"Salud," said Bert the Shirt, and Joey could not help noticing that the word made Sandra wince. The Italian sound, the Italian wine in stubby glasses, a certain old-fashioned and very appealing swagger in the way Bert lifted his drink to toast—these things, to Sandra, were a threat, unintentional but real. They were the old ways, the family ways; their warmth and comfort bound a person to the neighborhood as much as did the promise of easy earnings, maybe more so, and made it hard to change. At any moment a gesture or a word could pull a person back to the small, sad, cozy place he'd come from.
"And how do you like it down here?"
Sandra barely heard the question. "Me? Oh, I like it fine. The weather's great, the girls at the bank are nice."
She stopped talking, but Bert just looked at her. It was a simple trick he'd developed decades before to get people to go a little farther.
"But ya know," Sandra obliged, "for me, it's not that big a change. A bank's a bank. Money's money. I mean, if you think about it, money's the least interesting thing there is. There's no variety about it, you know what I mean? Seen one dollar, you've seen 'em all."
"Yeah," said Bert, "but until you've seen a helluva lot of 'em, it doesn't really seem that way."
"I guess," she said. "But people. That's what's interesting. Now, with Joey's job . .."
Joey looked down at the wooden table and gave his head a modest shake. This job. It was confusing, this job. He couldn't decide whether to be proud of it or embarrassed. It was like the time he painted some autumn trees and won an art contest in grade school. He was happy to win, happy to see his mother flush with satisfaction, but at the same time felt that making pictures was for girls. Of course, with the job, it had a lot to do with who was asking. With Sandra, yeah, he was proud, he could tell it made her happy. Around Bert, well, it wasn't like Bert was putting it down, it was just that, let's face it, Bert had a different sense of what a man should be. Joey wondered if he'd ever have a more firmly held opinion of his own. He had to believe that life would be easier if he did.
"Anybody hungry?" he said. "If I can figure out how to work the stupid grill, we can eat sometime tonight."
The hiss and pop of propane being lit reminded Joey how quiet the compound had become. The women from the antique store had abandoned the hot tub and gone inside; Luke and Lucy had disappeared into the thickening dark; Steve, under his towel, seemed down for the count. Joey looked at the blue flame of the grill, felt, rather to his own surprise, the prideful contentment of being the host, then went inside to get the steaks. Walking past the wooden table, he saw that Bert the Shirt was now holding Don Giovanni on his lap. All that was visible of the tiny dog was the thin silver spikes of its whiskers and a morbid gleam from its oversized eyes.
"You really love that little dog, don't you?" Sandra was saying.
"The dog? I hate the dog. The dog is like a rock I can't get outta my shoe. You ever heard of a dog being, whaddyacallit, not a kleptomaniac, a hypochondriac?"
Joey slapped the steaks onto the grill, then poured himself another glass of wine. Standing there above his hard-earned dinner, holding a giant fork in a fire-proof mitt, he had to laugh at himself: a citizen having a cookout. What would come next in this groping toward respectability, a goddamn sing-along?
The filets were delicious.
They had moved into the Florida room to eat them, at a table covered with a plastic cloth, knives and forks of random pattern, and unmatched plates whose stripes and borders had been scratched and nicked by many hungry renters.
"Joey," said Bert the Shirt as the younger man re-filled his glass, "this is more like it, huh? This is what I been tellin' ya. Come to Florida, take it easy, enjoy what there is to be enjoyed. Look at him, Sandra— nice and relaxed. Joey, the other week when we talked, jeez—"
"I'm more relaxed 'cause I'm makin' some money," Joey said, gesturing with his fork. "But it hasn't been that easy, Bert. I mean, my feet hurt. Besides, the little I'm making—"
"It's not bad money," said Sandra. "Especially for right at the beginning."
"It's O.K.," Joey said with a shrug. "But it's all according to how ya measure. Bert, you know what I mean. Our friends in New York, one night out, they spread around in tips what I make in a week."
Sandra dabbed her lips. "So they're big shots," she could not resist saying. "Real sports. I'm impressed. But Joey, let's keep things in proportion. It's not like you were in that league when we were up there anyway."
Joey started to protest, then chewed some steak instead and realized he had nothing to protest about. "It just makes ya wonder. That's all I'm saying. Am I better off doing what I'm doing, or am I better off doing what I was tryin' to do before?"