He made small talk while the steaks charred over the flames. Tony responded with his own chatter. Tony had bought the propane barbecue “practically wholesale” from a guy he knew at a retail hardware outlet. He was considering investing in a couple of rental properties this summer. “You should have talked to me about that house before running off half cocked.” And he had his eye on a new sailboat.

This wasn’t bragging, Tom understood. Barbara had long ago pointed out Tony’s need for physical evidence of his worth, like the validations punched into bus tickets. To his credit, he was at least discreet about it.

The problem was that he, Tom, had no such validation of his own; in Tony’s eyes, this must render him suspicious. A man without a VCR or a sports car might be capable of anything. This nervousness extended to Tom’s job performance, a topic that had not been broached but which hovered over the conversation like a cloud.

Tony’s own reliability, of course, was unquestioned. When their parents died Tony had staked his share of the estate on a junior partnership in an auto dealership out on Commercial Road. The investment was more than financial: Tony had put in a lot of time, sweat, and deferred gratification. And the investment had paid off, handsomely enough that Tom sometimes wondered whether his own use of the same inheritance—for his engineering degree, and now the house—was ultimately frivolous. What had it bought him? A divorce and a job as a car salesman.

But he was not even a salesman, really. “For now,” Tony said, carrying the steaks in to the dining room table—Topic A surfacing at last—“you are strictly a gofer, a lot boy, a floor whore. You don’t write up sales until the manager says you’re ready. Loreen! We’re gettin’ hungry here! Where the hell is the salad?”

Loreen emerged dutifully from the kitchen with a cut-glass bowl filled with iceberg and romaine lettuce, sliced tomatoes, mushrooms, a wooden spoon and fork. She set down the bowl and went about tucking Tricia into a high chair while Barry tugged at her dress. Tony sat down and poured himself iced tea from a sweating jug. “The steaks look wonderful,” Loreen said.