already ordered. Order what you want and then we'll talk."
He hadn't had time to even look at the menu, but he ordered a pastrami sandwich and an iced tea--the same thing he'd had the last time they'd met here.
The waitress left and Lindsay leaned across the table, patting his hand. "How are you, Barry? How've you been out there in the heartland?"
"Fine," he said.
"That's great," she told him before he could say another word.
She spent the next fifteen minutes or so trying to impress him, as she always did, and he gamely feigned interest in her newest trendy passion. She was what Maureen called a "Miramax intellectual," one of those people who wasn't particularly knowledgeable or well read but who followed the cultural trends generated by art-house films: reading Janet Frame after seeing An Angel at My Table, pretending to be an admirer of Pablo Neruda after viewing Il Postino , referencing Jane Austen in conversation after seeing the movies rather than reading the books. It was a tactic that worked well these days in polite society, this false familiarity with culture, although it never failed to set his teeth on edge, and it annoyed Maureen to the extent that she made a conscious effort to avoid casual conversation with Lindsay.
When the food came and they finally got around to business, the news was not good.
"I expected to have contracts for you to sign," Lindsay admitted.
"But... there've been complications since we last spoke. To be honest, I think the deal might've fallen through. I haven't given up hope,"
she added quickly. "We still might be able to pull this off. But there's been a changeover at the studio, and you know how these things work. Anything associated with the old regime, the previous administration, is automatically suspect. Right now, that means us.
But I hope to call a meeting with one of the development execs early next week and see if we can work something out. The Friend is a very salable property, a very shoo table property, and I have no doubt that once I can divorce it from the context in which it was rejected, I'll be able to make them see that."
Lindsay tried to smile. "Want any dessert?"
It was still light out when he emerged from the restaurant, and Barry hurried over to his car, driving straight down Fairfax to the freeway in an effort to beat the after work traffic out to Orange County.
He was ahead of the game for a while, but he got bogged down in rush-hour traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway, and he took surface streets from Santa Fe Springs on, avoiding the areas where he knew they were doing highway construction, the challenges of southern California driving serving to keep his mind off Lindsay's disappointing news.
Once in Brea, he drove through his old neighborhood on an impulse. The street and sidewalks were carpeted with purple jacaranda flowers, the arching tree branches above having lost their blooms and given themselves over to summer leaves. Sunset had turned the smog a bright orange color, and he felt a slight twinge of nostalgia for California life.
And for a neighborhood without a homeowners' association.
Jeremy, Chuck, and Dylan were already waiting for him in the parking lot outside Minderbinder's , a hangout from their college days at UC Brea. Minderbinder's was still a college hangout, and the three of them were greeted with suspicion if not hostility as they commandeered a table near the entrance.
"Guess we look older than we are," Dylan said.
"No," Chuck told him. "You feel younger than you are."
"I know that's supposed to be a dig, but doesn't a youthful attitude help promote longer life?"
"The benefits of immaturity have yet to be proven."
A bored-looking waitress showed up, and they ordered beers all around.
"It's on him," Dylan said, pointing at Barry. "He's a rich and famous writer. Just sold one of his books to Hollywood."
The waitress suddenly seemed a little less bored. She smiled at Barry.
"Celebrating?"
"No."
"Congratulations anyway." She walked away with an exaggerated swing of her hips, and Dylan burst out laughing He waited until she'd passed out of earshot. "She's yours for the taking, bud."
"I told you, the movie deal fell through."
"She doesn't know that. Besides, what good's fame and fortune if you can't use it to get a little strange?"
"I'll tell Mo you said that."
"So how's life in the wilds?" Jeremy asked.
"It's not so wild after all."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He started describing the imposed restrictions and regimented rules of the homeowners' association. Halfway through, the waitress returned with their drinks, bending far enough over to show him her breasts as she placed his beer on the table, and he pointedly ignored her.
"Now they've put up a guard shack and a new gate to keep out the riffraff. I have to check in and out with this uniformed guard if I
want to leave or enter my own neighborhood."
Chuck laughed. "No shit?"
"No shit."
"Are you supposed to tip him?" Dylan asked. "I mean at Christmastime and stuff. I've heard that about doormen and things in New York. Maybe this is the same situation."
"I don't know," Barry admitted. "But that's the least of my worries."
He hadn't intended to say anything more, hadn't planned to talk about the weirdness, the scary things, the things he was really worried about, aware of how ridiculous they would sound to outsiders. But Jeremy's quizzical expression prompted him to keep going, to open up.
These were his friends--and if he couldn't tell them, who could he tell?
He took a deep breath. "There's more," Barry said. He told them everything, from Barney's death to Ray's, from Stumpy to Maureen's stalker. He then explained that the new gate had gone up in one night, had appeared fully formed as if by magic.
The three of them were silent for a moment, obviously unsure of what to say.
It was Chuck who spoke first. "You're not trying out some new plot idea on us, are you?"
"I wish I was. But I'm totally serious. This is what went down."
Barry took a long drink of his beer.
"/ believe you," Dylan announced. "There are more things, Horatio--"
Chuck bumped him. "Stop trying to impress the coeds with your misquoted Shakespeare. It's not becoming in a man of your age."
"A man of my age?"
"Told you you shouldn't've moved," Jeremy said.
Barry downed the last of his beer. "Yeah. Thanks."
"And I knew that dead cat was a bad sign."
Dylan shook his head. "There's really some freak with no arms or legs or tongue flopping around in the forest between the houses?"
"There really is," Barry said.
They had a thousand questions, but they were questions of incredulity, not questions of suspicion, and he realized gratefully that his friends were not trying to rationalize or explain away his interpretation of events but believed him fully.
Jeremy put a hand on his shoulder. "We're there if you need us, dude.
The situation gets too hairy and you need some help? Give us a call.
We're there."
"I may take you up on that."
"Hell," Dylan said. "I could use a vacation."
It was nearly midnight when they parted, and though Jeremy offered to let him stay at his apartment, Barry had already passed the cancellation cutoff time for his hotel. "I'm paying for it anyway," he said. "I might as well use it."
Jeremy shook his hand, a strangely adult gesture for his friend and one that felt unfamiliar but at the same time re assuring. "I'm serious,"
he said. "If shit starts to go down, give out a shout. We're there."
Barry grasped the hand and squeezed it gratefully. "I will," he said.
"You can count on it."