Bill explained. "That's okay. Jonathan told me he was locked out of your house. He couldn't answer the phone."
"I've lost my house keys, Ira," said Jonathan. The room glimmered, as sunlight sprinkles snow with stars. Someone was trying to walk toward Jonathan through the mist. All Jonathan could see was a dark shape, lumpy, in dark clothes. Light came in rays from all around it, cutting through the mist, casting shadows.
"I'll need sunglasses," said Jonathan and grinned and grinned.
Muffy came in, carrying the dessert. To Jonathan, the dessert looked like a chocolate pudding.
"I made this specially for you," Muffy said to Jonathan.
Jonathan imagined how smooth the chocolate pudding would be. He picked up the serving spoon and plunged it into the dish, and then, confused, pushed it into his own mouth.
"Jonathan!" exclaimed Ira and thumped both hands on the table. The pudding seemed to turn into dust in Jonathan's mouth. It was chestnut pudding, bland and with a kind of powdery texture underneath.
"It's okay," said Muffy. "I'll get another serving spoon."
As she left for the kitchen, Jonathan thought: She made it for me, and I don't like it and that will hurt her feelings. I know. I'll eat without chewing it, so I won't have to taste it. There was silence at the table as he gulped it. He took another serving spoonful and swallowed again. He made a noise like a frog.
Muffy came back out. One more mouthful for her. He stuck the spoon in and swallowed it whole, raw.
"Very. Good," he said.
Then he stood up and shambled into the kitchen and threw it up, into the sink, over the draining board.
"Oh God! Jonathan!" shouted Ira.
There was a kitchen chair. Jonathan slumped helpless onto it, otherwise he might have fallen.
Ira was in the kitchen first. He picked up a towel. It was a good dishtowel, too good to use.
"Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," he said and flung the towel against the wall in rage. Muffy came in.
"I'm so sorry," said Ira to her.
"That's okay. I can clean it up," said Muffy. She did not sound cheerful, but managed to be reasonably businesslike.
"No. You will not. That is one thing you mustn't do," said Ira. There were wispy trails of blood in the pudding.
Jonathan had begun to realize exactly what he had done. He wished he was dead. Then he remembered that he would be soon enough. "I'm sorry," he said, in a voice perhaps too low for the others to hear. Jonathan tried to get up and found that he couldn't. "I'll clean it up," he said. Again, no one seemed to hear.
Muffy flashed rubber gloves. Ira took them from her. "Really," he said. "I'd rather you let me do it."
"Okay," said Muffy. "Jonathan, would you like to go outside for a walk?"
What?
Then it was a minute or two later and Muffy wasn't there. Ira was scrubbing, his back to Jonathan, pouring bleach on the draining board.
"Ira? We were talking about Wichita," said Jonathan. "And Wyatt Earp. He wore a policeman's uniform. Mostly he just took in stray dogs. His sisters were registered prostitutes."
Ira did not answer.
"I'm sorry, Ira."
Ira still did not answer. When he was done, he seemed to sag in place. He pulled off the gloves and let them soak in bleach, and he washed his hands, and he turned around, and his face was white like a fish's belly and stubbled with blue-black beard. He looked fat and haggard at the same time. He had been working until nine o'clock. He had been working a lot lately.
Ira walked out of the kitchen and left Jonathan sitting there.
And there was the mist again, and there was someone walking through the mist, out of the midst of the dishwasher.
"Squeaky clean," said Jonathan and grinned.
Whoever, whatever it was drew back as if afraid. Was it wearing a dress?
"No, no, don't be afraid," said Jonathan. It seemed to come back.
Sometime later, Bill was leaning over him, arm across his shoulders. "Who are you talking to, Jonathan?"
"I beg your pardon?" Jonathan replied, on automatic pilot. There was nothing in the kitchen except for the stove, the sink, the dishwasher.
"You've been talking to someone out here for quite some time."
Jonathan didn't remember that at all.
"Who to?" Bill asked.
Jonathan wasn't quite sure, but he could hazard a guess. "Dorothy," he replied.
Ira drove them back home in silence. They had had to leave Jonathan's car behind. Muffy said she would drive it home for them the next day while Ira was at work. "I'll stop in and see you," she said to Jonathan.
Jonathan realized later that he had not answered her.
It had drizzled during dinner. The streets were greasy with rain, slick and shiny. The colors swam in Jonathan's eyes.
"Snakes," he said. "Snakes on the road." He meant that the lights seemed to move. He did not mean that he was actually seeing snakes. Ira's eyes were as hard as the lenses of his glasses.
Getting back to the freeway, they passed an old-fashioned shopping plaza. There was a long low blank white wall, with a row of poplars in front of it. It glowed in blue-white strip lighting, and Jonathan blinked.
The wall looked to him exactly like the face of a faraway hill. He began to see the evergreen trees in its blue mistiness. There must be a deep gully, a valley between him and the slope. He smelled water. A river too, full of cool spray.
"I didn't know there was a valley with a river here," said Jonathan.
"What?" asked Ira. His knuckles on the steering wheel were white.
"There, the valley over there, with the river." Jonathan pointed at the shopping plaza.
Ira was sweating. He kept looking over at Jonathan, and pushing his glasses back up his nose.
"We need some gas," Ira muttered to himself. He signaled and pulled in, under a bright canopy with Coke machines and the glimmer of piped music. A Mexican strode over to the car and saluted them. He held up a bottle of wine. He smiled, face creased, some of his teeth outlined with gold. He held the bottle out to Jonathan. Jonathan smiled blearily back and took a swig.
Ira came back to the car after paying.
"That will be some surprised Mexican if he finds out he's HIV positive," said Ira.
Jonathan suffered a moment of clarity. "It doesn't spread that way, Jo-Jo." Jo-Jo? He had just called Ira by his own nickname.
"You've got bleeding gums," said Ira, succinctly. He turned the car key with a wrench and the engine made a grinding sound. They pulled out into the wide boulevard, toward the on-ramps.
Very suddenly, in the middle of the road, Ira stopped the car. He threw off his glasses and covered his face and sobbed, and wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.
"I don't think this is a good place to stop, Ira."
"Oh, shut up!" said Ira.
A truck howled in alarm behind them, swerved onto the wrong side of the road and, blaring hatred, roared past them.
"You used to be a pretty bright guy, you know?" said Ira quietly. He put his glasses back on and started the car and crept carefully forward.
"I get confused, Ira. Ira?" Ira didn't answer.
Jonathan needed Ira to take the terror away. Jonathan shrank down very small and quiet in a corner of the car, so that Ira would not be angry. So that Ira would not go away. The freeway, the Santa Monica hills, sped past in the darkness.