"Did you?"

"No," I said. I shifted slightly in my seat. "How'd you feel about Nikki?"

"Not that good."

I smiled. "Try to keep your answers short so I can get 'em on one line," I said. He didn't bite. I drank beer for a while, then rested my chin on my fist. Sometimes I just really do get sick of trying to coax information out of people who aren't in the mood. "Why don't you fold up the table and we'll go outside," I said.

"What for?"

"So I can get some fresh air, fucker, what do you think?"

He chuckled suddenly and moved his long legs out of my way as I slid out of the seat.

I'd surprised myself, getting snappish with him, but I get tired of people being cute or sullen or cautious or tight-lipped. I wanted straight answers and a lot of them too. And I wanted a relationship based, just once, on some sort of mutual exchange instead of me always having to connive and manipulate. I walked aimlessly, Greg at my heels, trying to cool myself down. It wasn't his fault, I knew, and I'm suspicious of myself anyway when I'm feeling righteous and misunderstood.

"Sorry I snapped at you," I said.

The trailer was about two hundred yards from the water's edge. There were several larger trailers nearby, all facing the sea, like a queer band of animals that had crept down to the water to drink. I pulled off my tennis shoes and tied the laces together, banging them around my neck. The Salton Sea has a mild to nonexistent surf, like an ocean that has been totally tamed. There is no vegetation visible in the water and few if any fish. It gives the shore a curious air, as though the tides had been brought to heel, becalmed, the life forms leeched away. What remains is familiar but subtly changed, like a glimpse into the future where certain laws of nature have been altered by the passage of time. I placed a drop of water on my tongue. The taste of salt was fierce. "Is this ocean water?"

Greg smiled, apparently unperturbed by my former outburst. In fact he seemed friendlier. "You want a lesson in geology," he said, "I'll give you one." It was the first time his voice had contained any sign of enthusiasm.

"Sure, why not?"