The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

She did the same with the other shoe.

– I mean.

She reached under the skirt of her dress, the same black knit knee-length she'd been wearing at the Malibu house, and pushed her black leggings down, stepping first on one toe to pull her foot free, and then on the other, kicking the leggings away, her light blue panties nestled inside them.

– I mean, can't we just fuck?

She took hold of the waist of her dress and peeled it over her head and dropped it, standing flat-chested and braless, naked except for her sunglasses.

– Fuck and get it over with?

I could see part of a Quonset hut out the window behind her, a bit of sky turning blue, old-growth palm trees arching up from the streets, brown rocket trails detonating into green tufts. It was chilly in the office. Goose pimples on her stomach.

I quickly sorted and discarded several responses, none of them delicate enough for this circumstance; a wounded and emotionally vulnerable young woman naked and throwing herself at me in my place of employ.

Finally knowing what to say.

– So romance isn't dead after all?

She smiled, put her knees on the edge of the bed, edged close to me, reached out and poked the wound on my forehead.

– Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Web.

I winced.

– I'm not looking at your mouth.

She took hold of my hoodie and pulled it over my head, not bothering to unzip it.

– Wise man.

I watched her hands as they undid the buttons down the front of my shirt.

– I don't know when Po Sin will be here.

She took me by the collar of my T and pulled me forward and pushed the Mobil shirt down my arms.

– I don't care.

I lifted my arms and let her pull the T off.

– And, you know, all joking aside, my balls still really hurt.

She tossed the T over her shoulder and it landed on top of her dress.

– I'll be gentle.

She reached for my belt.

So.

She wanted to fuck. And get it over with. Who was I to say no?

A very little later, while she was on top of me, not being gentle at all, the earth moved. It was only a small earthquake, but it made us both laugh.

And, finally, I reached up and took the sunglasses off her face, and I could see her eyes, so very red from all the crying.

And a little later after that, she had them back on.

– He hated my smoking.

I held the lit cigarette for her as she pulled her leggings up.

– He smoked like a chimney when I was a kid.

She picked up the Mobil shirt from the floor and put it on and took the smoke from me.

– Thanks.

She put it in her mouth and started buttoning the shirt.

– But he stopped and was one of those classic ex-smokers. A pain in the ass.

She found one of her shoes and sat back on the edge of the bed.

– I mean, I don't even smoke that much. And when I smoke at the house I only do it on the deck or in my room.

She put her right foot in the shoe and started lacing it up.

– Anyway, I was there, this was during a Christmas break when I was in college, a few years back, four or five. Before I graduated and didn't know what the hell to do with a degree in art history and moved back home.

She bent and looked for the other shoe.

– There it is.

She pulled it from beneath the bed and put it on.

– So I was at home, on break, and we'd stayed up together watching It's a Wonderful Life or something, and I'd been smoking a lot because we were having some Christmas cheer together. I was standing with the door to the deck open, blowing smoke outside. After he went to bed, I stayed up to watch something else. White Christmas'? I don't know. But I cheated and snuck a cigarette inside. Didn't finish it though.

She turned, facing me, left foot tucked under her right thigh.

– And I was a little loaded so I forgot to put the ashtray back out on the deck. And in the morning.

She leaned and snagged her jacket from the back of the chair and reached into an inside pocket and came out with a small journal.

– In the morning I came down and found this.

She opened the journal and flipped some pages and pulled out and unfolded a deeply creased sheet of notepaper.

She handed it to me.

FROM THE DESK OF WESTIN NYE

WESTLINE FREIGHT FORWARDING AND TRADE When I was smoking (in the 1970s) I learned that when returning to a partially smoked cigarette, you should put it to your lips (before lighting it) and blow your breath out and through it-thus removing most of the foul-tasting residue that you would otherwise be drawing into your mouth on your first 'drag' after lighting up. With love,

your father

I handed it back, and found my T on the floor and pulled it on.

– Did you crawl into a closet and bang your head against the wall?

She stood and went to the door to the bathroom.

– No. I laughed. He didn't mean it to be funny. Which made it funnier. Which was kind of his style.

She fiddled with one of the buttons on the old blue gas station shirt that hung to tops of her thighs.

– I keep thinking there's a good laugh in his suicide somewhere. But I haven't found it yet.

She ducked into the bathroom, the taps ran, she came out with her cigarette doused and pitched it in the overflowing wastebasket by the desk.

– I think I need to go.

– OK. Let me get my shit together and I'll give you a ride.

I started looking in the blankets for my jeans and underwear.

She shook her head.

– No. I want to walk a little.

I found my BVDs and pulled them on, taking particular care as I snugged them into place.

– Pretty long walk to Malibu.

She looked out the window, balled her dress tightly and stuffed it into one of the large outer pockets of her jacket.

– I can catch the bus in Sherman Oaks and over the hills and out to Santa Monica. The coast bus from there. I'm not, as you may have noticed, in a hurry to be home.