I silently dipped to the paper bag and passed the picnic, piece by piece, through the gap. There were big sandwiches, a bag of cookies, fruit, and wine. Ray repacked the bag and set it down.

A second siren joined the first, then the long, gouging call of a fire engine.

I took a breath and mashed myself into the gap, feeling the bars crush my breasts and my hips, feeling myself wedge deeper, unable to go forward and back. My chest and pelvis hurt.

“Where am I going?” I mumbled. I felt Ray’s hand take mine, warm and strong.

I shoved again and tumbled though, staggering to my knees in the long grass and dandelions. Ray caught me, one-armed, and lifted me, and I want to say I kissed him first, because I did—I found his lips before he found mine, the rightness and the heat crushing through me. His good arm closed around my waist, he held me hard against him, his mouth urgent, and for a few long moments, even the ocean beyond us vanished. Then he raised his head and whispered something into my hair, and it was all back, the smog-white sky, the crumbling cliffs, the barred fence behind us, the sling across his chest.

“What did you say?” I asked as Ray’s fingers rose and brushed my collarbone then slid behind my head, twining there.

He smiled. “You’ll have to find out.”

And this time, he kissed me.

29

Seven Months Later

AT NIGHT, CAST IN AN upward glow by lights from below, the central LAAC complex looked less like a hive and more like a space station set in a hilly grove, surrounded by silver miles of parking lot. I drove around for a long time before finding a space, reluctant to go in. Around me, a pilgrimage of young and old Angelenos made its way to the graduation projects on view in the buildings and studios.

Brenae would have been twenty-three this month. Erik was twenty-seven. Hal, fifty-eight. Of the three of them, only Hal would be here to see Brenae’s vision come to fruition. He’d been working the personal-redemption angle all winter and spring, fund-raising and advocating with his former employer for Brenae’s art to appear in a posthumous exhibition at LAAC during the May week that the second-year MFA students showed their final work. Janis had helped with promotion and even privately invited Erik. While I know the video will embarrass you to view, I hope you will consider the message this might send to other young men. Erik had responded from his fellowship in Rome with a letter about his regret for Brenae’s death. But he refused to attend.