Richard gets out of bed and goes back into the living room; the fire is still glowing. He camps out on the other sofa, opposite Cynthia.
"Can't sleep," he says.
"Join the crowd," she says.
FIVE A.M… he is in the bedroom, sitting eyes closed in the middle of the king-sized bed, breathing, trying to follow his breath. His mind wanders, he chases it, reminding himself to stay in his body, in his breath. He's good for twenty-two minutes and then it is over.
Cynthia is up, dressed, ready for her first day at the plastic surgeon's charitable change-your-life facility. The car isn't picking her up until eight-thirty, but she's pacing. "Did I do the right thing? I hope I did the right thing. I mean, when you think about it, I just left, I walked out on my children. I could get in trouble for that. If Andy wanted to be an ass, he could make it so I didn't see them again. It was exhausting, twenty-four hours a day cooking, cleaning, driving."
"Do you want to go for a walk?"
"A walk would be good," she says. "I need to move. I shouldn't have gotten stoned last night. I always get paranoid when I get stoned. I didn't seem paranoid, did I? I mean, I didn't do anything to draw attention to myself?"
"You fell asleep," he says.
They walk down the beach towards Santa Monica. A dog drops a ball at Richard's feet. He picks it up, throws it; the dog gets the ball and brings it back. They do it about twenty times, and then the dog follows them back to the house and up onto the deck.
"OK, friend," Richard says. "Go home now." And the dog just stands there.
"You're on TV," Cynthia calls from the living room.
"Little is known about Richard Novak; he declined an appearance on this morning's show. Neighbors in his upscale Los Angeles neighborhood say that before last week's episode, when a horse fell into a sinkhole, they'd never met him. Is he a modern-day superhero, anonymously fighting crime, or is he just an old-fashioned Good Samaritan? If you know Richard Novak, or someone like him, let us know. Good Samaritans — an investigation, starts Monday on the eleven o'clock news."
"You're famous," Cynthia says.
The dog is still on the porch.
"Am I famous?" Richard asks the dog. "What does 'famous' mean?"
"Can I use your computer for a minute?" Cynthia asks. Sure.
She logs on and sends the kids a message. "Mom here — just wanted you to know I'm thinking of you. Reminder: brush your teeth — hard to keep friends if you have dragon breath. Change underwear — clean underwear is not just for special occasions."
Outside, a horn beeps.
Richard walks Cynthia to the car. "Do you want to give me an address or a phone number just in case?"
The woman behind the wheel hands him one of the doctor's business cards. "Don't worry," she says. "I'll have her back by five."
"Call me if you want to come home earlier," he says.
"I'll be fine," Cynthia says.
As the car is pulling out, Nic opens his door. "Hey, man, sorry if I went on last night — I really shouldn't drink and smoke."
"You're up early."
"I'm a morning person: no matter what time I go down, I pop up at five-thirty. Can I borrow your car? Mine's in the shop. Just for a couple of hours?"
"Yeah, sure, take it."
"Actually, better yet, can you drive me?"
"I guess; where are you going?"
"A place down on Fairfax."
"OK. Sure. Not a problem."
"Can we go soon?"
"Give me fifteen minutes." Richard goes back inside. The dog is still on the deck; Richard gives him some leftovers and a bowl of water.
"You know," he tells the dog, "famous people don't feed dogs, they have people who do that for them — dog feeders." The dog just looks at him. Richard gets the dog a towel so he'll have something to sit on. The dog curls up on the towel.
By the time Richard gets outside, Nic is waiting with a shopping bag full of stuff.
"Do you even have a car?" Richard asks.
"Of course I do." He pulls a key chain out of his pocket and pushes a button, and the garage door lifts. A huge, shiny Bentley is parked in the narrow garage. "OK, so it's not in the shop, but I can't exactly go driving around in it."
"Why do you have a Bentley?"
"It was a gift."
"Nice. Who gives a Bentley as a gift?"
"John Lennon. It was John's, and he gave it to me a long time ago. It's not like I can sell it or anything."
"And why did John Lennon give you his car?"
"Actually, I paid him a dollar for it — there had to be a transaction in order to transfer the title."
"Am I'm supposed to ask where you knew John Lennon from?"
"He read a book I wrote and called me," Nic says, matter-of-factly.
"Really. My ex-wife is in publishing," Richard says.
"Sorry about last night," Nic says, changing the subject. "I didn't mean to bring everyone down."
"Buckle up." Richard pulls the car out onto the highway.
They ride in silence, listening to the car rattling, groaning over potholes. Richard puts a price on each sound — some are two hundred dollars, some are closer to two thousand. He's on the 10 heading towards town. None of the cars look the same as they did yesterday, no one is innocent, everyone is suspect, menacing. Maybe he shouldn't have smoked the pot last night — maybe he's a little bit paranoid too.
"What am I looking for — store, office — what?" he asks when they're finally on Fairfax.
"Old-age home," Nic says, "two more blocks."
"Are you visiting someone special?"
"Fred." They park in front; Nic loads quarters into the meter. "You coming in?" Nic asks, implying that he is.
"Guess so," Richard says.
Inside, the smell is stunning: stale urine, shit and disinfectant, bad air, bad digestion, boiled vegetables. Even though it's a nice day outside, you'd never know it. The curtains are half drawn; the windows, small and never washed, look out onto a pawnshop, a car wash, a long line of low-end commercial businesses. He can't imagine who would put a relative in here.
"Where is he?" Nic asks the woman at the front desk.
"Lunchroom," the woman says.
They go down the hall into what must be Fred's room, or Fred's half of a room. Nic unpacks the bag he brought, pulling out packs of cheap white sweat socks and boxer shorts — ripping the packages open and writing the old man's name onto the items with black waterproof ink. "If you're wondering why I buy the cheap ones," Nic says as he's writing, "it's because they lose his clothes, or steal them. I had someone make him a nice hand-knit sweater. He wore it once and we never saw it again. So I buy him crap, and every month or so I replace everything — at least he has clean clothes." He opens Fred's drawer, dumping the old socks and stained underwear into the trash.
They go down the hall into the lunchroom, waving to everyone along the way.
Fred is a pretzelized man, bent, twisted, stuffed into a wheelchair. "How ya doing, Fred? This is my friend Richard; I borrowed his car so we can go joyriding."
Fred smiles, a gnarled, gap-toothed grin. "Yie," he says, waving as best he can. Nic pushes Fred's wheelchair past the front desk, signs Fred out, lifts him into the front seat, and puts the seat belt around him.
"Do you want to drive?" Richard hands Nic the keys. He can't imagine sitting up front with Fred.
"What are we going to get today, Fred? Some pie? Some of that really good cherry pie, or should we get meringue? Remember when we got the sweet-potato pie for Darlene, that nurse, and you and I ended up eating the whole thing before we got home? Let's go to DuPar's — they make good pie."
"Yie," Fred says.
"The trick," Nic says in the parking lot at the Farmers Market, and he's lifting Fred out of the car, "is to not be afraid. What's going to happen, I'm going to drop him, or break him? Fred doesn't care — do you? — you're just glad to be out."