I had to agree with him. The houses were fascinating in their awfulness. Even worse, they were a comfort. They'd looked exactly like this for as long as I could remember. I couldn't imagine them looking any other way. When I was fourteen Mrs. Markowitz's Virgin had gotten beaned with a baseball and some of her head had chipped away, but that didn't stop the Virgin from blessing the house. She stood stalwart through wind and rain and sleet and storm with a chipped head. Just as Santa faded and dented but returned each year.

Grandma Mazur was behind my parents' glass storm door, looking out at us. Grandma Mazur lives with my parents now that Grampa Mazur's eating pork rinds and deep-fried peanut butter sandwiches with Elvis. Grandma Mazur's mostly spindle bone and slack skin. She keeps her gray hair curled tight to her head and carries a .45 long barrel in her purse. The concept of growing old gracefully has never taken hold with Grandma.

Grandma opened the door when I approached with Diesel. "Who's this?" she asked, eyeballing Diesel. "I didn't know you were bringing a new man over. Look at me. I'm not even dressed up. And what about Joseph? What happened to him?"

"Who's Joseph?" Diesel wanted to know.

"He's her boyfriend," Grandma Mazur said. "Joseph Morelli. He's a Trenton cop. He's supposed to be coming over later for dinner on account of it's Sunday."

Diesel grinned down at me. "You didn't tell me you had a boyfriend."

I introduced Diesel to my mom, Grandma Mazur, and my dad.

"What's with men and ponytails?" my father said. "Girls are supposed to have long hair. Men are supposed to have short hair."

"What about Jesus?" Grandma asked. "He had long hair."

"This guy isn't Jesus," my father said. He stuck his hand out to Diesel. "Nice to meet you. What are you, one of them wrestlers or something?"

"No sir, I'm not a wrestler," Diesel said, smiling.

"They're sports entertainers," Grandma said. "Only some of them are real good at wrestling, like Kurt Angle and Lance Storm."

"Lance Storm?" my father said. "What kind of a name is that?"

"It's one of those Canadian names," Grandma said. "He's a cutie, too."

Diesel looked at me and the smile widened. "I love your family."

TWO

TWO

MY SISTER VALERIE CAME IN from the kitchen. Valerie is recently divorced and penniless and has moved herself and her two lads into my old bedroom. Before the divorce and the move back to Jersey, Valerie was living in southern California where she had limited success at cloning herself into Meg Ryan. Valerie's still got the blond shag. The resilient perkiness dropped out of her somewhere over Kansas on the flight home.

"Dang," Valerie said, taking Diesel in.

Grandma agreed. "He's a pip, isn't he?" she said. "He's a real looker."

Diesel elbowed me in the side. "You see? They like me."