“If I was flirting, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t realize I was.”

“Okay.”

Her “okay” was so flat, so distant, so blaming, that it actually did make me angry, and so I said nothing else. Instead I fought the urge to say something mean under my breath, not that I could have come up with anything, and stared through the open window until I believed I was asleep.

I walked Basil up into the hills. I wondered what made any given spot pee worthy. Why did he sniff and sniff at one spot and leave a couple of drops, leave nothing at the next, and then drench another? I asked Basil as much and he offered no answer, at least none I understood. I also recalled as I walked how much I had been softened by my daughter. Since her birth I was a much kinder person. Not that I was ever a mean man, but I was, before her, direct enough, blunt enough, and unfeelingly honest enough to come across as an asshole on more than a few occasions. It surprised me when Meg agreed to marry me but perhaps not as much as my asking her.

On a clear day I would have had a view of downtown far off, but it was not a clear day. I scanned the ground for scat of any animal other than my dog. Occasionally a bear or lion would wander down into the neighborhoods below, hanging out in pools or on porches. It happened frequently enough that the television news caught some on video now and again, but I had never run into anything but coyotes. Coyotes were everywhere. They strolled through downtown Los Angeles at night. Evidence of them was everywhere. I had never even found sign of lions or bears. I was very fond of coyotes, but they weren’t lions, bears. I was not afraid of coyotes. There were rattlesnakes up there too, and I was plenty afraid of them, but I didn’t want to see one.

“What did you say to Hilary?” Horace Golightly asked me. Horace hated both his first and last names and insisted on being called by his middle name, Igor.

“What are you talking about, Igor?” I asked.

We were sitting in the coffee shop behind the library on campus. We each had coffee, and I was pulling free crumbs from an overly dry muffin.

“When I found her, she was in tears.”

“When was this?”

“Couple of days ago.”

“I told her she’d screwed the pooch. Not in so many words. I didn’t mention a dog. Or screwing, for that matter.”

Horace stared at me. “You do have a way with people.”

“I told her that it would be in her best interest to start looking for jobs. She’s not going to get tenure.”

Igor nodded agreement.

“I wasn’t going to be one of those colleagues who gives false hope. She needs to be ready for reality. Not that I care all that much. She knew what she had to do, and she didn’t do it.”