“I’m your neighbor Margeaux’s houseguest and I have cake.”
Tonally, this landed somewhere between international spy and “I carried a watermelon.”
“Oh!” he said, opening the fence. “Come in, come in!”
Two Yorkshire terriers came running out to lick me.
“I’m Hank.”
Hank shook my hand firmly. He was in his late twenties with a reddish goatee and a toothy grin. He held a pair of barbecue tongs. Once inside the house, he called for his girlfriend, Savannah, who emerged from the bedroom in a paisley tunic, all smiles and dreadlocks. They had been expecting me. Why hadn’t I come sooner?
“Really?” I asked.
“Margeaux mentioned something last week about maybe having a visitor,” said Savannah. “Was it last week, Hank?”
“I think it was last week.”
I suppose I, too, would be delighted by guests if I lived in the woods, though my delight would stem from a sense of relief, thus proving that I should not be living in the woods in the first place.
“You brought us a cake!” Savannah exclaimed and hugged me. “We can have it after dinner. Hank, Margeaux’s friend brought us a cake.”
But Hank was already back to marinating something that smelled delicious.
“Do we know where I put the red wine vinegar?” he asked.
“Did you make this?” Savannah asked, sniffing the brown slab.
“I did,” I admitted. “It has whiskey in it. It might be inedible.”
Savannah sat me down beneath a beaded map of Tibet and handed me a glass of organic wine. The dogs wheezed on my thighs. I couldn’t figure out what either of my hosts did for a living but knew better than to ask such an East Coast question. Hank grilled sweet potatoes and onions and went outside to check on the salmon.
“Oh,” Savannah said, smacking her forehead. “You have to stay for dinner!”
Yes, I really did have to. She plied me with hummus and crackers and dragged me out to their deck. The handful of visible houses all featured elevated decks with tall trees sticking up through them.
“Check it out,” Savannah gestured, inviting me to stand on a bench with her.
If you angled yourself at the exact right spot, you could see into Margeaux’s kitchen. There was my laptop on the table, surrounded by dirty mugs.
“I’ve decided to sunbathe the rest of the week. If you’re going to stay in that house, you’ll basically have no choice but to see me naked.”
“I could always avert my eyes.”
“Maybe if you see Hank naked.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Maybe then.”
As I shoved crackers down my gullet like a crazed pelican, Savannah pointed out the sights—where they planned on installing a zip line, their garden shed, their neighbor’s house down the hill, which boasted an outdoor hot tub that we could use anytime we wanted, the charred blueprint of a recently exploded meth lab.
“Fucking tweakers,” she said, shaking her head. “One tried to break into Margeaux’s place before she moved in. Don’t tell her that. Hank pulled a shotgun on the guy. Don’t tell her that, either.”
Hank and Savannah’s kindness was rare and overwhelming. It’s easy to go out of your way for a stranger if you know that person is subsisting on cashew butter. But I never revealed my predicament to them. I once attended a wedding where, while expounding his new wife’s virtues, the husband explained that she was the first person he’d call if he were ever in a Thai prison. Everyone cooed at this. But all I could think was: That’s not love. This isn’t to say they didn’t love each other, but what a horrible example. When the basic becomes exotic, you’re in trouble.
“Dinner’s ready,” Hank said, poking his head out from the kitchen window.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Savannah said, putting her arm around my waist.
“Babe,” Hank called, “you want to light the incense?”
“I’ll do it!” I shouted too loudly.
* * *
They insisted I take home leftovers. I didn’t bother with the “I couldn’t possibly.” I very much could and possibly. In exchange for a wobbly tower of tinfoil shapes, I left them Margeaux’s cake pan with a biopsy of the inedible cake cored from the center.
The following day, I went for a hike, casually pulling ripe berries from bushes. On the way back, I heard a sharp laugh coming from the river. I sped up, hopping over tree stumps. I leaned over the bridge to see Hank and Savannah, lounging on inflatable rafts. All of the built-in beverage holders were occupied. It was 10 a.m.
“Savannah!” I shouted, cupping my hands together.
“Did you hear something?” the top of her head said to the top of Hank’s head.
“Psssst!”
“What are you doing up there?” she asked, as if no one in history had ever walked over a bridge.
“Come down!” Hank shouted.
I practically hurled myself down the hill to greet them. When I stopped sliding, I saw they had company. There was another friend on a third raft, floating beneath the Steinbeck quote. I waded out as far as the seam of my shorts, raising my hand and squinting. This new person was a cousin of Hank’s, a DJ with arm-sleeve tattoos and coasters in his ears. I felt a pang of disappointment that I was not Hank and Savannah’s only stray.
“Get in, honey,” said the DJ. “No one cares.”
“I’m not wearing any underwear!” I lied.
Not being in the mood to strip in broad daylight seemed like insufficient reasoning for this crowd.
“Well,” said Hank, “this is Alex.”
I waved at him. He nodded in return.
“You should come to dinner again tonight!” Hank shouted.
“Oh, you have to!” Savannah said, agreeing so adamantly, she flipped her raft.
* * *
This time I just walked in. Bob Marley was pulsating from tiny speakers on the ceiling. The dogs licked my legs. Hank and Alex were hovering intently over Hank’s computer. Alex had removed the coasters from his ears so that his lobes hung in loose slits. There are few things sadder than an off-duty earlobe that’s been trained to accommodate a human fist. Alex’s forearm muscle moved beneath a pattern of flowers as he lit a cigarette. He looked
