—How it works is you and Kevin and Leonard are on the same propane, water, etcetera. I’m totally off the grid, so every month I read my meter. My total kilowatt-hour usage hovers around twenty-one hundred. My last reading was twenty eighty-five. So over the last twenty-four days I used ninety-seven. My total solar-power production is nine hundred eighty-seven. That means I produced a hundred and thirty-seven kilowatt-hours over the last twenty-four days, and that was directly subtracted from the group bill. So I’m responsible for minus-forty kilowatt-hours. I owe zero dollars and ten dollars was subtracted from the bills. Does that make sense?
I just looked at him.
—I save you guys money. I produce energy.
—And the rest of us suck it, like cows.
He laughed.
—It’s a good thing we like this song, he said.
I left two twenties and followed him into the warm, fragrant night. At the valet stand we waited behind a man in his sixties with a woman in her twenties. The woman wore a pink bandage dress and cheap shoes. The man had his palm on her rear. He moved his finger pads in concentric circles. He didn’t tip the valet.
River looked from them to me and smiled. Few things are more aphrodisiacal than looking down on another couple.
In the car his knee touched mine. And his hand touched mine when I shifted in the parking lot. Something about his youthful spirit made me think of all the times before something terrible happens.
—There are a lot of wild places in the Canyon. Great hiking spots. I’ve been thinking about getting a dog. But the coyotes.
—And the snakes? I said.
His bike bumped around in the back. I drove slowly because the trunk was open. The first thing he did was open his window all the way and stick his elbow out.
—The snakes are not as bad as the coyotes. Listen, be careful around Leonard. Lenny. I mean, he’s a great guy. But he’s really needy.
—Okay, I said, thinking of the way the young feared need. I was concentrating on the curves, which frightened me. I felt like the side of my body was scraping against the faces of the rocks. I was still wearing the white dress but I’d added lime oil to my neck and wrists and a thin gold bracelet of my mother’s.
River told me that Leonard’s father had envisioned something of a commune back when. A McCarthy-era bunker. Had I seen the Japanese soaking tub behind Leonard’s place? At one time there had been a fixed stream of tan ladies, porn stars and Satan worshippers and your general loose fun-loving types coming through the place. Their big bouncy breasts would float at the black surface of the tub.
He talked about the missile launch in North Korea. He talked about it the way young men spoke of threats, with political engagement and zero fear of radioactive death. River was deathless; I knew the mark of the deathless. They ate wasabi peas and used the same unlaundered towel for weeks.
—I practice stoicism, he told me.
In the driveway we stayed in the car for a few minutes. He was talking about Rotterdam. I thought it would be nice to have sex, mostly because I was thinking about the loss of his father, and that endeared him to me. The problem is it’s very difficult to find someone who will feel your loss with you. The same people who cry at movies will not blink an eye if you relate a tragedy. They will say, I’m so sorry for your loss. Like you have lost a thousand dollars on a horse race. Like it’s something replaceable. A pittance, in the grand scheme of things.
SOMETIMES HE DOESN’T COME OUT of his house for whole days, River had said of Leonard. But he watches from his window, so don’t do anything you wouldn’t want anyone to see. Like hanging laundry in a bikini or grilling topless.
I was imagining how many girls River had slept with. Probably he saw women naked several times a week. I liked the way he said topless like it was nothing. I’ve tried to explain that to other women—the feeling of liking men who don’t look for sex actively. Most men are crabs, crawling around with their pincers out.
I looked to the side and did the thing I always did when I moved into new, cramped quarters. I imagined a bassinet beside the bed. How crazy and stupid it would look. How terrible the staircase would be for going up and down with an infant. How dangerous everything was and how exhausting it would be to safeguard a ratty home. The bassinet was always wicker and white, something old-world that tottered when you walked into the room. I myself had never been in a bassinet. I’d slept between my parents for longer than was reasonable. They used to pass Marlboro Reds across my tiny body. I remembered the long reach of my mother’s slender arm across me and over to my small but muscly father. He would tip the ashes off. The ashtray was always on his side. Mimi, my mother called him when the cigarette was waiting over my head. Yes, Cici, my father said back.
I wanted to tell Alice those details before the end of that life as I knew it. I dreamed that night that she was the Antichrist, that she would be cruel and try to hurt me. Part of me wanted to hurt her. Sometimes I went around wanting to hurt everyone.
I woke in sweat at three in the morning. It was not the heat that woke me but a bright devil noise—a tone somewhere between the cry of a baby and the bray of a small dog. It felt so near that I didn’t want to turn on the light. Afraid there would be a
