Summer in the Land of Skin
Jody Gehrman

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Kathryn

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One of my favorite shower fantasies while I was working on this book involved mentally composing this page. There have been so many indispensable people who have helped me, I’m afraid I’ll drag on and on like the worst of Academy Award winners. To avoid such a nightmare, I’ll try to be snappy. Thanks to: Ed Gehrman, Sherry Garner and Jamie Gehrman-Selby for lifelong love and support; my agent, Dorian Karchmar, for her sharp eye and spot-on instincts; Barbara Lowenstein for giving me a chance; my editor, Margaret Marbury, and her team at Red Dress for their hip sensibilities and professionalism; Tania Hannan for editing out every “throbbing clitoris” and thus saving me from infinite shame; my teachers, most notably Patti Reeves, Carolyn Moore, Carol Guess, Gina Nahai, David Scott Milton, T. C. Boyle, John Rechy and Tristine Rainer; my colleagues at Mendocino College for their ongoing support; my students, who teach me so much about writing daily; Tommy Zurhellen for years of rock-solid writerly encouragement and friendship; Ted O’Callahan, for reminding me during early drafts that fiction isn’t just about wish fulfillment; Chris Herrod and Dexter Johnson for their guidance in my luthier research; Arlan Lackie, Kathryn Stevenson, M. Harvey Anderson and Colville Melody for their inspiration. Most of all I want to thank David Wolf, the only man in the world who would stay up all night reading an early draft of this aloud, keeping me well-stocked in Kleenex when the chapters were awful and seeing beauty before it was even there.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1: Learning to Taste

CHAPTER 2: So This Is Bellingham

CHAPTER 3: The Sex Queen of Fanny’s Barbecue Palace

CHAPTER 4: Caliban

CHAPTER 5: Déjà Vu

CHAPTER 6: Lemon Cookies

CHAPTER 7: Mama—Mama, Please

CHAPTER 8: Boulevard Park

CHAPTER 9: The Skins

CHAPTER 10: Independence Day

CHAPTER 11: The Penny Guy

CHAPTER 12: Stains

CHAPTER 13: The Edge of the World

CHAPTER 14: Bombay Sapphire Gin

CHAPTER 15: The Garden of Earthly Delights

CHAPTER 16: One More Dance Before the Apocalypse

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Everyone has a summer that changes them forever. Mine takes place in a dilapidated Victorian in a rainy, northwestern town, where a good day smells like blackberries turning fat and moist on the vine, and a bad day smells like the ghosts of rancid pulp drifting east from the mill. The sound track is a slide guitar, a sad harmonica and the repeated click of a Zippo. The props are cigarettes, coffee cups, gin and tonics with wedges of lime suspended amidst clouds of bubbles. The days are textured with the fine dust of cocobolo rosewood, and the silk of a Honduras mahogany neck pressed tightly against the thumb. Every year of my life, when June rushes in with girls in spaghetti straps and boys strutting shirtless, their limbs still kissed with the pale of winter, I will think of the summer that gave me back my senses.

CHAPTER 1
Learning to Taste

I guess it’s obvious now that my father had some secret fatal flaw—a defect eating away at him somewhere inside his heart—but in the years leading up to his death I remember him as filled with the vigor of a yogi. His body was sinewy, long and lean, his hair a wild mixture of silver and brown spilling over his shoulders. Everyone agrees he was a genius; he built some of the finest, most intricate guitars in the world. I used to spend hours in his shop, caressing the stacks of wood that felt warm and alive under my small hands, putting my cheek against the cool mother-of-pearl. I would watch him patiently bend the rosewood sides over a heated tube, then clamp them into S-shaped molds to be sure the curves came out just right— “like a beautiful woman’s hips,” he used to say. I replay my memories of watching him work; I search his unguarded face, looking for clues. But he always seemed too alive, too otherworldly to be headed for such a seedy death. He had strangely feral eyes, dark as polished mahogany, with a visionary zeal so startling he could only be a god or a demon.

I think of those eyes as I tighten the focus on my binoculars, getting ready to study Magdalena. I do a cursory search of the others, skimming over their windows quickly—an exhausted mother changing her baby’s diaper, a young couple arguing as they gesture with shiny martini glasses. But the one I’m looking for is the slim, kimono-clad woman with raised bamboo blinds. There she is, on the third floor, watching the fog roll over the western hills. A single, flawless black braid snakes over one shoulder and her skin is so pale it makes me think of calla lilies. There is something in her eyes that always reminds me of my father—it’s the look that infants get when they gaze into the air with wild, unfocused bliss. Just give her a few hours, though. By midnight, she will stare out over the city with the hollow listlessness of a concentration camp inmate, a gaze that says she’s seen too much to go on looking.

I sketch her quickly in my notebook, and label it Magdalena: Manic as Usual. Then I spend hours jotting down notes about her childhood in Florida, her career as a flamenco dancer, and her inevitable suicide here, in San Francisco. She’s the type to slit her wrists in a bathtub. She thinks it will be pretty—all that red—like liquid roses.

I know I’m supposed to be somewhere tomorrow morning at seven. Namely, decaying in a lukewarm office before a computer screen, accomplishing data entry. But somehow I haven’t been able to move from this spot for days. I have a secret life here, wrapped in my beige apartment, recording the lives and deaths of my neighbors. Their bodies are real. Their histories—and their suicides—are all mine.

Maybe this is how it started with my father. Genes are very tricky, you know, millions of random cells dividing in a state of anarchy. I could have easily inherited the fatal flaw, the firing synapses that led him to that Motel 6, left him staring blankly at the cheap, flocked ceiling, wet with his blood.

I know I will not sleep. I have insomnia. Like him.

This is how I pass the time. Watching other people trying to live.

It is early in the morning when my mother comes whipping into my apartment in her high heels and tasteful, butter-yellow pantsuit. She sees me with my head propped against the wall, binoculars cradled between my thighs. I am naked, except for the old army blanket I have draped over my shoulders. I have not slept in five days. Her expression tells me that I am a despicable sight. She stands there, her thumb hooked on the strap of her suede briefcase, and surveys me with the edges of her mouth twitching.

She tries to flip her hair away from her shoulder casually—a habit left over from when her hair was very long, though she’s worn it in a pixie cut for fourteen years now and there is no longer anything left to flip. She pretends not to notice herself doing this and comes to sit on the edge of my bed.

“Christ, Anna,” she whispers.

She can look very mournful in the right light, though it is her practice to wear an optimistic smear of blush on each cheek and a precise smile, not too toothy, since there’s a gold cap next to her right canine. She takes a handkerchief from her pocket and reaches over to wipe a bit of sleep from my eye.

“Let’s get you in the shower,” she says. “Then we’ll put something nice on and go get breakfast. How does that sound?”

The muted morning light is resting on her face and hands, and the graceful curve of her neck is shining. I can recognize the fragile beauty my father must have seen in her—pale and vulnerable, with a dancer’s delicacy.

“You’re skin and bones. Let’s not talk until we’ve got you a nice omelette, a shot of espresso—”

“I’m not hungry,” I say.

Her hand seizes my wrist. “Listen to me,” she snaps, her eyes turned abruptly dangerous. “You will get in the shower now, do you hear me?”

“Jesus,” I say, and try to pull my hand away from hers.

“NOW!” Her jaw is clenched; I can see a vein at her temple throbbing rapidly.

“Okay,” I say “All right. My God.” This is my mother: fragile and sunlit one moment, pulsing with rage the next. I stand up, a little shakily, pulling the blanket around my body. “I’m twenty-five, you know, not ten.” I take a few steps in the direction of the bathroom, but everything seems unreal; I try to focus on my kitchen table, but the edges go blurry. I look up at the ceiling, the walls, the antique clock my grandmother left me. My legs become liquid, and a warm wave of nausea washes over me. I think to myself, Okay, then, I’m dying, and the thought registers something like relief before the room goes black.

I open my eyes and the world is filled with white tile, glass, and my mother’s face hanging over me, gaunt and transparent, like a ghost. The shower is on full blast, shooting ice-cold water at my solar plexus.

“Did you take something?”

I raise my head enough to view my hands, both of which look very distant. They are lying like dead fish in the shallow water of the tub.

“Sleeping pills, Valium? What?” she demands, pushing my hair back from my forehead.

“Nothing,” I say.

“You’re sure?”

“God, Mom, I don’t want to die,” I say, sitting up and reaching over to turn the shower off. “I just didn’t want to go to work.”

I watch as she pulls herself out of her crouching position, brushes imaginary lint off her pant legs and sits on the toilet. She rummages in her pocket and produces a pack of Virginia Slims.

“After Hours fired you. Did you get that message?”

I shrug. “You’ve been working on me to quit since I started there.”

She exhales impatiently. “I want you to use your degree.”

“Yeah. Big demand for anthropology majors.”

“I want you to use your mind, is what I mean. Data entry for a condom company is just not you, sweetheart. But this way you can’t even use them as a reference—that doesn’t help you move forward.”

Move forward. My mother is the queen of forward movement—with her sporty silver Fiat and her Silicon Valley life, where she drinks double espressos like water and occasionally sleeps with programmers visiting from Boston or Berlin. She hurls herself forward with the streamlined perseverance of a bullet train, but in her eyes there is a panic that is pure animal.

She smiles knowingly now and tells me, “Derek called yesterday. He said he was worried about your ‘stunted spiritual evolution.’”

I roll my eyes. “Derek. Jesus.”

“I told him, ‘It sounds like you’ve been dumped, buddy.’”

I’ve been with Derek for five years, and until recently I’d never asked myself why. He is thirty-six years old. He has an early-morning paper route to supplement the paltry cash he earns teaching meditation at a grubby little Buddhist center in Corte Madera. Now that we’ve broken up, I cannot even summon enough pathos to cry.

“Maybe it’s good,” my mother says. “A blessing in disguise.”

I can tell the cigarette cheered her up some.

“Maybe what’s good?”

“This little nervous breakdown you’re having,” she says. “Or whatever it is.”

“That’s great, Mother,” I say, pulling on some jeans. “Maintain your condescension, even in crisis.”

“Sometimes the only way to heaven is straight through hell.”

I stare at her. “What did you say?”

She looks up at me, startled. “What? What’s wrong now?”

“What did you just say?”

“About your nervous breakdown?”

“No. The other part.”

I watch her as she realizes her mistake.

My mother hasn’t spoken my father’s name even once in the fourteen years since he died. Very rarely, though, she will slip up and use an expression of his. My father had his own idioms—quirky phrases he repeatedly tirelessly. These words are buried in us, my mother and me, like tiny scraps of shrapnel.

She looks like a frightened child, now, caught in a lie. “Isn’t that funny,” she says. “I really don’t remember.” She flashes the precise, practiced smile that does not show her gold tooth. “I’m dying for some good coffee. How about you?”

Although my mother consumes on a daily basis the most exotic, trendy foods money can buy, when we’re together, she invariably insists on Josie’s, where the entrées jiggle under pools of grease and the espresso tastes like battery acid.

“Why do you like this place so much?” I ask. We’re standing in line to order, studying the menu, which is written in bubble letters with Day-Glo chalk on huge blackboards.

She glances around. “Some places just feel like home.”

Why my mother would feel at home here is a mystery. The place is filled with pierced faces and torn clothing, magenta shocks of hair and prominently displayed tattoos. My mother, sunny and fresh in her silk pantsuit, looks like Martha Stewart in a mosh pit.

We give our order to the girl behind the counter, a sullen, ungroomed thing with lots of beads knotted into her hair. Then we take our laminated number and find a table near the windows, where we wait in awkward silence for our food. I can tell my mother is aching for a cigarette. She keeps scraping at her cuticles like a nervous insect. They bring us our shots of espresso, and after she knocks hers back her face visibly relaxes. For me, though, the bitter brown syrup is a shock to my system; my mouth explodes with sensation. Five straight days without food or sleep have left me clean and high and empty; the world has a surreal pallor. The people and shapes of Josie’s move around me like an animated collage.

When our food arrives my mother orders another shot of espresso and digs into her ham-and-cheese omelette with embarrassing fervor. I raise a fork and touch the porous skin of my crepe. It gives under the blade of my knife much too easily, and something in my belly flips upside down.

“I know!” my mother says, talking out of the side of her mouth as she chews. “Suppose you took a class in computer programming?” She delivers this with a semblance of fresh energy, leaning forward like it’s an idea she’s just now hit upon, not the same suggestion she’s been making weekly for the past three years.

“Mother,” I say, my voice low with warning.

“But, no, I suppose you like data entry. I guess that’s your calling?”

“That’s over, now.”

“Oh, you’ll go groveling back there—”

“Don’t tell me what I’m going to do!”

We’re both surprised at how loud this comes out. A girl at a table near us glances over; she looks like a Rocky Horror Picture Show die-hard, and I resent her white face turning in our direction. I shoot her a dirty look and she averts her eyes. All at once I feel strangely powerful. I still haven’t even nibbled at my crepe, and I am floating on that weird, food-and-sleep-deprived hollowness that tastes like enlightenment.

“All right, Anna,” she says. “So you tell me. What are you going to do?”

“Sometimes the only way to heaven is straight through hell.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” she chides, as if I have just cursed.

“What’s wrong with quoting my own—”

“I can’t,” she says, looking around helplessly. “I can’t do this.”

But I don’t want to stop—I’m empty and reckless, empowered by the sound of my own voice. “I’m not even living, Mom. I haven’t been alive for fourteen years.”

She gets up so suddenly that her chair knocks against the plate-glass window and her empty espresso cup topples over. She rights the cup quickly and snatches her briefcase. “I’m going outside,” she says, already moving toward the door. A muscular bike messenger inadvertently blocks her way for a moment, and she elbows past him, fumbling in her pocket for cigarettes.

Alone now with the crepes and the coffee, a calm comes over me, and the smell of food fills my head. I cut a piece of crepe with the edge of my fork and skewer a strawberry. I place the bite in my mouth carefully, like someone conducting an experiment. I chew slowly, and the flavors unfold with an intensity that shocks me; I can taste every seed inside the berry, every ounce of sweetness, the butter in the crepes, the eggs, the cream—it all sings on my tongue with a symphonic unity. For fourteen years, everything has tasted like variations on oatmeal. And now, suddenly, this wild thing is happening inside my mouth—a reminder of what it’s like to be alive.

That night I find myself sitting across from Aunt Rosie in the hip little Mission District dive she favors, The Boom Boom Room, where the lights are Chinatown red and the people all wear loud, retro-print shirts.

“I want you to know, kiddo, I think it’s just great you told your mother off.” Rosie is compact and feisty, with a bit of the bulldog in her. She has a boxer’s nose, thick, ungainly lips, and her body is built like a miniature tank, with almost no visible neck. She always wears platform shoes, and glitter on her eyelids; occasionally she is mistaken for a drag queen. “God knows she needed it. If Helen had her head stuffed any farther up her ass, she’d have to have it surgically removed.” She laughs at her own joke—one quick, staccato bark—and then looks unconvincingly contrite. “I’m sorry, kitten, I’m not here to badmouth your mother.” She takes a swig from her Miller Light. “She wasn’t always so uptight, you know. Back in the day, she was quite the party girl.” She rotates her beer bottle, a sad smile lingering on her lips. Then she sees me watching her, and looks suddenly self-conscious. “So anyway, what’s next?”

Without knowing I’m going to say it, I blurt out, “I want to build guitars, like Dad.”

She looks at me in surprise, then smiles. “Groovy,” she says. “Do you still play?”

I shake my head. “Not since he died. Mother didn’t want any music in the house.”

“Good God. That woman.” She takes off her pink fur coat and finishes her beer. “I don’t know why she has to be like that. It’s not good for you. It’s not good for her, either.”

“She acts like he never even existed.”

“I know,” she says. “It’s sad. I always thought it was sad.” She pushes my White Russian toward me. “Drink up, baby girl! You haven’t had a sip.”

I put the straw to my lips and suck a little of the sweet, creamy liquid. I’m not used to drinking, really. I’m not used to going out at all, lately.

“Well, I’m not surprised you want to learn the trade. You’ve got guitars in your blood. Your dad and Bender were legends.”

“Who’s that?”

“Elliot Bender. Old friend of your dad’s. They had a business for years—shit, they made guitars for Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Bo Ramsey.” She looks around the bar dreamily, remembering. “They had a falling-out—everything fell apart. It was ridiculous, really.” She turns to me abruptly, her eyebrows raised high. “I have an idea,” she says.

It takes me one day to prepare, with Rosie’s help. I break my lease and fill my dad’s old leather backpack with four changes of clothes, ten pairs of underwear, a toothbrush, floss, and a notebook. I’ve got a thousand dollars to my name. Rosie insists on lending me her third ex-husband’s pickup truck. I leave my furniture and most of my belongings in her cluttered garage, with little hope of ever finding them again, buried in that sea of ancient trunks and stereo speakers, plastic shower curtains and milk crates full of yellowed photos.

Standing outside her old Victorian in go-go boots and a red chenille robe, Rosie cuts quite a figure in the chilly morning fog. It’s too early for her—seven a.m.—and it shows. Her hair is hectic with static electricity, and rings of mascara circle her puffy eyes. She yawns wide as she hands me an envelope and a carved statue of a Hindi god that fits in the palm of my hand.

“What’s this?”

“Shiva was your dad’s favorite—he took that thing with him everywhere. I figured you should have it.” I stand there on the sidewalk, fingering the smooth, cherry-colored wood, trying to imagine it in his hand. “Open the envelope later. It’s another good luck charm.” She smiles sleepily, and I hug her. “Now get out of here,” she says. “Before someone sees me like this.”

I forget all about the envelope until I’m in Portland, late that night, surrounded by the quiet gloom of a rest stop. I’ve been driving so many hours, when I rest my head against the steering wheel and close my eyes, I still see the road rushing at me. I reach for my backpack and take out the envelope, hold it in my hands a moment before opening it carefully. There’s a Bob Dylan quote scribbled in large, messy letters on the back of an ATM receipt. Kitten: She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist, she don’t look back. XOXOXO, Rosie. I sit there, smiling in the dim yellow cast by the dome light, reading her words over and over, lingering on the urgent X’s and O’s. In the envelope is a crumpled one-hundred-dollar bill. As I pull back onto the interstate, I can feel a dull stinging behind my eyes, and I know if I weren’t so out of practice, I would cry.

On impulse, I get my hair cut in Seattle. I decide to let Ray, a high-strung man in a shaggy vest and leather pants, have total creative freedom with me above the neck. It takes hours, and there’s a lot of paraphernalia—intricate layers of foil, multiple applications of toxic-smelling goo. When he’s done, he spins the chair toward the mirror, and I barely recognize the girl staring back at me. I look like a 1920s starlet—he’s fashioned me in a chin-length bob, shorter in back like the flappers used to wear, and he’s highlighted my blond with streaks of bright gold.

“Girl,” he says, appraising me proudly, “I’ve really outdone myself today.”

As I’m driving the last seventy miles north to Bellingham, I tug at the rearview mirror now and then to look at myself. Each time, I’m startled by the strange woman staring back at me.

CHAPTER 2
So This Is Bellingham

I arrive. My mouth is so dry, it feels like somebody replaced my tongue with a wad of cotton. I drive past old houses painted creamy whites and weather-beaten yellows, wild gardens filled with morning glories and nasturtiums tossing gently in the breeze. The blues are bluer here, the greens greener. I turn a corner and catch my breath; there’s the bay, its wind-textured surface catching the gold. My heart is thumping inside me as I drive. Everything—the cars, the buildings, the people strolling about on the sidewalks—seems like moving photographs, hand-painted in tasteful colors. On the air I can smell a trace of salt, mixed with a strange, pulpy odor.

Driving along the main street that slopes gradually toward the bay I pass the old brick buildings of a small downtown. The sun is warm through my windshield. There are couples and students window-shopping and sipping from paper cups. They look sleepy and content.

I hear a loud shriek and I turn to see a girl in a dress and combat boots, one hand on her hip, the other hand pointing directly at her companion, a long-haired guy leaning against an old station wagon, covering his eyes and shaking his head. The girl begins kicking at the tires of the car, her brown hair flying. I slow to a crawl, mesmerized by the rage in her movements. She looks up at me for an instant, her hair still in her face, making her look feral and dangerous; our eyes hold, and the moment stretches on strangely. The man turns and stares at me now, too. Then all at once, the girl cries, “What are you looking at, bitch?” and the car behind me starts honking.

I shake myself from the trance and pull my foot off the brake, put it back on the gas. From my radio, Johnny Cash sings, Drive on, don’t mean nothin’, drive on.

It takes me a good two hours to find Elliot Bender. Aunt Rosie wasn’t able to dig up his phone number, so he has no idea I’m coming, and all I have is a Post-it with a barely legible address scribbled on it. What I find there is a startled woman in a terry-cloth sweatsuit and a couple of astonishingly fat kids. It’s a rundown cabin near the train tracks. A greasy yellow dog with brown teeth strains from the end of a chain and barks so loudly my head throbs. When I ask if she knows who lived there before, she nods and squints up at the sky.

“Weird fellow,” she says. “We used to drink together, back when I lived in that little shit hole over there.” She points her chin at a trailer across the way. “Heard he moved onto a boat.”

“A boat?” I echo.

“Down at the marina,” she says. “Out by that stinky old mill. I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.”

I’ve never known anyone who lives on a boat, but I’ve always been fascinated by pirates, so I’m a little titillated. After a half-hour spent asking around down by the docks, I’m finally able to locate his slip. When I see the size of it—no more than thirty-five feet, bow to stern—I realize that my half-baked assumption that this guy could put me up for a while is out of the question. No guest rooms here.

There’s a locked gate separating the boat owners from the world at large, and I’m standing behind it, my fingers laced in the wire diamonds, staring at the two lines of sailboats knocking quietly against the docks. The guy at the office told me to look for slip number thirteen. I hadn’t anticipated the problem of how to announce myself, when there’s no real door to knock on. As I’m standing there, staring at Elliot Bender’s boat, a mounting shyness nearly turns me back around. I reach into my pocket and feel for Shiva, finger the comforting lines of the wood, warmed by my body.

“You looking for somebody?”

I jump a little, then locate a very small man sanding the bow of a sailboat. He’s not even four feet tall, with disproportionately long arms and a pink, bearded face.

“Elliot—um—Elliot Bender?” I stammer.

Before I know what’s happening, he’s hollering in an unnaturally loud voice, “Bender!” He looks at me, rolls his eyes, and mutters, “Lazy bastard,” then resumes with even more volume, “BENDER!” We both watch the rundown old boat intently, but nothing happens. Gentle waves swish against the docks, while a seagull screeches disapprovingly. The little guy goes back to sanding. “Who are you, anyway?”

I stand there, trying to find the right answer. I grip Shiva tighter in my pocket, and I can feel the wood sliding against the wet of my palm.

Just then, a head appears from below deck. It is turned away from me, and all I can see is a wild mess of dark gray hair.

“What do you want, Stumpy?” Stumpy gestures in my direction, and the head turns abruptly toward me. As he rises from the hole, there’s a flash of blue eyes, a face grown silver with stubble, and a great swell of belly beneath a grease-stained undershirt. He freezes, visible only from the waist up, and something tells me he’s not decent from the waist down.

“Yeah?” he says to me, blinking in the sunlight.

“Are you Elliot Bender?” I force my voice into a deceptive evenness.

“Who wants to know?”

“I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute. Is this a bad time?”

“Look, I paid that dentist bill, if that’s what you’re after—”

I smile. “No,” I say. “It’s nothing like that.”

“What, the phone?”

I shake my head.

He sighs, starts patting at his mess of hair, stroking it into submission like it’s an animal that must be tamed. “Do I know you?” he says, his tone still wary.

“Sort of,” I say. “I’m Anna Medina.”

He stares at me. I watch as his Adam’s apple bobs once in a hard swallow.

“Just a minute,” he says finally, and disappears down below.

Stumpy climbs over onto the dock and opens the gate for me. “Man doesn’t know how to treat a lady,” he says, winking.

I thank him, then stand there awkwardly, waiting for Elliot Bender to reappear. I am still exhausted from the hours of driving, and feel ill-equipped to deal with this unexpected turn of events. I imagined my father’s partner as a quaint, pipe-smoking man, with an immaculate, spacious studio filled with the finest guitars, smelling of lacquer, spruce and rosewood. Here I am, with a midget sailor and an overweight, half-naked man who thinks I’m trying to collect on a dentist bill.

“Climb on board,” he says, having reappeared in a pair of ragged corduroys and a flannel shirt whose buttons don’t match up, holding a can of Budweiser.

I carefully make my way onto the boat; it is old, plagued with layers of peeling paint, and as I get a better look I see it is cluttered with beer cans, crumpled newspaper, piles of tangled rope gone black with grease.

He sees me looking around and shrugs. “Home sweet home,” he says, his voice flat.

His free hand floats again to his hair, patting it down. I see he has attempted to slick it down on top, though rather unsuccessfully; it is now matted and greasy in places but springs rebelliously to life everywhere else. I look around for a place to sit, find none. He sees this, sets his beer down and scurries below deck, then emerges with a lawn chair in one hand and a bucket in the other. He flips the lawn chair open and sets it down, nodding at it in invitation, then sets the bucket upside down and sits on it, reclaiming his beer and taking a long swig.

“You take the chair,” I say.

“Never,” he says. “Go on, sit.”

I do as I’m told, though the sight of him balancing on that bucket is dangerously comic, and I’m afraid I might laugh, I’m so giddy with nerves and lack of sleep.

“Offer the lady a drink!” Stumpy yells from across the dock.

“Hey,” Bender says over his shoulder. “Mind your own damn business!”

He smiles a little, sheepishly, and for a second I catch a glimpse of the handsome young man he must have been, with the square jaw and heavy brow of a young Marlon Brando. The sunlight glints on his eyes; they are the brightest blue I’ve ever seen.

“You want a beer? You old enough to drink?”

“I am,” I say, sounding prim in spite of myself. “But no thank you.”

He lets his eyes rest on my face for an unnaturally long pause. I touch the back of my head, feeling the foreign shortness of the hair there, and start to blush.

“Yep,” he says, softly. “You’re Medina’s kid, all right.”

“What makes you say that?” I say, smiling at my shoes.

“That smile,” he says. “Your mouth’s got Medina all over it.”

I look up and see him feeling for the button of his shirt at the place where his belly is biggest, making sure it’s still fastened. I realize it must be very hard for him to find shirts that fit, and for a second I feel sorry for him. He looks back at me intently, and I find myself staring shyly at my shoes again. He drinks from his beer, a long hard swig, then he crushes the can beneath his foot and tosses it near the bow, where it settles with a tinny clang amidst a pile of others.

“You sure you don’t want a beer?” he says, getting up and grabbing another Bud from a beat-up ice chest.

“No thanks,” I repeat.

He pops open the can and tilts back his head. Then he sits on the ice chest, and I’m relieved that I don’t have to watch him teetering on the tiny bucket anymore.

“I don’t have guests very often these days,” he says. “Don’t have much to offer—you just let me know if you change your mind about the beer.” I nod. “So, what brings you to Bellingham?”

“Well…” I can feel my face going hot. I take a breath and say, “I’m interested in learning a trade.”

“What trade is that?”

I force myself to look him in the eye. “I want to be a luthier.”

“Is that right?” he says. “Your father teach you much?” I shake my head.

“Still doesn’t really explain what you’re doing up here.”

“I was hoping you could teach me.” He’s staring out over the water, that serious brow and the silver stubble making him look like an old-time sea captain. He brings the can to his lips again, fastens his mouth to the hole, and slurps loudly, then burps.

“You want to be a luthier….” He won’t look at me now. He gets up abruptly and fishes in his pocket, produces a book of matches. “You smoke, Medina?”

“What?”

“Do you smoke?” he says, exaggerating his enunciation as if I might be slow.

“No. Why?”

“I quit. Ten years ago. But times like this I could really use a smoke.”

He stuffs his hands in his pockets. I want to say something that will put him at ease, but I’ve got a feeling just my being here is the worst part. He shakes his head and stares out at the bay, shifting his weight from side to side, making the boat rock a little. I hold on to the aluminum armrests of the lawn chair.

“Do you still have a shop?” I ask.

“Oh yeah. This right here’s my shop,” he says. “They come from miles around for their Bender guitars!” He shakes his head again, drinks his beer.

“My aunt Rosie says you’re the best.”

A small grin takes over his mouth, seemingly against his will. “Rosie. I should’ve known. She put you up to this?”

“She told me about you.”

“Your aunt is one crazy woman,” he says. “Almost as crazy as your mother.” He sits back down on the ice chest. “I guess your dad didn’t tell you much about me, huh?”

“Not that I remember,” I say.

“No,” he says. “I guess he wouldn’t.” The grin is still there, but now it looks more like a grimace; his mouth curves up at the edges, but there’s no pleasure in his eyes. “Well, I’m sorry you came all this way, but I can’t teach you anything, Medina. I haven’t touched my tools in a long time.”

I swallow, try to make my voice sound polite. “So, what do you do now?”

He finishes his beer, leans forward so his elbows are resting on his knees and twists the empty can in his hands. “This is what I do,” he says, staring at the mangled can. “You’re looking at it.”

I wander the streets as the sun goes down. It’s moving in slow motion—a torturous slide into the water. The mill sits like a big rusty beast near the bay and belches white smoke into the air. Clouds huddle along the horizon, gradually starting to display a spread of garish pink. I pace the sidewalks, trying to concentrate on the windows. In the orange light, the neighborhood takes on a watercolor glow.

I keep walking.

The absurdity of this mission is all too clear to me. I am several states from anyone I know, homeless, jobless, sporting a haircut that only this morning was glamorous but now is a ridiculous anachronism—I’m a flapper lost in space. Bender is a hopeless drunk, and my plan to apprentice with him is a farce. Yesterday morning, Rosie was a radiant goddess in go-go boots, launching me into my destiny. Tonight, she is revealed as a bored divorcée, tinkering with my life to escape her own.

My pace increases. I can’t remember where I left the truck. I walk and walk, as if the feel of the concrete under my shoes will keep me from floating away, balloonlike, into the sky.

Rounding a corner, I hear a few strains of slide guitar. It’s a song I used to know. The sun is finally down, and I can feel a chill trying to seep through my T-shirt to my skin, but my legs keep moving, pumping heat into the rest of me. Oh, sweet mama, your daddy’s got those Deep Ellum blues. I move in the direction of that voice, that guitar. I figure it must be coming from a bar somewhere, but I’m lost in a neighborhood quite a few blocks from downtown. I’m surrounded by trees and rows of old houses, some elegant, some abused and graying. The flowers that line their stone paths and white fences are bathed in a fiery light. The street sign says Walnut.

Without warning, there he is, leaning back in a weather-rotted easy chair, his feet propped up on the porch railing. His hair is long and brown and falls below his shoulders. A cigarette dangles from his lips, the orange tip glowing, and he works that guitar with his head swaying easy, his fingers gliding. His voice is a low, mournful growl, and it is so much like my father’s that I stop walking and stare, the chill spreading through me. Oh, sweet mama, your daddy’s got—

“Hey, baby?” a woman’s voice cries from a window upstairs.

He stops playing, examines his fingers. “Yeah?”

“We need cigarettes!”

“Can you wait a minute?” He starts in on the chorus again.

A head pops out of the window—dark hair, naked shoulders. “The question is not, ‘Can I wait?’” she says. “The question is, ‘Can you get your lazy ass downtown and get me smokes, or do I have to do everything myself?’”

He chuckles, shakes his head. “I hear that,” he says, and flings his cigarette onto the lawn, where it smolders in the grass. The head disappears from the window.

The man stands, gripping his guitar by the neck; he looks out at the orange smear of clouds on the horizon. His cheekbones are high and sharp, his eyes dark. He takes the metal slide from his finger and shoves it into the pocket of his jeans. As he turns to go inside, he catches me staring at him from the sidewalk.

I drop my eyes and start walking again, past their yard, across the street, and I do not look up again until I hear the door slam.

The temptation to get mystical is ever-present. This is all I’m going to say: after I hear that door bang shut, I look up, and the first thing I see is a sign in the third-story window across the street: Room For Rent. Before I know what I’m doing, my legs are marching me up the steps, and I’m ringing the bell, reading the words painted on the glass in neutral white lettering: Dr. Andrew Gottlieb, D.D.S., Painless Dentistry Guaranteed.

I glance at my watch and see that it’s a little past eight. Too late for a dentist’s office to be open. Still, something keeps me on this olive-green porch, swept to perfection. This building stands in sharp contrast to the others on the corner. There’s a faded blue place across the street, once grand, no doubt, now dirty and somehow institutional; kitty-corner is an even more neglected house, with a yellow paint job that’s peeled down to a white undercoat in huge patches, giving it the mottled look of a fried egg. The depressing effect is heightened by several broken windows. A couple of kids in dreadlocks are tinkering under the hood of a rusted van in the driveway. On the east corner is the house the guitar man disappeared into; it is a pale pink, three stories high, with a turret at the top. Like the others, it must have been stately once, though now it looks weather-beaten, and the porch is strewn with several rotting chairs.

Dusk is starting to settle in, and I feel a pang of longing for a dark room and my binoculars.

“Looking for me?”

I spin around. A man is standing there in the doorway, bare-chested, wearing tight cutoffs.

“I saw a sign,” I blurt out.

“A sign?” He has a droopy black mustache that bobs as he speaks.

“In the window. You have a room for rent?”

“Ha! It’s been up there so long, I forgot.” He scratches his hairy chest. He looks like the guys that used to hang out at the roller-skating rink when I was a kid—feathered hair, desperate eyes. “You new to town?”

I nod.

“From where?”

“San Francisco.”

“I have a cousin there—a vegetarian. I told him, our teeth are built for meat. He won’t listen, though, crazy bastard.” He tilts his head to one side, sticks a finger in his ear and wriggles it wildly for a moment. “Come on in,” he tells me. “Room’s upstairs.”

I follow him through the lobby, where the walls are lined with strange, vaguely erotic photos of mouths. We pass a couple of rooms with dentist chairs, another with a sink and several rows of disembodied, pink-gummed dentures, their white teeth glowing in the dwindling light.

As we climb the stairs, he says, “It’s a nice room. Very feminine. My ex-wife decorated it. I’ve got a little office downstairs with a couch and a shower—sometimes I sleep overnight, but not often. Here we are!” At the top of the stairs, he flings open a door, revealing a tiny, cramped room with an orange shag carpet and a large bed covered in a pink and green plaid bedspread. There’s a sink and hot plate in the corner, a dwarf-sized refrigerator next to that. The wallpaper has a disturbing milkmaid motif: a Nordic girl in blond braids with huge breasts works cheerfully at various farmyard tasks. “You can use the toilet and shower downstairs, in my office,” he offers, interrupting my moment of hypnosis before the rows of milkmaids. “Like I said, I’m hardly ever there.”

“Right,” I say, blinking.

“You’ve got nice teeth,” he tells me. “Orthodontics?”

“No. Genetics.”

He laughs. I look away quickly, my eyes moving automatically to a milkmaid bending over the butter churn. The room reeks of a sickly sweet air freshener—peach, I think. I’m about to murmur something polite and bolt for the door when the little window by the bed catches my eye. I cross the room and pull the frilly curtain aside. Across the street, I see the long-haired guitar man, framed in a large bay window, smoking a cigarette in a white T-shirt.

“How much?” I ask, not turning around.

By my third night in the god-awful milkmaid room, I’m thoroughly familiar with the Land of Skin. That’s what I decide to call this corner—the place where Walnut and Garden cross—because every time there’s a ray of sunlight, however tenuous or cloud-filtered, everyone strips down to the bare minimum, and the whole corner comes alive with half-naked natives. To a girl from California, it’s a little overwhelming to see such an abundance of bone-white bodies. I am fascinated by their obscenely pale thighs, their shining, colorless chests.

I have the whole neighborhood mapped out and labeled. I’ve determined that the blue place is a halfway house, which I’ve named Purgatory Corner. Across from that is Goat Kid Hovel. The pink house where Guitar Man lives is an old Victorian that’s been converted into apartments. The tenants there all smoke out the windows, and on the shared porch, so I’ve named this place Smoke Palace. I sketch the area in a notebook and label each house neatly.

Tonight Goat Kid Hovel is swarming with activity; every ten minutes a new pack of young, tattered white kids in dreadlocks or shaved heads pull up in beater cars. Loud, discordant music rattles the broken windows, each song crackling with the static of a stereo pushed beyond its limits. A couple of potbellied men sit out on the porch of Purgatory Corner drinking from soda cans. Every now and then, one yells, “Turn that shit down!” But the kids only laugh, rev their engines, and shake their matted hair like gleeful little beasts.

By midnight things have quieted down, but I still linger near the window, my mind racing. Every once in a while I can hear someone laughing from inside Smoke Palace; later, a nocturnal argument erupts, but it’s hard to tell where exactly it’s coming from. These are the hours when my thoughts drift back to the subject of suicide: why people do it, what it feels like the moment you slice open your wrists or pull the trigger. Are there doubts, like pacing the high dive and seeing the nauseating spill of distance below you? Or is it lucid, light, with freedom so close you can taste it, like right before an orgasm?

When I was fifteen, I started filling sketchbooks with drawings and notes I secretly named my Suicide Maps. I would make up fictional characters and plot their self-imposed deaths; I documented the whole process with an investigator’s eye for detail. But even more intricate were the maps of their postmortem experiences, loosely inspired by my favorite old tome, Afterlife Mythologies. I took perverse pleasure in rerouting my subjects to unexpected locales: Catholic priests might find themselves in Nirvana; a Mormon housewife could awake in Valhalla. Suicide was just the first step in an intricate journey toward more and more outlandish planes of existence. Their deaths were my fairy tales, my science fiction.

My mother must have found that stack of sketchbooks. One day I went to add a new entry and they were gone. I knew better than to ask. My obsession was an embarrassment to us both, something that could not be mentioned, like masturbation. Still, it didn’t stop me from making new ones.

Tonight I’m working on an entry for Raggedy Ann at the Goat Kid Hovel—a tall, gawky girl of around sixteen, with a head of hair that looks like it’s on fire. Sometimes I squint and imagine she is an animated matchstick. She wears striped socks and a heavy, oversized trench coat, even when everyone else is nearly naked. I think she might be deaf; she never reacts to the people around her, and nobody bothers to address her directly. She’s definitely the sort to hang herself in some dirty, grease-scented garage. I sketch her dangling from rafters, her orange hair hanging limply over her face. I map out the afterworlds she’ll escape to: a brief stop in Hades, followed by a journey to the core of the earth. Here she’s reborn with the smooth, deeply sad voice of a blues singer. I show her singing to a pool of lava, surrounded by enormous insects; a fiery glow bathes her face and hair.

Around two a.m., Guitar Man appears on the porch wearing boxer shorts and a loose cotton tank top. He sits in one of the rotting chairs and starts to play his old Gibson. I can feel my palms sweating as I put down my notebook and train my binoculars on his neck, studying the soft brown skin where it disappears into the white of his shirt, then reappears in the round curves of his strong shoulders. Whenever I see him, I start to sweat. It’s not just that he’s beautiful—and he is beautiful, with his sinewy arms and his long, dark hair—where did he get his tan? His body is made of sandalwood, and all around him the people are birch—it’s that he is so inexplicably alone. His eyes search the air, his arms and legs unnaturally still, like a Bodhisattva. Even when his girlfriend is perched in his lap like a languorous cat, his eyes say he’s far away, lost in some tremendously difficult equation.

I turn to a new page in my notebook and try to sense how he would do it: .38 special in the mouth? Pills? But my attention is consumed by his hands; I watch as they move gracefully up and down the neck. Through the binoculars, I can see how tired and sad his face is, pinched with worry and concentration. I only wish he would play louder, so I could hear what his fingers are doing to those strings.

Thursday, I am startled from my afternoon observations by a knock on my door. Gottlieb is in my room before I even have time to stash my binoculars.

“What are you doing?” he asks, nodding at the binoculars and notebook.

“Zoology.” I blush wildly, even though he doesn’t seem accusing. “I’m a—bird-watcher.”

He doesn’t ask any more questions; I can see there’s something else on his mind.

“I want to show you my work,” he blurts out. I think of the haunting rows of pink-gummed molds downstairs, but instead he pulls a piece of paper from his pocket and sits down next to me on the bed. He’s wearing tight jeans and an argyle sweater; he looks nervous, like a kid at his first piano recital. “You seem like the artistic type,” he says shyly. Then he reads from the page, his hand trembling slightly; the smell of cheap cologne and soap fill my head. “‘Your heart is a stone, your eyes glitter like glass shards, I wish you were dead.’” He looks at me expectantly. “It’s a haiku.”

“Oh. Interesting…”

“Here, let me read you this one—it’s better. ‘Fingernails like knives, mouth like a red bleeding wound, stay away from me.’” I sit there a moment in stunned silence, taking this in. “I’m working on a collection,” he says. I stand, and lean against the opposite wall, near the door. “I’ve got a hundred and twenty-four of these. The working title is Ex-Wife.”

“That’s great,” I say, my voice thin and insincere. “I mean, good for you.”

“I’m sending them to a publisher next week,” he says. “Guy I did a root canal for.”

“That’s great,” I repeat, unsure of what else to say.

He looks up at me and licks his lips. “You think they work?”

“A hundred and twenty-four of those, huh? Wow.”

He gets up from the bed and takes a step toward me. “I’m getting better,” he says, clutching the poem in his hand. “I’m just starting out, but I’ve been reading this book about the artist within and—”

“You hayseed bastard!” A woman is screaming in a murderous voice. “Get out of my house, you goddamn redneck!”

I rush to the window, my curiosity momentarily eclipsing my urge to flee the dentist. There, flying down the pink porch steps, is Guitar Man’s girlfriend. She flings a stack of CDs onto the sidewalk, and when she stomps on a couple with her boots the sound of plastic cracking is audible from here.

“That girl again,” Gottlieb says bitterly, peering over my shoulder.

I watch as she marches back into Smoke Palace, taking the steps two at a time. “You know her?”

“Name’s Lucy—short for Lucifer.” He snorts. “She’s a real live wire.”

“I wonder why she’s…” I begin, but I trail off, hypnotized by the sight of Lucy charging down the stairs again. She marches into the street. A truck turns the corner going too fast and swerves just in time to miss her. She appears not to notice. She’s got her boyfriend’s beautiful old guitar in her hands—the rosewood gleams in the afternoon sunlight, and she’s holding it high above her head. I’ve studied this guitar through my binoculars for days. I’m pretty sure it’s an antique Gibson. I could tell from the way Guitar Man touched it that this thing is as much a part of him as his own lungs. He is both familiar and reverent with it. Something in me panics at the sight of that beautiful Gibson hovering on the edge of destruction. I bolt down the stairs, through the lobby, out the front door, and stop dead on Dr. Gottlieb’s porch.

Guitar Man is out there now, trying to coax the guitar from her as she holds it to her body and screams like an enraged child: “Get away! Get AWAY!” She keeps twisting to evade his grasp, but he is at least a foot taller, and her arms are so occupied with the guitar that she can’t keep his from surrounding her. This only seems to incite more rage. She raises her voice to a volume beyond screaming, beyond any comprehensible words, yanks herself out of his hold and thrusts a knee into his crotch. He doubles over in pain.

Gottlieb appears behind me and hollers, “Leave him alone—Jesus!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Lucy cries. “And don’t look at me like—”

Guitar Man sweeps one arm around her waist from behind and, holding her immobile, tries to wrench the guitar from her grip. She grunts like a little ape and hugs the Gibson furiously, struggling to keep it from him. I watch in frozen fascination as a Ford Explorer turns the corner and Guitar Man’s girlfriend flings the Gibson in its path. I see it as if in slow motion: two children pressing their faces against the glass in the back seat; a harried mother craning her neck as she drives, trying to see what the fuss is about; and all the while, the Gibson is crushing, splintering, making its last sounds under the weight of that mammoth front tire.

The woman in the Explorer leaves the motor running, gets out with a confused diatribe already spewing—part concern, part irritation about being late for yoga. Occasionally she turns to the children, who remain captive and staring from the back seat, and calls, “Mommy’s coming. Stay put!” Gottlieb is lecturing Lucy in loud, dogmatic tones, but she herself is now remarkably quiet. She lights a cigarette and looks bored, as if none of this has anything to do with her.

Guitar Man goes to the remains of his Gibson and stares, then kneels and rubs his hands over the splintered mess of strings and wood. “I didn’t even see it until—” the woman begins, but one quick look from him silences her. Lucy holds her cigarette in the air, frozen in place. I do not dare to breathe, as Guitar Man examines the irreparable damage gingerly. He runs a hand through his hair, stands and stalks into the house.

“That’s all you give a shit about!” Lucy explodes as the front door slams. “You wish that was me under those tires!”

“I sure do,” Gottlieb says, just loud enough to be heard.

Lucy, who is making her way toward the house, spins on her heel and screams at the dentist. “What did you say?”

“Chump needs to show you the door!” He laughs, glancing at me.

She narrows her eyes at him. “You stupid fucking rapist!” He takes a couple of steps toward her, and she stands there, ready, chin jutting out defiantly.

“Is everything all right?” the woman calls from beside her Explorer. She is patting her upper lip with a handkerchief. Nobody answers for a long moment; I can hear someone starting up a lawn mower in the distance. “Is everyone okay?” the woman says again, a little impatiently.

The front door of Smoke Palace whines open, and Guitar Man emerges in a wide-brimmed suede hat, a large duffel bag slung over one shoulder and a sleeping bag tucked under one arm. He does not look at any of us, just moves quickly down the steps, tugging the brim of his hat a bit lower as he turns the corner and heads for his station wagon.

“That’s it!” Lucy yells. “Just slink away, you lowlife bastard!” The engine revs aggressively, and she raises her voice above it in a challenge. “Just drive off, you fucking hypocrite!” The station wagon yanks into reverse and arches backwards, wheels spitting up gravel, then disappears.

“Do I need to call the police?” the woman from the Explorer asks, digging in her handbag for a cell phone.

“You need to mind your own fucking business,” Lucy says, her voice cold and flat.

The woman stands there, bewildered, with one hand on her vehicle. She’s sweating profusely, though it’s not that warm out. The armpits of her blouse are two large, dark patches, and her big pale face is glistening. She looks questioningly at me, and I nod reassurance at her. She finally gets in her car and drives off, leaving a cloud of exhaust.

Gottlieb retreats in the direction of his office, a little unsteadily.

“Who are you supposed to be, anyway?” the girlfriend says, squinting at me.

“I’m Anna.” I put my hand out for her to shake, but she just stares at it.

She makes a sound, something between a scoff and a sigh. “I don’t know about you, but I need a drink.” She is already turning toward downtown, taking a couple of steps in that direction. “You coming?” Her eyes are dark brown, with thick lashes. She pauses and jerks her head slightly in the direction she’s headed, as if convincing a dog to get moving. Her lips are curved into a small, wry smile, barely discernable. I watch as her sheer summer dress flutters in the breeze, pressing and then releasing from the curve of her breasts and the slim shape of her hips. “Come on,” she says, quietly, knocking the toe of her combat boot against the pavement. “I could use some company.”

“Sure,” I say, fumbling in my pockets. “I’ll have to get some money, though—”

“My treat,” she says. A gust of wind blows a sheaf of newspapers strewn about the Goat Kids’ yard, scattering them in the street. One page drifts lightly toward her, and she kicks it away.

“Oh, I couldn’t let you—”

“Sure you could,” she says, showing her small white teeth, miniature and flawless like a doll’s. “It’s no big deal.”

I smile in answer, and we start off down Walnut Street, leaving the butchered guitar and the Land of Skin behind us.

“I think I’ve seen you around,” she says, squinting at me again as she lights a cigarette. Her eyebrows are mesmerizing. They’re shaped like Jackie O’s—two perfect, slim lines that curve elegantly high at the outer corners—and give the impression that she is constantly amused. She is a study in smallness—a tiny, childish nose, delicate, miniature ears. She squeezes her wedge of lime and we watch as the pulpy juice drips into her gin and tonic, clouding the clear bubbles a little. “You have a habit of watching people, don’t you.”

I look up at her, startled. My face gets hot.

“Well, don’t look like that,” she says, laughing before taking the thin red straw into her mouth. She sips from her drink with her eyes on me. “I caught you staring at us once, downtown. We were making fools of ourselves, and you were rubbernecking. I wanted to kill you.” She smiles. “Some people have a habit of becoming public spectacles. Other people watch. It’s how the world gets divided.” She nods at the package of Camels on the table. “You smoke?” I shake my head. “I didn’t think so.”

“Are you from here?” I ask, gripping my Heineken.

“Yeah,” she says. She looks around at the sad little dive she’s steered us into; it is empty except for the overweight bartender and a couple of crusty, flannel-clad locals watching a game show and eating pretzels. “I grew up right here, in this bar. Listen, I’m not into small talk, okay? It wastes my time. We’re all going to die, you know—that’s important to keep in mind. Why don’t you tell me the real reason you’re here in Bellingham?” She takes a drag from her cigarette and blows the smoke sideways. Her lips are a dark, unpainted pink. I blink and gather my thoughts. “Don’t plan everything,” she says. “Jesus, why is everyone so edited, so—”

“To kill my father,” I blurt out.

Her cigarette hand freezes midway to her mouth. “Really?” she says, her eyebrows arching even more. “How?”

“I don’t know yet,” I say. “He’s dead, but he needs to die a little more.”

Her mouth makes that tight, wry shape again. She taps her cigarette against the edge of the plastic ashtray and says, “My name’s Lucinda, by the way. You can call me Lucy sometimes, but never Lu or—God forbid—Lu-Lu. Nice to meet you.”

We drink all afternoon into evening, and not a moment is wasted. She smokes and pries, drinks and searches, confesses without a trace of apology or sentiment. She talks about death like it’s a bus we have to catch, or a party we’re going to—a pressing engagement that requires we say everything now, without hesitation. She drinks four gin and tonics, one on top of the other; the bartender brings the new rounds without even asking, like he’s a part of her meticulous war against wasted time. After my initial Heineken he starts bringing both of us gin and tonics, with matching red straws and identical wedges of lime. I keep up with her, drink for drink, and I can feel myself getting looser and sloppier, my words coming easily but without precision. The room takes on softer hues; the men at the bar become shadows, while the bottles behind them turn to a blur of blues, greens and golds, catching the light and sparkling like Christmas ornaments.

When the two windows of the bar are turning colors—from the dregs of a terra-cotta sunset to a deep, melancholy blue—Lucinda finally gets around to the pedestrian details. “Where are you staying, anyway?”

I look at my hands. “Above Dr. Gottlieb’s.”

“No way! That fucking sicko? You’ve got to be kidding me—”

“It’s only temporary,” I say.

Her eyes light up, a new idea hatching behind them. “Listen, it’s perfect timing. Why don’t you move in? You can’t go back to that bastard’s.”

“He does give me the creeps.”

“Of course he does! He’s the creepiest! He seriously tried to rape me once,” she says, tapping a fresh pack of Camels against the Formica.

If it weren’t for all the drinks and the overall surreal hue of the day, I would react with shock and sympathy, but between my tipsiness and Lucy’s nonchalance, attempted rape barely registers.

“I’m surprised he didn’t try you, already. You’re staying with me. Absolutely.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, trying to be reasonable.

“Sure, I’m sure,” she says, ripping the Camels free of their cellophane wrapping. “You’ve got no choice.”

“But you just met me today.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” she says, annoyed. She tugs a cigarette free from the others and touches the flame of her Zippo to it with practiced precision. “You want me to check references or something?”

“We’ve had a few, is all,” I say. “I don’t want you to feel weird about it later.”

“Hey, what you see’s what you get. I’m no different, sober or drunk. I’ll still like you tomorrow. Besides,” she says, pausing for a drag, then exhaling slowly, “I’m never alone.”

When we get back to the Land of Skin, the CDs and the Gibson are gone. I suspect they’ve been scavenged by the Goat Kids. In the entryway of Smoke Palace, the carpet is peeling back from the floor, and the air reeks of damp dog and mold. We go up two flights of stairs and Lucinda throws the door open with drunken flourish. It is dark inside. I can make out only vague shapes in the moonlight.

Lucinda crosses the room, stumbling once, and gropes at the wall. There is a flicker of yellow and a buzzing sound as the ceiling light struggles to come alive. It fills the room with ghostly fluorescence, and I see Lucinda in a momentary cameo, digging in her pack for a new cigarette before the light goes out. “Fuck,” she whispers. She crosses the room again. I hear a thud as she bangs against something.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Fuck.”

I can hear her fumbling with another light switch, and then the room goes bright again. I squint against the brightness instinctively, though it is kinder this time—not fluorescent but a soft, filtered red. I see Lucinda, standing next to an old lamp with a red chiffon scarf draped over it. She is struggling with her Zippo, a cigarette hanging loosely from her lips, and then a tall flame shoots up, throwing a gold pallor across her tiny features. Her expression loosens some as she lights her cigarette and inhales, but as she exhales her face goes rigid.

There, seated on a long black leather couch, is Guitar Man. The suede hat dangles beside him on the armrest, and his hair shows the place where the brim was. A couple of strands are standing up, animated by static electricity.

“Hey, Luce,” he says, watching her. It occurs to me that he is like a darker version of her, with their matching brown hair and their black, birdlike eyes. “Who’d you bring home this time?”

“What is this shit?” She tries to put her cigarette in her mouth, but her hand is shaking, so she just dangles it at her side. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know if I’m up for guests,” he says, ignoring her question.

“Anna’s my new roommate,” she tells him, sinking into a chair by the window. She keeps her eyes on him as she adds, “Aren’t you, Anna?”

I swallow hard.

“She can’t stay,” he says, his voice low and even.

“Fuck that. She’s staying.” They stare at each other for a long, elastic silence. I keep expecting him to rise from the couch and strangle her, that’s how angry he looks. The dim light, diffused through the red chiffon, makes their faces and the lumpy, secondhand furniture look hot and molten.

I rush blindly for the bathroom, somehow sensing where it is. I hit the door frame with my shoulder, turn the corner, aim at the toilet and vomit. The sound of it splashing against the toilet water fills me with a fresh wave of nausea, and I wretch again, spilling what’s left of me. Then I stand there, bent at the waist, panting, a long string of drool stretching from my lips.

A small, cool hand touches the back of my neck. “You okay?” She hands me a washcloth and flushes the toilet. “You want something?”

I wipe my mouth and shake my head. I go to the sink and splash my face with cool water. The cold feels good on my skin. I turn to see her leaning against the door frame, her head tilted slightly to the side. “Don’t worry about him,” she whispers. “He’s all bluff.”

“Lucy!” he calls.

She rolls her eyes. “What do you want?” she yells, as if he’s a great distance away.

Silence.

She shakes her head at me, sighs, and disappears. I can hear their voices rising and falling in suppressed tones as I study myself in the dimly lit mirror. I look startled and young. The beige T-shirt I put on this morning is hot pink in the light spilling in from the hallway. My haircut still shocks me. “You’ll like her,” I hear Lucinda saying, her voice high and sharp, before their tones drop back down to murmurs. “You’ve got no fucking right,” she says. And a little later, “This is my place as much as yours!”

I close the bathroom door softly, lower the lid on the toilet and sit there in the dark, my face in my hands, trying to focus this kaleidoscope of sensations into a plan. I consider slipping out into the street and going back to my room, but the prospect of sleeping such a distance from a toilet seems dangerous. Besides, Gottlieb might actually be there, and I’m in no mood to deal with a haiku-obsessed rapist. I might rent a motel room, but this would take so much energy. I long for a dark room, binoculars, and a safe, anonymous window to look out from.

I hear the sound of their bodies moving: a thump against a wall, feet shuffling. Then Lucinda’s laughter rings out, stops short, and I hear breathing. I lift my face from my hands and sit there, perfectly still, listening hard. Nothing. I stand, wobble slightly, touch the wall for support. I go to the bathroom door and peek out carefully. The living room is still red, but now it’s empty. The bedroom door is open just a crack, and through it I catch a glimpse of Lucinda’s naked knee, then a flash of her dress. I stand there, holding my breath, listening to the silence of that ancient, dilapidated house. Then the bedsprings begin, barely audible and erratic at first. They get louder, faster, and finally fall into a rhythm as steady and relentless as rain.

I make my way into the living room, careful to move in silence. I lie down on the leather couch. It is hard and uninviting, like the couches in school infirmaries. The room spins around me. I close my eyes and try to make it stop. When it slows, I feel sleep pulling at me, making my body heavy. I let the creaking bedsprings lull me to sleep, until I’m dreaming of melting furniture and a hot, stinging rain.

CHAPTER 3
The Sex Queen of Fanny’s Barbecue Palace

Lucinda and I walk into Fanny’s Barbecue Palace at eight. It is brightly lit, with pink-checkered tablecloths and families eating piles of sauce-smeared ribs, getting their fingers sticky as their jaws chomp violently. The men at the tables look up at us quickly, then back down at their plates before their wives can notice. We make our way to the door at the back of the restaurant, which leads to the bar: orange vinyl stools, pool tables, loungy chairs before a dimly lit stage where the band is pausing between songs.

“Ready for more?” a man says into the mic. He is thin and freakishly tall, with a shock of white-blond hair and a gaunt face. He looks like a cross between David Bowie and Gumby. He reaches a lanky arm out and fingers a tuning peg. “We call this one ‘Fuck Sean Cassidy.’” He takes a pick from his pocket, poises it above the strings and glances at the other members; there’s a bald drummer behind a gleaming gold kit, and a badgerlike guy in black leather pants on bass. But the one I notice is Guitar Man. He’s wearing a thin cotton T-shirt and faded jeans. A red electric guitar hangs low on his hips, and his eyebrows furrow in concentration as he watches for his cue.

The lead singer mutters, “One two three,” and then they all seize their instruments like cavalry rushing into battle; their arms flail and their faces ball up like fists. Guitar Man is the only one who doesn’t look ridiculous; he stabs at the air with the neck of his instrument again and again, but somehow the aggressive gesture isn’t cliché, it’s plain sexy. The singer leans his long, gangly body toward the mic and screams words, but I have no idea if they mean anything; fucking pigs, he screams. Now now now, bend over, bend under, and later, when the song has gone on so long I fear I am trapped in a time warp—some ruthless hell of distorted audio-loops—he raises his voice to a feverish pitch that makes my throat feel sore, and cries, Fuck the Queen, fuck CBS, fuck Sean Cassidy, fuck YOUUUUUUUU! and just like that the whole thing slams to a halt.

Guitar Man looks up now, sees us and smiles. His face, beaded with sweat, glistens in the yellow lights; he pushes a strand of damp hair off his forehead. For a second, I think he’s looking at me. Only when I realize that his eyes are locked on Lucy does my pulse return to normal.

Another song begins, and the cocktail waitress comes over to take our orders. Lucy tells her we want Tanqueray and tonics. We don’t speak as we wait for our drinks to arrive; we just sit in the swivel chairs near the stage and let that huge wall of sound numb our senses. The lead singer is at once repulsive and compelling. He has a face that skids from pretty to ghastly so quickly, you cannot determine whether you really saw either. When the waitress puts our order down, I pay her, waving Lucy away when she tries to hand me a five. We touch the edges of our glasses together midair and drink.

On our second round, she scoots her chair over near mine and speaks directly into my ear. “That’s Danny Dog.” She nods at the lead singer. “He’s got two different colored eyes, like an Australian shepherd.” She gives me a meaningful look before adding, “He’s got real problems. If you’re a masochist, you’ll fall for him right off—though I don’t recommend it.”

“What about the others?” I ask.

“You could fuck them in a pinch,” she says. “But I don’t recommend that, either.”

I roll my eyes at her. “I mean, what are their names!”

“Oh. Right. Drummer’s Sparky. Total zero. Bill’s the rat-faced punk on bass. Ew. Don’t even get me started.” She lights a cigarette, waves it in the direction of Guitar Man. “Arlan, of course. But you live with him.”

In point of fact, this is the first time I learn his name, and for a moment the strangeness of my abrupt involvement with these people stuns me. Last night is still a blur of drinks and fragments—their matching black eyes, the taste of my own vomit, the sound of bedsprings creaking as I lay spinning in that dark red room. It all seems surreal and unreliable. In the morning, when I woke in a disheveled tangle on their hard black couch, Guitar Man was gone, and there was Lucy, clutching a mug of fresh, hot coffee in one hand, holding out three aspirin in the other. I struggled to keep my head from pounding louder than her words as she urged me again to move in with them. I didn’t really say yes, but I didn’t say no, either. She and I spent the day together. It was hot out; we floated in the lake outside of town, napping in the sunlight and drinking bottles of water to cure ourselves of the grimy film all that gin had left inside us.

“Hey,” she says. “I just got a new lipstick yesterday. Put it on for me, will you?” She takes a tube of lipstick from her pocket and hands it to me.

“What?”

“Put it on me—I can’t do it without a mirror.”

“But—the light’s so low,” I stammer. “Maybe you should do it in the bathroom.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says. “Put it on me, then I’ll put it on you.”

I uncap it and turn it until it rises from its canister. It’s hard to tell in this light, but it looks like a deep, rich scarlet—the sort of color I would never even consider wearing. I lean over and touch it carefully to her bottom lip. Her mouth has the bee-stung look of a porn star’s. I trace the upper lip now, making sure to stay within the lines. I rub my lips together, demonstrating, and she does the same. I nod my approval.

“Okay,” she says. “Now I’ll do you.”

“No thanks,” I say. “It’s not my color.”

“Come on,” she says. She downs the rest of her drink, leaving a red crescent against the rim of the glass. “A deal’s a deal.”

“No, really,” I say. “I don’t wear makeup.”

“That’s exactly the point,” she says. “You have to start doing the things you don’t do.” She snatches the lipstick from me and holds it close to my face, staring at my mouth.

“But—” I protest.

“Hold still, for God’s sake.” She scowls with concentration. “You’ve got to reinvent yourself, or there’s no point.”

“Playing dress-up?” I look up to see the blond singer staring down at us. He is sweaty, and his eyes are lit up from the inside, like lanterns.

Lucinda finishes painting my lips and looks over her shoulder at him. “Hey, Danny. This is Anna. Try not to scare her off.”

“Lovely introduction,” he says. He reaches over, takes my drink in his damp-looking palm and downs it.

“That was hers,” Lucy says.

“I know,” he says. “I’m about to get her a fresh one. She needed a clean slate. Gin and tonic?” I nod. “Lucy? You ready for another round?”

“I’m always ready,” she says. “You know that. Be sure it’s Tanqueray, though—none of that well shit.”

He disappears in the direction of the bar. The place is filling up now. There are swarms of barely-legal types milling around; the girls wear short skirts, the boys wear baseball caps. The air is getting thick with cigarette smoke and a headache-inducing mélange of designer scents. I recall seeing signs in town for a university, and its evidence is here; the girls are pretty, with traces of confidence. They laugh loudly and touch their hair often. The boys drink with grim determination, avoiding eye contact. Fanny’s Barbecue Palace, only minutes ago all ours, is now bristling with the chatty, neurotic electricity of kids recently released from the grip of their parents.

Danny returns with three gin and tonics, sets them down, and remains standing, surveying the room. Soon Arlan and Bill come over and join us, too, lighting cigarettes and carrying glasses of whiskey. Sparky comes over last, whacking his sticks restlessly against his thighs, an empty chair, anything within reach. Finally, Danny sits down. I’m glad; someone that tall is distracting when he’s towering over you. He looks right at me, and I see that Lucy wasn’t kidding about his eyes. The right one is a light hazel, the left is a gray-blue. He just sits there staring, so I start to speak out of nervousness.

“What’s your band called?”

Danny doesn’t answer. He just goes on staring.

Bill says, “Called Buddhist Monkeys. My name’s Bill, by the way.” He thrusts a hand across the drinks for me to shake, which I do. His fingers feel clammy, but his grip is fierce.

“Anna,” I say.

“I’m Sparky,” the drummer tells me. His voice is high-pitched and irritating. He rubs his sticks together like he plans to start a fire right in his lap.

Arlan sits there drinking his whiskey and staring around the room in silence.

“Place is really filling up,” I say. “You going to play another set?” Even before I’ve finished my sentence, Danny’s eyes narrow.

“They’re done for the night,” Lucy says. “There’s another band starting in a few minutes.”

“Really?” I say, trying to suppress my relief. “What kind of—”

“Pussy rock,” Danny says.

“I’m sorry?” I say.

“You like pussy rock?”

“Danny,” Lucy says. “‘Pussy’ is not an adjective, okay?”

At this Arlan chuckles, though he’s shown no signs that he’s been listening until now.

“I just asked her a civil question,” Danny says. He has a faint accent—Canadian, I would guess—and he speaks so loudly, I can hear him perfectly in spite of the adolescent commotion swelling all around us.

“Define ‘pussy rock,’” I say.

“Apolitical, inarticulate ass-wipe. Feel-good, cunt-worshiping cereal jingles. Answer your question?”

“Danny,” Lucy says, whipping around to face him. “If you didn’t bombard every woman with fucked-up pejoratives for her anatomical parts, maybe you’d actually get some.”

“Where you from, Anna?” Bill asks. He has a nervous twitch in his cheek.

“San Francisco.”

“So you’re visiting Lucy?”

“She’s living with us,” Lucy announces, her eyes locked on Arlan across the table. Bill looks from her to him to me with confusion. Arlan just keeps sizing up the room, smoking his cigarette. “I’ve adopted her,” she adds, and smiles at me. Her tiny, adorable teeth seem to glow in the dark.

“Mother Lucy,” Danny says, his voice filled with sarcasm.

“Motherfucker,” she spits out.

“Arlan!” Danny calls. “You want to keep your woman in line?”

Finally, Arlan ends his contemplation of the room and turns in our direction. He looks first at Danny—a quick, dismissive glance—and then at Lucy. His eyes rest on her face and fill with a tenderness so visible I could swear they actually change color. “She keeps me in line,” he says without a trace of apology, “and she knows it.”

Within an hour, Danny is asleep in his seat. His chin tucks into his throat, and his head, with its shock of white-blond hair, sways side to side every now and then, like there’s a breeze nudging it. I can see the very beginnings of balding at the crown—a hairless spot no bigger than a quarter.

He awakens occasionally and disappears for several long trips to the john, and each time he gets up, the other guys shoot each other glances. I wonder if he has severe digestive problems or narcolepsy or something.

“Danny’s a junkie,” Lucy whispers, as we cross the bar toward the bathroom. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

“I wondered what was wrong with him.”

“Pisses Arlan off,” she says. “Sometimes he’s so fucked up he can barely play.”

“How’d Arlan end up in this band, anyway?”

“He’s not a self-promoter. He’s an artist—way more than these shitheads—but Danny’s the one with enough ego to get gigs.” She closes herself into a stall. “You should hear Arlan play alone. He’s a genius.”

“Yeah,” I say, studying my deep red mouth in the mirror.

She flushes the toilet and reappears. “What do you mean, ‘yeah’?”

“I mean, yeah, I bet he is.”

She looks at me for a moment before washing her hands.

Later, when we’ve had too much to drink again, and the pussy rock band plays a song with a beat that echoes through your chest, a song that makes you feel foolish and alive, Lucy drags me out on the dance floor. The place is now packed with sweaty students, wriggling and rubbing up against each other like frenzied fish. At first I just sort of wobble from one foot to the other, painfully self-conscious. But then I close my eyes, forget about the room and find the rhythm with my hips. I move without thinking to a night one summer when my parents threw a party; I can taste the air, heavy with the smell of grass, and I can hear their instruments coming together magically. My little-girl body flings itself from side to side, caught up in the waves of their frantic laughter, their strumming and banging and singing.

“You dance like you’re on Ecstasy,” Lucy says into my ear.

My eyes open, and the room is back, with its pool players leaning against the walls, coolly appraising. I see Arlan sitting at the table, smoking, watching.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It makes people want to have sex with you,” she says, not smiling.

“Oh,” I say. “Wow.”

“Don’t act so naive, Anna,” she tells me, and now her face softens to a teasing smirk. “It’s not convincing.”

I keep moving, the frenetic beat of my parents’ music still pulsating in the back of my mind. I tell myself, as an experiment, Everyone here wants to have sex with you. It makes me smile and rotate my hips with more insistence. I tell myself, Even Arlan wants to have sex with you, but that makes me feel guilty, so I push it out of my mind. I tell myself, You’re the Sex Queen of Fanny’s Barbecue Palace, and this makes me laugh softly as I spin, gazing up at the dark, grease-stained ceiling.

I wake on the black leather couch, an old quilt tossed over me, and my mouth tastes like it’s been stuffed with sand. Out the window, lit by a streetlight, a huge maple lets its branches be tossed by the night wind. I lift my head and peer into the kitchen: the digital clock on the microwave reads 3:12. A leaf releases from the maple and flies recklessly against the windowpane—a kamikaze mission—one sharp tap against the glass before it disappears. I close my eyes and envision it plummeting the two stories down, careening with breakneck speed into the sea of dewy grass below.

I can feel my psyche winding itself. It is the familiar beginnings of insomnia: brain blossoms at the wrong hour, in the dark, like a transplanted jungle flower.

I get up and cross the room, wrapping the quilt around my shoulders. The air is chilly, suffused with the yellowed scent of the old house. A gust of wind rattles the walls; more leaves tap themselves to death against the window. I study the guitar cases leaning against the wall. There are two there—one is the electric Arlan played tonight. I wonder if the case next to it is for the crushed Gibson. I look over my shoulder, across the hall to their bedroom. I can just make out the faint wheezing sound of someone snoring. Very carefully, I lay the guitar case on the floor, undo the brass latches and lift the lid. It’s a Martin D-28—the exact model my father had. I run my hands over its polished surface, thick with lacquer, and I imagine I can smell its long, patchwork history—all those years spent in bars and living rooms and bus stations, pressed against laboring bodies, stroked by so many fingers. My hands are shaking as I lift it very carefully out of its case and carry it back to the couch.

I haven’t held a guitar in my arms since I was eleven. The cool feel of the body curving against my thigh is at once familiar and strange. I stretch my fingers into a G-chord and touch the strings tentatively, strumming just loud enough to bring back a rush of memories. I play the first couple of lines of “Folsom Prison Blues,” humming softly. I think of Danny’s heroin, and I wonder if this is how it feels—warm, dark relief spreading through your veins.

“You play?”

I jerk my head up to see Arlan in the doorway, little more than a shadow. I can actually feel the thumping beneath my breast against the rosewood.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, getting up to put it back. The guitar knocks against the coffee table and I curse under my breath.

“Sit down,” he says. I do. “Don’t worry about it.” He crosses the room, yanks the window open, and props it up with what looks like a towel rack that’s been ripped from the wall. I’m wearing only a big T-shirt Lucy lent me, probably Arlan’s. The wind comes through the open window and I pull the quilt around my legs. He sits and lights a cigarette.

“So, you play?” he asks again.

“I used to, when I was little.”

“Lessons?”

“My dad taught me,” I say, trying to make my voice sound casual.

“He plays?”

“Played.” I’m glad it’s dark enough that he can’t see my face. “He’s dead.”

I wait for a response, but there is none, just the orange glow from his cigarette, and the faint sound of breath as he produces a ghostlike puff of smoke. After a while, I play a couple of chords very quietly. My fingers seem to remember. “Where’d you get this guitar? It’s gorgeous.”

“Some old guy sold it to me,” he says. “It’s probably worth three times what I gave him, but he was in a hurry to unload it.”

“Play something?” I ask.

He hesitates. “Lucy might wake up.”

“Just softly?”

He listens a moment to the silence. “I guess she’s out.” I cross the room to hand it to him, being careful not to bang it against anything this time. I am aware of my bare legs, my naked breasts under the soft, thin T-shirt. Our fingers touch as he takes the neck from me. I go back and sit on the couch again, shivering, and fold my legs under the quilt.

“Cold?” he asks.

“A little.”

He stubs his cigarette out in a coffee cup and closes the window, taking great care not to let it slam shut. “You want another blanket?”

“I’m okay.”

He glances across the hall to their bedroom door before he eases the old Martin onto his knee and checks the tuning. He takes a pick from the case. Then he sighs once in the dark, and very quietly, with fingers so precise and nimble I long to see them in full light, he begins to play. He starts quietly, and I have to lean forward to hear the notes, but as he gets going, the melody hits the air loud and clear. It’s a sad, old-sounding song. He doesn’t sing, but his hands pull stories from that guitar: blue, tattered tales set in some humid place, full of whiskey and moonlight, black stockings, trains and smoke. I close my eyes and lean back against the cool leather of the couch. There is nothing like this. I want to sit here forever.

“What was that, anyway?” I ask when the song is over.

“Oh, I was just messing around,” he says. He puts the guitar down, gets up and takes a bottle from the freezer. He pours himself a drink. I think he’s embarrassed. “You want a drink?”

“No thanks.”

He sits back down and stares out the window. He doesn’t look at me when he says, “Trouble sleeping?”

“Yeah. You?”

He nods, still looking out the window. There’s a long pause. “Sometimes,” he says, “I’d give anything to sleep all the way through to morning.” We listen as the wind rattles the house, and more leaves tap against the window. He tilts his head in the direction of the bedroom. “Lucy sleeps like a baby, every night. She sucks her thumb.” I giggle softly. “I don’t understand people who can sleep like that.” He stares at the bedroom door.

“What do you do?”

“What?” He looks startled, as if he’d forgotten I was there.

“When you can’t sleep. What do you do?”

“I don’t know. Smoke. Play guitar. Drink. You?”

I pause. “Look out the window, mostly,” I say. “Soothes me. Watching, I mean.”

He considers this in silence. “Well, then,” he says, after a while. “I’ll get out of your way.”

“Don’t be silly,” I say. “This is your house.”

“No, I’m taking up the window seat. Go on. It’s all yours.” He puts the guitar away and carries his drink toward the bedroom. I’m tempted to ask for another song, but somehow I know better. “’Night,” he says, pausing in the doorway for a moment.

“Good night,” I whisper.

When he’s gone, I lie back down on the hard couch and pull the quilt up to my neck. I reach between my legs as I listen to his body moving quietly in the bedroom. I imagine him taking off his sweats, sliding into bed next to Lucy. I envision his hands carefully moving to her breasts, see his dark fingers against her white skin, and I breathe in time to the memory of those same fingers plucking songs out of the darkness. When I come, I bite down on the edge of the quilt to keep from making noise. Then I lie there, sleepless but not restless, staring at the branches swaying and rocking, throwing shadows on the walls. I listen to the cryptic Morse code of the maple leaves against the window. The message behind their urgent tapping is anybody’s guess.

CHAPTER 4
Caliban

It’s strange, I know, but I don’t really think about what I’m doing until Tuesday. Thursday the Gibson got smashed, Friday I became Queen of Fanny’s Barbecue Palace, Saturday I retrieved my things from Gottlieb’s and left a note: Have made new arrangements—Anna. Tuesday morning I awaken sitting straight up on the couch, afraid.

The weekend is lost in a haze of gin and secondhand smoke—I’ve never consumed so many drinks in my life, nor spent so many hours in smoky bars. There was the smack of pool balls, the rattle of ice cubes against glass, the torturous seduction of Arlan’s guitar late at night. Lucy and I went to the lake again, we shopped for bras one day, we went to coffee shops. We are suddenly enmeshed in a baffling intimacy, a rhythm of lives interwound, as if my nightly return to their couch were a state as natural and inevitable as the movement of stars.

Still, there are more secrets here than understandings. Where they get their money, for example. Arlan paints houses—that much I’ve figured out. On Monday morning he pulled away in his station wagon, wearing paint-splattered clothes and a baseball cap. Lucy mentioned having recently lost her job at a Texaco station when she refused to provide her boss with the lurid details of her sex life. She’s now stubbornly, willfully unemployed, and I get the feeling this is her status more often than not. Her main interest is the ’zine she puts out every month, a low-budget one-woman operation she calls Pulp. In it she blends feminist parody with National Enquirer–type headlines: “Serial Killer Claims He Saved the Planet from Blood-Sucking Sluts,” or “Confessions of a Mutant Abortion Survivor.” I’d pored over the back issues Sunday night when I couldn’t sleep. The writing was good, the humor morbid and clever. I find it hard to believe this girl barely graduated from high school.

There have been allusions to Arlan’s wealthy grandmother, but other than that, I’m left to assume that they live off Arlan’s occasional painting jobs, and Lucy’s even more occasional month-long stints at gas stations, head shops, ice-cream parlors—whatever takes the least energy. The ’zine, though widely distributed, is nothing but a financial drain, and Arlan’s band gets paid mostly in drinks. Lucy and Arlan don’t live in gluttonous luxury, but I know the expenses must add up: there are the cartons upon cartons of cigarettes to buy and the endless nights spent in bars, drinking heavily, feeding the pool tables with quarters and tipping the bartenders lavishly in moments of giddy, drunken humanitarianism.

But it’s not until Tuesday morning, the fifth of June, that I wake up startled by my own couch-inhabiting role in the Land of Skin. The money from Rosie and my own savings won’t last long in this environment; in fact, after gas, Gottlieb’s room, and all the drinks this weekend, I discover I’ve spent five hundred dollars already—almost half of the paltry stash between me and selling my body on the corner of Garden and Walnut. The air of mystery around my hosts’ financial situation only adds to my general queasiness. I’ve got to figure out what I’m doing here.

In this state of semi-panic, still befuddled with the aftermath of last night’s gin, I eject myself from the terminally firm couch, throw on jeans and toss down a cup of coffee. Lucy and Arlan are giggling in the bedroom. The sky is filling with low, billowy rain clouds. I decide it’s time to face Elliot Bender again.

I had hoped I might find him in plain view, but when I arrive, there’s nothing except the late-morning sunlight breaking through the clouds, washing over the peeling paint of the old boats and the gleaming white fiberglass of the newer ones. I listen to the sound of waves lapping and ropes stretching tight, metal bits clanking against masts, the sides of boats knocking softly against the docks; it makes me a little sleepy. A pelican hovers over the bay, its wings balanced perfectly on the light breeze, then free-falls recklessly into the water. I giggle as it splashes—there’s something so slapstick about pelicans.

“What are you laughing at?”

I turn to see Elliot Bender heading in my direction. He’s got a grocery bag in each arm and a Mickey Mouse ski cap on his head.

“There you are,” I say. “I was looking for you.”

“It’s your lucky day—here I am. Could you—?” He hands me one of the grocery bags and unlocks the gate. “You hungry? I’ve got pork chops in here somewhere. I myself was planning on a Slim-Fast shake, but I always provide solid meals for guests—the four basic food groups all in attendance. You look skinny. Do you eat?”

I realize with a pang of guilt that I haven’t eaten a solid meal in ages. By the time I get ready to answer, though, he’s already forgotten the question.

“Well hey, look at that—it’s my friend, Caliban the Pelican. You can tell it’s him because he’s got that crazed, half-monster look. Hey, Cal! How’s the fishing? Ah well, that’s the trouble with pelicans, they’re always so awkward when you try to engage them in conversation.” He disappears below deck. Something crashes to the floor and I hear him cursing. “Will you hold on a minute?” he calls. “I can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time. I’ll be out in two seconds.”

I unfold his lawn chair and sit facing the bay. He’s certainly in better spirits than I found him in last; maybe that was just a fluke. Caliban lands on a nearby boat and eyes me suspiciously. He does seem to have a crazed gleam in his eye. I wave to him, but he continues to watch me with a look of distaste.

“I don’t think Cal likes me,” I yell to Bender.

“What’s that?”

“Cal. He’s looking at me like I’m regurgitated slime.”

“That’s a good sign. He loves regurgitated slime.”

In a moment, Bender emerges with a can of tomato juice in one hand and a can of Budweiser in the other. “What did you say about the pork chop? You want one?”

“No thanks.”

“You want something to drink?” I nod, and he tosses me the juice.

“My father used to drink tomato beer,” I say. He looks at me for a moment, then nods, but says nothing. “You ever have that?”

“Fantastic,” he says, “A can of Bud, a little Snappy Tom.”

“Did my dad turn you on to those?”

“I taught him the damn recipe!” We both drink from our cans and look out at the water. “Summer’s moody around here,” he says. “Like San Francisco, only more rain.”

“I kind of like it,” I say.

“Gets old.” A mosquito lands on his forearm. He smacks it dead with his big, leathery palm and smears it on his pants. A faint, feathery line of blood appears there. “Not much work in Bellingham,” he says. “College kids snatch up most of it.”

“Yeah?” I say, feeling the panic I woke with swelling anew in my belly. There’s an awkward pause.

“Surprised you’re still here,” he says finally. “Thought you’d be back in San Francisco by now.”

“No. I’m not going back there.”

“Really?” He raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”

A big, gray-bloated cloud slides in front of the sun. “Because.” My voice is plain and quiet. “I was dying there.”

“Oh yeah?” he says. A small, mean twist creeps into the corner of his mouth. He dents his beer can slightly with his thumb. “What was it? Rush hour? Cost of living?”

“No,” I say.

He chuckles, but any warmth or humor is now obscured by the dark glint in his eyes. I think of an obese wolf. “Listen, Medina,” he says. “You’re young, okay? You’re healthy. You got nothing to worry about. You don’t know shit about dying.”

“When you’re in the sixth grade and your father blows his brains out, you learn something about dying pretty quick.”

To this he burps softly.

I shake my head and stand up. “Obviously, this is a waste of time. I was hoping you could take a momentary break from guzzling Budweiser to show me a few things.” I’m confused. The tomato juice tastes acrid in my mouth, and the tiny, nagging headache I’ve been fighting all morning starts to invade the better part of my brain. It feels like there are bees rattling around in my skull. “I guess you never gave a shit about my father, or you wouldn’t be treating me like—”

“Cut the pathos, okay?”

“—like a four-fingered leper!”

Silence. Caliban crashes into the water somewhere to my right, but I don’t look. I keep my gaze leveled on Bender.

Slowly at first, and then with more speed and rising volume, Bender begins to chuckle. Within seconds, he is laughing openly and hysterically, wiping his hand over his face and shaking his head.

“What’s so funny?”

“A four-fingered—” His face convulses, and his voice is choked with laughter, making it impossible for him to speak. When he catches his breath, he tries again: “Leper—” But he’s racked with giggles, holding his gut with one hand, jiggling his beer with the other. “Oh, man! You got that from Chet, didn’t you. I haven’t heard that in twenty-five years!”

He’s right. I hadn’t realized it until now, but that was one of my father’s expressions. “I—guess so,” I say. I sit again, trying to regain composure, but his laughter is infectious. I find myself fighting a sheepish grin, and once that’s taken over, giggles start rising up out of me like air bubbles.

“Chet,” Bender says. His face is as pink as boiled ham. “He had the godamndest way with words!” He yanks a handkerchief from his back pocket and runs it over his face twice in rapid succession. His fingers wander to the buttons on his shirt, making sure they’re still fastened. “What are you looking at?” he mumbles, patting at his wild, half-greased hair.

In that moment, I like him with such force, I can hardly keep myself from blurting out something stupid.

He saves us from any maudlin show of emotion by gripping his beer a little harder (I can see the fresh dents taking shape under his fingers) and getting businesslike. His voice goes gruff and vaguely paternal. “Listen, I’d like to help you. I would. I can see you’re in a spot. The thing is, I don’t have a pot to piss in. I unload more stuff every day. I’m even thinking about selling this old rowboat and getting a motorcycle. I got some bills and…you know, things stack up. I might need to be mobile.” Here he pauses, licks his lips. “I’m in no position, is what I’m saying…”

“When did you stop?” I ask.

“Stop what?”

“Being a luthier?”

He smiles sadly and fishes a toothpick from his pocket. He uses it to poke at his gums somewhere deep in the recesses of his mouth, then lets it dangle from his lips. “I never stopped being a luthier,” he says.

“So you still make guitars?”

He takes the toothpick from his mouth and runs the tip of it under his thumbnail. “Need a shop for that. I mean it’s in me, is all. Certain things you can’t shake,” he says, wiping his mouth.

Caliban is hovering again, suspended above the water with his enormous wings splayed out, feathers trembling in the light breeze. We watch him, his beak poised like a spear, his beady eyes fixed on something below. “What would it take,” I say cautiously, “to get you back in business?”

He snorts, snaps the toothpick in half. “A lot,” he says. “More than you can—” He stops, midsentence.

I turn and he’s staring at me with his mouth clamped shut, his eyes burning. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

“Is your mother involved in this?” he asks, slowly and deliberately.

“My mother? No, I told you, Rosie’s—”

“Is Helen in any way, shape or form behind this? I want to know.”

“Sh-she doesn’t even know I’m—” I stammer, but he’s tossing his can down and stomping on it. The boat rocks violently.

“I’m not a goddamn charity case, and you can tell her I said that.”

“Tell who?”

“Don’t give me that! I see it, now. Helen sends her spawn to—”

“But my mother doesn’t even know I’m—”

“I hear she’s doing pretty good now. She can afford a wind-up derelict. I see she hasn’t lost her bleeding heart!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, but it’s like he can’t hear me—the wheels in his brain are turning too fast. “My mother never even mentioned your name!” I say, raising my voice.

I’ve stumbled upon the password; his rage dissolves.

He makes a futile attempt to smooth his hair down again, turning away from me. “No,” he says, softly. “Of course she didn’t. How stupid of me.”

“Rosie’s the one who told me about you,” I add cautiously.

“Right,” he mumbles, sitting down on the ice chest. “You said that….”

“I did.”

“Listen.” He scowls out at the water. “Why don’t you just tell me why you’re still here?”

I take a deep breath. “I was hoping you’d change your mind,” I say softly. “About teaching me.”

“It’s got nothing to do with my mind,” he says. “I’ve got no shop, no money. I don’t know how else to say it. Go back to San Francisco, find someone there—”

“I’m not going back.” My tone is icy.

He hesitates. “Well, what do I know?” he says to the bay.

“You want me to leave you alone?” I ask, when the silence has gone on too long.

He takes his handkerchief out and blows his nose with tremendous volume. Caliban flaps away across the water. He watches, his face expressionless, and shoves the handkerchief back into his pocket.

“I’m not much company,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, standing.

“Don’t be.”

I step from his boat onto the dock carefully, feeling my headache again. The clouds have moved in full force, though there are still a few stray beams of sunlight leaking through here and there. Bender stays seated on the ice chest, his back to me. His hair matches the color of the clouds. I want to say something so the moment won’t seem so amputated, but nothing comes to me.

I have my hand on the gate when I hear him say, “Medina.” I turn around. He gets up from the ice chest and heads toward the cabin. “Hold on a minute,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

I walk back to his boat, and in a little while he reappears with a paper towel in his hand. He hands it to me. There’s red ink scribbled across it, barely legible. Dr. Riley Evans, it says, and beneath that is a local phone number.

“Guy I used to know,” he says. “Teacher up at Western. Musicology or something. He knows everyone around here—see if he can hook you up. You got a degree?” I nod. “Maybe he’s got some research you could do. No guarantees, but you could give it a shot.” I try to look grateful. “Tell him your name. It means something to guys like him.”

“Because of Dad?”

He picks up a scrap of toast lying on the floor of the boat and tosses it to a seagull, who catches it midair. “You just tell him who you are. You’ll see what I mean.”

We’re playing pool at the Station Pub with Arlan and Bill that night when Lucy mentions Grady Berlin for the first time. “Grady called today,” she tells Arlan. “He’s coming home in a couple weeks.”

“No shit,” Arlan says, sounding happy as a kid. “Is he really?”

I take my shot—a difficult one I’m sure I won’t make—and miraculously the 4-ball sinks gently into the corner pocket. I try not to look overly proud of myself and move around the table slowly, assessing my next move.

“Nice,” Lucy tells me. “You’re getting better.”

“Grady the tree hugger?” Bill says.

“He’s an arborist, asshole.”

Bill takes a long drink of beer, burps quietly and says, “Lucinda, what have I done to make you so hateful?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I wouldn’t waste hatefulness on you.”

I take another shot, an easy one this time, perfectly lined up, and miss.

Arlan steps up to the table and sinks five balls in a row. His face is tight with concentration as he moves about, but his body is loose, leaning over and lining up his cue with the ease of a practiced shark.

“Who’s Grady Berlin?” I ask.

Bill looks at me in surprise. “You don’t know Grady?”

I drink my beer and shake my head.

“No,” Lucy says. “Of course not. He left for Argentina way before she showed up.” She turns to me. “Grady’s the guy you’ll fall in love with,” she tells me. Then she looks over my shoulder and adds, “Oh. Arlan fucked up. Your shot.”

Almost a full week passes before I get a chance to meet with Dr. Riley Evans. It’s summer, so the university is in slow motion, which makes it frustrating tracking him down. I reach him by phone Friday afternoon.

“Anna, you say? Fine, well, let’s see—not that god-awful mandolin again! Good Christ, what have you done to—” and here he drops the phone a moment, before returning, a little out of breath, and laughing. “Who’s this? Right, Anna— Monday, then? Say noon?”

I show up at his office five minutes early, and he appears twenty minutes later, carrying a fake leather briefcase and trailing a long piece of string from his shoe. He’s a slim, lip-licking type with flaky dry skin around his mouth and eyes. His hair is a brown bowl atop his head. He lets us into his office, settles himself behind an enormous desk piled high with books, and points to a chair in the corner for me. I move it slightly so I can see around the chaos of his desk to his enormous, fishlike eyes.

“Well then, what seems to be the problem, Amy? Worried about the midterm?”

“My name’s Anna,” I say. “And actually, I’m not a student.”

He pauses, a little thrown by this—I’ve veered from the script on my first line. He leans back in his leather chair, brings his hands up close to his face and taps the tips of his fingers together rapidly. “Not a student?”

“Elliot Bender gave me your number. I’ve come here to work with him, only…” I pause, looking around the room. “I want to make guitars, but…”

“Yes?” he says expectantly, licking his chapped lips.

“I thought Mr. Bender could teach me, only he can’t—well, he won’t.”

“He’s fallen on hard times,” Dr. Evans says, nodding soberly. “I heard about that. He’s a legend, though—he’s to luthiers what Christ is to Christians—the Les Paul of the acoustic cult, the—”

“Yes,” I say. “He’s quite good, then, I guess?”

He snorts. “Let’s face it, there’s not a soul in the civilized world who knows a thing about guitars and doesn’t positively worship the Bender construction—the signature inlays, the priceless tone. In my History of Stringed Instruments course I spend at least two weeks on Bender and Medina, their collaborative and solo years—of course, Medina was nearly his equal until he went off the deep end in 1988.”

“1987,” I say.

“I’m sorry?” A milky-white string of saliva has been gradually thickening between his bottom and top lips. I watch it quiver as he pauses with his mouth slightly ajar.

“Chet Medina killed himself in 1987,” I say.

“1988,” he snaps, tapping his fingers again quickly.

“1987,” I repeat.

“What is your interest, here?” he asks, after studying me.

“I told you. I want to make guitars.”

“We don’t offer hands-on classes. We study the history, musicology, theory—not the craft. Now I’d like to help you, but I’ve got an appointment across campus in—” he paws through the papers on his desk “—five minutes. Have you got the time?”

“It’s twelve thirty-five,” I say, reading the clock above his head.

“Right,” he says. “Are you looking for information? Is there something in particular I can help you with?”

I stand, shoving my hands into my pockets. “I don’t think so.”

CHAPTER 5
Déjà Vu

Lucy and I are eating lunch in the filthy little room next to the taco stand we love. I watch as red liquid drips from the tilted curve of her folded corn tortilla; it is difficult to tell if it is blood from the carne asada or just salsa. It lands in dark drops on the paper lining her plastic basket. Flies buzz impatiently in the air.

Tacos Jesus hovers between two poles: earthy hedonism and food poisoning. The tacos are amazing, the meat so tender and perfectly spiced, you have to close your eyes as you chew, thinking of Mayan hunters closing in for the kill. Your immediate surroundings are more mundane; the only place to sit is this weird, dirty room sandwiched between the taco trailer and a butcher shop. The tables are always sticky, the floor is covered in green, peeling linoleum. There’s nothing to drink but Mexican sodas that come in lurid colors or fake sangria that’s really just sugary grape juice. Still, Tacos Jesus is strangely addictive; after you’ve had it once, it is impossible to go more than a couple of days without craving the firm texture of the carne asada between your teeth and the soothing warmth of the tortillas in your hands.

“So,” I say. “Tell me more about this Grady guy.”

“What’s there to tell?” she says. “The important thing is that you’re curious.”

“Come on,” I say. “Of course I’m going to be curious. You told me I’m going to fall in love with him.”

“Or not,” she says. “I mean, he’s definitely not good enough for you, but I doubt you’ll let that stop you.”

“What’s not good enough about him?”

“He’s smart, but he’s not as smart as he wants to be. Like most men, he doesn’t listen—he’s good at pretending, but he won’t hear you. He’s incredibly cute, but don’t tell him that—he’ll assume you’re shallow. He climbs trees for a living and he’s supposedly an anarchist or a communist or something, but if you’ve ever seen him fold a shirt you’d know the anarchist bit is bullshit, and he went to Yale, so I have a hard time imagining him a communist. Those are the most important things to know about Grady.” She wipes a little drip of salsa from the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “Now, let’s stop talking about him—Grady’s boring, especially since you’re not even fucking him yet.”

I have to concentrate on swallowing so I won’t choke on my tamarind soda. “I haven’t even met him!”

“Right. My point exactly.” She spreads her lips into a grimace and exposes her gleaming little teeth. “Do I have food in my teeth?”

I look. “No. Do I?” She examines mine and points to a spot. I dig with my fingernail until I dislodge the leaf of cilantro.

“Forget about Grady for now,” she says. “If you say too much you ruin everything.”

On the way home, I let Lucy drive, and I find myself gripping my own arm so hard, there are fingernail punctures for hours afterward. She handles the wheel with nonchalance—it’s merely an accessory she can fling around, while her cigarette is the main event.

A cop passes us on the left. Lucy is digging down into the seat-belt hole, trying to find her lighter. The truck veers dangerously in his direction, and I can no longer resist—I grab the wheel and tug the vehicle back to the center of the road, as gently and firmly as I can. I can see the cop car gliding slowly in the lane next to us; he hovers there for a long moment, assessing us in his rearview mirror. Lucy, unhindered by her seat belt, digs deeper into the recesses of the hole, oblivious to the road. By the time she returns to the wheel with the lighter, an “Aha!” of triumph on her lips, the cop is slowing to a crawl beside us. “What’s your problem?” she asks me, and when I nod toward the cop in answer, she says, “Ha! I eat them for breakfast.” After a couple of seconds, the cop moves on. I reluctantly surrender the wheel to her again, leaving traces of sweat behind.

“Lucinda,” I say, letting out my breath.

“What? I’ve got it!”

The car in front of us flashes two bright-red brake lights, and I hold my breath again as she concentrates on lighting her cigarette. At the last minute, she slams on the brakes. She laughs and takes a drag, looking at me sideways.

“You’ve got an interesting driving style,” I say.

“This is nothing,” she tells me, adjusting the rearview mirror so she can examine her eyebrows. “You should see me when I’m drunk.”

Lucy and Arlan are out tonight, and for the first time since I came here, I’m home alone. Buddhist Monkeys has a regular gig on Friday nights at Fanny’s Barbecue Palace. Of course, I’m always invited, but tonight I’m not in the mood to watch Arlan’s talent being eclipsed by Danny’s absurd theatrics. It’s painful watching the handful of alcoholics who constitute Buddhist Monkeys’ fan base being replaced with a full-on crowd when the lame headliners, Honkey Dory, show up. Still, I don’t blame the kids around here for preferring Honkey Dory’s saccharine, top-forty tunes to Danny’s clumsy attempts at social commentary set to the assault-on-the-senses he calls music.

Since I met him a couple of weeks ago, my distaste for Danny has increased exponentially. His concept of the cosmos revolves around three reference points: Mad Max, Black Flag, and shooting up. If you try to steer the conversation away from these three topics, he inevitably stares with glassy-eyed vacancy at a point in space just above and beyond your left shoulder.

As for the other band members, Bill is more likable than Sparky, though by a thin margin. Sparky is enamored with Danny, and because he has no discernable personality of his own, his willingness to laugh at everything Danny says makes him guilty by association, in my eyes. Bill is more a devotee of Arlan, which gives us something in common, at least. He’s also more civilized than the others, but his rodentlike eagerness is a turnoff. Once, I saw him make the moves on a disgustingly drunk college girl who’d just been publicly dumped. Her mascara was still wet and the front of her shirt was slightly vomit-stained; Bill went right up and handed her another drink.

Tonight, I’m determined to take advantage of the only privacy I’ve had in weeks. Soon after I watch Lucy and Arlan drive off in his station wagon, I fix myself a cup of tea and snuggle into the window seat. I breathe into the cup and feel the steam rise against my face in a thin vapor. Outside, the evening sky is deepening its melancholy blue by several shades, and the college kids are beginning their Friday night by clomping downtown in their heavy-soled hipster shoes. The stillness of the house is startling. I can’t remember the last time I was alone.

In my old life, I’d grown used to days on end of virtual solitude. Even when I worked at After Hours, I was isolated inside my cubicle, with nothing but the low, compulsive hum of office life between me and silence. On weekends, I sometimes went out with Derek; we’d dine on lentil soup and organic juice at his favorite restaurant in Mill Valley, where the faint smell of ginger and dirt always clung to the air. Or my mother and I would spend the obligatory meal in one another’s company. As soon as we’d finished eating, though, we’d flee, both of us taxed by the accumulated weight of things we were too tired or frightened to say.

This summer my loner facade has been under siege. Since I’ve started living with Lucy and Arlan, every day begins and ends with the sounds of other people—the toilet flushes, coffee beans are ground, a tray of ice cubes is being twisted until it cracks, someone is yelling at someone else to bring them cigarettes. Sometimes I sleep by myself in the living room, listening to Lucy and Arlan have sex; more often, Bill or Danny or Sparky or all three are snoring somewhere nearby, collapsed on the floor in various shapes. I live in a hive of human sounds, filled with the buzz of other peoples’ needs and impulses.

The Land of Skin is active tonight. As it gets dark, I unwrap my binoculars from the wool sweater stashed deep in my backpack. I feel a little dirty as I crouch closer to the window and begin to focus. The hairy fixture of Purgatory Corner appears in life-size detail, his baseball cap perched backwards on his head, his stringy brown hair parting to reveal large, fleshy ears. He’s yelling something at the Goat Kid Hovel, and I open the window to hear better. “Get a life!” he bellows. “Goddamn disturbance of the peace!”

Across the street, the Goat Kids are attempting a barbecue of sorts. A cacophony of distorted guitars is pulsing from their windows. Out on the lawn, there’s a group of seven or eight of them clustered around a trash can half filled with debris. One of them douses it with lighter fluid and tosses a match in. A cluster of flames emerges suddenly, like a devil they’ve conjured. The flames increase in intensity, turning the Goat Kids’ faces gold. I hear the guy on the porch scream a half scolding, half admiring obscenity from across the street, but they’re too enraptured to notice. Someone carrying a package of hot dogs emerges from the house, and several of them dangle the dogs close to the flames. By the time they’ve managed to impale one or two on sticks, the flames have died down to embers.

I watch for a long time, lost in the familiar pleasure of it. I fold my legs under me and press my binoculars to the glass. I look for Raggedy Ann, but she’s not there. I feel half guilty, as if her absence is a direct result of my failure to look for her lately. I think of Magdalena and all those I watched with such vigilance back in San Francisco. Something in me longs for the beige of my apartment, the uninterrupted hours spent in anonymous bliss, soaking up the details of other peoples’ lives.

Some time later, I hear the scratch of a lighter behind me, and I turn so quickly that I feel a pain shoot down my neck. Lucy’s lighting her cigarette, standing there in her little red T-shirt and a barely-there skirt, with one boot tapping against the carpet. “So,” she says, and little puffs of smoke emerge from her lips as she speaks. “You’re one of those.”

I stand up and try to force my binoculars into my backpack.

“Don’t,” she says simply, but I’ve spilled the contents of my bag now, and am busying myself stuffing shirts and underwear and packages of gum back where they came from. “Anna,” she says. I meet her gaze, and she smiles. “You’re blushing,” she tells me. “You’re so lovely when you blush.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” I say.

“I’m not.” She comes closer, and I can smell the smoke on her, the sweet, fruity smell of her shampoo, and her breath laced with gin. “I would never do that.” For a moment, we just stand there, very close. Her face is tilted upward slightly toward mine. I can see the dark red lipstick, and the place where she went just slightly outside the lip line, to make her lips look even fuller. There are tiny marks where she plucked her eyebrows. Her eyes are so dark, and she’s watching me so intently, that the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand erect. I look down.

She takes a step back and falls onto the couch, her limbs spreading in a way that tells me she’s drunk. “I don’t humiliate people I like,” she says. “But I don’t mind telling you—watching is a form of rape.”

I sit, and concentrate on cinching my backpack closed.

“By the way,” she says, and she takes an extralong drag off her cigarette. “How can you go through life without smoking? Don’t you feel impovish—” She pauses and wraps her mouth around the syllables more carefully. “Impoverished?”

“How so?” I ask, glad that she’s changed the subject.

“You’ve been robbed of your prime smoking years!” She takes a cigarette from the pack and hands it to me. “Go on. Try one.”

“No thanks,” I say.

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