The class was held in a Presbyterian church. I thought of Jesus and Santa’s elves and wooden crosses, wondering if there was something inherently spiritual about carpentry, or if Jesus just happened to be good at making stuff.

I’d expected plaid-wearing twenty-somethings, but the class was mostly old men and New Age moms. We started with introductions. When I said I was from Kansas the class let out a collective coo, as if I’d admitted to being a puppy with a serious case of kennel cough. “You’re sure not in Kansas anymore,” one of the old men said. An invisible puppeteer gathered his wrinkles and pulled his face into a horrifying grin.

We were starting with birdhouses. Our teacher was a middle-aged man with a red beard and hands like two T-bone steaks. He came up behind me and showed me how to sand down the edges of my wood. Inhaling his aftershave, I pressed my butt into the crotch of his blue jeans and closed my eyes, thinking all the while about the diplomat’s daughter. Was she skinny? Blond? Could she build a birdhouse out of scrap wood? The teacher cleared his throat and went to help one of the moms beside me. After class, he handed me my tuition check and said it’d be best if I didn’t return. Prude, I thought, and ripped up the check.

Outside, a boy from class was waiting near the curb. “What’d you think?” he asked. He was young, maybe my age, with a hipster mustache and a tan baseball cap that said BLUEHORN WINERY.

“Not for me. I decided to quit.”

“Same. I already know half the stuff anyways—I just figured it’d be a good way to meet people. You know?” He smiled in a way that suggested I was the people. He then asked if I wanted a ride. A nearby bank sign read 104 degrees, so I followed him to his rusted Civic. A sticker on the bumper read KEEP TAHOE BLUE. Inside, something had eaten away a golf-ball-sized hole in the floor. As he drove, I watched the road go by between my feet.

“So are you digging it out here so far?” he asked.

I realized it was the first time anybody had asked me this. Even Alec had avoided the question, perhaps to avoid an answer that might require some action on his part. “Not really,” I said. “I know that may be hard to imagine.”

“Not at all. I understand—you’re homesick.”

“I’m not homesick.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m just not comfortable here. I’m not a Californian.”

“Maybe you should go to the ocean,” he said. “That’s what all the fuss is about. Check out Point Reyes if you get the chance.”

We were at the “house” already. He pulled over and let the car idle so that he could jot his name and number onto an In-N-Out napkin. Theo was his name. “I work the farmers market if you’re ever around,” he said. “I’m the honey man.”