Paged in San Francisco International, for a moment Raines didn't know if he'd really heard it. Like anyone, he spent so much of his life thinking about himself that at first it just sounded like more of the same, an amplification from his skull, as if everyone in the airport had suddenly overheard his thoughts. A page pulled you back to your actual existence in the world, which in the case of people like him could be a long haul.
       "Bill Raines, Bill Raines. White courtesy telephone please."
       Raines was in town to read a paper before the Modern Languages Association; and on the back of this paper he was hoping ride his way to tenure. But today his hands demanded occupa tions he couldn't find for them, his whole body seemed held together with old masking tape, and now, exposed by the page, he was balked: for his friend Marty was nowhere to be seen.
       The white courtesy telephone instructed Raines to call Marty's home number. He went to the bank of phones next to a sourdough tourist shop and dialed.
       "This is Martin Lee," said the answering machine.
       "Martin" was a recent development. Ever since they'd met in college he'd been Marty to Raines, but at some point professional colleagues and new girlfriends began calling him Martin and Raines felt they were talking about someone he didn't know. On the tape Marty enunciated the "t" as if he wasn't used to the name himself.
       "Bill, if it's you, sorry-I got an audition I just have to make. If you go to this cafe across from the studio I'll meet you there as soon as I get out." Marty gave the address and promised to cover cab fare. "Sorry. I know you wouldn't do this to me, buddy." The beep caught Raines by surprise.
       "Hamlet at last," he said, then wondered how he could get rid of the message, for there was an edge he wanted to erase from his voice.
       In the taxi Raines felt his heart ease a little from its northeastern clench. His spirits always rose when he came out to see Marty, and though Raines's thinking seldom led to absolute knowing he at least knew the reason for this: Marty made him like himself better. San Francisco lay white and clean in December sunlight. Chrome gleamed on 101, to the right the bay looked Aegean-blue under a smudge of smog; every surface was bright and placid. Illusion, all illusion. On recent visits Marty had guided him through the earth- quaked Marina, and the charred Oakland hills where only the chimneys were standings man whose house the fire had spared was sheepishly watering his lawn on a ruined street. Amid natural disasters and other adventures Raines felt great fondness for Marty, who was much more extensively acquainted with the world. Tomorrow after his talk, when things were back to normal, God willing, maybe they would drive to Napa or Big Sur. Raines once suggested going with Marty's older brother Ramon, who was a delinquent of some sort, to a biker bar. He imagined Ramon as a colorful and amusing figure from low life, like the Dennis Hopper character in "Easy Rider." But Marty had vetoed the idea.
       Raines sat for thirty minutes with a latte in the Limelight Cafe, removing and replacing commas in his talk, hearing tenured catcalls. Finally he couldn't stand it and walked across Mission Street. In front of a converted storage warehouse Marty's car was parked-impossible to miss, a red MG, bought used. On the direc- tory by the steel front door, between a film processing studio and a graphic arts company, Raines located the Jones & Weisberg Advertising Group.
       Not Hamlet-of course. Stage parts had been slow coming, and for a couple of years now commercials were Marty's bread and butter. He had to earn a living-yes, Raines told himself, we all do. He went up four flights in a service elevator and came out into a loft with giant posts and beams, old pine floors stained amber, and a door across the hall marked Jones & Weisberg. The partitioned waiting room was empty: through an open door half a dozen men were sitting against a brick wall. Some had their eyes closed with their heads tilted back; others were murmuring without looking at each other. They all held file folders and wore nice jackets and they had strong chins and mostly blond hair-a subdued, vain-looking bunch. Immaculate for the firing squad. Raines knew what that felt like. Getting unfriendly glances, but afraid he'd missed Marty on the way in, he pressed past them along the corridor and turned through an open door to find himself in an enormous room at the far end of which men in business suits were sitting around a conference table.
       He didn't think Marty had seen him. Marty was otherwise occupied. While the businessmen-about half of them were Asians-watched from their chairs, Marty was circling the long table, head erect. The careful smoothness of his walk put Raines in mind of the name Martin. Someone spoke and Marty stopped under a track light. It gleamed on his black hair, which was wet with styling gel. In his blazer he turned from side to side, front, back, like a woman modelling clothes. A tight smile was frozen on his face. Raines heard him say something, and he was spoken to, and he said it again and then again in the same tone and rhythm. The businessmen stared, conferred. One of the Asians shook his head.
       People always wanted to ask Marty: "What are you?" Spanish, American Indian, Eurasian, Persian? His father, a Korean foreign service officer, had abandoned the family and gone back to Seoul; his mother had been his father's maid in Bogoti and was now lapsing back into Andean mysticism up the coast in Olema, where Marty was obliged to look in on her at least once a week. According to a woman friend from college, Marty's eyes made you want to rub him down with coconut oil and sing lullabies. Marty did very well with women. It was important to remember that because right now, with these men, his looks weren't working to his advantage. Raines was conscious of wrongdoing, the way he felt as a boy when, through a bedroom door, he'd seen his teenage cousin undressing and had to stand and watch.
       The businessmen had about finished with Marty. An Asian spoke to his American counterpart, who spoke to Marty, who took one more turn around the table. When he passed, stiff-spined, under a well of light, misery was stifled on his illuminated mouth. Suddenly he began to squat as if he was going to sit on the floor. Then he raised his arms and jumped up, leaping to full extension. He could have dunked a basketball. He came down with beautiful grace, feet together. A moment later he was thanked and dismissed.
       Raines fled past the row of men into the waiting room and began studying one of the firm's framed awards, hoping whatever was on his face would fade before Marty spotted him. Rapid strides came down the corridor.
       "What are you doing here?"
       Turning in mock-surprise, Raines was checked from his chummy spiel by what he saw in Marty's face. H's flesh was mottled, his eyes were moist. The expression under the track light had opened up like a wound. When Raines embraced him their heads kept moving to the same side. In his blazer Marty felt starched. "Let's get out of here," he said.
       At the elevator he kept poking the down button.
       "Damn Japanese. They turned a hundred thousand of my Korean sisters into comfort women."
       Raines didn't know whether to laugh. As far as he knew, Marty had never expressed remotely ethnic sentiments.
       "I love what you do for me," Marty sang. "Toyota!" He raised his arms and started into the slow-motion leap, knees bending; but this time he didn't finish it. Straightening, he engaged Raines s eyes. "Let me tell you about the script," Marty said, but he didn't unlock the gaze and his brown almond eyes gleamed with the power of injury until Raines had to look away, ashamed, relieved, knowing he'd been seen but Marty was going to spare him from pretending that his friend hadn't been humiliated before his eyes. Marty had never looked at him this way. It unnerved Raines.
       They got on the elevator. Through the closing doors Marty stared at the premises of Jones & Weisberg.
       "So I'm the husband of a new-type couple. Two kids. We're fairly hip and we like speed and style but we also have strong family values. Plus we're very economy-minded, this being the nineties. Obviously we drive a Camry."
       "All this is in the script?"
       "Hey, they do a lot of work with character. "Was he kidding? Unsure, Raines split the difference and grunted tonelessly. "So in the piece there's an aerial shot of our car in various American locales-the standard Monument Valley, Everglades, California coast-they're planning a shoot along Point Reyes. My mother could have baked for the crew. Then I come on in voice over and say, 'I wanted my kids to see this beautiful country of ours.' Then we pull into the driveway and the miles per gallon appears on the screen. 'l also wanted something in my pocket when we got back home.'"
       Raines realized that this was what Marty had been repeating for the businessmen.
       "An appeal to crude nationalism?"
       "You bet. You're practically supposed to think the car was made in America." Marty gave Raines the smallest of smiles. "Clearly I was inappropriate."
       "I wonder why they auditioned you."
       "My agency tries hard. And in my glossy I almost look Caucasian. It downplays my epicanthic folds. But Bill, while they were checking me out I was checking them out and I couldn't get this scenario out of my head. Remember the Joe Isuzu ads, with subtitles- 'He's lying'? When the Toyota people do the freeze- frame on my patriotic Jump at the end, here are the subtitles: He's the product of a Sino-Hispano-dysfuncto family. His father is a Korean trading competitor. His immigrant mother is bankrupting Medicare and Social Security. His brother associates with the urban underclass.' Wouldn't it make a great ad?"
       They went through the steel door into the soft winter sunlight of Mission Street. Marty seemed to be waiting for an answer.
       "Is it always such a beauty-contest atmosphere?" Raines asked.
       "What do you mean?"
       Marty knew what he meant. Raines began to understand that he wasn't going to be forgiven. Behind the charade there was always the truth-but charades served a purpose.They spared feelings, and wasn't that worth something? To Raines it was worth a lot.
       "Let's stop talking about those assholes," Marty said. "I don't want this to become an indelible memory."
       When they were in the MG, the canvas top 'use over their scalps, Marty put his key in the ignition and stared through the windshield. "That's what my work is like, Bill."
       "Christ, that's fine."
       "That's about it, in there."
       They drove west on Fell, along the Panhandle toward Golden Gate Park. Raines had his window down and occupied himself with the reviving smell of eucalyptus.
       "Are you exhausted?" Marty asked. "Do you want to go straight to my place? Or take a drive through the park?"
       "I always like to see those Japanese cypress or whatever."
       "They even make better trees."
       Marty suddenly sounded lighthearted, and in his relief Raines couldn't help saying, "You look really well, buddy."
       "Do you think so?" Marty glanced at Raines and then at the rear-view as if for confirmation. "I'm glad to hear you say that. It really cheers me up to see you, Bill. It always makes me think things are going to go well."

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