WATER FROM THE SUN Danny is on my bed and depressed because Ricky was picked up by a break-dancer at the Odyssey on the night of the Duran Duran look-alike contest and murdered. It seems that Biff, Ricky’s current lover, called Danny after getting my number from someone at the station and told him the news. I walk in and all Danny says is “Ricky’s dead. Throat slit. All of his blood drained from his body. Biff called.” Danny doesn’t move or explain the tone in which Biff relayed this news and he doesn’t take off the Wayfarer sunglasses he’s wearing even though he’s inside and it’s almost eight. He just lies there watching some religious show on cable and I don’t know what to say. I’m just relieved that he’s still here, that he hasn’t left. Now, in the bathroom, unbuttoning my blouse, unzipping my skirt, I call out, “Did you tape the newscast?” “No,” Danny says. “Why not?” I ask, pausing before putting on a robe. “Wanted to tape ‘The Jetsons,’ ” he says dully. I don’t say anything coming out of the bathroom. I walk over to the bed. Danny is wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a FOOTLOOSE T-shirt he got the night of the premiere party at the studio his father is executive in charge of production at. I look down at him, see my reflection, distorted, warped, in the lenses of the sunglasses, and then, carrying my blouse and skirt, walk into the closet and toss them into a hamper. I close the closet door, stand over the bed. “Move over,” I tell him. He doesn’t move over, just lies there. “Ricky’s dead. All of his blood drained out of him. He looked black. Biff called,” he says again, coldly. “And I thought I told you to keep the phone off the hook or unplug it or something,” I say, sitting down anyway. “I thought I told you that I’ll take all my calls at the station.” “Ricky’s dead,” Danny mutters. “Someone snapped off my windshield wipers today, for some reason,” I say after a while, taking the control box from him and changing the channel. “They left a note. It said ‘Mi hermana.’ ” “Biff,” he sighs, and then, “What did you do? Rip off a Taco Bell?” “Biff snapped off my windshield wipers?” Nothing. “Why didn’t you tape the newscast tonight?” I ask softly, trying not to press too hard. “Because Ricky’s dead.” “But you taped ‘The Jeffersons,’ ” I say accusingly, trying not to lose patience. I turn the channel to MTV, a lame attempt to please him. Unfortunately, a Duran Duran video is on. “ ‘The Jetsons,’ ” he says. “Not ‘The Jeffersons.’ I taped ‘The Jetsons.’ Turn that off.” “But you always tape the newscasts,” I’m whining, trying not to. “You know I like to watch them.” Pause. “I thought you’ve seen all ‘The Jetsons.’ ” Danny doesn’t say anything, just recrosses long, sculpted legs. “And what was the phone doing on the hook?” I ask, trying to sound amused. He gets up from the bed so suddenly that it startles me. He walks over to the glass doors that open onto the balcony and looks out over the canyons. It’s light outside and warm and beyond Danny it’s still possible to see heat rising up off the hills and then I’m saying “Just don’t leave” and he says “I don’t even know what I’m doing here” and I ask, almost dutifully, “Why are you here?” and he says “Because my father kicked me out of the house” and I ask “Why?” and Danny says “Because my father asked me ‘Why don’t you get a job?’ and I said ‘Why don’t you suck my dick?’ ” He pauses and, having read about Edward, I wonder if he actually did, but then Danny says, “I’m sick of having this conversation. We’ve had it too many times.” “We haven’t even had it once,” I say softly. Danny turns away from the glass doors, leans against them and swallows hard, staring at a new video on MTV. I look away from him, following his gaze to the TV screen. A young girl in a black bikini is being terrorized by three muscular, near-naked masked men, all playing guitars. The girl runs into a room and starts to claw at Venetian blinds as fog or smoke starts to pour into the room. The video ends, resolved in some way, and I turn back to look at Danny. He’s still staring at the TV. A commercial for the Lost Weekend with Van Halen contest. David Lee Roth, looking stoned and with two sparsely dressed girls sitting on either side of him, leers into the camera and asks, “How about a little joyride in my limo?” I look back over at Danny. “Just don’t leave,” I sigh, not caring if I sound pathetic. “I signed up for that,” he says, sunglasses still on. I reach over, disconnecting the phone, and think about the window wipers being snapped off. “So you signed up for the Lost Weekend contest?” I ask. “Is that what we were talking about?” I’m having lunch with Sheldon in a restaurant on Melrose. It’s noon and the restaurant is already crowded and quiet. Soft rock plays over a stereo system. Cool air drifts from three large slowly spinning silver fans hooked to the ceiling. Sheldon sips Perrier and I wait for his response. He sets down the large iced glass and looks out the window and actually stares at a palm tree, which I find momentarily distressing. “Sheldon?” I say. “Two weeks?” he asks. “I’ll take one if that’s all you can get me.” I’m looking at my plate: a huge, uneaten Caesar salad. “What is this week for? Where are you going?” Sheldon seems actually concerned. “I want to go somewhere.” I shrug. “Just take some time off.” “Where?” “Somewhere.” “Where is somewhere? Jesus, Cheryl.” “I don’t know where somewhere is, Sheldon.” “Are you falling apart on me, baby?” Sheldon asks. “What is this, Sheldon? What the fuck’s going on? Can you get me the week off or not?” I pick up a spoon, stab at the salad, lift lettuce to my mouth. It falls off, back onto the plate. I put the spoon down. Sheldon looks at me, so bewildered that I have to turn away. “You know, um, I’ll try,” Sheldon says soothingly, still stunned. “You know I’d do anything for you.” “You’ll try?” I ask, incredulous. “You lack faith. That’s your problem,” Sheldon says. “You lack faith. And you haven’t joined a gym.” “My agent is telling me that I lack faith?” I ask. “My life must really be a disaster.” “You should work out.” Sheldon sighs. “I don’t lack faith, Sheldon. I just need to go to Las Cruces for a week.” I start to pick at the salad again, making sure Sheldon notices I’ve picked up a fork. “I used to work out,” I mutter. “I used to work out all the time.” ‘I’ll see what I can do. I’ll talk to Jerry. And Jerry will talk to Evan. But you know what they say.” Sheldon sighs, looking out at the palm tree. “Can’t get water from the sun.” “What the hell are you talking about?” I say, then, “Are you on dope or something, Sheldon?” The check comes and Sheldon pulls out his wallet and then a credit card. “You still living with that pretty boy?” he asks with what sounds like definite disdain. “I like him, Sheldon,” I say and then, with less confidence, “He likes me.” “I’m sure. I’m sure he does, Cheryl,” Sheldon says. “You didn’t want dessert, did you?” I shake my head, tempted, finally, to eat the rest of the unfinished salad, but the waiter comes and takes the plate away. Everyone in the restaurant, it feels, recognizes me. “Turn that frown upside down,” Sheldon says. He’s putting his wallet back in his pocket. “What would that get me—an upside-down frown, what?” From the way Sheldon is looking at me, I try to smile and put my napkin on the table, mimicking a normal person. “Your phone has been, um, busy lately,” Sheldon mentions softly. “You can get hold of me at the station,” I say. “It doesn’t mean anything.” “Talk to William lately?” “I don’t think I want to talk to William.” “I think he wants to talk to you.” “How do you know?” “I’ve seen him a couple of times.” Sheldon shrugs. “Around.” “Jesus,” I’m saying. “I don’t want to see that creep.” A young Mexican boy clears away our water glasses. “Cheryl, most people I know will speak to their ex-husband if their ex-husband wants to speak to them. It’s no biggie. What is this? You can’t even talk to him on the phone?” “He can get hold of me at the station,” I say. “I don’t want to talk to William. He’s pathetic.” I’m looking out the window again, at two teenage girls with short blond hair, wearing miniskirts, who are walking by with a tall blond boy and the boy reminds me of Danny. It isn’t that the boy looks exactly like Danny—he does—it’s more the apathetic shuffle, the way he checks himself out in the window of this restaurant, the same pair of Wayfarers. And for a moment he takes off his sunglasses and stares right at me even though he doesn’t see me and his hand runs through short blondish hair and the two girls lean up against the palm tree Sheldon was staring at and light cigarettes and the boy puts his sunglasses back on and makes sure they are not crooked and turns away and walks down Melrose and the two girls leave the palm tree and follow the boy. “Know him?” Sheldon asks. William calls me at the station around three. I’m at my desk working on a story about the twentieth anniversary of the Kitty Genovese slaying when he calls. He tells me that my phone has been busy lately and that we should have dinner one night this week. I tell him that I’ve been busy, tired, that there’s too much work to complete. William keeps mentioning the name of a new Italian restaurant on Sunset. “What about Linda?” I realize I should not have said this, that it will give William the idea that I might be considering his offer. “She’s in Palm Springs for a couple of days.” “What about Linda?” “What about her?” “What about Linda?” “I think I’ve missed you.” I hang up the phone and stare at pictures of Kitty Genovese’s body and William doesn’t call back. In makeup, Simon talks about a screenplay he’s working on about break-dancing in West Hollywood. Once the news begins I stare straight into the camera and hope that Danny is watching since it’s really the only time he ever looks at me. I smile warmly before each commercial break even if it’s grossly inappropriate and at the end of the broadcast I’m tempted to mouth “Good night, Danny.” But at the Gelson’s in Brentwood I see a badly burned little boy in a basket and I remember the way William said “I think I’ve missed you” right before I hung up on him and when I come out of the market the sky is light and too purple and still. There is a white VW Rabbit parked next to Danny’s red Porsche in the driveway, which is parked next to a giant tumbleweed. I drive past the cars and park my Jaguar in the carport and sit there for a long time before I get out and carry the bag of groceries inside. I set them on the kitchen table, then open the refrigerator and drink half a Tab. There is a note on the table from the maid, written in broken English, about William calling. I walk over to the phone, unplug it and crumple the note up. A boy, maybe nineteen, twenty, with short blond hair and tan, wearing only blue shorts and sandals, walks into the kitchen, stopping suddenly. We stare at each other for a moment. “Uh, hello?” I say. “Hi,” the boy says, starting to smile. “Who are you?” “Um, I’m Biff. Hi.” “Biff?” I ask. “You’re Biff?” “Yeah.” He begins to back out of the kitchen. “See you around.” I stand there with the note about William still crumpled in my hand. I throw it away and walk up the stairs. The front door slams shut and I can hear the sound of the VW Rabbit starting, backing out of the driveway, moving down the street. Danny is lying under a thin white sheet on my bed, staring at the television. Wadded-up pieces of Kleenex are scattered on the floor by the side of the bed, next to a deck of tarot cards and an avocado. It’s hot in the room and I open the balcony doors, then walk into the bathroom, change into my robe and move silently over to the Betamax and rewind the tape. I look over my shoulder at Danny, still staring at the TV screen I’m blocking. I press Play and a Beach Boys concert comes on. I fast-forward the tape and press Play. There isn’t anything on it except for the Beach Boys. “You didn’t tape the newscast tonight?” “Yeah. I did.” “But there’s nothing there.” I’m pointing at the Betamax. “Really?” He sighs. “There’s nothing there.” Danny thinks about it a moment, then groans, “Oh man, I’m sorry. I had to tape the Beach Boys concert.” Pause, then, “You had to tape a Beach Boys concert?” “It was the last concert before Brian Williams died,” Danny says. I sigh, drum my fingers on the Betamax. “It wasn’t Brian Williams, you moron. It was Dennis Wilson.” “No, it wasn’t,” he says, sitting up a little. “It was Brian.” “You’ve missed taping the show two nights in a row now.” I walk into the bathroom and turn on the faucets in the bathtub. “And it was Dennis,” I call out. “I don’t know where the hell you heard that,” I hear him say. “It was Brian.” “It was Dennis Wilson,” I say loudly, bending down, feeling the water. “No way. You’re totally wrong. It was Brian,” he says. He gets up from the bed with the sheet wrapped around him, grabs the remote control and lies back down. “It was Dennis.” I walk out of the bathroom. “Brian,” he says, turning the channel to MTV. “You are wrong to the max.” “It was Dennis, you little asshole,” I scream at him as I leave the room and walk downstairs, flip on the air-conditioning and then, in the kitchen, open a bottle of white wine. I take a glass out of a cupboard and walk back upstairs. “William called this afternoon,” Danny says. “What did you tell him?” I pour myself a glass of wine and sip it, trying to calm down. “That we were dry humping and you couldn’t make it to the phone,” Danny says, grinning. “Dry humping? So you weren’t exactly lying.” “Right.” He snorts. “Why didn’t you just leave the goddamned phone unplugged?” I scream at him. “You’re crazy.” He sits up suddenly. “What is this shit about the phone? You’re crazy, you’re … you’re …” He trails off, unable to find the right word. “And what was that little surfer doing in my house?” I finish one glass of wine, a little nauseated, then pour another. “That was Biff,” Danny says defensively. “He doesn’t surf.” “Well, he looked real upset,” I say loudly, sarcastic, taking off my robe. In the bathroom I ease myself into warm water, turn the faucets off, lie back, sipping the wine. Danny, with the sheet wrapped around him, walks in and throws Kleenex into the wastebasket and then wipes his hand on the sheet. He puts the toilet seat down and sits and lights a joint he’s holding. I close my eyes, take a large swallow of wine. The only sounds: music coming from MTV, one of the faucets dripping, Danny sucking on a thinly rolled joint. I’m just noticing that sometime today Danny bleached his hair white. “Want some weed?” he asks, coughing. “What?” I ask. “Some weed?” He holds the joint out to me. “No,” I’m saying. “No weed.” Danny sits back and I’m feeling self-conscious, so I roll over onto my stomach, but it’s uncomfortable and I roll over onto my side and then onto my back but he’s not looking at me anyway. His eyes are closed. He speaks. In monotone: “Biff was down on Sunset today and he came to a stoplight and he told me he saw this old deformed woman with a totally big head and long puffy fat hands and she was, like, screaming and drooling, holding up traffic.” He takes another hit off the joint, holds it in. “And she was naked.” He exhales, then says, benignly, “She was at a bus stop way down on the Strip, maybe near Hillhurst.” He takes another hit off the joint, holds it in. I picture the image clearly and, after thinking about it, ask, “Why in the hell did you tell me that?” He shrugs, doesn’t say anything. He just opens his eyes and stares at the red tip of the joint and blows on it. I reach over the side of the tub and pour another glass of wine. “You tell me something,” he finally says. “Like, trade information?” “Whatever.” “I … want a child?” I say, guessing. After a long pause, Danny shrugs, says, “Bitchin’.” “Bitchin’?” I close my eyes and very evenly ask, “Did you just say bitchin’?” “Don’t mock me, man,” he says, getting up, going over to the mirror. He scratches at an imaginary mark on his chin, turns away. “It’s no use,” I say suddenly. “I’m too young,” he says. “Duh.” “I can’t even remember when I met you,” I say, quietly, then I look up at him. “What?” he asks, surprised. “You expect me to remember?” He drops the sheet and, nude, walks back to the toilet and sits down and takes a swig from the bottle of white wine. I notice a scar on the inside of his thigh and I reach out and touch his leg. He pulls back, takes a drag on the joint. My hand stays there, in space, and I bring it back, embarrassed. “Would a smart person make fun of me for asking you what you’re thinking?” “I have—” He stops, then slowly continues. “I have been thinking about how awful it was, losing my virginity.” He pauses. “I have been thinking about that all day.” “It usually is when you lose it to a truck driver.” A long, hateful pause. I turn away. “That was stupid.” I want to touch him again but sip Chardonnay instead. “What makes you so fucking perfect?” His eyes narrow, the jaw sets. He gets up, bends over, picks up the sheet, walks back into the bedroom. I get up out of the tub and dry off and, a little drunk, walk into the room, naked, holding the bottle of wine and my glass, and I get under the sheet with him. He turns channels. I do not know why he is here or where we met and he’s lying next to me, naked, gazing at videos. “Does your husband know about this?” he asks, a tone of false amusement. “He says the divorce isn’t finalized. He says he’s not your ex.” I don’t move, don’t answer, for a moment I don’t see Danny or anything else in the room. “Well?” I need another glass of wine but I force myself to wait a few minutes before I pour it. Another video. Danny hums along with it. I remember sitting in a car in the parking lot of the Galleria and William holding my hand. “Does it matter?” I say once the video ends. I close my eyes, easily pretend that I’m not here. When I open them it’s darker in the room and I look over at Danny and he’s still staring at the TV. A photograph of L.A. at night is on the screen. A red streak flies over the neon landscape. The name of a local radio station appears. “Do you like him?” Danny asks. “No. I really don’t.” I sip the wine, easing toward tired. “Do you like … him?” “Who? Your husband?” “No,” I say. “Biff, Boff, Buff, whatever.” “What?” “Do you like him?” I ask again. “More than me?” Danny doesn’t say anything. “You don’t have to answer immediately.” I could say this stronger but don’t. “As if you’re capable.” “Don’t ask me this,” he says, his eyes a dull gray-blue, blank, half closed. “Just don’t ask me this. Don’t do this.” “It’s just all so typical.” I’m giggling. “What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?” he asks, yawning. “What?” I’m still giggling, my eyes closed. “Here come the elephants over the hill.” “I think I’ve heard this one before.” I’m picturing Danny’s long tan fingers and then, less appealing, where his tan line stops, starts again, the thick unsmiling lips. “What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants come over the hill with raincoats on?” he asks. I finish the wine and set the glass on the nightstand, next to an empty bottle. “What?” “Here come the elephants over the hill wearing raincoats.” He waits for my response. “He … did?” I ask, finally. “What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants come over the hill with sunglasses on?” “I don’t think I really want to know this, Danny,” I say, my tongue thick, closing my eyes again, things clogged. “Nothing,” Danny says lifelessly. “He didn’t recognize them.” “Why are you telling me this?” “I don’t know.” Pause. “To keep me amused maybe.” “What?” I say, drifting. “What did you say?” “To keep me amused?” I fall asleep next to him for a minute, then wake up but don’t open my eyes. My breathing steady, I feel the touch of two dry fingers trailing up my leg. I lie perfectly still, eyes closed, and he touches me, no heat in the touch, and then he climbs gently on top of me and I lie perfectly still but soon I have to open my eyes because I’m breathing too hard. The instant I do, he softens, rolls off. When I wake up in the middle of the night, he’s gone. His lighter, which looks like a small gold handgun, is on the nightstand next to the empty bottle of wine and the large glass and I remember that when he first showed it to me I thought he was actually going to fire it and when he didn’t I felt my life become an anticlimax and looking into his eyes, his gaze rendering everything inconsequential, pools incapable of remembering anything, I moved deeper into them until I was comfortable. Music from downstairs wakes me at eleven. I hurriedly throw on a robe, walk downstairs, but it’s only the maid washing the windows in the den, listening to Culture Club. I say gracias and look outside the window the maid is cleaning and notice that the maid’s two young children are swimming in the shallow end of the small pool. I get dressed and wait around the house for Danny to come back. I walk outside, stare at the space where his car was parked, and then I look around for signs of the gardener, who has, for some reason, not shown up in three weeks. I meet Liz for lunch in Beverly Hills and after we order water I spot William, wearing a beige linen sport jacket, white pleated pants and expensive brown sunglasses, standing at the bar. He makes his way over to our table. I excuse myself and walk to the rest rooms. William follows me and I stand outside the door and ask him what he’s doing here and he says that he always comes to this place for lunch and I tell him it’s too much of a coincidence and he says, admits, that maybe he talked to Liz, that maybe she had mentioned something to him about lunch with me today at the Bistro Gardens. I tell William that I don’t want to see him, that this separation was, inadvertently or not, his idea, that he met Linda. William answers my accusations by telling me that he simply wants to talk and he takes my hand and squeezes it and I pull away and walk back to the table and sit down. William follows and squats by my chair and after he asks me three times to come by his house to talk and I don’t say anything he leaves and Liz mumbles apologies and I suddenly, inexplicably, become so hungry that I order two appetizers, a large salad and a bitter-orange tart and eat them quickly, ravenous. After lunch I walk aimlessly along Rodeo Drive and into Gucci, where I almost buy Danny a wallet, and then I’m walking out of Gucci and leaning against one of the gold columns outside the store in white heat and a helicopter swoops down low out of the sky and back up again and a Mercedes blares its horn at another Mercedes and I remember that I have to do the eleven o’clock edition on Thursdays and I’m shielding my eyes from the sun and I walk into the wrong parking lot and after walking another block find the right one. I leave the station after the newscast at five ends, telling Jerry that I’ll be back for the eleven o’clock edition by ten-thirty and Cliff can do the promos and I get into my car and drive out of the parking lot of the station and find myself driving to the airport, to LAX. I park and walk over to the American Airlines terminal and go to a coffee shop, making sure I get a seat by the window, and I order coffee and watch planes take off, occasionally glancing at a copy of the L.A. Weekly I brought with me from the car, and then I do some of the cocaine Simon gave me this afternoon and get diarrhea and then I roam the airport and hope someone will follow me and I walk from one end of the terminal to the other, looking over my shoulder expectantly, and I leave the American Airlines terminal and walk out to the parking lot and approach my car, the windows tinted black, two stubs leaning against the windshield where the wipers used to be, and I get the feeling that there’s someone waiting, crouched in the backseat, and I move toward the car, peer in, and though it’s hard to tell, I’m pretty sure there’s no one in there and I get in and drive out of the airport and as I move past motels that line Century Boulevard leading to LAX I’m tempted, briefly, to check into one of them, just to get the effect, to give off the illusion of being someplace else, and the Go-Go’s are singing “Head Over Heels” on the radio and from LAX I drive to West Hollywood and find myself at a revival theater on Beverly Boulevard that’s playing an old Robert Altman movie and I park the Jaguar in a towaway zone, pay for a ticket and walk into a small, empty theater, the entire room bathed in red light, and I sit alone up front, flip through the L.A. Weekly and it’s quiet in the theater except for an Eagles album that’s playing somewhere and someone lights a joint and the sweet, strong smell of marijuana distracts me from the L.A. Weekly, which drops to the floor anyway after I see an advertisement for Danny’s Okie Dog, a hot dog stand on Santa Monica Boulevard, and the lights dim and someone in back yawns and the Eagles fade, a tattered black curtain rises and after the movie ends I walk back outside and get in the car and when the car stalls in front of a gay bar on Santa Monica I decide not to go to the station for the eleven o’clock newscast and I keep turning the key and when the engine starts up again I drive away from the bar and past two young guys yelling at each other in a doorway. Canter’s. I walk into the large, fluorescent-lit delicatessen to get something to eat and buy a pack of cigarettes so that I will have something to do with my hands since I left the L.A. Weekly on the floor of the revival theater. I get a booth near the window and study the Benson & Hedges box, then stare out the window and watch streetlights change colors from red to green to yellow to red and nothing passes through the intersection and the lights keep changing and I order a sandwich and a diet Coke and nothing passes, no cars, no people, nothing passes through the intersection for twenty minutes. The sandwich arrives and I stare at it disinterestedly. A group of punk rockers sit in a booth across from mine and they keep looking over at me, whispering. One of the girls, wearing an old black dress and with short, spiked red hair, nudges the boy sitting next to her and the boy, probably eighteen, lanky and tall, wearing black with a blond Mohawk, starts up and walks to my table. The punks suddenly become silent and watch the boy expectantly. “Um, aren’t you on the news or something?” he asks in a high voice that surprises me. “Yes.” “You’re Cheryl Laine, right?” he asks. “Yes.” I look up, trying to smile. “I want to light a cigarette but I don’t have matches.” The boy looks at me, made briefly helpless by this last statement, but he recovers and asks, “No matches either but hey, listen, can I have your autograph?” Staring at me hatefully, he says, “I’m, like, your biggest fan.” He holds out a napkin and scratches his Mohawk. “You’re, like, my favorite anchor-person.” The punks are laughing hysterically. The girl with the red spiked hair covers her pale face with tiny hands and stamps her feet. “Sure,” I say, humiliated. “Do you have a pen?” He turns around and calls out, “Hey, David, you gotta pen?” David shakes his head, eyes closed, face contorted with laughter. “I think I have one,” I say, opening my purse. I take a pen out and he hands me a napkin. “What would you like it to say?” The boy looks at me blankly and then over at the other table and he starts laughing and shrugs. “I don’t know.” “Well, what’s your name?” I ask, squeezing the pen so tight I’m afraid it will snap. “Let’s start there.” “Spaz.” He scratches at the Mohawk again. “Spaz?” “Yeah. With an s.” I write: “To Spaz, best wishes, Cheryl Laine.” “Hey, thanks a lot, Cheryl,” Spaz says. He walks back to the table where the punks are laughing, even harder now. One of the girls takes the autograph from Spaz and looks it over and groans, covering her head with her hands and stamping her feet again. I very carefully place a twenty-dollar bill on the table and take a sip of the diet Coke and then try, inconspicuously, to get up from the table and I head for the rest room, the punks calling out “Bye, Cheryl” and laughing even louder and once in the ladies’ room I lock myself in a stall and lean against a door that’s covered with Mexican graffiti and catch my breath. I find Danny’s lighter at the bottom of my purse and light a cigarette but it tastes sour and I drop it in the toilet and then walk back through Canter’s, which is basically empty, walking all the way around its perimeter, keeping to the rim of the room, avoiding the punks’ table and then I’m in my car looking at my reflection in the rearview mirror: eyes red, black smudge on chin, which I try to wipe off. Starting the car, I head for a phone booth on Sunset. I park the car, leaving the engine running, the radio loud, and call my number and I stand in the booth waiting for someone to answer and the phone keeps ringing and I hang up and walk back to the car and drive around, looking for a coffee shop or a gas station so I can use a rest room but everything seems closed and I drive down Hollywood Boulevard looking up at movie marquees and finally I end up getting back on Sunset and driving to Brentwood. I knock on William’s door. It takes him a while to answer it. He asks, “Who’s there?” I don’t say anything, just knock again. “Who’s there?” he asks, his voice sounding worried. “It’s me,” I say, then, “Cheryl.” He unlocks the door and opens it. He’s wearing a Polo bathing suit and a T-shirt that has CALIFORNIA written across it in bright-blue letters, a T-shirt I bought him last year, and he has glasses on and doesn’t seem surprised to find me standing outside his door. “I was just going to go in the Jacuzzi,” William says. “I have to use your bathroom,” I say quietly. I walk past him and across the living room and into the bathroom. When I come out, William is standing at the bar. “You couldn’t … find a bathroom?” he asks. I sit in a reclining chair in front of a huge television set, ignoring him, then, deciding not to, say, “No.” “Would you like a drink?” “What time is it?” “Eleven,” he says. “What do you want?” “Anything.” “I’ve got pineapple juice, cranberry, orange, papaya.” I had thought he meant alcohol but say, again, “Anything.” He walks over to the TV set and it turns on like a sudden flash, booming, and the news is just beginning and he turns the volume up in time to hear the announcer say: “… the channel nine news team with Christine Lee filling in for Cheryl Laine …” and William walks back to the bar and pours the two of us drinks and he, mercifully, doesn’t ask why I’m not there. I turn the television off at the first commercial break. “Where’s Linda?” I ask. “Palm Springs,” he says. “At a colonic seminar.” A long, dull silence and then, “Supposedly they’re fun.” “That’s nice,” I murmur. “You two still getting along?” William smiles and brings me a drink that smells strongly of guava. I sip it cautiously, then put the glass down. “She just finished redecorating the condo.” He motions with his arms and sits down on a beige couch across from the reclining chair. “Even though the condo is temporary.” Pause. “She’s still at Universal. She’s fine.” He sips his juice. William doesn’t say anything else. He sips his juice again and then crosses his tan, hairy legs and looks out the window at palm trees lit by streetlamps. I get up from the chair and walk nervously around the room. I move over to the bookshelf and pretend to look at the tides of the books on the large glass shelf and then at the titles of films on tape in the shelves below. “You don’t look too good,” he says. “You have ink on your chin.” “I’m fine.” It takes five minutes for William to say, “Maybe we should have stayed together.” He removes his glasses, rubs his eyes. “Oh God,” I say irritably. “No, we shouldn’t have stayed together.” I turn around. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here.” “I was wrong. What can I say?” He looks down at his glasses, then at his knees. I walk away from the bookshelf and over to the bar and lean against it and there’s another long pause and then he asks, “Do you still want me?” I don’t say anything. “You don’t have to answer me, I guess,” he says, sounding confused, hopeful. “This is no use. No, William, I don’t.” I touch my chin, look at my fingers. William looks at his drink and before he sips it says, “But you lie all the time.” “Don’t call me anymore,” I say. “That’s why I came over. To tell you this.” “But I think I still”—pause—“want you.” “But I”—I pause awkwardly—“want someone else.” “Does he want you?” he asks with a quiet emphasis, and the fact refuses to escape me untouched and I slump down on a high gray barstool. “Don’t crack up,” William says. “Don’t go to pieces.” “Everything’s wrecked.” William gets up from the couch, puts his glass of papaya juice down and carefully walks over to me. He puts a hand on my shoulder, kisses my neck, touches a breast, almost knocking my glass over. I move away to the other side of the room, wiping my face. “It’s surprising to see you like this,” I manage to say. “Why?” William asks from across the room. “Because you’ve never felt anything for anybody.” “That isn’t true,” he says. “What about you?” “You were never there. You were never there.” I stop. “You were never … alive.” “I was … alive,” he says feebly. “Alive?” “No, you weren’t,” I say. “You know what I mean.” “What was I, then?” he asks. “You were just”—I pause, look out over the expanse of white carpet into a massive white kitchen, white chairs on a gleaming tiled floor—“not dead.” “And, uh, this person you’re with is?” he asks, an edge in his voice. “I don’t know. He’s”—I stammer—“nice. Nice. Good for me.” “He’s ‘good’ for you? What is he? A vitamin? What does that mean? He’s good in bed or what?” William raises his arms. “He can be,” I mutter. “Well, if you met me when I was fifteen—” “Nineteen,” I say, cutting him off. “Jesus Christ, nineteen,” he spits out. I head for the door, leaving a not unfamiliar scene, and I turn back, once, to look at William and feel a pang of reluctance, which I don’t want to feel. I’m imagining Danny, waiting in a bedroom for me, dialing a phone, calling someone, a phantom. Back at my house, the television is on and so is the Betamax. The bed is unmade. A note on top of it reads, “Sorry—I’ll see you around. Sheldon called and said he had good news. Set the timer for 11 so the show should be taped. I’m sorry. So long. P.S. Biff thinks you’re hot,” and below that Biff’s phone numbers. The bag of clothes he kept by the bed is gone. Rewinding the tape, I lie down and watch the eleven o’clock edition.