A. Homes: Music for Torching

The men hover around the grill, their faces slowly turning red, hot with the heat, charcoal glow. The women bathe in the cold blue fluorescent light of the kitchen. Each side eyes the other, hoping the gossip being traded doesn't really give the goods away.

Henry's date stands in the dark, in a kind of no-man's-land between the two groups, with only the citronella torch as her guide. Paul keeps her company.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

"I think I'm having a recurrence," she says.

"Stubborn case," Paul says. "You probably need further treatment."

The date looks at Paul. "Your hair," she says. She starts to

say something about Paul's hair, but Elaine comes between them.

Later, when they are roasting marshmallows, when he's got the date eating off his stick, Paul will try to touch her. He'll rest his hand high on her thigh.

"I'd rather you not," she'll say. "For now, I prefer to touch myself."

Far away there is the sound of another party, voices in a distant backyard. Through the trees they can see lights in other houses. Every lit window is like a small stage, a miniature color television set where little dramas play themselves out.

"Shall I put on some music?" George Nielson asks.

"That would be lovely," Pat says, and George goes into the house, throws open the living-room windows, and Sinatra wafts into the night.

"Sinatra," Henry shouts to George. "Why are we listening to Sinatra? Are we our parents?"

The Nielsons begin to dance.

"Isn't it nice?" someone says, watching Pat and George go cheek to cheek across the yard. "They still enjoy each other so much."

Henry pulls Paul aside. "So," he asks, "what do you think of the girl?"

"Nice," Paul says. He doesn't tell Henry that she telephoned, that they played doctor, that he scheduled her for a return visit. Paul doesn't tell Henry that chances are good the date has a serious problem, something thoroughly beyond both of them. He doesn't tell Henry that he's beginning to think she's incurable. Instead he asks, "Where'd you meet her?"

"In an elevator," Henry says. "Can you believe it? Isn't that unbelievable?"

"What does she do for a living?"

"You won't believe it," Henry says, pausing. "Psychic."

"Psychotic?" "No, psychic."

"And she makes a living that way?"

Henry nods.

"Unbelievable," Paul says, looking at Henry's hair. Henry runs his hand through what's left of it.

"Who sits where?" Joan asks when the hamburgers are ready. "Is there an order, a special plan?"

Pat Nielson tells everyone exactly where to go. She seats Paul next to Elaine's best friend, Liz.

"Long time no see," Liz says, kidding.

"I keep forgetting exactly what it is you've gone back to get your Ph.D. in," Paul says.

"Women's Studies," Liz says.

"So I guess you don't want to get married again?"

"Prick," Liz says-her ex-husband, Rich, used to be best friends with Paul.

"Asshole," Elaine says later when they're walking home. "You did it on purpose."

Paul doesn't say anything. He ducks behind a tree and urinates.

Elaine waits for him. "The Esterhazys have done something to their house," she says.

Paul peers out from behind the tree. "Porch? They glassed in the screen porch?"

"Nope. Deck," Elaine says.

Paul comes out from behind the tree. "Looks good," he says, zipping up.

They have walked to the Nielsons'. Walking and drinking is the way it is done. That way they can drink too much, eat too much, and get home still feeling decent about themselves. It could have been worse-at least they got a little exercise, a taste of the night air; at least no one got killed.

The problem comes a few minutes later, when Paul has to get into the car, when he has to drive Jennifer, the baby-sitter, who is Liz's daughter, home. He sits in the car waiting for Jennifer. He sits gazing up at the house, thinking it looks shabby. Even in the dim glow of the streetlights it appears less promising, less hopeful than the other houses up and down the block.

Jennifer comes out of the house and gets into the car.

"Was that incredibly painful?" he asks, gesturing toward the side of her head, which is shaved as though she's been prepped for surgery, moving on to her eyebrow and lip, both of which are pierced-silver rings split the flesh. He touches his own lip and eyebrow as if he's speaking sign language.

"Only equal to the pain I'm already in," she says.

He nods. Jennifer was five when he and Elaine moved in. She is his first memory of the neighborhood.

He spotted her playing on the lawn of what was then Roger and Liz's house, and somehow the sight of her, staging a party with her Raggedy Anns-dressed like a Raggedy Ann her- self-made him think that they could live there, that everything would be okay. He doesn't know why.

"Great scar," she says, pointing to the red line on his neck. "Did you do it yourself?"

"No," he says. "I had help."

"Cool."

He makes a turn. "Can I ask you a question?" he says, and then, without waiting for a reply, goes on. "What does my wife do at your house all day?"

"She fucks my mother," Jennifer says, without a pause.

His fantasy. His nightmare. He has no idea whether she's lying or not.

Elaine is in the living room, waiting for Paul. She is in the living room talking to her mother, who has apparently run away from home. As Elaine talks she rearranges the furniture as though this will make all the difference.

"What's wrong?" Elaine asks, pushing a chair across the floor as quietly as possible. "Why are you leaving Daddy?" "I'm not leaving," the mother says, helping to switch a lamp from one end table to another. "I'm taking a night off. After fifty- three years, every now and then you need a night off. By the way," the mother says, "when I got here, Daniel was puffy like he was having an allergy. So I gave him an antihistamine."

"Fish eggs," Elaine says, plugging the lamp in. Her words come off with the same annoyed connotations as someone saying "Fiddlesticks!" The mother looks confused. "He eats too much caviar."

The mother shakes her head. "I'll never understand."

Paul comes in, makes himself a drink, and carries it into the living room.

"You drink too much," Elaine says, pushing the coffee table farther away from the sofa.

"I'll call it a night," the mother says, going upstairs. "See you in the morning."

Paul quickly finishes the drink and goes back for another.

"It's fattening," Elaine calls after him. "I thought you were watching your gut."

"Cunt," Paul says to Elaine, who is now remaking the L-shaped sofa into a bed for the night.

"Are you flirting with me?"

Paul does a strange and suspicious dance, circling around the sofa, around Elaine-like an animal, like a boxer. He circles and drinks. "Fucking whore."

He grabs her with his free hand. He is drunk, his breath scotchy, tainted with bitter belches, barbecue gone sour. "Show me," he says, squeezing her. "Show me what you do."

"Go to hell," she says, eyeing a chair she thinks would look better on the left side of the room.

"I'm there already."

"So leave." She tries to twist away from him. He holds on.

He bends to put his glass on the coffee table, but the table has been moved. The glass lands on the floor, and the drink spills.

"You're hurting me," she says.

"You hurt me, too," he says.

The mother comes to the top of the stairs. "Keep it down," she whispers loudly. "Or I'll have trouble sleeping."

"You're ruining my life," he hisses. He tears at her clothing. He bites her. He does to Elaine what he'd like to do to Henry's date.

"I hate you," Elaine says when Paul is on top of her. "I used to like you, I thought you were cute. But look at you now," she says.

He fucks her, his feet pressing against the armrest, using the sofa for leverage.