Dennis finishes, closes up. “I’m going to have to be in Washington most of next week,” he tells his son. “Might be good if you came up an evening or two and had dinner here.”

“Okay, I’ll do that.”

Dennis puts the tools back in the tool chest.

“Well, I’m off now, I guess.”

“Say good-bye to your mom, first.”

“Oh yeah.”

Dennis follows him back in the house, shaking his head a little. Legs waving about in the air … kind of like a bug turned on its back.

Inside Jim says his farewells to Lucy.

“How come we haven’t seen Sheila lately?” Lucy asks him.

“Oh, I don’t know. We haven’t been going out that much, these last weeks.”

“That’s too bad. I like her.”

“Me too. We’ve just both been busy.”

“Well, you should call her.”

“Yeah, I will.”

“And you should give your uncle Tom a call too. Have you done that lately?”

“No, but I will, I promise. Okay, I’m off. Thanks for the help, Dad.”

Dennis can see him forgetting the promises to call even as he walks out of the door. “See you. Be careful,” he says. Try not to get stuck in your car’s motor compartment. As the door slams shut Dennis laughs, very shortly.

Chapter 5

5

Jim tracks away angry. He forgets instantly about calling Sheila, about calling Uncle Tom; he’s too absorbed in his own feelings. Long minutes alone on the freeway, so much of life spent this way; thinking angrily, sifting and rearranging events until it’s all his father’s fault, until he’s angry only at Dennis and not at himself. That look over the glasses, after he managed to extricate himself from his damned car! Humiliating.

He parks in South Coast Plaza’s subterranean garage, takes the elevator up to the top of the mall, south end; some of the most expensive apartments in OC are up here. Through one soundproofed door comes the thump of percussion and a tiny wash of voices. In Jim goes.

Sandy and Angela’s ap consists of six big rooms, set like boxcars one after the next. Window walls in each face southwest; it’s a heliotropic home. Outside these windows a balcony extends the whole length of the ap. The balcony and all the rooms but the bedroom are filled with people, maybe sixty of them. It’s the nightly party, no one is too excited. Sandy’s not there yet. Jim walks into the kitchen, the first room. There are houseplants everywhere, giant ones in giant glazed pots. They look so healthy they might be plastic; people say Angela has a polymer thumb.

Jim sees no one he particularly wants to talk to, and continues through the kitchen to the balcony. He leans on the chest-high railing and looks down at the lightshow of coastal OC, pulsing at the speed of a rapid heartbeat. That’s his town.