put it, but my brother, he's like, well, he's a fucking bigot, pardon my French. So like, if he met you guys, he wouldn't like ya. Any of ya. He'd have like, ya know, things to say. Now, only fair, you wouldn't like him either. But like, what I'm saying, whether he likes it or not, I should have him over. Am I wrong?'
No one said he was wrong. No one said he was right. Peter and Claude went back to their scones. Marsha snapped her paper and returned to Arts and Leisure. Lucy the beautiful Fed stopped swimming. She lifted her bare brown shoulders above the edge of the pool and blinked chlorine from her enormous black eyes. 'Got so quiet all of a sudden,' she said, 'I could hear it underwater.'
Later, when they were alone in the cottage, Sandra said, 'Joey, you wanna have your brother over, of course we'll have him over. But while we're at it, ya know what I wish?' She looked at him hard and tried to push her gaze through his eyeballs and into his brain. 'I wish we had some friends.'
They were sitting in the Florida room, drinking iced tea out of gigantic glasses that dribbled condensation. Joey could not help sounding a little bit affronted. 'We got friends.'
'Yeah? Who?'
He threw his head back on the settee and looked upward through the louvered windows. 'Bert.'
'Come on, Joey. I'm not gonna say anything against Bert. He's a sweet old guy. But really. He's three times our age. He's your friend, not mine. And he's not really the kind of people I have in mind.'
'No? what kinda people you have in mind, Sandra? My kinda people aren't good enough to be our friends all of a sudden?'
Sandra leaned forward in her chair and hugged her knees. She was still wearing her bathing suit and Joey admired her midriff. It was one of the prettiest parts of Sandra, lean enough to show the arc of her ribs, the skin as smooth as if it were powdered. 'Don't start in on that, Joey. You know that's not what I'm saying.'
'But Sandra, the way you make it sound-'
'Joey, all I'm saying is I think it would be nice to have some regular friends. Some normal, ordinary people. That's nothing for you to get offended about.'
'You got friends at the bank, right?'
'Yeah,' said Sandra, 'the girls at the bank are terrific. But Joey, this is exactly my point. Do I ever see them outsida the bank? No. And why not? 'Cause you don't seem to have any interest. The other girls, they see each other. Claire and Zack, they have dinner with Tina and Mike. Betsy, they invite her to the movies, they try to line her up with guys sometimes. But, ya know, they do things as a couple. Me, I get left out 'cause the guy I'm a couple with couldn't care less.'
Joey crossed his arms and listened to the palm fronds scratching against the roof. He was very tempted to flat out agree with Sandra and leave it at that: he couldn't care less. But he wasn't quite sure that was so. Was he thrilled at the idea of sitting in the movies and eating popcorn with these citizens? Was he all excited at the thought of hanging around their backyards and shooting the breeze over a bowl of potato chips? No. But at the same time, he had to admit that maybe he shied away from these ordinary, casual friendships for the same reason he'd shied away from the idea of a job: he just didn't know how they worked. Joey's own kind of friendship-that, he understood. It came from the neighborhood, it was like an outgrowth of family. It came from crime. Crime told you right away who your friends were because it made it so clear who your enemies were. But without family, without enemies, what reason did you have to fall in with this guy rather than that guy? Where was the glue to hold that kind of friendship together? And what did you do-like call up somebody you hardly knew and say, hey, you wanna go bowling or some-thing? It was a mystery. But Joey wasn't ready to admit that out loud.
'Ya know, Sandra, it's not exactly like all these terrific people have been rolling out the welcome wagon for us.'
Sandra shook her head and flicked cold water off her glass. 'Joey, I'll tell you the truth, I don't think you'd notice if the welcome wagon pulled up right in front of you with bells on. You just don't pay attention. Besides, that isn't how it works. It's give-and- take. Ya gotta make an effort.'
'Sandra, I'll be honest with ya.' Joey rubbed his chin and ran a hand through his moist hair. 'I'm just not sure I see the point. I mean, there's this stuff ya don't especially wanna do with people ya don't especially wanna know, you're pretty sure you're gonna be bored stiff, but still, you're supposed to make an extra effort to have it happen. Why?'
'Why?' said Sandra. 'Why? Because, Joey, it's one of the things ya do to make a life. It's nice to have friends. And it might help you at work-you ever even think of that?'
He hadn't.
'Besides,' Sandra went on, 'you don't know for sure you're gonna be bored. These people do nice things.
