“Really,” she said, “you don’t need to come.”
“You telling me I’m not wanted?”
“No. I just thought you might prefer to stay behind, that’s all. The way you were trying to talk me out of it.”
“I was only pointing out there’s no law you have to go looking for Dan. It’s obvious you’re nervous about it, and it’s also obvious you’ve got eyes for Abe.”
“I don’t have ‘eyes’ for anyone,” she protested.
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
“Come on, let’s get our stuff in the rooms.”
A few minutes later, after throwing her suitcase onto one of the beds, washing up, putting on fresh lipstick and brushing her hair, she stepped to the connecting door. “Ready,” she called.
“Meet you at the car,” Nora answered.
She left her room. Abe’s Mustang was parked in front of a bungalow just across the courtyard.
As she stepped around the front of her Omni, Nora’s door opened. Tyler watched her friend hop down the steps, breasts jiggling inside her T-shirt. For just a moment, she felt threatened and wary.
A faint scent of perfume entered the car with Nora. “Loins all girded?”
“My loins are fine,” Tyler said.
“You okay?”
“Just a little nervous.”
“Let’s went, Queeksdraw.”
Rounding a bend, they left the wooded hills behind. The service station appeared just ahead.
“Pull in,” Nora said. “I want to give Clyde a piece of my mind.”
“Bix.” Tyler glanced to the left, saw the man crouching to check the air in a Honda’s tire, and pressed harder on the accelerator.
“Wonder if he’s related to the asshole we met on the road. You oughta see the welt that sucker raised on me with that aerial.”
“Must have hurt.”
“He’ll think twice before he pulls that kind of shit again.” A few minutes later, Nora said, “Better slow down, here comes the monster palace.”
Tyler glanced ahead at the old house. Its windows, catching the late afternoon sunlight, looked plated with gold.
“This might be it.”
She took her foot off the gas pedal. As the car lost speed, she swept her eyes along the roadside to the right. Just past a five-and-ten was a vacant, wooded lot. The trees stopped at a dirt road. She flicked the arm of her turn signal.
“That’s it,” Nora confirmed. “Beach Lane.”
Tyler eased down on the brake, and swung onto the narrow, rutted road.
“Your Dan believes in roughing it.”
“So it seems.” The area to the right, where his house must be, was thick and shadowy with trees. By comparison, the rolling, weed-choked field to the left looked bare. Off in that direction stood a two-story house of red brick, alone except for a separate garage.
“That’s unusual,” Nora said.
“What?”
“How many actual brick houses do you ever see in California?”
“Maybe it was built by eas—”
“I’ll be damned. Look at that. No windows.”
Tyler looked again. Sure enough, the only visible wall was an unbroken expanse of brick. “Maybe on the other sides…”
“Guess they’re not very view-conscious.”
Tyler laughed.
Nora shook her head and faced the windshield. “Ah, here comes Seaside.”
Tyler stopped by a row of mailboxes lined up along a raised shelf. The gray metal hoods were labeled two, four, eight, and ten. She rolled past them, and peered down the narrow lane. “Maybe we’d better walk,” she said. “Can’t be too far.”
“You don’t want to block traffic,” Nora said, flashing a smile.
“God forbid.”
Tyler drove past the entrance to Seaside. Not far ahead, the road widened into a parking area. She stopped against a log. A wedge of ocean glinting sunlight showed through a break in the low hills ahead. A footpath curved along one of the slopes.
“Nuts,” Nora said. “We should’ve brought our suits.”
They climbed from the car. A stiff breeze tugged at Tyler’s hair, molded her blouse to her body. When she turned away from the ocean, it pushed at her back as if urging her to rush.
Nora met her behind the car. She was slipping her arms into the sleeves of her red sweater. Her face was wrapped with tendrils of blowing hair. As they walked along, she buttoned the sweater.
Thank you, wind, Tyler thought.
Then hurried to Seaside. There, the trees shielded them from the wind but also kept out the sunlight. They walked in silence through the deep shadows.
Tyler shivered—partly from the chill, mostly from the knowledge that she might, in minutes, be face to face with Dan Jenson. What were the chances, after five years, that he would welcome her, that they could pick up where they left off? Slim, she thought. Minuscule. But she had come this far. There was no turning back. She clenched her teeth to stop her jaw from shaking.
From a cottage on the left, a dog began to yap. A gaunt man appeared behind the screen door. Nora raised a hand in greeting. The man stood motionless, a dim shape through the screen, staring out at them.
“Charming,” Nora muttered. “Let’s hear some ‘Dueling Banjos.’”
They passed a clapboard shack with boarded windows, then came upon a wheelless bus propped up on cinder blocks. They paused to stare at the mural painted on its side: a ghost ship with tattered sails becalmed on a glaring sea. A human skeleton clung to the helm. A giant albatross floated before the ship, an arrow in its breast. Above the bus’s door hung a sign carved in driftwood: captain frank.
“Interesting neighbors your Dan has,” Nora said.
They continued down the gloomy road to its end, where a path led toward a small, green-painted cottage with a screened porch.
“That must be it,” Nora said.
Tyler’s heart pounded hard. “I don’t see a car anywhere.”
“Maybe he’s not home yet.”
They walked down the path. Tyler followed Nora up the porch steps. Nora knocked on the door, then pulled it open. Except for a swing suspended from its ceiling, the porch was empty. That seemed odd to Tyler. Similar cottages she’d known as a child while vacationing with her parents always had porches cluttered with gear: fishing rods, a tackle box and minnow bucket, a fishnet, an old Coleman lantern, a refrigerator well stocked with soda and beer, hooks on the walls draped with rain slickers and beach towels. There was none of that.
“No doorbell,” Nora whispered. “I’ll let you do the knocking.” She stepped away from the door and sat on the swing. Its chains creaked and groaned as she pushed it into motion.
Tyler rapped lightly on the door. She waited, then struck harder. “I don’t think he’s home.”
“It’s only about four thirty,” Nora said from the swing.
Tyler cupped her hands to a glass pane in the door, and peered inside. She could see no more than the kitchen. “Maybe Barbie Doll gave us the wrong address,” she said.
“I doubt it. She was flaky, but not stupid.”
“Well, nobody’s home.”
