William Henry Devereaux Jr. and Teddy Barnes’s Longstanding Friendship

William Henry Devereaux, Jr. and Teddy Barnes share a longstanding friendship grounded in everyday loyalty and sharpened by a persistent mismatch in temperament: William turns intimacy into a joke, while Teddy takes love, embarrassment, and friendship with grave seriousness. Teddy’s unrequited affection for William’s wife, Lily, complicates that bond without breaking it. Instead, the friendship makes room for care and jealousy, flirtatious teasing and an old confidence neither man quite knows how to put away.

A Friendship of Contrasting Temperaments

At forty-nine, Teddy and William are the same age, and both have tenure. They are close enough for Teddy to drive William home, yet William watches his friend’s cautiousness with an amused, occasionally unkind eye. Teddy waits rather than push his Civic into a left turn across oncoming traffic; when a promising gap proves too small, he settles back with a frustrated sigh. William’s silent reflection is that Teddy would struggle to start over—to learn unfamiliar things, compete, and find a mate. When that thought escapes aloud, Teddy’s alarmed question makes the difference between them plain: he does not readily treat the stability they have as a condition to escape.

The scene is more than a portrait of timidity. Their shared tenure gives both men a measure of security, while William’s question about starting over touches the vulnerability beneath Teddy’s caution. Teddy does not pursue an abstract argument about youth or reinvention; he is momentarily frightened by the possibility that his friend has imagined him needing a different life. Their closeness permits William to voice a private judgment, but it does not make the judgment harmless.

The Confession About Lily

Teddy has carried an innocent crush on Lily for more than twenty years. After William and Lily built a house in the country, Teddy had fewer chances to see her, but he continued finding reasons to visit. On occasional Saturday mornings when the two men played basketball, Teddy would give William a ride, accepting a four-mile drive into the country despite living only a few blocks from the court. His practical generosity thus also brought him near the person he loved from afar.

More than a decade before the later ride home, Teddy confessed his infatuation to William during a drunken night. Almost immediately, he tried to extract a promise that William would keep it secret. William answered by pretending he would tell Lily as soon as he got home, then framed his threat as a joke: being a pacifist did not prevent him from threatening Teddy, although it meant Teddy need not take the threat seriously. The exchange exposes their differing instincts. William uses mock menace to puncture an awkward moment; Teddy takes the confidence and its possible consequences earnestly.

Teddy’s most painful point was not simply that he desired Lily. With tears in his eyes, he told William that William did not love her as much as he should. William stayed dry-eyed and answered with teasing disbelief, then escalated the joke by proposing that he promise to ravish Lily. To William, the scene’s absurdity was difficult to miss: two middle-aged men in a Railton bar debating how much love a wife deserved. Teddy, however, did not regard love as something to joke about. The episode makes their friendship a place where a sincere moral claim and a defensive comic performance meet without resolving into agreement.

A Confidence Kept in Play

William remains the only one who refers to Teddy’s confession. Teddy has never retracted it, but the incident remains embarrassing, and William’s repeated teasing keeps the old vulnerability present without making Teddy repeat it. When they are together again, Teddy ruefully suggests that he wishes William felt something for June Barnes, so the two friends could share a reciprocal yearning from afar. The suggestion transforms Teddy’s private, one-sided attachment into a possible joke between them, but its ruefulness preserves the ache underneath. William responds by asking Teddy’s age; Teddy falls quiet before changing the subject to the real reason he wanted to drive him home.

The affection is not confined to the confession. During the visit, Teddy reports that he brought William home, and notes that William has not thanked him. William counters that Teddy’s help has left his car in the faculty lot and means Lily will have to drive him to campus before leaving for Philadelphia. He accuses Teddy of arranging the favor to flirt with Lily. Teddy blushes so intensely that Lily kisses his cheek, making him redder still, and remarks that it is nice to be flirted with occasionally. The moment is playful, but it also shows that Teddy’s feeling is known within this household and can be met with warmth rather than expulsion.

Care Beneath the Teasing

William describes Teddy and Lily’s camaraderie as partly founded on their shared belief that William is an ingrate. His own counter-accusation—that Teddy’s generous ride is a pretext for seeing Lily—turns gratitude into another round of banter. Yet the teasing does not cancel the care that brought Teddy there. The friendship can carry practical help while allowing William to protest, mock, and resist acknowledging what the help means.

After Teddy and Lily step outside, William watches them through the kitchen window and imagines them as lovers. He recognizes the scene as his own fantasy, not a betrayal: when the pair share a quick, chaste hug and separate, he is almost disappointed. What follows gives the friendship its clearest emotional measure. William thinks Teddy asks Lily whether he will be all right, not whether his injured nose is all right. The concern reaches beyond the immediate visible injury, though William cannot hear Lily’s answer. Teddy’s old love for Lily and his friendship with William converge in that unanswered question: he is still attentive to the man whose marriage stands between him and the woman he has long desired.

The bond endures through this unresolved arrangement rather than through a clean confession or a decisive change. Teddy’s affection remains unacted upon; William continues to make it a subject of jokes; Lily can respond to Teddy with tenderness; and Teddy continues to show up when William needs a ride. Their contrasting ways of handling feeling produce both friction and intimacy. The friendship’s defining gesture is therefore not a declaration but a combination of ordinary assistance, embarrassing candor, and concern that William is tempted to dismiss even as he recognizes it.