TED MCMANUS

 

 

THINGS COULD BE WORSE—that’s what Ted McManus was thinking when the vacuum vomited something black and metallic.

“Oh shit,” he said, and stepped on the power button, which had been broken for a month. He ran for the plug, but the vacuum, already smoking up a burnt rubber stink, came to a squeaky halt on its own.

“What happened?” Eileen asked. She yanked at the cord and it came at her like a whip.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to pull out the plug like that?”

“I don’t care about the cord. Is that smoke?”

“That’s how things break. Here”—Ted pointed at the accordionlike joint between the plug and the cord—“this is the relief joint. You’re going against the physics of the product when you pull it out like that.”

“Oh, I see. So I broke the vacuum, right? I broke the physics of the product. That’s why it’s stinking up the whole store.”

Ted choked the cord around the vacuum, avoiding looking at his wife. When he finally did look up, he found her staring into the giant round mirror that was Cimmetri’s centerpiece. A year ago, they had paid twenty-five hundred dollars for that mirror. Twenty-five hundred dollars just hanging there, doing nothing but reflecting their naiveté.

“I think we got a great deal,” he’d said.

“It’s expensive, but it’s so gorgeous,” she said.

“It’ll sell within a month. Or I have no business sense.”

After a year, Cimmetri was barely breaking even, and both of them were to blame.

Ted turned the Hoover on its side. He pried open the bottom panel and peered carefully. “I think the belt came off.”

Eileen came over and perched over his shoulder. Ted did the best he could, but he eventually had to say it: “You’re blocking the light, honey.” Without a word, she went back to cleaning the crystal figurines displayed inside the bi-leveled hexagonal showcase.

“But honey,” Ted said, “you were.”

She’d finished buffing the top level, the mammals, which included a dog, a cat, a bear, and two pandas, all made out of tiny crystal balls glued together. The bottom level was a family of clowns—laughing clown, juggling clown, fat clown, and baby clown, complete with a microscopic pacifier. Underneath the showcase was stock—two of everything, untouched.

Only one figurine had sold, an octopus, the one that the wholesaler had begged them to take. Who’d want to buy an octopus? They bought it as a joke, but the joke was on them: After they sold their one and only, they had five more requests for it. It drove them crazy. Nothing made sense in the retail world.

Watching her polish the crystals, Ted wondered if Eileen missed her old job as hostess at Thirsty Pete’s. At least at the restaurant, there was logic: People wanted seats as quickly as possible and all she had to do was act pleasant even if they were crabby.

Ted wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, careful to keep the grime off his face. He looked down at the vacuum, its innards splayed on the floor. His hands were as filthy as a mechanic’s. At AT&T, where Ted had worked for over twenty years behind a desk, the only mess he encountered was in the form of copier toner. He’d also reported to four demanding bosses, met ridiculous deadlines week after week, covered his ass before a project blew up—but really, had it been any worse than this?

As his fingers jammed into the guts of the machine, Ted regretted buying this dump of a store from the previous owner. He and Eileen had considered two other possibilities before plopping down a good part of their nest egg on Cimmetri, a café and a candy shop. They never should’ve chosen to sell something as frivolous as mirrors. Everybody drank coffee and ate sweets, and although people used mirrors on a daily basis, how often did they actually buy one?

“Damn it,” Ted said as a thin silver rod sprang up and bounced away from him.

“Let me try,” Eileen said, picking it up. She placed it back into the cradle, but she couldn’t make it fit, either. A closer examination of the dark crevice revealed a smell not unlike rotting garbage. “Oh, Lord,” she said.

“It’s awful,” Ted said. “Like something threw up and died.”

“Look,” Eileen said, pointing at East Meets West, the Oriental gift store across from them. Mr. Kim was running a vacuum that looked remarkably identical to their Hoover, at least from afar. “I’ve seen him fiddle with his. I think he’s good at fixing stuff.”

“You know he doesn’t speak English very well,” Ted said.

“Oh, come on, this isn’t rocket science. Just go up and ask, what’s the hurt in that?”

“All right. You stay here and mind the store.”

Ted thoroughly scrubbed his hands in the bathroom, ran a comb over his almost-bald head, and stuffed in a loose shirttail. Although Mr. Kim had been his cross-hallway neighbor since he moved in a year ago, he’d hardly said anything beyond a simple greeting. Mr. Kim always said “Hi,” never “Hello.” He’d heard somewhere that Asians had trouble pronouncing “L” words. Was Mr. Kim avoiding all words that had the “L” sound? What kind of a conversation would they have if it excluded L’s?

Mrs. Kim, busy dusting the vases in the corner, stopped and stared at Ted as he walked in the store. When he tried to meet her eyes, she immediately looked at her feet. The two kids who usually sat behind the showcases were nowhere to be found. “Mr. Kim,” Ted said, his voice a little high. Oblivious, Mr. Kim kept vacuuming. “Mr. Kim,” Ted said again, this time louder and more normal.

“Hi,” Mr. Kim said, turning off his vacuum. He pushed up his black-rimmed glasses with his thumb. “You need?”

Still no “L” words, Ted thought. “I think you and I have the same vacuum cleaner, and there’s something wrong with mine. Can I . . .”

“Sure,” he said, and flipped his vacuum upside down with some effort. “I see. Here,” he said, and let Ted have a good look. “You see?”

Ted tried, but it was impossible to figure out the problem. “I’m sorry, but no.”

“Get vacuum,” Mr. Kim said. “Let me look.”

“Okay,” he said, and hurried back.

“Are things okay?” Eileen asked.

“Sure. He wants to help.”

“So he can speak English after all, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ted said, and returned to the waiting Mr. Kim, who looked back and forth between the two machines a number of times. Mr. Kim’s sideburns were inching toward grayness, and Ted wondered why a man his age—probably in his mid-forties—would leave everything he knew and come to a whole different place where he would have to start all over again. He didn’t know whether to admire his courage or question his foolhardiness.

Mr. Kim crouched down to look at the back of the vacuum. As he examined the chassis, he asked, “You like my name?”

“Excuse me?”

“Harry, my name.”

Ted laughed, but seeing Harry Kim’s face, he immediately regretted it.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” Ted said.

“Not like Harry?”

“No, I didn’t mean that . . .”

“I pick Harry. Dirty Harry. I like gun.” He cocked his finger and pointed it at Ted. “Bang!” he yelled.

Ted flinched. He didn’t know what to say. Then Mr. Kim laughed. “Kidding,” he said. “No gun.”

Ted laughed out of surprise more than humor; the idea that Mr. Kim could be joking never crossed his mind. Mr. Kim pulled a chair up for him, pushed his cash register aside, and put the two vacuums on his large metal desk. He turned on the desk lamp and bent its gooseneck to gain maximum luminance.

It didn’t take them long to figure out the problem: Ted had put the belt on the wrong spoke. Mr. Kim crawled under his desk, plugged in Ted’s vacuum, and it came back to life.

“Good,” Mr. Kim said, then crinkled his nose. “Stinky.”

“I think I need to change the bag,” Ted said. “Listen, thank you very much. You just saved me a lot of grief. And a lot of money.”

“No problem.”

“Maybe I can buy you a drink or something,” Ted said, although he hoped Mr. Kim would decline. What would they talk about over beer? Vacuums and Clint Eastwood?

“No pro . . .” Mr. Kim started to say, then stopped. Ted saw a glint of something behind those eyeglasses. “. . . blem,” he finished. He offered the vacuum’s handle.

“Thanks again,” Ted said, and rolled the vacuum back to his store.

“Next time . . . ,” Mr. Kim said, then trailed off.

Ted turned. “Yes?”

Mr. Kim waved him off. “No, no. No problem.”

“No,” Ted said. “What did you want to tell me?”

“Next time,” Mr. Kim said, “you help me, maybe.”

“Sure,” Ted said. “You just let me know, okay? Harry?”

“Okay, Ted,” Mr. Kim said, and returned to vacuuming his rug.

What could he have in mind? There was something embarrassing about the way he’d asked. He was about to tell Eileen of his encounter with Mr. Kim when he saw his son standing beside her.

“Billy?” he asked, trying to remember if he forgot why he was here.

“Dad,” Billy said, giving him a quick hug. The last time Ted had seen him was over Easter weekend. He looked different somehow, older, maybe.

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at work?”

Billy turned to Eileen. Eileen looked down. “Oh Christ, Mom,” Billy said, on the verge of tears, and ran out of the store. Seeing the back of Billy’s head, Ted realized what was different about him: He was going bald.

“Eileen?” Ted asked. She sat down and bit her fingernails. “Eileen?” Ted asked again. “Why is Billy here?”

“Oh, Ted,” Eileen said. “I didn’t want to worry you. With your high blood pressure and all. I wanted to tell you, but you’re always so busy with things.”

Ted let that one go. He took a deep breath, sat down in front of her, and waited. A young couple came in and pawed at a couple of full-length mirrors, leaving their fingerprints everywhere. They held hands and laughed, looking at each other’s reflections.

The routine was a familiar one for Ted; after Eileen finished biting her fingernails, she filed them down. This was how she talked to him about difficult things, cutting around her cuticles, clipping the ragged ends clean.

“Billy’s been out of work since May,” she began. Ted blinked a couple of times. He thought of all the obvious replies he could provide with justifiable anger, but instead of blowing up, he grabbed the Bic pen lying nearby. He noted the blue cap, the gnawed-off clip, the tiny man with a big black ball for a head.

“What has he been doing for all these months?”

“What do you think he’s been doing? Looking for a job. But it’s hard to find one right now, with the economy the way it is.”

“Don’t blame the economy.”

“Oh, Ted, you know it’s hard for Billy. He’s not exactly the outgoing type.”

Ted got up and stretched. He had read somewhere that you should pretend to reach for the stars to really stretch, not only physically but also mentally. Ted reached hard, but all that came to him was an unwelcome invasion of superhuman tiredness that spread all the way down to his toes.

“He couldn’t pay last month’s rent. He’s got no money. His unemployment doesn’t pay for half of his expenses.”

“So he’s going to stay with us. Where is he going to sleep? On our loveseat?” After Billy had gotten his assistant editor job with Henry Holt, they had sold their house and moved to a two-bedroom condo. The spare bedroom was still more like a warehouse, with mountains of unopened boxes filling every corner, so the living room was the only option.

“It’s only going to be for a while. You still have that army cot, don’t you?”

Ted’s last memory of the cot was Billy taking it out of the attic and loading it into the trunk of his Honda for some camping trip with his artsy-fartsy college friends, the ones who wore black turtlenecks and smoked long, thin cigarettes.

Billy came back an hour later with a pot of yellow chrysanthemums for Eileen and a small box of chocolate-covered cherries for Ted. “I’m sorry I blew up like that,” he said, and asked them if there was anything he could do around here to make their lives a little bit easier.

 

Ted looked at the red digits of the alarm clock and saw that it was ten past one. Was it the heat that was keeping him up? It was another scorching night, their central air running a constant hum. He couldn’t remember the last time he couldn’t fall asleep, but here he lay, sleep as far away as China, which was strange because things were looking up for everybody. The store was doing a little better, Billy had a couple of interviews lined up with some publishing houses, and Eileen was happier with their son around. Seeing them together again for the past month reminded Ted of just how little he and Billy actually talked, but he shrugged it off. Some sons were closer to their mothers than their fathers, and at this point of their lives, there was nothing he could do about it. He was just glad to have Eileen laughing again.

Lying in bed, Ted wished for a hard-on. As he stroked himself, he thought back to when they had just married, when they woke each other up in the middle of the night to screw. He looked over to his wife, and he started to feel the beginnings of fullness when he heard the doorknob of their bedroom turn.

“Ummm,” Eileen said. The doorknob stopped turning. Ted waited. Eileen shifted around and started snoring lightly. Slowly, somebody pushed the door open. Ted pretended to be asleep. He thought of the baseball bat in the closet; he wondered if he’d have time to get to it. Slowly the door was . . . being pulled closed?

Ted crawled out of bed and crept over to the door. Somebody was walking around—and then he remembered Billy. Was he all right? He heard the flick of a cigarette lighter. Soft, uneven light seeped in from under the door—candlelight. Then a snapping, like a rubber band. Ted pulled the door open with steady hands, just a crack, so he could peek out.

Billy was on the couch, his legs spread apart. There was something shiny on his legs, and it took Ted a couple of seconds to realize that it was pantyhose. Billy’s left hand pulled the waistband down below his testicles while his right hand made a fist around his erection and started a slow pumping motion. Billy had his eyes closed, his neck muscles taut like cables.

Ted closed the door. He stood there, thankful for the darkness that engulfed him, trying hard not to think of what was going on beyond his bedroom.

 

In the morning, he avoided Billy. The only time they were in close proximity was in the car. Ted managed to completely bypass the rearview mirror during the drive to the store.

How was he going to approach this with his son? He’d heard of men wearing women’s clothes, but only on TV. It was an episode of some soap opera that Eileen was watching, where the husband was caught wearing the wife’s slinky evening dress . . . which brought up another question: Whose pantyhose was Billy wearing? The thought of Billy going into Eileen’s drawers and fishing out a pair of black stockings made Ted uneasy. His son buying a pair from a lingerie store wasn’t exactly better: standing next to faceless mannequins wearing garter belts and lacy panties, selecting pantyhose that’d fit him best. What had he told the saleswoman at the counter, that he was buying them for his girlfriend?

Maybe his son was gay, which had been in the back of Ted’s mind throughout most of Billy’s high-school days, when he didn’t go on a single date with a girl. All that changed his senior year, when he went steady with that flag twirler. Not that Ted would have disowned him or anything stupid like that if he was homosexual, but it just would’ve made things harder for everyone, Billy especially.

At the store, Ted was glad UPS came by early to drop off a shipment. Ordinarily, the prospect of putting out more mirrors he couldn’t sell depressed him, but today he was grateful for the distraction. There were three boxes in all, and each contained two dozen smaller boxes of various handheld mirrors, the kind barbers and hairdressers used to display the backside of haircuts to their customers.

Ted gave the price gun to Billy and showed him how to use it.

“Why does everything end in ‘99’?” Billy asked. “You know, like why ‘$4.99’ instead of ‘$5’?”

“It makes it look cheaper,” Ted said. “It’s psychology.”

As the day wore on, Ted became sure about one thing: He wasn’t going to tell Eileen about last night. It was a given that if he were to tell her, she’d immediately talk to their son herself. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. By handling this crisis himself, a bond that never existed before might form between them. After all, what bond was stronger than one forged with guilt?

“Hi,” Mr. Kim said.

Standing next to him was his son David, who seemed distracted by the multitude of reflections Cimmetri’s mirrors offered.

“Hey, guys,” Ted said.

“Busy?”

“No, what can I do for you?”

“Remember?” he said, gesturing a vacuuming motion. His voice sounded strained, forced.

“Yes,” Ted said, and looking at Mr. Kim, Ted realized what he really meant. “Yes, I remember, Harry.”

Mr. Kim nodded. “Next Sunday, seven o’clock. Dinner my house.”

Ted didn’t know if he understood. “Dinner . . . as in you want me to . . . come to dinner?”

“You, your wife, your son.”

“To dinner?”

“Busy?”

It would’ve been easy to say just that, but Ted couldn’t do it. Maybe if Mr. Kim had come alone, but there was something sinful about lying in front of both him and his son. “No. It’s Sunday night. We usually eat McDonald’s on Sunday nights.”

“Hamburger we make. Hamburger or spaghetti?”

“Hamburger.”

“Okay,” Mr. Kim said. “Thank you.”

Mr. Kim was gone before Ted could ask him why and what for. At the threshold of East Meets West, his wife was waiting for him. He spoke to her, she nodded, they both looked over.

“Thank you, Mr. McManus,” David said with perfect pronunciation. Ted had forgotten that he was still there.

“What’s going on with this dinner? Why does your father want us to be there?”

The boy stayed quiet.

“You don’t want to tell me?”

“I don’t know all English well,” David said. It was an excuse, Ted could tell.

“You speak fine.”

“Thank you. See you Sunday,” he said, and ran back to his store.

When David left, Billy came over and asked, “What was all that about?”

“We’re going to have dinner with them next Sunday.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” Ted said. He met Billy’s eyes for a moment, still not sure how to talk to him. “Hey, have you eaten yet?”

“No.”

“Let’s go to Jake’s, you and me.”

“What about Mom?”

She was busy spraying and wiping picture frames with Windex. “Just bring something back for me,” she said, which meant the usual—chicken Caesar salad.

Hometown Grill was still being rebuilt, but a small portion of the restaurant was now open. Sitting at their table, Ted ordered two quarter-pounders and a basket of onion rings for an appetizer. Billy told Ted about the two interviews that he had coming up. Springer-Verlag, a scholarly publishing house, was located in the Flatiron Building near Madison Square Park. “I think I can get that one,” Billy said, “but I’d rather work for Knopf. More challenging.”

Ted listened blankly, his mind preoccupied on the proper mechanics of bringing up what he had seen last night. No time seemed like the right time, and lunch was quickly coming to a close: The burgers were gone and only two onion rings remained, the napkin inside the basket translucent with overlapping oily circles.

“I’m going to run to the men’s room,” Billy said, and Ted was momentarily relieved. He walked over to the bar and ordered two bottles of Heineken and drank almost all of his by the time Billy came back.

“Billy,” Ted said in the softest, kindest voice he could muster. “Why are you wearing women’s pantyhose?”

Billy took several big gulps of beer and belched quietly. Neither spoke for what seemed like a long time. He finished his beer and tried to peel off the front label. He got halfway when it ripped jaggedly.

“Are you ashamed of me?” Billy asked.

“No,” Ted said immediately. Be truthful, he told himself, and made himself say, “Well, I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Does Mom know?”

“No.”

Again, they were silent. Ted began to regret not involving Eileen in this mess. Maybe this was not the right thing to do. Maybe a secret this shameful needed to be spread between two people.

“Do you want to know why?” Billy asked.

He wanted to look at Billy, but he couldn’t. Instead, he stared at his empty green bottle and nodded.

In his third year of college, Billy took up scuba diving to fulfill a phys-ed requirement. The worst thing about the class was putting on the wetsuit, which was made out of neoprene and almost painful to put over dry skin. This was when his instructor, Monica, suggested that he wear a pair of pantyhose.

“I remember laughing about it with her. Should I get the sheer-to-waist variety? Perhaps I should get Silken Mist in Pearl so I’ll have that zip in my step. She got me a pair, my first pair, a black sheer one from L’Eggs, the kind that come in a little egg.” Billy had the look of someone remembering a kiss, a dreamy, faraway gaze. “When I put them on, I felt a tingle. Like my skin was alive, and I . . .” He stopped. “I’m sorry, Dad, I can’t tell you this.”

“No, it’s fine,” Ted said, even though it wasn’t.

“It’s something I can’t explain. I never thought I would get turned on by it, but once I put them on, I just didn’t want to take them off.”

“So that pair you were wearing last night . . . is it the same pair?” It was a stupid question, but Ted didn’t know what else to say.

Billy laughed. “No, of course not. They don’t last that long. Even the ones that advertise they’re long-lasting.”

“They’re not your mother’s, right?”

“Jesus, that’s disgusting, Dad!”

They looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Whatever you say, Billy,” Ted said.

After they settled down, Billy got serious again. “You going to tell Mom?”

“I will if you want me to.”

His son hesitated for a moment, but then made up his mind. “No. I’d rather she didn’t know.”

“That’s fine.” He looked into Billy’s eyes and smiled. There was something new there, he was sure of it, a brightness like a star, a star only he could see. “Let’s get back to the store.”

“Okay. Let me go back to the bathroom, though.”

“Again?”

“I need to . . . adjust something.”

“You’re wearing . . . ?” Ted asked, incredulous.

“Sometimes I like to wear them underneath. I’ll be back.”

Ted waited. He tried not to think about it. He failed.

 

______

 

Ted looked at his watch. It was 10:14. He still had two hours left.

On the king-sized bed was a pair of Eileen’s pantyhose, the sheer flat legs crisscrossing each other over the pink sheets. He tried to find black ones; the darkest ones in Eileen’s underwear drawer were the color of chestnuts.

He was naked except for a shirt. His clothes sat in a small, neat pile on the top of the dresser. He felt hot, maybe from the continuing heat wave that was grilling the tri-state area, more likely from what he was about to do.

He looked at his watch again. Eileen and Billy were at the movies, due back around midnight, and this was nuts. What would she say if she were to walk through those doors right now? Ted couldn’t even imagine her response. The most pizzazz they’d attempted in the bedroom was having her on top. In all their years together, he’d never cheated on her, but this felt something like that.

He held the pantyhose and sniffed them. They smelled like Eileen, a strong baby powder–like scent. He stretched a leg between his fingers and peered at the bedroom lamp through the network of thin fibers, the light shimmying through in an orange haze.

He rolled up one leg like the way he’d seen his wife do many times. His fingers, being much rougher than hers, caught the pantyhose, but he managed to roll it up between his index finger and thumb.

He slipped the shiny fabric over his left leg, then he put on the right leg. He stood up and carefully pulled a little at a time, so all of his lower body was covered under a soft brown shine.

He walked around. On one step, it felt like being trapped. On another, he felt freer than ever. He ran his hands over his legs and felt a smoothness he’d never experienced on his own body. He lay on the bed and stared at his tight thighs, which glistened like fish. An erection grew so hard that it hurt. He spread his legs and pushed down the pantyhose.

When he was through, when the shame had ebbed away, he tried to think about why he had done this. There were two possibilities: Either this was his way of somehow getting closer to Billy—or it was just pure sexual curiosity. Neither of these explanations seemed entirely healthy.

Eileen and Billy returned to find Ted sitting in his La-Z-Boy, watching the Phillies-Mets ballgame. Ted hoped that Billy would somehow know what had transpired during their absence, but of course, he seemed to sense nothing. He thought about telling Billy but decided against it. Keeping all these secrets to himself got him more excited than he wanted to admit.

That night, he and Eileen made incredible love. Just thinking about the pantyhose got Ted wild. Eileen, short of breath, told him in the middle, “My God, Ted, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“I’ll go slower,” he said, also out of breath.

“No way,” she said, and dug her fingernails into his back.

Afterwards, Eileen wanted to know what was going on, but she didn’t press it. She was too happy to question and fell asleep quickly. Spooning her body, he knew he’d tell her someday, but that day wasn’t here yet.

Next morning, while Eileen was cooking breakfast, he slipped on the brown pantyhose and pulled his pants over them. Every step he took felt airy and full of energy, just like those commercials on TV where the stockinged women galloped and sashayed across the city street.

It was a fairly busy Sunday, a surprising number of customers keeping him hopping from the register to the stockroom and back again, and at times Ted forgot that he was even wearing them. Every time he did remember, he felt a pleasant tingle.

At seven o’clock, as he and Billy lowered the canvas curtains and threw on the locks, Mr. Kim came over. He said hellos to Eileen and Billy, then turned to Ted.

“You follow?” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Remember?” Billy said. “We’re going over to Mr. Kim’s for dinner tonight.”

He had forgotten, and under normal circumstances, after a tiring day at work, this would have gotten him in a foul mood, but all he had to do was think about what he was wearing underneath to perk himself up.

“Yes, I’ll follow you,” he said to Mr. Kim, who nodded quickly and gathered up his family.

Mr. Kim was one of those nightmare drivers who seemed to brake for no reason, so Ted kept a safe distance. Ted looked back at Billy in the rearview mirror and tried to catch his eye, but he always semed to be looking away.

The Kims lived in an apartment complex, on the second floor. At the top of the stairs, Mr. Kim opened the door and let in his wife and kids. It was like an oven in there, and the first thing the boy did was run to the air conditioner and turn it on. Ted, Eileen, and Billy followed. The kids were taking their shoes off, and so was Mr. Kim.

Ted looked at Billy, but Billy was busy taking his shoes off as well. He had on a pair of white athletic socks.

“What’s the matter, Ted?” Eileen said, removing her shoes.

“Nothing,” Ted replied, doing his best to keep calm. In the morning, he’d slipped on dress socks over the stockings, but a couple of hours later he took them off because his feet were sweating too much. In the stockroom of Cimmetri, Ted had laid those socks on the topmost shelf so they could dry, and that’s where they still were, two black socks like commas, pausing in the darkness.

Everyone else was already in the living room. Ted took a deep breath; the lights were dim enough that maybe no one would notice his sheer, glistening feet. Billy and Eileen sat on the loveseat while Mr. Kim and his two kids sat on the sofa. In the kitchen, the sound of running water stopped abruptly. The smell of sizzling meat began to permeate the apartment.

Ted scurried to the rocking chair and sat down. He crossed his feet underneath the seat and stayed still. Eileen and Billy looked over with the same expression on their faces: What the hell are we doing here?

“I like your place,” Ted told Mr. Kim. “It’s very homey.” Actually, it was anything but. The living room was like an annex to their store at Peddlers Town, decorated with vases and figurines. Behind the television, a large round plaque depicted an ancient country scene with farmers and fields and mountains, which was magnificent except for an unsightly crack that ran from the top right edge of the plaque to the center. In one corner of the room, a pyramid of brown boxes rose from the top of the beat-up piano to the ceiling. What a strange way to live; the last thing Ted wanted from his home was to be reminded in any way of his store. He wouldn’t last ten minutes in this place if he had to live here.

“Thank you,” Mr. Kim said. “Nice weather we are having.”

For the week so far, if it wasn’t a hundred degrees outside, it was showering sheets of blinding rain. Ted nodded, not knowing what to say, and the longer the silence continued, the more he was certain he was somehow disappointing Mr. Kim. He wished for Eileen and Billy to rescue him, but they were talking intently with each other, chatting like best friends like they always did.

Mr. Kim cleared his throat. As if on cue, David, sitting beside his father, suddenly leaned forward and asked, “How is business, Mr. McManus?”

“It’s okay. Could be better, of course, but it’s been decent. How is your business going?”

And now it was the daughter’s turn. “Business is okay,” she blurted out, then slower as she tried to recall what Ted had just said, “it is slow also, this time of year, for us, too.”

“Yes,” Mr. Kim said, delighted. “Very slow business, this time of year, for us, too.”

“Uh-huh,” Ted said, and he realized what was going on. They were practicing their English on him. That’s why he and his family had been invited tonight, so the Kims could brush up on their conversation skills. Were they their first American guests? It seemed like it, from the way they were acting, sitting tight and straight in their seats with their hands politely interlocked at their knees. Ted felt both pity and tenderness toward these people. All they wanted was to be Americans, and they’d asked him to show them how.

Ted smiled, and all three of them smiled back, his students. He’d teach them how to relax, to put their feet out and lean back, let the words flow out naturally. That was the key to any successful dialogue. There was no better way to educate than by example, so Ted loosened his shoulders and settled into his rocking chair. As expected, Mr. Kim mimicked his movement. Ted started to slide out his feet—but then remembered his stockings and stopped short. All three sets of eyes gazed down, and Ted felt blood rushing to his face.

Mrs. Kim emerged from the kitchen. In a tiny squeak of a voice, she said, “Dinner.”

The dining room was brightly lit, so Ted knew he had to beat everyone. He jumped off the rocking chair—and slipped. He fell with flailing arms into the chair, then both he and the chair slammed backward to the floor. He closed his eyes on impact.

When he opened them again, he saw everyone looking down not at him but at his legs. Both cuffs of his pants had slipped all the way to his knees, exposing two hairy white legs wrapped up in brown pantyhose.

A giggle escaped from Mr. Kim’s daughter, but it was cut short when Mrs. Kim elbowed her.

Eileen crouched down next to Ted and helped him to a sitting position. She was shocked, but her mothering instincts took over. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” he replied. He slowly got up and dusted himself. “Can I use your bathroom?” he asked Mr. Kim.

“Yes,” he said, not looking at him, just pointing to the hallway.

Ted glanced at Billy and saw nothing but confusion on his son’s face.

In the bathroom, he locked the door and sat down on the toilet. He sat there for a while. He had to take this stupid thing off. He unzipped his pants and dropped them to the floor. On the door was a full-length mirror, and for the first time, Ted looked at himself, his legs and ass looking like rotting summer sausage. What happened? Why was he in the bathroom of somebody he hardly knew, having dinner with people who barely spoke any English, and to top it all off, wearing his wife’s stockings? If he had any guts at all, he would fill up the tub and throw himself facefirst into the water.

A knock. “Ted?”

“Hold on,” he said. He peeled off his pantyhose, rolled it into a ball, stuffed it in the trash, and put his pants back on before unlocking the door. Eileen entered and closed the door behind her.

“Sit,” she said, pointing to the toilet seat, so he did.

“Let me see your head,” she said, so he tipped his head down.

It was just what he needed, to be told what to do. She felt around his scalp and touched a painful spot. She’d brought a sandwich bag of ice cubes and held it against the bump.

“Thanks,” he said.

Eileen knelt down next to him, using her free hand to pat his thigh. “I think I know what’s going on,” she said, and Ted wanted to stop her. He hoped she didn’t think he was some kind of a closet fruitcake, but before he could speak, she kissed him. “This has to do with Billy, doesn’t it?”

Ted didn’t know what to say. He stuttered and stumbled until he was able to ask, “How did you know?”

“Billy told me about his whole pantyhose thing,” she said. “Right after he talked to you.”

“He did, huh?” Ted said. His legs felt heavy and his toes were cold.

“So you just wanted to see what it was like . . . is that it?” Concern crossed her face, and Ted suddenly felt the urge to lie to her, to tell her that he had been wearing pantyhose for the last twenty years, that he and Billy had been wearing them together behind her back—but when he looked into his wife’s eyes, whatever irritation or resentment he’d briefly experienced faded away.

“Yeah,” Ted said, “that’s it.” He could see she was relieved, thankful that it wasn’t anything horribly strange.

“Like son, like father,” Eileen said. She rose from her crouch. “Come on out when you’re ready. The food’s getting cold.”

Ted nodded, watched her leave, waited.

Outside, he heard chairs sliding on the hardwood floor. He heard the muffled sounds of conversation. He heard laughter. The smell of French fries seeped under the door and he realized he was famished. It helped to think about basics of life, like eating, taking a bite of a hamburger, the ground beef and the bread and the dollop of ketchup meeting in his mouth. And maybe there would be tomato slices and lettuce leaves, too, if the Kims had gone all out.