Chapter 32

It was eleven P.M. when Hugh stopped for the light on Pacific Coast Highway. On the radio the singer declared, “It’s the edge of the world/And all of western civilization . . .” A line of midnight cyclists, glowing like bioluminescent jellyfish, streamed silently out of the canyon and turned with choreographed precision north on the highway, vanishing into the slipstream. Hugh glanced toward the Pacific, where six thousand miles away his sons might be sitting down to a lunch of sukiyaki or sashimi—or Big Macs for all he knew— and, too, they could be eating the same ten miles distant.

The car behind him honked. Hugh accelerated onto Topanga. Continuing to scold him, the car veered in front of oncoming traffic to rip past.

Tomorrow, despite the warning, Hugh would continue his surveillance. If he failed to find his sons in California, he would fly to Tokyo. He wouldn’t leave Japan without finding Takumi and Hitoshi.

As he climbed the dirt road, he smelled the residues of the fire. His landlord had left a message on Hugh’s cell phone. The insurance company had completed its inspection and would cover the damages. Preliminary repairs had been made to the house, and it was all right for Hugh to move back in.

Pulling up to his home, Hugh hoped that the car’s headlights would find Hanna sitting in his backyard. He needed someone to lie with and listen to his story. He needed someone to hold and to wake up with in the night. Someone to reassure him of his own existence.

He needed proof . . . of everything.

Under the hard white beams, the lounge chairs were empty and the scrawny blades of glass were still.

He took a sleeping pill, poured a glass of wine, downed another sleeping pill, and sat in bed reading Barnaby Rudge. But Dickens drifted . . . Costumed as a ballerina, Setsuko came to him, danced across his bed.

“I would have died with you,” said Hugh.

Setsuko spun. “No jellybeans, no licorice, no cake.”

Barnaby Rudge slipped down his chest.

Hitoshi and Takumi hung from Setsuko’s elongated nipples, swaying gently as she rose from her bed . . .

“Mr. Maa-aac.”

Hugh leaned over another woman, sliding his penis into her as Setsuko walked toward an open window through which wispy clouds pinwheeled across a deep blue sky. Peeking over Setsuko’s shoulders Hitoshi and Takumi smiled and waved. On the horizon of the dream, a finger drained of blood pecked on a beating heart. Setsuko stepped through the open window. Hugh withdrew from the woman, running toward Setsuko. A skateboard screeched—

“Mr. Mac, wake up.”

Tender down his cheek.

Light squeezing under his eyelids.

“What is?”

A soft quieting finger at his lips.

“Fuck, man, wake up. It’s almost noon.”

Hugh jerked up his head. The bits and pieces of dreams within dreams whirled around like food in the teeth of a garbage disposal. The pieces screeched as the steel teeth chewed them up to nothingness.

At the side of his bed, backlit through his window by blazing sun, Anna posed with hand on hip, smiling sweetly and offering up her solemn brown eyes. Behind Anna stood Aaron.

“Sorry to disturb you,” said Anna.

“How the hell—”

“You left your door open, man,” said Aaron. “Smells like a campfire in here.”

“Jesus Christ, you just walked in?”

“You live in the wilderness, Mr. Mcpherson. Walking up here, we saw a deer and a coyote.”

“How did you find my house?”

“The plumber,” Aaron replied.

Hugh pulled the sheet to his waist. “Why are you here?”

“You gave my picture to the cops,” said Anna.

“Gave? They found your photo in my car when some asshole tried to burn down my house. Was that asshole you, Aaron?”

“Come on, chill,” said Aaron.

“Chill?” Hugh jumped up, grabbed Aaron’s shirt and yanked him close. For this alone he could be jailed. “Your sheet,” said Anna, pointing to the floor.

Hugh shoved Aaron aside, recovered his sheet and dropped back on the bed.

“Man, that hurt,” said Aaron, rubbing his neck. “What the fuck am I gonna torch your house for?”

“The police have been calling my house nonstop,” said Anna.

“And?”

“I never answer, and when they come by, I hide. We can get in a lot of trouble.”

“Yes,” agreed Hugh. “They might take away your smartphone and laser printer.”

“Ha, ha.”

“How did your photo get in my car?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it fell out of my bag,” replied Anna.

“Fuck that photo,” said Aaron. “Where’s my story?”

“Your what?” Hugh asked, but he knew.

“Jesus Christ, you don’t remember? I asked you for it. You were going to get it to me,” said Aaron.

“Burned in the fire,” said Hugh, gesturing.

“My grandpa’s not going to believe that,” said Aaron. “If it gets out what my grandfather did—I can’t go home without it.”

“I read it to Period Six,” said Hugh.

“No fucking way!” said Aaron.

“I told you that the story was good. I wanted to let others hear it. I know you were embarrassed to have it read in front of our class.”

“Embarrassed? You still don’t get it. That shit was real.”

“I do get it. I get it more than you can know. I’m sorry,” said Hugh.

“I want the story back. Where is it? The school?”

“Miseal,” said Hugh, remembering.

“Who? What?”

“Miseal,” repeated Hugh.

“Miseal Gonzalez?” asked Anna.

“Yes,” said Hugh.

“Fuck you saying?” asked Aaron. “Miseal Gonzalez? Gonzalez is North Valley Locos. That fucking gang got ties all over Mexico. For sure they heard about my grandfather killing the boss’s son. There’s a price on grandpa’s head, maestro.”

“I gave Miseal the story.”

“You gave him my story?”

“He was—excited about it. He asked for a copy, but I was on my way to a meeting. I gave him the original.”

“Gilipollas!” said Aaron.

“He said he’d get it back to you.”

But Aaron had already bolted for the door, Anna at his heels. “You were wrong, Mr. Mac,” said Anna. “You told a story that wasn’t yours to tell. That was a bad, bad thing to do.” Hugh stood in his doorway, watching the indignant children disappear down the dark dirt road.

A gentle wind carried the Grateful Dead . . .

From the direction of the rock pool a white fluttering form slipped out of the bushes. Dressed in a wedding gown, Hanna bustled toward him, stumbling in the vintage costume.

Had he entered a theater with a revolving stage? Would it turn again to offer him a magician preparing to make an elephant vanish?

“God, what a mess,” Hanna said, slapping at the burrs and leaves that had caught in the gossamer fabric. She grinned at Hugh. “Surprised, huh?”

“Stunned.”

“You want me to go away?”

“How did you . . . ?”

She looked over her shoulder, smoothed her dress. “There was a party.” She pointed. “Just over the hill. Lasted all night—still going, I guess. I walked here on the path. Saw your car. You had visitors, huh?”

“They were students.”

“Night school, huh?”

Hugh tightened his lips, but the laugh burst through.

“The kids—are they coming back?” asked Hanna.

“My students? No, I don’t think so.”

She tugged at the dress. “Does this look stupid? Like I just got married or something?”

“No. It’s pretty.”

“Goodwill,” said Hanna. “It smells like the sixties. Come here. Smell.” She took his arm and drew him closer. He breathed in no era but a woman’s skin.

“Invite me inside, okay?” said Hanna.

In his living room, Hugh pulled off Hanna’s wedding dress. His hands worked down her back and hips and he remembered to kiss her. His hand between her legs, his fingers soon swam in her liquid heat. He was inside her. No one spoke, and in the darkness, for a time, Hugh lost all yearnings but one. They slept for a while.

Later, Hanna lit a kettle as Hugh sat in his underwear and wondered. “Karera wa hontoni ikite irudarouka.”

“What?” asked Hanna as the kettle whistled.

“It’s Japanese.”

“You speak Japanese?”

“A little.”

Hanna poured the boiling water into the two cups. She had brought the tea with her. Not a box, but six teabags, which she spread out over the kitchen table. It was rainbow tea, which she drank when coming down from cocaine.

“You were doing cocaine at the party?”

“No. But if I had, this is what I’d be taking.” She squeezed Hugh’s teabag with a spoon and then her own. She cupped her hands around the glass and blew on the tea. “I came down here last night before the party, but you weren’t here. I was going to wait in the backyard, but it gets cold.”

“I got back around midnight. When I came home, I hoped you were here.”

“Did you? That’s sweet.”

He took her hand, caressed it. To give it all up. Almost as alluring as death. But he had to be moving.

“You sure are a restless sleeper,” said Hanna.

“Bad dreams.”

“Me too. If it wasn’t for bad dreams, I wouldn’t dream at all.”

“Those are lyrics from an old blues song.”

“That so? I never heard it.”

“The lyrics are different but it’s the same idea. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.”

“I like that. I’ll have to download it,” said Hanna, sipping her tea. “It’s almost like I wrote a song . . . So, how did the fire start?”

“Kyle, I think.”

Hanna licked her lip stud thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’s Kyle.”

Hanna lifted her legs and draped them over Hugh’s knee. She wore one of his old shirts. Her skin calmed him. The feeling was too nice to disrupt. He sipped his tea and stroked her ankle, letting his fingers trail across her foot, blunt with sparkly toenails, little diamonds in the shell. “He’s been following me,” said Hanna. “Over hill and dale.”

“Gilipollas,” muttered Hugh.

“I don’t know how I got mixed up with that loser in the first place. I guess it was because I started to lose my looks.”

“You’re a beautiful young woman.”

“I’m almost twenty-eight. And that is almost thirty. I was pretty once, but that’s long gone. I remember my skin was so tight and smooth, the way an angel fish’s skin would feel if you could pet it without killing it.” She mussed up her blonde, green-streaked hair.

“I have children almost your age.”

“Knock me out. You’re married?”

“I was.”

“What happened?” she asked.

Hugh sipped the tea. He remembered Setsuko in this light. Frugal with her emotions at all times, in the morning her face expressed no more than an archaic statue’s restraint.

“Did you love each other?” asked Hanna against his silence.

“I thought so, but it may have been an illusion. My illusion.”

“Sounds like sour grapes to me.”

“What are you doing, Hanna?”

“I’m cold.”

Hugh lifted her foot from his thigh.

“Don’t you like sex? An hour ago—”

“It’s not a question of liking.”

“It has to be like love?”

“I’ve got something to do.”

“Maybe I’ll just rape you.”

“Hanna—”

“It’s Joanna.”

“Not Hanna?”

“Sometimes I just want it. Does that sound slutty? Stick out your tongue.”

“No.”

“If you stick out your tongue and pretend you’re sprinkling salt on it, it will taste like salt.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Try it.”

“I don’t feel like it. I have high blood pressure. Salt’s no good for me.”

“It’s imaginary salt, silly.”

“What’s so—all right. If it makes you happy.”

He stuck out his tongue, held an imaginary salt shaker in his hand and sprinkled the salt on his tongue, knowing even as he did it the joke. Hanna buried her face in her hands.

“You get it?”

“Yes. I get it.”

“You don’t think it’s funny?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re really a poop. Okay, tell me about your sons.”

“What sons?”

“You said you had sons.”

“I said I had children.”

“Children then.”

“Why did you say sons?”

“It’s fifty-fifty, isn’t it? Besides, you look like a man who would have sons.”

Hanna too? Fucking Hanna too.

“Maybe you should go.”

“Did I say something?”

“You know Kazuki.”

“Who?”

“Kazuki Ono. You read his book. On the beach.”

“Oh. Oh, no. Why should I know him?”

“You’re lying, Hanna. Please get your dress and leave. Tell Kazuki he can’t game me anymore.”

He took her arm, ignored her pleas and led her outside.

Ten minutes later, he had dressed and powered up his cell phone to call the airlines when he heard Hanna’s scream.