It was David’s birthday, she told him, and Red was lending them his bungalow for the night. Lewis was incredulous. Women swooned over David, and somehow he’d chosen this refined, older matron, as formal and self-possessed as an elk.
“Uh-oh,” Pauline said, as Gustave burst through a window screen. Lewis caught him at the foot of the steps and was again dragging him toward the house when David appeared, on foot, in the roadway. “Sorry I’m late,” he said as he walked up. “The Land Cruiser has a flat.”
While David and Pauline embraced, Lewis got Gustave back into the bungalow. He closed all the windows and left him locked inside when he went to cook dinner. When he came home and let him out around nine, the hot and airless house stank of dog, and Gustave had chewed up a library book and a sofa cushion. The dog had another barking fit at midnight, and Lewis looked outside just as David and Pauline climbed out of the Saab. Under the mercury-vapor light, David looked soft in the face, thick in the middle, the gray streaks in his hair conspicuous. He, too, looked unequivocally middle-aged.
Lewis caught Gustave’s collar. “Good birthday dinner?” he asked.
“Quite good. Red grilled swordfish,” Pauline said. “Libby baked an orange cake.”
Back in his bungalow, Lewis called Barbara. “Sorry to wake you,” he said, “but I’m desperate to talk to somebody. I am so far off the social registry up here, I feel like a goddamn leper.”
Barbara yawned. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“Quit?”
“I don’t think so,” she said languidly. “Sounds to me like the perfect place to finish your dissertation.”
LITTLE Bill Fitzgerald took a summer job in his uncle John’s West Hollywood law firm. Billie and Old Bill drove him down, helped him get settled in John’s house in Bel Air, and stayed on for a month themselves. The moment Billie came home, she phoned Libby. “Come over right now,” she said.
When Libby arrived, she encountered what must have been the entire Neiman Marcus baby department. Dresses, jumper suits, T-shirts in deep, beautiful, saturated colors, all so much nicer than the river of cheap pastel-pink polyester items arriving from Libby’s mother and aunts. Even the diaper covers were beautiful—deep purple, teal, royal blue, and, as Libby couldn’t help noticing, twenty-six dollars a pop.
“There’s so much great baby stuff these days,” Billie said. “It’s enough to make me think about having another kid.”
“God, wouldn’t that be something,” said Libby.
“On second thought, you have the baby and I’ll just buy the clothes.”
“This baby’s already better dressed than her mother ever was.”
“So why don’t you let Red finance a new wardrobe?”
“I don’t believe in spending a fortune on maternity clothes,” Libby said. “You only wear them for a few weeks.”
“Good God, girl, live it up for a change! You have a rich husband now.”
“Or had one,” Libby said, “before we started building this house.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to spend a little on yourself.”
“Words of wisdom from the doyenne of muddy jeans.”
“That may be so,” said Billie, “but I don’t have to keep a man attracted to me.”
“What, you think Red’s that superficial?”
“All men are—especially when it comes to pregnancy. It grosses men out. Women get fat and emotional, and the guys freak.”
“Some men more or less revere it.”
“Did you say ‘revere,’ Libby? That’s good. Revere.”
“You know what I mean,” said Libby. “Red’s pretty cool about the whole thing.”
“Oh, they like to reproduce, all right,” said Billie. “But they’re so squeamish. Ever want to scare a man off, just say ‘vaginal discharge.’ ”
“Not all men,” Libby said. “David Ibañez ate some placenta.”
“Placenta?” Billie looked as if she were about to throw up, or cry. “He is such a liar.”
“I don’t think so,” said Libby. “Why would he lie about something like that?”
“So Red went ahead and hired him?”
“Yeah, and the men are crazy about him. He must’ve worked through whatever problems he had when you knew him. He’s so open and friendly, way more than most straight men are.”
“Maybe he is gay.”
“No, no.” Libby laughed. “I’m just saying I can talk to him really easily. And he’s definitely not gay. He has this brilliant girlfriend. We had the two of them over the other night.”
Billie’s distaste, she saw, had turned into glazed boredom. Billie did that, turning off whenever a subject displeased her. Libby stood and started folding the baby clothes. “Look at this sweatshirt with all the beets,” she said with forced cheer. “Oh, and this skirt has carrots and beets. It’s a total vegetable look.” She waved the miniature articles of clothing like white flags. But Billie was gone. After almost five years in this friendship, Libby recognized it, that instant chemical shift. Billie’s eyes sank into her skull, grew large and dark, her face seeming windblown.
“You okay?” Libby asked. “You’re not getting a migraine, are you?”
“No.”
Stacking the clothes in a neat pile, Libby tried one more change of subject. “So how does Little Bill like working for your brother?”
“I can’t talk about that right now.” Billie hunched up, covering her face with her hair like a furious twelve-year-old girl.
“Oh, Billie,” said Libby. “I miss him too. I miss him hanging around with us, his incredible sweetness.”
Billie pulled her hair back to reveal dull, menacing eyes. “I just told you, I don’t want to talk about my son.”
“Sorry.” Libby stuffed the teeny garments into their shopping bags. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
Billie gave a broad, backhanded wave, as if to sweep Libby and all the baby clothes out of the house.
Putting the baby presents in the trunk, Libby saw that the Mercedes had a flat tire. She didn’t want to go back inside, so she started trying to change it herself. She had to stand on the tire iron to get the first bolt off, which seemed exactly like something the doctor told her not to do. She was about to start walking home when Billie’s foreman, Rogelio, arrived and took over.
Later that afternoon, she called and got Billie’s answering machine. “Sorry if my asking about Little Bill upset you. I was so happy to see you—and all those amazing gifts, oh my God! I just wasn’t thinking very clearly.”
She didn’t hear back, and told Red about it that evening. “She’s just so changeable. A fortune in baby clothes one minute, a face full of mud the next.”
“You and I both need a vacation,” Red said. “Now that the house is almost done, and the farm’s running smoothly”—he knocked the pine table—“let’s get away. God knows when we’ll have another chance once this baby pokes her head out.”
YVETTE called and offered them three days in mid-August at the Ahwanee Hotel in Yosemite. She and her husband always reserved these dates, but this year they were going to Greece instead. If Libby and Red didn’t mind paying $160 a night, they could have the room.
“Did Red tell you we were thinking about a vacation?” Libby asked her.
“No. I haven’t spoken to him lately. We just thought you two might be interested.”
Red didn’t care how much it cost. Summertime reservations at the Ahwanee, he said, were impossible to get, so this was a real coup.
“Did you and Yvette go there every year?” Libby asked.
“No, I never stayed at the Ahwanee with Yvette. Must be a Bob thing.”
Libby called Yvette to accept the offer. When Red took the phone to thank his ex-wife, he became monosyllabic and grunty, as he always did when he spoke to her, and signed off quickly.
“I can’t imagine the two of you together,” Libby said.
“She reigned and I obeyed,” Red said, “except when I vanished for three days at a str
etch. Our marriage was a kind of drunken opera.”
“It’s even harder to imagine you drunk.”
“I was a merry drunk—up to a point. After that, you don’t want to know.”
LIBBY was pulled from sleep by a low, focused growling: a song, it seemed, of pure evil. She opened her eyes to see, inches from her face, bared teeth and a lip snagged over a curved yellow incisor. Her scream, taking root somewhere near the base of her spine, tore through her body and emerged with such force and volume that, instantaneously, the beast vanished and Lewis and Red materialized in its place.
“A huge, wild dog,” Libby rasped. Her throat would be raw for a week.
“It’s only Gustave. He’s adopted us.” Lewis was trying not to laugh. “He’s not wild, just not highly socialized. But he’s harmless. Sorta like everyone else I know.”
“Guess what?” said Libby, “I don’t find it funny.”
“Gustave’s okay,” Red said.
“You didn’t see him snarling.”
“He doesn’t mean any harm,” Lewis said. “That’s how he makes friends.”
“I’ll show him how I make friends,” Libby muttered. “I’ll drive him straight to the pound.”
“Good luck getting him in the car.” Lewis turned and walked out the door.
Libby gazed up at Red: snarling dog replaced by frowning husband.
“You really don’t cut Lewis any slack,” he said.
“So?”
“He’s obviously lonely up here. He likes that dog.”
“Nobody forced him to take the job.” Libby pulled herself into a proper seated position. She remembered the dog chasing her car a few times and had assumed it belonged to the junkyard down the road. She didn’t know he was the new farm mascot.
Red reached forward, brushed his fingers over the top of her ear. “Lewis is doing me a big favor,” he said. “And he was over here in a second when you screamed. He’s trying, Libby.”
“Well, he can keep trying.”
“You know, he washed all the windows at the new place yesterday.”
“I know.”
“You might leave him a note. If not a thank-you note, at least a suggestion of what you want done.”
“I have the feeling that if I ask Lewis for anything, or appear grateful, or reveal one tiny spot of need or vulnerability, that’s where he’ll get me. He can do stuff at the house all he wants. But if I start expecting it, that just gives him another chance to disappoint me.”
“Can you expect the worst,” Red said, “and still be disappointed?”
Libby thought about this. “You’re right. I do expect him to fuck up. I’d be more surprised if he followed through.”
“So maybe, if you wrote him a little list of things to do on Sundays, you wouldn’t be giving him an opportunity to let you down, but a chance to grow up and prove he can actually keep a promise.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Libby. “But why do I owe him anything at all?”
“You don’t. That’s the beauty of it.”
Libby thought, and not for the first time, It’s hard being married to a saint. “But honey,” she said, “I like being angry. I like being implacable. I like being stern and unmoving and unforgiving toward Lewis. Don’t you understand? I’m having some fun.”
LUCKILY, Libby noticed the new flat tire before Red went on his rounds in the morning. She couldn’t believe it, and since she hadn’t fixed the flat she’d had at Billie’s, there was no spare. Red threw both tires into the back of his truck and together they drove to Fritz’s Texaco. While Fritz put in plugs, they ate breakfast at Happy Yolanda’s. And such, thought Libby, was the big difference between her two marriages. The same unpatched-tire situation would’ve sent Stockton into a sulk for days, possibly weeks, and there wasn’t so much as a peep of reproach from Red, who in fact seemed happy for the diversion.
Billie was sitting at a table with Rogelio and her dad. Libby had left her several messages and had hoped that she was out of town again, maybe on a creep, and couldn’t call back. But no: here she was, and clearly still angry. Greetings were perfunctory. Red and Libby weren’t asked to join them.
“What do you think it is?” Libby asked Red as they settled into a booth in the far corner. “A temper tantrum over my pregnancy?”
“Whatever,” said Red. “I wouldn’t take it personally.”
“I can’t help it. I need my women friends right now, and she’s about the only one I’ve got. I’m a little worried about this pregnancy, and I need somebody else to talk to.”
Shortly, the doctor tried to reassure Libby. Everything was fine, although now, since the spotting hadn’t stopped, he said the abortion or those weird IUD infections she had in her twenties might have weakened the cervix; the longer she was pregnant, it seemed, the more her past came back to haunt her. Nothing to worry about yet, the doctor said, so long as she avoided jumping off walls. And acrobatic, vigorous sex.
ANOTHER day, another flat. One of the tires Fritz had fixed the day before blew out as Libby was driving over to Round Rock from Howe Lane. Two fishermen stopped and changed it for her; then she drove straight back to Fritz’s. “Maybe the plugs popped out,” she said.
Fritz put the tire in a tank of opaque gray water, chalked where the bubbles emerged. “Nope,” he said. “Whole new punctures. You have any enemies?”
“No,” she said, although her black heart made its own suggestions.
She found Red picking roses in front of the Blue House. “Honey,” she said. “I just had another flat, and Fritz thinks somebody is stabbing my tires.”
“Then somebody is stabbing Lewis’s tires too,” said Red. “He also had a flat this morning—his second this week.”
“You don’t think Billie’s crazy enough to do that, do you?”
“No,” Red said. “Absolutely not.”
“I wish I could be so sure.”
When Red’s truck and Libby’s car both had flat tires the next morning, she suggested they call the sheriff. Red called Lewis and he, too, had one. “David’s taking it to town right now to get it fixed.” Two minutes later, he called back. David’s Land Cruiser had another flat.
“Maybe I’m paranoid,” Libby told Red, “but I think Billie’s behind this. I think she’s paying someone. I don’t have any idea why, but she’s really mad at me. Besides, it’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” said Red. “When Billie Fitzgerald wants to make a point, she does it cleanly. Like dropping her lease here.”
“Has she done that?”
“Yup,” said Red. “I got the letter from her lawyer yesterday.”
“Jesus,” said Libby. “What are you going to do?”
“Oh, I’ll just give the lease to Sunkist. It doesn’t make much difference financially, but Billie took such personal interest in the trees.”
“I wish I knew what’s going on with her.”
“I heard she’s moving,” Red said. “This might be her way of saying goodbye, by pulling back. But I don’t think she’d stoop to flattening tires.”
Red put the spares on both of their cars and threw the flats into his truck, then drove over to the farm to pick up Lewis’s and David’s flats.
To distract herself, Libby reclined on the sofa and wrote thank-you notes for all the baby presents that were piling up.
IN VENTURA, after picking up a large grocery and dry-goods order and buying a set of luggage and a Yosemite guidebook at the mall, Red stopped at a coffeehouse to buy a decaf latte for the ride home. He tried calling Libby from the pay phone out front to tell her that he’d solved the mystery of all the flat tires, but he kept getting the Round Rock voice mail after one ring, which meant she or somebody else was talking on the office line. He didn’t leave a message; he wanted to hear her reaction, that peal of laughter.
“You have reached Round Rock Farm for Recovering Alcoholics.” Hearing his own voice gave him a momentary chill. He remembered how
this morning, half awake, he’d reached for Yvette—the first time that had happened. Luckily, he stopped short of speaking Yvette’s name. “Nobody can come to the phone right now.”
That strange lapse had startled him, accompanied as it was by a brief, involuntary shiver. As he and Libby made love—they did so now with harrowing gentleness—and later, too, while he waited for the grocery order, he’d had a quick, dark, icy taste in his mouth. “It is important,” his voice said, “that you leave a message.”
The girl behind the counter was close to Joe’s age, and not unlike Joe in other ways as well: long and limber limbs, ash-brown hair, that lovely pearly skin. The girl seemed stuck on the boy working at the cash register. They talked back and forth about some friend who’d won a swimming award. “Decaf latte,” Red said.
He could’ve sworn the girl dispensed the ground coffee for his latte from the same glass container she’d been using for all the other orders. Taking the cardboard cup from her hand, he said, “Are you sure this is decaf?”
“Decaf?” She twisted a silver hoop in her ear as if it were a hearing device. “Sure.”
Outside, Red tried Libby again. Again, the voice mail picked up, so he dialed the kitchen number at the Blue House.
“Blue House, Lewis speaking.”
“Just me. I’m heading home now, unless you can think of anything else you need.”
“We’re fine here,” Lewis said.
“Hey, I figured out all those flat tires.” Red had to tell someone.
“Oh, yeah?”
“It’s that tire biter of yours.”
“What’s that?” Lewis said.
“That tire-biting dog of yours.”
“Gustave?”
“I left the farm today, and he chased me down to the stop sign the way he always does. You know how he hurls himself against the car? On a whim, I got out to have a look, and I could actually see the punctures, plus a little dog saliva. I’m not kidding. The punctures weren’t all the way through yet, but by the time I got to Rito they’d worked their way deeper and the tire was losing air. I had to stop and get Fritz to put in a plug.”
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