The Wishbones. Tom Perrotta

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      “Make yourself a drink,” he said, gesturing toward the bar in the corner, on top of which rested an array of bottles, a bowl of lime sections, and an ice bucket that turned out to be empty when Dave lifted the lid.

      Grateful for the diversion, he poured himself a stiff vodka tonic. Given that he and Mr. Müller usually made it a point to steer clear of each other, he was somewhat alarmed by the formality of the situation. A roster of unpleasant questions unfurled itself in his mind. What kind of life could he offer Julie? What was the state of his finances? Could he foresee a day when he might be able to afford a house or children? Dave knew all the questions; they were the same ones he'd posed to himself when he'd needed to talk himself out of marriage in the past. Nonetheless, it was galling to have to justify his life to Mr. Müller. He dropped a chunk of lime into his drink and vowed not to apologize for the choices he'd made.

      For some reason, the couch was the only piece of furniture in the rec room, so he had no alternative but to sit down a cushion's distance away from Mr. Müller, who was examining Dave's ratty jeans and dirty Converse All Stars with an expression of careful indifference. Dave wished that Julie had warned him that her family was dressing up; he might've at least shaved and given a little more thought to his wardrobe.

      “Cheers,” he said, raising his glass in a halfhearted toast.

      Mr. Müller returned the gesture without enthusiasm, then pointedly cleared his throat. “I think we need to talk.”

      “Okay.”

      Mr. Müller swirled the scotch around in his glass. He looked vaguely pained, as though he were trying hard to remember a name. “You've been hanging around Julie for a long time,” he observed, “but I don't feel like I know you. I haven't gotten a handle on … How should I say this? Your angle on the world.”

      “Obtuse,” Dave replied, his nerves getting the worst of him.

      Mr. Müller cupped one hand around his ear like Ronald Reagan. “Excuse me?”

      “Obtuse,” Dave repeated, enunciating more clearly. “I was trying to make a joke. It's a kind of angle. More than ninety degrees?” He tried to illustrate the concept with his hands, but ran into some unexpected difficulty.

      “I see,” Mr. Müller replied, attempting to look amused. “Obtuse, acute.”

      “Right,” said Dave.

      “Geometry,” Mr. Müller said approvingly, as though the subtleties of Dave's remark had finally fallen into place.

      “Exactly.”

      Mr. Muller polished off his drink and set the glass down on the coffee table with a decisive smack.

      “Do you like to fish?”

      “Excuse me?” said Dave.

      Mr. Müller reformulated the question.

      “Fishing,” he said. “Do you like it?”

      “Not really. I went a couple of times as a kid, but then I got the hook caught on my eyelid one time, and I pretty much lost interest after that.”

      “That'll do it,” Mr. Müller agreed.

      “What about you?” Dave ventured after a moment or two of silence. “Do you?”

      Mr. Müller gave the matter some thought. For his age, he was a good-looking man, tall and lean, with a boyish shock of gray hair falling over his forehead. He looked senatorial, Dave thought, although his brief entry into the political arena had been a disaster. After losing three close races for a seat on the Darwin school board, he'd bowed to the wishes of the Republican Party and made way for another candidate.

      “Never did much for me,” he admitted. “It's bad enough watching them die, but then you have to clean them. Grabbing a handful of slimy guts just isn't my idea of R & R.” He retrieved his glass from the table. “Mind if I have another?”

      “Be my guest,” Dave told him.

      Mr. Müller got up and poured himself a generous drink. Julie sometimes wondered out loud if her father had a drinking problem, if that was why his career had stalled and he'd ended up as a low-level manager at Prudential instead of the bigwig executive he seemed cut out to be.

      “Why did you want to know?” Dave asked.

      Mr. Müller eased himself back into his seat. He tasted a mouthful of the scotch as though it were a fine wine. “Know what?”

      “Why did you ask me if I liked to fish?”

      “Just curious. I was wondering what you do for fun. If you have any hobbies and so forth.”

      Dave shook his head. “Just the music, but that goes way beyond a hobby. It's the only thing I really care about.”

      “Julie tells me you're in a wedding band.”

      “The Wishbones. I've been playing with them for two years.”

      “Good money in that?”

      Here it comes, Dave thought.

      “Not bad, actually. About fifty bucks an hour when you break it down.”

      “Must be interesting,” Mr. Müller observed, “going to all those weddings.”

      Dave nodded. “You learn a lot about people.”

      “I bet.” Mr. Müller shoved one hand into his pants pocket and jingled some change. “What about DJs? Give you much competition?”

      “Not really. There's no real substitute for live music.”

      Mr. Müller gazed contemplatively at his beverage. “A kid I work with is a DJ. He calls himself Rockin’ Randy or some such.”

      Before Dave could reply, Julie opened the door and poked her head into the room.

      “Dinner,” she told them.

      Mr. Müller jumped up from the couch like he'd heard a gunshot.

      “Chowtime,” he said, looking deeply relieved.

      Later, after her parents had gone to bed, Dave and Julie went down to the rec room to watch TV. Dave channel-surfed for a while, stopping to watch an Amy Grant video on VH1. He'd never told anyone, but he thought Amy Grant was the sexiest woman alive. The fact that she was born-again just made fantasizing about her that much more exciting.

      Julie snuggled up next to him like they were back in high school. “Well,” she said, “that wasn't so bad, was it?”

      Amy Grant was dancing against a chaste white background, wearing a succession of cute hats, looking like she was having the time of her life. That was the secret of her appeal, Dave realized. She just seemed so ecstatically happy to be herself, beautiful and dancing on VH1.

      “Was it?” Julie asked again.

      “The food was great. You outdid yourself.”

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