We gave them the guest room with the twin beds, I stayed in our room with the double bed, and Bob slept on the studio couch in the living room. He said he wanted it that way. I could see he had a guilt feeling or something of the sort in their presence. His own parents had died in a car crash when he was a child and he had lived with his aunt and uncle through most of his school days until he joined the navy in nineteen forty-three when he was seventeen. He was twentyeight now, seven years younger than I. He often said he couldn't bear the thought of their finding out about him, especially his aunt.

He insisted on leaving his Ford on the street so they could put their Lincoln in the garage beside my new Volkswagen. I was just as glad to have my car under cover: it was still new-looking and there might be a bit more rain, even in April.

"You boys sure do have a nice place!" said Anna.

The first evening we were uncertain about cocktails, but Anna and Joe loved them. They even drank wine with dinner.

"When in Rome," said Joe with a wink.

After a day or two Anna insisted on getting dinner and she and I washed the dishes afterwards while Joe and Bob watched television in the living room. We had been in the house for nearly two years and had never gotten to know the neighbors except to nod and say hello now and then. We often wondered what they thought about so many young men coming and going. After a week Anna was calling all the women and several of the husbands by their first names.

"The Grigsbys are lovely people," she said one evening at dinner. "And you know what? know what? When they drove East two years ago to see Mary's folks in Peoria they stopped for lunch in Deep River. They had a flat or something and left their car in the garage across from the

"We like it," I said modestly. hotel.”

The rug was paid for and the double bed, but we were making payments on almost everything elsethe refrigerator, the kitchen range, the hi-fi, the television, most of the furniture, not to mention both cars and, of course, the house. We'd be paying on the house for twenty years. But nearly all our friends lived that way. Felix and Randy had just bought a duplex in San Francisco on the slope of Twin Peaks and were renting the other apartment to a couple of gay kids.

"When we see something we want, we just have it sent up," said said Randy. "Why not?"

"Ollie Rankin's place," said Joe.

"Yeah, that's what I told her.

I said 'Why, Mary, Joe and I went to school with Ollie Rankin. We've known him all our lives.' And what do you think? Janet Riley across the street here has a cousin in Morton, only twenty miles from Deep River."

"It sure is a small world," said Joe.

"It sure is," said Anna. "They all like you boys," she went on. "Only thing they wish you weren't so stand-offish. Mary said when you first bought the house they didn't know what it would be like, a couple of bachelors living next

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