—I’m fine here, she said.
He leaned down and lifted the ankle onto the cushion, then put the ice on it, adjusting for stability.
—Just get me the phone, would you?
He brought her the portable from its silver cradle.
—And could I have some water?
Water, like the crescents, rained.
—Oh, you know what I need? We have some like soothing lotion, like menthol rub? It’s in the vanity in the master bath.
—I should probably make sure he’s all right back there, said Ben, gesturing out the back door, thinking of the deliveryman stomping through cosmos. —Would you like me to ask Marcia to help you?
—It’s Marcia’s day off. She’s in Gallup. And Roger’s in La Jolla, he won’t be back until Tuesday.
—OK. I’ll get you the lotion, and then I should get back to work.
In the master bath he was deluged by scents. The floor was strewn with Lynn’s lacy underwear, tangled nylons, bikini segments, padded bras, the counter with cleansers, moisturizers, atomizers, even an almost-whole cucumber with slices cut off one end, paper-thin slices now wet and clinging to the bowl of the sink. There was a curling iron, a blow dryer, sunscreen, self-tanning gel, under-eye cream, cuticle cream, cellulite cream.
Roger’s modest shaving kit huddled in the corner, apparently frightened.
Ben opened the vanity determined to notice nothing private, but the lotion, unfortunately, was nowhere to be seen, necessitating increasingly close scrutiny. Past a package of condoms, batteries, dental floss, past antidepressants, tranquilizers, razorblades, organic alcohol-free deodorant, lip gloss, eye shadow, he finally found a small brown-glass container.
When he got back to Lynn she was lying with her head back and her eyes closed.
—Could you just smooth some on for me? she murmured, without opening them.
He noticed that somehow, from her prone position, she had brushed her hair to fan out over her shoulders and applied fresh lipstick.
—Sorry, I’ll just put it down here for now, said Ben gently. —I have to go see about the delivery guy. I think he may be trampling your nasturtiums.
“I love you” is everywhere, reflected Ann when she saw two teenagers making out against a wall as she walked down Alameda. The popularity of love in general and “I love you” in particular might be ascribed to their deceptive humility. “I love you” seems to privilege “you” over “I” and by this small deception, she thought, becomes sacrosanct. Because what could be wrong with offering to be subsumed?
Saturday morning art buyers and gawkers milled around on the sidewalks looking for more to buy, coffees and shopping bags in hand. Oppenheimer stood in a gallery, looking at a piece of ancient pottery held out from the wall on delicate plexiglass brackets. He was alone.
Ann hovered outside staring in, struck and held. She had caught sight of him from the street when she turned suddenly, hearing her name called behind her. But it was someone else with her name, a woman in a red cowboy hat and a black leather jacket, running in heels to greet someone, smiling a shiny smile and opening her arms.
When she looked away she saw Oppenheimer through the window of the gallery.
After a minute he moved toward the back and disappeared in the white glare on the windowpane. She waited until he came out and donned his hat, her heart beating a panicked beat, and watched him turn to trudge down the driveway beside the gallery building toward the yard behind. As he turned the corner of the building she followed him, slowly gaining. He walked out between two houses, dipped down into a small arroyo, crossed the sandy bed and walked up the slight rise to the street behind, which he turned off into a dirt road behind. Striding up the alley he lit a cigarette, waved out the match and threw it away. She thought how slight he was, despite his height, how slight and delicate a figure he cut.
He stopped and swiveled on his heels to look at a house off the alley, a dusty backyard through which children’s toys were strewn, a yellow plastic car, a battered, zebra-striped kite, an orange frisbee gnawed by a dog and a plywood doghouse, water-stained and leaning.
She stopped too, chicken, and then started up again, forcing herself, drawing close, looking at the brown leather of her shoes, lightened by dust, and then up at his hunched shoulders.
—Dr. Oppenheimer? she called, feeling it come out of her mouth awkward, almost pathetically eager.
He turned.
—The—young lady from the grocery store?
—Yes. But did you—is that really your name?
—Oppenheimer. Yes.
—The one—Robert. The physicist.
—The only one I know, said Oppenheimer, inhaling swiftly on his cigarette and beginning to walk again.
She found herself walking fast to keep up, in fact scurrying to keep up. Rats scurry, she thought. Rats and other rodents, small furtive animals.
—Who invented the atom bomb.
—Hardly, said Oppenheimer, chuckling. —I was one among many. And I would say developed, not invented.
—But you’re dead.
—So they say.
—So—what? How do you—how can you be what you say? Are you a liar, or am I having a breakdown?
—Please! said Oppenheimer, surprised, turning to raise an eyebrow in her general direction and stopping. —I have no idea who you are, or what the current state of your psychological health may be!
—I, no, said Ann. —But I mean, how can you—He started walking again, moving quickly.
—We’ve considered various scenarios. One proposition, which we’ve discussed in the vaguest terms only of course, is that this—and he gestured around him at the garages off the alley with their blistering paint, a tire swing hanging from a dead tree, a filthy silver car with a suction-foot Garfield in the rear window—is our delusion. Including you. Some kind of postmortem experience of cognition, sounds like an oxymoron I know, maybe based on an energy transfer—
He tossed his cigarette onto the dirt beside a garbage can and ground it in with a heel.
—that occurred at the time of the test, or a massive release of stored chemicals, say neurotransmitters…?
Ann looked from
