It got very hot that summer. The color went out of the grass and the streets dried out. There were two sorts of people in the town, those who went to the beach and those who went to the mountains. The few who stayed home were too poor or too old for anyone to think about. In the Sunday heat the streets were dead and everyone was cranky about it.

I’d lost my job at the coffee shop. They’d hired me for my black boots and fired me the night I came in barefoot. I lay under the skylight, sweating, and listened for feet on the stairs. Rennel came once and took me to see a movie he wanted to argue about. He came again the next day and told me he was going to California to surf until school started. He drove me out to see Sam and Carlotta one last time before he left.

She was scything the long grass. It waved in the wind up to her knees and she waded slowly through it, swinging an old gray scythe. The long curved blade hissed and hacked at the dry yellow stalks. It fell, shaking, clumped behind her in a stubbly path. She stopped when she saw us. She lifted her heavy braids off her neck, laid the scythe down carefully, and headed toward us. The sweat was even and shiny on her face.

“I’ve been scything.”

“Do you think you ought to be doing that?” I asked.

“It makes me feel good.” She smiled and sweat dripped clean from her jaw.

There was a rapping in the trees. She gestured toward the sound. “Aram’s building the goat house.”

We’d brought strawberries and ice cream, celery and onions and lettuce, steaks. Rennel waded off toward the noise in the trees and I carried the food into the kitchen. It was dim and cool, the air heavy with the smell of yeast bread. Carlotta followed me. She drank water from the tap and splashed it over her face. She went into the living room and put a record on while I washed the live stuff in the sink. There was a new picture hanging over the stove. Cut from a calendar. A flat-faced woman holding a pale-eyed baby. Their clothes looked soft and comfortable. Gold plates were balanced behind their heads. A blue shawl covered the woman’s hair and a small cross hung on her breast. The ceramic bells shivered beside the picture.

A long roll of Chinese script lay browning on the refrigerator. She must have taken it down to hang the Madonna. The music came up, not loud. Carlotta came back in and sank into a chair.

“What a lot of food!”

“It’s Rennel’s farewell dinner,” I explained. “He’s going to California to surf.”

“I like strawberries.”