Muller answered the door in a ruffled apron, the bib of which was emblazoned with the image of an eggplant. Despite her manufactured smile, the air between them was instantly thick with embarrassment; Dave had to resist an impulse to place his hands over his crotch. Stepping through the awkwardness into the house, he greeted his future mother-in-law with a clever approximation of a hug.
“Congratulations,” she said, rallying a little. “We're so pleased.”
“Thanks. It's kind of amazing, isn't it?”
“I'll say,” Mrs. Müller agreed, her voice suddenly full of conviction.
Julie was in the kitchen, tenderly probing a casserole with a very large fork. She was wearing gingham oven mitts and a gingham apron over a black floral print dress that was one of Dave's favorites (she occasionally “forgot” to wear underwear with it, a lapse that thrilled him beyond words). Still clutching the fork, she rushed across the room to embrace him. Her skin was clammy; she smelled of meat and Obsession.
“You're gonna love this,” she said. “We made all your favorites.
Dave had never seen her in an apron before, and the effect was disconcerting, especially with her mother standing so close by, also in an apron. The two of them shared a facial resemblance so strong that you could almost imagine them not as mother and daughter, but as the same person at two different stages of life.
Dave had heard the joke about taking a long hard look at your prospective mother-in-law before deciding to get married, but he'd never given it a second thought. It was one of those pearls of marital wisdom a certain type of middle-aged guy like to dispense, something Henny Youngman probably said on Johnny Carson back in 1963.
But now he looked at Julie and Dolores and wondered. Was it possible that Mrs. Muller had once possessed a body as curvy and stirring as Julie's? If so, when had it changed? Was it a gradual transformation, or did it happen overnight? He made a mental note to ask Julie to show him the family photo albums. It was never too early to start bracing for the future.
“So,” he said, gazing around the kitchen with feigned interest, “anything I can do?”
“I don't think so,” said Julie.
“Why don't you go downstairs,” Mrs. Müller suggested, in a tone that made it clear he had no choice in the matter. “Jack wants to have a drink with you.”
Dave shot a quick, pleading glance at Julie, but she refused to save him. Shrugging an insincere apology, she shooed him out of the kitchen with a puffy, checkered hand.
Downstairs, Mr. Muller was waiting on the couch in a tweed jacket and striped tie. He had a glass of scotch in one hand and a thoughtful expression on his face. Except for the metronomic tapping of his right loafer on the carpeted floor, he seemed utterly calm, as though he would've been pleased to sit for hours dressed up like that in a dim and quiet basement.
“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.