The checkout girl smirked as she scanned Joseph's items. "Veggie burgers again?" Joseph cringed. He wished for the confidence to venture beyond frozen foods, but as if drawn to his discomfort, the girl locked him in her stare. "Let me guess. You're a vegetarian?"

"No. Not really." Joe glanced down as she tapped a finger against the picture on the box. A grid of black lines was painted across the top of the featured patty, offering the ridiculous illusion that it had been grilled. "Just pathetic in the kitchen. My ex- did all the cooking." Living in Sylvan Lake these six months, he'd learned to leave things gender neutral. "These are easier to deal with than real meat."

The girl nodded in solemn agreement. "I'm a vegetarian," she volunteered. "My dad believed that if you eat meat, you should kill it yourself, so when I was little, I had to see him slaughter all kinds. Cows are easier to kill than lambs. Cows don't struggle. Plus, you might not know this, but there's an amazing amount of blood in a lamb."

Joseph stood in puzzled silence. The checkout clerks at Conklin's Grocery were usually dour and dim, and rarely more than cordial to city transplants like him, so the girl's attempt at conversation was almost as eerie as its content. Perhaps, he thought, she was new, or not local. "That was vivid." He smiled, but the girl seemed nervous.

"Did I offend you? Please don't say anything." She eyed the manager's booth. "He already kicked me off the deli for making a face when a guy ordered liverwurst."

Joseph made a face himself at the mention of liverwurst, but instead of communicating his sympathies, this only seemed to enhance the girl's concern. Hoping to appease her, he leaned in and tried to help bag his groceries, but she seemed intent on fighting him for his items, and sped up her packing as he joined in. Joseph found the race strangely exciting, though, not surprisingly, the girl was much better at the job, leaving his last bag containing just a peach and a can of soup. She dangled this out for him proudly, but even when gloating, she couldn't suppress her open grin. Smiling back, Joseph felt a tingle of energy; it seemed this was the first substantial interaction he'd had in months. He set the bag in his cart. "Good packing," he said.

Joseph went into the guest room as soon as he got home. He was already late on the August house payment, and had hoped to hear back from some old copyediting clients he'd contacted, but there was nothing in his email save a message from Vince. He sighed. While the content of Vince's notes from LA was always infuriatingly shallow, they never failed to make him laugh, and to miss him, and though he'd stopped writing back long ago, the emails continued to arrive. Their friends Kate and Dylan had noted that this sick cycle replicated the flaws in their failed relationship, an observation that was made all the more poignant by the fact that, since Joseph never returned Kate and Dylan's calls or emails either, he'd only heard it second-hand, in a note from Vince.

Vince's most recent message concerned the drama of his new Knoll sectional, and Joe deleted it without viewing the attached photo. He'd always felt corrupted by Vince's materialism, and the Hollywood cash pool had exacerbated it intolerably. Every note now detailed a quest for some perfect Mid-Century item, and while the conquest stories were always funny, and the items often wondrous, Joseph resented the commodification of every bland thing: even Vince's cutting board was made of some space-age material called Porostone and was purchased at auction for only $300.

Have a little dignity Joe wanted to write back, but he knew what the response would be if he did. It was Vince's dignity, in the form of a monthly check, which had allowed him to survive since the breakup. It was Vince's dignity that had supported him when they were together and he was allegedly still "an artist." And, since Vince's attorney claimed his client's right to force a sale, it was Vince's dignity that had allowed Joseph to move into their lake house temporarily last year and remain, five months after he'd promised to leave. You always wanted a nice couch, Joseph typed. Worried he sounded phony he erased this as well. Went to Conklin's today, he wrote, and just as he was trying to parlay his exchange with the checkout girl into a humorous anecdote, an email came in from Kate and Dylan. They'd recently switched to the same internet service as him, and had acquired the haunting ability to know exactly when he was on line.

Joe: Can we come up this weekend? Max finished camp yesterday and we're desperate for a plan. You must miss us. We haven't heard from you. Vince says you're not doing anything and not to take no for an answer. K&D

Nearly every aspect of this note irritated Joseph: the short notice; the self-centeredness; the allusion to his poor showing as a friend; and, especially, their going over his head to get "permission" from Vince. But despite all this, he found himself buoyed by the idea of their visit. He'd known Kate and Dylan since college, long before Vince had colonized them all with his perfect charm, wit, and cocktails, and though they were neurotic and impossible, he loved them like siblings. Perhaps, their presence would help him to punch through his funk, to place him back in touch with the "real him" he'd told the couples counselor he'd lost track of.

Yet, as he went to respond, he was overcome by anxiety. What if they too had "outgrown" the real him? What if they also felt that "his once appealing youthful spirit now seemed juvenile and intransigent?" He was particularly concerned about hosting their reunion upstate. Their weekends together at the Lake were somewhat notorious, full of long boozy dinners and memorable hilarity. He knew Boca Burgers had no place in such an occasion. He waffled at the keyboard. Sounds great, he typed uneasily. He added an exclamation point and hit Send.

Though Vince had been the one to provide the down payment, Joseph had found the lake house, and he'd always felt that it was more his than Vince's. It was eclectic, cluttered, and full of alluring imperfections like him, and in preparation for Kate and Dylan's visit, he lit a joint and tried to enhance these aspects. He dragged the mismatched lawn chairs into a circle; he found the bailiff, the bucket they used to dredge the leaky rowboat; he restacked the stone fire-pit he'd built in the yard. The house itself was too disheveled to clean properly, so he arranged things in artful piles. Since he knew Kate would snoop, he hid his porn, and set some old client files on his desk. He stuck a post-it to one. Urgent!

Imagining that a stocked house would feel comforting to everyone, he brought a stack of Vince's favorite recipes with him to Conklin's, and wandered the aisles, searching for ingredients. Amazingly, he was able to locate everything on the lists, including odd items like wood ear mushrooms and fresh sage, and he wondered who else bought things like this here. The city people all shopped at River Mart in Luna or brought their groceries up with them from Whole Foods, and it seemed everyone else's carts were filled with frozen pizzas and off-brand cola.

Feeling a pang of pride in Conklin's, Joseph made his way to the registers, and he felt disappointed when he didn't spot the girl from the day before. Yet, just as he got on line, she bounded through the deli counter's swinging doors. She was wearing her Conklin's shirt but no hat or apron, and her hair was down, softening her big, horsy features. She smiled when she saw him, pointing furtively at an empty register. "I'm clocked out," she whispered, "but I can take you on five."

The girl seemed even more engaged than before. She never broke eye contact, and she nodded at whatever Joe said. She even introduced herself. "I'm Lori Marshall." She was a Sylvan Lake native, home from college in Elmira. "Big mistake," she said, "coming back to this town. All there is to do here is swim, drink, and hang out."

"Yeah, right?" Joseph tried to commiserate as he hoisted six packs from his cart, but he was amazed at how precisely her list matched his old activities with Vince, and how compelling they all seemed in their absence. He hadn't been in the lake all summer.

Joseph added a bag of marshmallows and a pack of graham crackers to his pile, and he tried to shrug off Lori's curiosity as she studied these items. "Visitors," he said. "Their 10 year old son insists on s'mores." Lori rolled her eyes at the mention of kids, as if they were a barely-tolerable pest, like squirrels, and it made him feel old and bourgeois, an impression that was only enhanced when he realized he'd be paying with a check. "What about you?" he asked, scribbling out the amount. "Big weekend plans?"

"Work."

"Here?"

"They don't pay shit here, but yeah, and at Tiny's, in Elysia. I work the go-cart track and the ice cream stand. I scoop there on Saturdays. Make mad tips."

Lori appeared to be struggling to sound nonchalant, and Joseph found himself wondering if she was flirting with him. It seemed impossible. "Sounds...fun," he said.

"It is." She squinted at his check. "Joseph Hodges. Come by some time and I'll make you a treat." She winked and passed him his receipt. Joseph hoped he didn't blush.

Kate and Dylan arrived later than Joseph expected, pulling into the driveway Friday just before sunset, but when he ran out to greet them, he was immediately deflected; they sat in the car arguing with the windows rolled up. Joe stood on the porch, trying to look casual, and they eventually sent Max out as ambassador. "Dad got lost," he explained. "He said Vince gave better directions."

Joseph smiled tautly. "I'm sure he did."

Kate and Dylan eventually exited the old Saab, and after a tight hug from Kate that seemed intended to imply he'd lost weight, Joseph led them inside. The wildflowers he'd cut filled the house with a thick scent, and the place looked cheerier than it had in months, but Kate still surveyed everything warily as they walked toward the guest room. Joseph wasn't sure if she was charting his wellbeing, or checking the progress of his departure, but either way the effect was identical: he felt like a malingerer.

"It looks the same in here," she said carefully.

Her comments remained similarly veiled through the hors d'oeuvres, but once she had a few drinks in her, Kate loosened up, and began to mention Vince in nearly every sentence. A brutal loyalty had always been her most fearsome and seductive quality, and she only told stories that showcased Vince's arrogance and vanity. Joe tried to respond with casual disinterest, but he relished hearing about Vince behaving badly and they soon fell into a cackling critique. Yet following a few exciting volleys, he began to feel sullied. If Vince was such a loser, he thought, why did he miss him? Why was he the one left behind and in shambles? He felt like his friends were protecting him, something he'd often accused Vince of, and it made him feel managed, like a circus animal.

Noting that everyone had stopped after a few cordial bites of Fish Jules, he started stacking the dishes, hoping the topic would vanish. Dylan lent a hand, and trailed Joe into the kitchen. "That was like an uncorked dam. I hope she didn't make you feel too uncomfortable." He shook his head. "Your breakup has been really confusing for us."

Joseph was awed by the clumsy tactlessness of this statement, but he didn't want to appear diffident or dramatic. He unboxed the chocolate cake he'd bought, and smiled glumly at Dylan as he slid it onto Vince's fancy silver cake-stand. "Uh, same here."

With the serving of dessert, and the chugging of a few of Vince's famous flaming brandies, Joseph finally felt the evening find its antic equilibrium. Kate told a hilarious story about a new children's diarrhea medicine she was helping to promote, and Dylan revealed two huge legal errors he'd recently missed in a contract. Even Max, who Joseph felt always favored Vince, came into his own, and after finishing his cake, began regaling them all with stories from theater camp. They were typical drama club shenanigans, missed lines and failed props, and though they weren't that funny, everyone laughed. Soon enough, the boy was ransacking Vince's CD collection for something to perform.

"West Side Story?" he called from over by the stereo, and before any of them could answer, up blared the faux-hipsterism of "When You're a Jet".

Max sang the song twice through before moving on to the bombastic "Gee, Officer Krupke", a tune he spiced up with spirited choreography. Kate and Dylan kept trading bemused glances during this performance, and triangulating them with fleeting nods at Joe. Joseph tried his best to ignore what was apparently an inside joke, but as the grins and winks continued, he began to suspect that it was at his expense.

"What?" he mouthed finally. "What's so funny?"

Max seemed to hear this comment, but continued his belting undaunted. Kate smiled as if pleased by his resolve. She leaned toward Joe. "You guys watched this with him up here last Labor Day." She studied her son. "I think he misses Vince."

Joe couldn't help but roll his eyes this time. "Yeah," he said sharply. "Me too."

Kate flushed and looked away, and though Joe felt ashamed at the cheap shot, it was vindicating nonetheless. He felt entitled to more pity than they were inclined to offer.

The treacly strains of "Maria" began. Straining against exhaustion, Max kept singing. Kate checked her watch. "Listen, it's way past his bedtime. How about we tuck him in and meet you by the fire-pit?" She mimed smoking a joint.

Joseph nodded loosely. For twenty years, pot had been a binder between them: a source of their initial connection, their cure-all, the catalyst to countless confessions, and jokes. But while Joe longed for the easy release of this ritual, he also felt a drive deprive them all of it, to force them to confront his pain. He also wanted to show them that he'd changed since the break up, grown out of old habits. "I've been trying not to smoke so much recently. It makes me feel depressed and lonely."

Kate's expression betrayed a damning flash of shock, and Joe backpedaled a bit. He pointed at the Altoids tin on the mantle. "There's plenty there if you want some."

"That's alright." Kate shook her head, as if insulted by the insincere generosity of this offer. She tottered her head. "We've had a long day, and I'm actually feeling pretty wasted. Maybe we should all just go to sleep."

Joseph reeled. He didn't understand how the tables had been turned. He felt cheated. But he knew if he tried to change his mind, Kate would accuse him of being indecisive, a critique she'd been leveling at him since freshman year, and he couldn't bear to seem so insufferably himself. "We could read?" he suggested. But the battle was over. He'd lost.

When visiting the lake, Kate and Dylan tended to relinquish their role as parents, taking pride in how well Max got along with their friends. Since Vince was the one who usually coordinated their response to this challenge, planning pony rides or flower hunts to keep the boy occupied, Joe assumed that they'd come with a contingency plan. But when he came downstairs the next morning, the two of them were already ensconced in the lawn chairs, reading, and Max was standing by the kitchen counter clutching a giant hunk of cake. He flashed a chocolaty grin. "Wha's up," he garbled.

Grateful for an impetus to go out on the lake, Joseph situated the boy in the rowboat and paddled toward Roget Island. He quizzed Max on the names of the wild flowers they passed, blindly doling out rights and guess agains in a 3:1 ratio. He pointed out turtles sunning themselves on every rock. Things seemed fine until the boy realized that they'd forgotten Vince's berry pail. "We can use your hat," Joe said brightly as they disembarked into a tangle of raspberry bushes. "We'll use your hat, Maria, use your hat!" he sang. Max smirked, but seemed to fear he was being mocked.

Though they were gone just two hours, Kate and Dylan were asleep by the time they returned, empty beer bottles scattered on the ground between them.

"Should we wake them up?" Max asked, looking longingly at his parents.

Joseph frowned. "They'd just put a damper on things." Having stewed the night before in the folly of his self-imposed exile, Joseph intended to tucker the boy into an early bedtime and reserve time for getting high. But besides the tedious berry picking, Max had rejected all of his suggestions for activities. Vince's show-tune collection was substantial; Joe worried that the boy was saving his strength. Recalling Lori's invitation to visit her at Tiny's, he pointed at Vince's old Land Cruiser, which, too perfect to suffer the long drive west, had been left unwillingly in his custody. "Come on," he ordered. "Prepare for mystery."

Max seemed nervous about this adventure, and as they jounced over the washboard ruts on the road to Elysia, he fell silent, as if worried he might end up buried in a shallow hole. Joseph tuned the tinny AM radio to Jukebox 860, but even Sinatra Saturday failed to break the funk. As they turned off Route 23, it became more than he could bear. He poked Max's in the ribs the way Vince always used to. "What gives? You're acting like I'm taking you to the dentist."

The boy didn't respond.

"Well?"

Max squirmed. "I'm trying, ok?"

"Trying?"

"Yeah. It's just...it was more fun here when Vince was around."

Joseph nodded. "...I know."

Max glanced over as if startled by this answer, and for the first time that day, he gave a real smile. "You look sort of dumb driving this truck."

Joseph guessed that this statement wasn't meant to be cruel, but he felt the burn of its truth no less. Vince's truck had always been beyond him, too showy and iconic, and when he checked his reflection in the mirror, indeed Max was right. He looked absurd, like a frightened child, clinging to the steering wheel like a life preserver. But instead of letting his sadness settle, he shot back. "Well you look pretty dumb sitting in it."

Joe realized at once that his malice was misplaced. But before either of them could react, Tiny's totem pole gates appeared, and he had to mash the brakes to make the turn. He skidded into the lot, raising a clot of dust. "Sorry." He shrugged. Max said nothing. "Come on Maxy, I was just playing around." He stepped out of the truck, but the boy didn't follow. "Come on," he called. "Get out. I mean it." He crossed his arms and raised his voice. "Get out. I need to buy you a treat."

The boy relented, and as they walked toward the ice cream stand, Joe recalled that he and Max shared a fondness for mint chip. He ordered them each a double scoop, but this seemed only to exacerbate their friction, and as he led the way toward the go-cart track, the boy lagged behind. Hoping to win Max back with some insider's privilege, Joe searched for Lori among the clusters of employees, but she was nowhere to be seen.

The boy caught up with him at the fence. Joe gestured beyond it at the track. "How about when you finish that cone, I buy you a few laps?"

"There's no way I can finish this," Max said. But he eyed the crowds of boys queued up for rides.

Joe bought him some tickets, but watching Max's laps quickly became inconsolably boring, and he took to ogling the two shirtless teens on the pit crew, both of whom were sinewy and smeared with grease. Of course, one of them soon caught him staring, and leered back with some simulacrum of longing. For fear of being beaten down or forced to ante up, both of which seemed equally unworkable, Joe turned away.

Staring out at the exit, he spotted Lori crossing the parking lot. She was wearing cutoffs and a tight T-shirt, and once she recognized him, she started swaying her hips with each step. Feeling something resembling relief, Joseph waved.

"Hey," she said eagerly, but without meeting his eye. "I can't believe you came."

"You said to." He shrugged nervously. "I wanted my treat."

Lori tittered. Joseph carefully avoided mentioning Max. But, enjoying her easy attention more than he knew he should have, Joseph kept her talking for quite some time. He sounded like a complete homo--complimenting her outfit, making catty remarks about the patrons--but she didn't seem to notice or care. In fact, she laughed so hysterically at even his weakest jokes that he wondered if she was even listening. "You're bad," she said. She touched the bare inside of his arm.

A buzzer rang signaling the end of the race, and the crowds began to migrate to the ice cream stand. Lori pulled a face. "I should get to work. But listen, some of us are going to be down at the lake tonight, by the old Scout camp. You should come by." Joseph froze; his heart was racing. But he crossed his arms over his chest and looked dispassionately off into the middle distance, the way he'd seen sexy high school boys behave in the movies. "Yeah," he said, coolly. "I'll see if I can make it."

Kate and Dylan were sitting on the front porch when Joe and Max pulled in, looking agitated and abandoned, like a pair of orphans. Seeming to detect their weird neediness, Max ran right to them, and though he'd remained sullen for the entire ride back, sitting between his parents, he became ebullient as he related the day's events. As Joe collected the prizes Lori had let them win playing skee-ball, he was amazed to overhear the boy describing each segment of their day as "great."

"Great," Kate mocked. "Great. Great. For thirty grand a year, you'd think they could teach you another adjective."

"I almost forgot the best part," Max announced as Joseph stepped onto the porch. "I got to meet Uncle Joe's new special friend." The boy nodded excitedly, protesting his parents' dismissive sighs. "It's a girl. For real. I saw them making googly eyes at each other." He demonstrated.

Kate and Dylan studied Joe as if he'd grown tusks. He rolled his eyes. "She's just someone I know from the supermarket."

"Does she take it in the loading zone?" Dylan sneered.

Joe imagined how dumb he must have looked to Max, standing by a go-cart track flirting with a teenage girl, but that didn't stop him from feeling betrayed. He tossed a stuffed bee at the boy, aiming obliquely for his face. "Here's your bug, sport," he said. "I'm going to take a shower."

Joseph avoided his guests for an hour, hoping to reset his mood. Yet Kate and Dylan refused to let the sad joke of Lori die, and it kept popping up, like a mole, during drinks and dinner, trumping all the real topics brewing beneath. Joe tried to keep his denials from reflecting his mounting anger, but this only served to intensify the teasing.

"Oh fuck off already," he finally blurted to Kate. "I've seen you flirt with the boys at the concession stand just to get free butter on your popcorn."

"So you admit that you were flirting?"

Joseph curled his lip. "I can't believe that this is really what you want to talk about. Don't you think you should ask about me? About how I'm feeling?"

"Don't be so dramatic. We came all the way up here to see how you're feeling."

"Yeah, six months later."

"Six months without hearing from you once." Kate glanced knowingly at Dylan. "Need I remind you, dear, that we're not the ones who gave up on life and ran away?"

"You're not the ones who had to!" Joseph shouted. He couldn't believe that this was how they did the calculus of their relationship, and he fixed on Kate and Dylan hoping to indict them with his stare. "I'm broke. I'm almost 40. The man I thought I was going to spend my life with left me to direct a movie about teen rocket scientists. What should I do?"

Dylan sighed. "...I think...you have to think about leaving here..."

"I found this house!" Joseph screamed. "It was my dream, not his. Why should I have to be the one to leave?"

They looked at him as if the answer was obvious, and though he knew it was only making things worse, he continued to yell. He yelled about feeling unsupported, about his lost dreams, about how he couldn't even remember what these were anymore. He yelled until he started crying, and when they tried to comfort him, he wouldn't let them. He sat back and crossed his arms.

Max glanced around anxiously, as if worried that this was all his fault. Joseph felt embarrassed. His fights with Vince had often ended the just like this, with the knowledge that he was wrong, but without the gumption to admit it. Still, while he knew it was his job to apologize or say something reassuring, he refused.

Finally, looking desperate, Max clapped his hands together once and pushed back from the table, the way Vince used to at the end of their meals up there. "Ok," he said, imitating Vince's booming tone. "Which of you assholes is ready for s'mores?"

Try as they did, none of them could stop themselves from smiling. Pretending it was just for Max's sake, Joe silently gathered the ingredients onto a one of Vince's fancy wooden platters and led them out to the fire-pit. Vince had developed an exacting protocol for making s'mores, and the boy followed it precisely, using Vince's vintage carved roasting sticks to rotisserie the marshmallows while warming the chocolate and graham crackers on a flat rock nearby. Also following the protocol, he narrated them through every dull step in the process, even calling for flaming brandies.

Having a fake Vince around wasn't exactly a solution, but as they finished their dessert, Joseph felt his rage soften and when Kate and Dylan went in to put Max to bed, he rolled them a joint. He worried they wouldn't return, that he'd next hear the car start, but they eventually came back outside and sat down. Kate stared at him. They'd always had always had a similar temperament. Volatility, she'd once told him, is all we have.

"Peace pipe," he said, extending the joint.

They sat around the fire, smoking silently, eating marshmallows and chocolate right out of the bag. But while the summer noises became sharper, and Joe felt his muscles unwind, the pot seemed to lack its curative effect. Like oil poured into a long seized engine, it lubricated nothing.

They stared up at the sky, tracking shooting stars and satellites. Joe kept waiting for the right moment to say something meaningful, but they lay there making small talk until the woodpile ran out. Instead of getting up for more, Joe silently fed Vince's roasting sticks onto the coals, and then the expensive teak tray. He relished, then immediately regretted these vindictive actions, and he thought about Max's prescient critique of him that afternoon. He not only looked, but felt and acted dumb. Indeed, less than half of a couple, he felt like half a person, and he wondered what it would take to get him back on track. He wasn't close yet. He'd have to beg Vince for another reprieve, until fall at least. This seemed pathetic and poignant, like starting his fifth year at college, and Joe was moved to share this sad parallel with his friends, but when he sat up, he saw that they were asleep.

A breeze blew in off the water, and under it, Joseph heard the whir and pop of a distant Roman candle. Lori's party, he thought. He recalled her social matrix--swim, drink, or hang out--and he fantasized about paddling over. For that night, maybe for the rest of the summer, he could let his life be conscribed by such simple choices. He could sit at the Scout Camp and stare at the lake, listen to Lori and her friends' stoned musings. Maybe he'd add a nugget of wisdom now and again; they were certain to be impressed.

Joseph stared at his friends' inert bodies. He felt a paralyzing mixture of longing and disappointment, but he zipped his sweatshirt and stood up. The tray will burn for a while, he told himself, keeping them warm. He untied the boat and pushed off. The glow of the house reflected on the dark surface of the lake. ending the joint.

They sat around the fire, smoking silently, eating marshmallows and chocolate right out of the bag. But while the summer noises became sharper, and Joe felt his muscles unwind, the pot seemed to lack its curative effect. Like oil poured into a long seized engine, it lubricated nothing.

They stared up at the sky, tracking shooting stars and satellites. Joe kept waiting for the right moment to say something meaningful, but they lay there making small talk until the woodpile ran out. Instead of getting up for more, Joe silently fed Vince's roasting sticks