"You got a horse out of a hole?"
"I don't mean to cut you off, but we're in the middle of dinner."
"Not a problem; a producer will call you back to go over details about your appearance on the show."
"Who is it?" Nic asks.
"Today show," Richard says, covering the phone.
Nic takes the phone from Richard. "Thanks, but no thanks," he says, hanging up.
After dinner, Nic lights an enormous joint and passes it around. Everyone except Lipi smokes.
"I don't get it," Richard says. "You drink, you smoke, and you take intravenous vitamins to keep yourself healthy — seems like a contradiction."
"Counterbalance," Nic says, inhaling. "It's all about balance, and in order to balance you have to have counterbalance."
"Do you feel OK?" Cynthia asks Richard.
"I'm fine."
"Do you feel like a Superman?" Anhil asks. "With X-ray vision?"
Richard shakes his head. Frankly, he feels fragile, broken, like he has stepped so far outside himself that he's now a little unfamiliar even to himself.
The joint comes around again. It's been years since he got stoned. His head feels like cotton candy — light, airy.
For dessert they open the box of donuts, and Anhil goes into detail explaining the essential qualities of each donut. "This is the newest one, I call it Early Riser. It's a very high donut," he says, laughing. "That's funny, high donut. Right now, I am a high donut," he says.
Lipi shakes her head. "When you smoke you lose your intelligence."
Richard meanwhile is licking the glaze off a donut, mesmerized by the sugar coating, like shards of glass dissolving on his tongue.
"I'm going downhill," Nic says, "I'm not going to be able to hold it, I'm breaking up, I'm breaking up." He inhales.
"I'm stoned," Cynthia announces bluntly. "Did you grow up in L.A.?" she asks Nic.
"Schenectady."
"How'd you end up here?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yes."
"I was sixteen, my brother was twenty — he was in the army. I was home; it was afternoon. My mother saw a car pull up and park at the curb. She opened the door before the man even got out. 'My husband's not home,' she yelled.
"The man stood there for a moment. 'May I come in?'
" 'Call your father and tell him to come home,' she told me. She didn't want to hear it alone.
"I went into the kitchen and called my father. By the time he got there, my mother was chatting it up with the man, telling him stories about Tom and our family, and he just listened and drank his cup of coffee and never said anything that would give it away. Why? Out of decency? Was he sparing her or making it worse? And what was I doing? Hiding in the kitchen, afraid to go in there — afraid I might cry. My father got home, breathless and pale. He sat on the sofa without taking his coat off.
"I don't remember if they cried, or if my mother was too busy thanking the man for coming, for waiting for my father, for bringing the letter. My father was asking questions about 'the arrangements' and the man gave him a business card with a number to call.
"After he left, my father went outside and raked leaves for hours. Everything froze in a kind of darkness that I'd never dreamed possible. And I kept thinking that if it had happened to me they would have been fine, but because it was Tom it was worse. Behind their backs, I wore his clothes — socks, T-shirts — maybe my mother knew, maybe she didn't. I was terrified of being caught as some kind of memory thief. But I needed it — I needed to feel him, to remember him, to believe I was like him.
"When I left Schenectady, California seemed as far away as the moon, and when I got here, I couldn't go back, not until I'd made sense of it. And by the time I'd done that, a different kind of time had passed — I was no longer the same person, I was a veteran of my own life."
They sit in silence. There is nothing to say.
Nic goes to the window. "The ocean looks like ink, like so much spilt black ink."
They all sit a while longer, and then Anhil, his brother, and Lipi pack up the rice cooker, the empty stew pot.
"I put the leftovers in the refrigerator, for tomorrow," Lipi says.
"Thank you," Richard says. "I'm so glad you came, so glad to meet you."
"I love you," Cynthia says, to no one in particular.
"This was my dream," Anhil says, "to be invited to a famous house in Malibu and to have my wife with me. Next time everyone comes to our house — it's not as poor as you think." Anhil hugs him. "Take care, rescue ranger."
"The fire can burn out without me," Nic says, picking up the half-empty bottle of wine and heading for the door.
RICHARD turns around and Cynthia is asleep on the sofa. He stands listening to the waves lapping at the edge of the land, and then slowly closes the sliding glass door.
In the bedroom, he undresses. Bruises are starting to show: large uneven areas of green and purple on his arms, his legs, his side. He puts on sweats and goes to the computer to check his accounts. It's always comforting to check the money.
He sends his brother an e-maiclass="underline" "Helped a woman taken hostage out of the trunk of a car today. Can't sleep — looking forward to the boys arriving. BTW (by the way) — did you really almost win a Nobel?" He deletes the line about the Nobel and hits "send." The boys are a day or two from arriving, and it occurs to Richard that no one knows where he is — Ben doesn't, his brother doesn't, his ex-wife doesn't. He calls the answering machine back at the sinking house and plays his messages.
"It's your painter, on my cell phone, calling from inside the house. I didn't have keys, so I just stayed here. I'm finished. The room is done, so I'm going, I'm leaving. I'll close the door behind me."
"Dr. Lusardi's office. The doctor wants to discuss the health of your prostate."
"It's Cecelia — I'm in the hospital. I was coming out of anesthesia and I saw you on television. I thought I must be dreaming. You're at the bottom of a hill, the car is in a ditch. It's on CNN. They keep playing it over and over again — every ten minutes I see pictures of you trying to climb the hill. Oh Lord, I hope you're all right."
"Hi. You don't know me, but I'm thirty-nine and looking to meet someone nice and, well, there just don't seem to be any decent guys out there. So, if you're interested, we could just meet somewhere for a coffee. OK, I know it's weird."
"Hello, Richard, it's Charlie, from Good Morning America…"
"It's Wendy from Hello Los Angeles…"
"Dick, it's Jeff, from the Today show…"
"Ah, Mr. Novak, this is Sergeant Braddock. We had a Hancock Park man come into the station today claiming that you have his wife, says you kidnapped her, and, well, given the recent activity on the highway, could you give us a call."
"It's me. I wanted to thank you. I don't know what to say; I'm really grateful, and I'm going to keep your shirt, if that's OK. I'm at my parents' house — and I'm going to stay here for a while."
"Are you there, Richard? Pick up. I've gotten a dozen calls today from people who seem to think you've been doing things — rescuing animals, saving kidnapped women… I tried to tell them it couldn't be you, you're not the kind of person who does things like that, but I thought you should know, there's another Richard Novak out there on the loose. Be careful. I hope you're feeling better, by the way; it's not like I don't care, I'm just busy."
He lies on the bed. Did anyone else see it? The brake lights flashing — how did she know to do that? What did she think when she flashed and he beeped back the same pattern? Did she think, "I'm safe"? Can she ever feel safe again? His arms are sore — the hill, the rough brush, rolling over the hard yellow grasses, holding on to the guy. He replays it — the hollow echo of his knuckles knocking on the trunk. The girl answering, muffled — a distant girl in a distant trunk, and at the same time perfectly clear.