The Hollywood Trilogy by Don Carpenter

had taken off her top and was prone on one of the loungers. I sat next to her and talked to her, stroking her hair, until with a lovely smile and parted lips she turned toward me and I saw that she, too, had magnificent tits. God and nature took over.
    Mimi and I had a rousing good time, and afterward she told me about her two little boys in Country Day School, and about her husband’s good job and their boat and their two cars and the cabin at Alpine Meadows and the snowshoe trip all four of them were going to make through the High Sierras when the boys were old enough, and about singing whales and how awful the Japanese and the Russians were to kill such animals, and about the time she had played tennis with Herbert Gold and beaten him, and about Vitamin C and the common cold. I lay there with my eyes shut until she said, “I think I’ll go see what they’re doing,” and I felt her get up off the lounge, leaving me more room to stretch. The sun was hitting my legs and felt good, so I lay there a while, about twenty minutes, and realized that Mimi had not come back, so the son of a bitch had them both in there.
    I got dressed and let myself out and went for a walk. Down to Bridgeway and across to the yacht harbor, walking along the boardwalk looking at the hundreds of white sailboats in their slips. For a while I thought about my grandfather, who probably never set foot on a sailboat in his life, but then gradually I forgot about him. There were girls in summer shorts and tee shirts to think about, and by then I was out of the yacht harbor and walking down the street of shops among the tourists, my hands in my pockets, minding my own business. Jim can’t do this because people always recognize him and always crowd around him, wanting to get part of him, I guess. This almost never happens to me. I don’t want it to happen, and I think people understand this, except for the odd drunken asshole who is always so dumbfounded that you are shorter than your pictures, but Jim draws them like flies and cannot so much as go into a drugstore to buy a pair of sunglasses without attracting people. Maybe because of this I have a very short fuse about being interrupted, and a reputation for coldness, and Jim has developed into a master of diplomacy, getting out of more tight uncomfortable spots than you could imagine.
    I walked all the way down to the Trident at the north end of town, went in for a piece of carrot cake and a big mug of apple juice and then back to Lucie’s place. I was outside, about to ring the doorbell downstairs, when Jim leaned over the balcony and said, “Be right down,” so I waited.
    â€œLet’s get rolling,” he said.
    We curled up out of Sausalito slowly, Jim quiet and tending to his driving, and onto the Golden Gate Bridge.
    â€œThis bridge is a fucking knockout,” he said, when we were about halfway across. There was a bank of fog hanging off the coast, but on the bridge it was blue and sunny and brisk, the city all white and glistening like candy on one side and the ships down below passing under the bridge and out into the ocean and adventure—it was hard to believe that the people on those ships weren’t heading into adventure, outward bound like that.

    WE HAD a small argument about which was the best way to the airport. I said we should go down the 19th Avenue exit and take Park Presidio out through the Avenues and catch 280, which at this time of day was practically empty. Jim held out for Bloody Bayshore because he said the Avenues, as heremembered them, were a pain in the ass if you missed even one light, and a big hangup, etc&etc., but the argument wasn’t serious. Jim was behind the wheel, so of course we went past the 19th Avenue exit and down to Lombard Street.
    â€œLet’s stop at Enrico’s for lunch,” he said.
    We still had the bag of fruit, candy and pop in the back of the car, but I didn’t bother to say anything.