The sun was a terrible thing. He reached in his pocket for his sunglasses—his shades—and realized that in the confusion he must have left them in the kitchen. Everything was ablaze, the whole world, even the water, and where was Lori? “No thanks,” he said, dismissing them with a gesture, and then, so as not to seem totally rude—like a shit, that is—he added, “Maybe later,” though it was hard to overcome his resentment. Didn’t these people realize what they were doing? The truce with the Millbrook Police Department wasn’t going to last forever and though he wasn’t the paranoid type he had noticed more airplanes buzzing the property lately, or at least since Ken and Charlie had drawn his attention to them. And that kid, Toby, he was a plant, a spy, Charlie was sure of it, though Lori denied it vehemently—and hadn’t he read of cases where the police busted somebody on a possession charge and threatened him with the worst if he didn’t go undercover and report back to them? Wear a wire? Tap the phones? The sacrament was legal still, but that wasn’t going to last, and then what were they going to do? So no, he didn’t like this, didn’t like it at all.

“Who are you?” the woman called while the two men, one with a beard, the other without, floated around her.

He stood there, squinting into the sunlight, feeling foolish, as if he were the stranger here, and that rankled him even further. “‘I’m nobody,’” he said, thinking of Lori, and the uncanny thing was, the woman threw it right back at him: “‘Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!’” She laughed then, a harsh gargle of a laugh that ricocheted off the water and chased him all the way across the lawn, past the meditation house and down the path to the lake.

Lori was there, on the dock, the fated dock, surrounded by a dozen newcomers and a smattering of the inner circle too—Charlie, Alice, Dick, Fanchon—though most of the household was still keeping its distance. People were sprawled out in the sun, some of them wearing clothes, others not. Three of them were in the rowboat, horsing around, though it was still tethered to the dock, and everybody, including Lori, seemed to have wet hair. There was beer—six-packs that had magically appeared—and a brass hash pipe was circulating from hand to hand. Everything was convivial. A party. Another party.

Lori—she was in her bathing suit, hunched over her knees, her back pressed to one of the pilings—waved him over. She had a beer in one hand, a joint in the other. “You know everybody, Fitz? No? Okay, well this is”—and she gestured to the man beside her, who was dripping and naked and grinning like a thespian—“Paul, right? You’re Paul?”