“Listen, Jim, the rule is, when you have the money and you have the land, you build! It’s not easy getting the two together at the same time. As you know from how this one’s gone. But we’ve done it! Besides, this one will do well—we’ll even be able to advertise that it has a filtered view of the ocean.”

“Filtered by the whole bulk of the Santa Ana Mountains, eh Hump?”

“No! You can see down over Robinson Rancho, a little bit of it anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah. Build another empty tower.”

“Don’t worry about that, Jim. Our only problem is to make sure everything moves along as fast as possible.”

Jim goes home from his clerking in a foul mood. The phone rings and he grabs it up. “What!”

“Hello, Jim?”

“Ah, Hana! Hey, how are you?”

“Something wrong?”

“No, no, I always answer the phone like that after a day at the office. Sorry.”

She laughs. “You’d better come up here for dinner then.”

“You bet! What should I bring?”

And so an hour later he’s tracking into the hills, out the Garden Grove Freeway, across to Irvine Park and the Santiago Freeway, and then up narrow, deep Modjeska Canyon. Hana lives beyond the Tucker Bird Sanctuary, up a narrow side canyon, in a converted garage at the end of a gravel drive, in a grove of big old eucalyptus trees. The main house is a small whitewashed colonial-style cottage; its general modesty doesn’t hide the fact of the secluded, wooded yard, the exclusiveness of it all. Hana’s landlord is rich. And Hana?

Her garage has been turned into a painter’s studio, mostly. The main room fills most of the place, and it’s stacked with canvases and materials like her studio at Trabuco J.C. Kitchen and bathroom have been partitioned off in one corner, and a bedroom not much bigger than the bathroom is in the other corner. “I like it,” Jim says. “It reminds me of my place, only nicer.” Hana laughs. “You don’t have any of your paintings up.”

“God no. I like to be able to relax. I mean, imagine sitting around looking at your mistakes all the time.”

“Hmm. They all have mistakes?”

“Sure.”

She’s staring past him at the floor, throwing her sentences out casually. Attack of shyness, it seems. Jim follows her into the kitchen, and helps her take hamburgers out to a hibachi on the gravel drive.

They barbecue the meat and eat the hamburgers out on the driveway, sitting in low lawn chairs. They talk about the coming semester and their classes. About Hana’s painting. Jim’s work at the office. It’s very relaxed, though Hana’s eyes look anywhere but at Jim.