I was tripping all over my words like a fool. I certainly felt like one. Truth was, the idea of Jez and another guy going at it like rabbits in the next room freaked the h.e.l.l out of me, but there was no way in h.e.l.l I was going to admit that. Especially since I wasn't entirely clear about the reason why it freaked me out. It wasn't like I was grossed out or something over the idea of two sweaty men going at it-and that was the point where I stopped myself.

"Same here," Jez said.

"What?" I jumped a little. Had Jez read my thoughts?

"If you want to bring someone back to the house..."

"Oh, yeah. Okay."

Our food arrived, and we dug in. My burger was really good, but I kept eyeing Jez's octopus. Those tentacles with their suckers looked downright spooky. Finally Jez cut off a piece and placed it on my plate. I cautiously put it in my mouth, ready to spit. I expected it to be rubbery, but it was surprisingly tender and smoky. It was not bad at all, but I still preferred my burger. Eventually the conversation got back around to me somehow.

"My father is career military," I explained. "When I was growing up, we never stayed more than three years in a place. I used to wish he'd get stationed overseas, but instead we were shuffled from one backwoods post to the other, all over the country."

"That had to be tough."

"After a while, I didn't even try to make friends. Of all the places, I probably liked Indiana the least. It was just bad luck we happened to live there when my parents divorced. My father got stationed elsewhere soon after, but Mom and I stayed. Then she met Dave."

"Your stepfather?"

"Yeah."

"Did you get along?"

While we talked, Jez made eye contact with our waiter and signaled for another drink.

"He's an okay guy, and he was good for Mom-the last years of her marriage to my father were really hard on her-but to me, he was just a guy. He tried, but I was a sullen teenager, and once my sister was born, she became the center of the universe. We got along but weren't close."

My burger was gone, blue cheese and all, and I was working on the remainders of my fries. They came with great homemade ketchup.

"What made you move to LA?" Jez asked.

I took a moment to think about that.

"I just wanted to get the h.e.l.l out of there, and LA sounded good. Mom and Dave never understood it. When I told them, they were stunned. My mother's first reaction was, 'But there are earthquakes there!' Like the lack of earthquakes was a good reason to live in Indiana." I gestured my incredulity with a piece of fried potato.

"Was it that bad?" he asked, smiling.

"Depressing, mostly. The land is flat as a pancake. The winters last forever. For months and months, there's no sun. Just gray clouds, snow, slush, and freezing rain."

"Sounds awful."

"The summers are all right, if you like rain. Actually, big summer thunderstorms are the only thing I miss."

"The first time I experienced one of those was when I was visiting my mother in Ohio. Freaked the h.e.l.l out of me."

I had to laugh at that. Jez's new drink arrived. The waiter was good. Before we knew it, we'd ordered dessert, despite being stuffed.

"What about your parents?" I asked when we were left alone.

"Rob-my dad-lives in Hawaii. The waves are better there."

"They are divorced too?"

"Never got married. He and my mother were just kids when she got pregnant. The way it was told to me, it was a summer romance that fizzled out before school started up in the fall. Mom finished high school and went off to college. You can figure out the rest."

"You were raised by wild dolphins?" I suppressed a chuckle at the image-cherubic baby Jez and the dolphins. Like that Greek thing with the wolf, but soggier.

"Hah! Much crazier than that-Adelle. She was my mom's mother. Rob was around, but he was more like an older brother than a father. He taught me surfing, loving the waves. He still calls, and we have long conversations about nothing. We're friends. His one true love is the waves."

"And your mom?"

"Married to a dentist, living in Duluth. They have three kids, a minivan, and a big house in the suburbs."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, I think she rebelled against Adelle by going conventional."

Jez leaned back in his chair, his whole body a picture of relaxation.

"You didn't."

"It skips a generation." He grinned.

"So how are you getting along?" I probed, not knowing if he wanted to talk about it. For some reason, I wanted to know. He didn't seem to be bothered. His voice was as calm and even as ever.

"Me and my mother? We're cool now. There was a time, back when I was a kid, when I was angry with her for abandoning me. She went off to college right out of high school and never moved back."

"That must have been hard for you."

Jez drew up a shoulder and let it drop. "A little. Maybe more. Eventually I understood how hard it must have been for her too. She was way too young to have a kid, and she was scared by all this stuff that just got dropped on her. Running away was the only way she could deal with it. She had a lot of guilt about it later. But we worked it all out in the end. I've been up there to visit them. They are good people, really. Just sorta boring. She likes it that way, though. She and Adelle had always been like oil and water."

"So did you learn all the baking from Adelle?" I switched the subject.

Jez snorted like I said something funny. "Adelle? I don't think I ever saw her turn on the oven. Nah, it was a guy in San Francisco. I learned the art of mixing drinks from Adelle, though."

"Really?" My eyebrows must have hit my hairline.

"Yeah, she used to have all these parties with the other old-timers, back when they were still around, and I was always in charge of the c.o.c.ktails. By the time I was fifteen, I knew as much as your average bartender, and more. It came in very handy later."

"Jeez. Good thing Child Protective Services didn't know about it," I said half seriously.

A shadow pa.s.sed over his face.

"Maybe it was the wrong thing for her to do. I don't think it harmed me, though. There are much worse things people do to their kids."

I quietly nodded, but I could tell something bothered him. After staring at the ice cubes in his gla.s.s for a moment, he started to talk again. For the first time since I'd known him, there was a tightness in his voice.

"I saw a protest the other day. Well, it wasn't much of a protest-only three people. A man and a woman holding the usual placards about 'G.o.d hates f.a.gs' and how 9/11 was G.o.d's punishment for the country not being h.o.m.ophobic enough." The ice cubes in his gla.s.s made an angry rattle as he downed the last of his drink.

"I'm so sorry," I said, and I really was.

I'd seen those zealots myself before. That kind of bloodthirsty extremism always filled me with dread, but for the first time, I realized what it had to be like for someone like Jez.

"I'll never understand why my s.e.x life matters so much to them, but I don't expect them to change. What got to me was that they had this little girl with them, six or seven years old, holding one of the signs. She was cute as a b.u.t.ton. The sign was almost as big as her and full of that hateful drivel. There's no way in h.e.l.l she knows what any of it means, but by the time she grows up, she'll be up to her neck in hatred. I call that child abuse. Adelle had her faults, but she never taught me to hate."

For a moment there was a bleak look on his face, and I just wanted to give him a hug, say something to make it better. Instead I sat there like a big, useless lump. He shook himself, and his usual good cheer was back.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin your birthday."

"You didn't."

"People would spend less time obsessing about the lives of others if they took the time to enjoy what they had. Like this-having a nice meal and talking. You know, I'm really glad you moved in. It's nice to have a friend close by." He gave me a smile that was almost shy.

I think I blushed, but fortunately it was too dark out there to show.

"I'm sure you have a lot of friends."

"I know a lot of people, but only a handful are real friends, and they're scattered all over."

Our dessert arrived, and we left the serious talk behind.

Chapter Five.

On Friday at noon, Sandy skipped into the restaurant in an especially good mood. She had gotten a call from the casting director of that HBO show: they were thinking of bringing her character back for a few more episodes in the next season. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me hard. I didn't protest, but pulled away before she could ask if that was a dinner roll in my pocket.

"I'm going to a party tomorrow. You must come with me!" she gushed. I a.s.sumed it would be an industry party, which in this town meant movie industry. Her invitation was a little out of left field. We were friends. Sort of. Was Sandy asking me out on a date? It sounded like it, but not exactly. Whatever. I'd take what I got, I decided.

"Wear something tight." She winked before sashaying to table five.

The next evening I squeezed myself into the pair of jeans I'd had since high school and the black T-s.h.i.+rt I accidentally bought a couple of sizes too small and was too lazy to exchange. I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror with embarra.s.sment. I looked so...dunno. Generally I look all right, nothing special. Having spent every school break working for my step uncle, the roofer, left me wiry, but not in a showy way. I also had perfectly average features. My hair was getting too long, though. I had worn it short since I was five. My father thought long hair was too "sissy" for boys, so I got the military cut, and it became a habit. Every six weeks or so I shaved my head. But I hadn't done it since I moved to Venice, and it was growing out in unruly dark curls. I huffed at my reflection and headed out.

Sandy pulled up in her mint green Beetle, soft top rolled down. She looked me over, grinning.

"You look good enough to eat," she said.

I ignored that. Sandy looked fantastic. Her blonde hair, which she had always worn in a ponytail at work, was down, and she wore a slip of a dress that showed plenty of skin. Her nips poked through the thin fabric. I s.h.i.+fted in the seat and stared out the window instead-my jeans were tight enough as it was. We took the freeway through the city, Sandy chattering the whole way about her time on the HBO set and the people she had met. Eventually we got off the freeway and wound our way into the hills on narrow roads. From the look of things, we were somewhere you couldn't even buy a doghouse for under a million.

Our destination turned out to be high on a hill. A couple of very large guys in black at the entrance checked if we were on the list. Sandy was. I was "plus one." I was moving up in the world.

The house was grand in a too-much-money-not-enough-taste fas.h.i.+on. The architecture was fine by itself, but it was furnished in an expensively gaudy style. Fortunately the lights were low, and most of the furnis.h.i.+ng was obscured by the gaggle of beautiful people. I felt painfully out of place, but Sandy looped her arm around mine and dragged me into the thick of it with the confidence of someone who knew what they wanted out of life.

She introduced me to some people whose names and faces I forgot the moment they turned their backs. I'm sure it was mutual. I drank something reddish and deceptively sweet, and after only two, my face started to feel numb. I lost Sandy somewhere in the mult.i.tude. The last time I saw her, she'd been charming someone not quite so beautiful. He had to be someone important, then.

I drifted from room to room. Music played. I snagged another drink-different color this time, less sweet, just as potent. I stood at the edge of small groups, pretending I was somehow part of their conversations. I moved on. At the edge of the swimming pool, someone offered me a joint. I accepted it and took deep, greedy drags. I started to relax, convinced that at least I was blending in. As the effects of the weed sneaked up on me, sights and sounds fused into a nebulous whole. The floor to ceiling fish tank beckoned me. All those colorful tropical fish were having their own little party in there. All they were missing were tiny c.o.c.ktail gla.s.ses. I was mesmerized.

"There you are!" Someone grabbed my elbow and spun me around. It was Sandy. She was with a guy so good-looking, he had to be an actor.

"I want you to meet my friend, Mark. Mark Stevens, Nathan West." Sandy introduced us. We shook. I muttered the usual "call me Nate." Mark smiled and nodded.

"Mark and I were together in that CSI episode. Remember it?" Sandy twittered on.

Of course I remembered. Sandy was in it for five seconds total-playing a corpse-but I watched the whole episode in a show of support, and the repeat too.

"Mark played that beat cop. Wasn't he fantastic?" She squeezed my arm in warning, and I bobbed my head, doing my best to concur. I didn't recall him at all. Not that I recalled much beyond my own name at that moment. I did my best to contribute to the conversation, though, especially since Sandy was making an effort to draw me in, and I didn't want to disappoint.

In the end I managed to ask a few well-aimed questions that steered Mark to the subject of the pilot he was shooting for one of the alphabet-soup networks. He was anxious whether it would get picked up. I hung on his every word with all the air of rapt attention. Luckily it was something I did well even when I was three sheets to the wind.

We moved around the room in search of more booze, and somehow in the process we lost Sandy again. I was in no state to keep track of her. The buzz of the crowd melded with the one in my head. When I found myself pushed into a dark corner, I had only enough presence of mind to set my gla.s.s on the nearest horizontal surface. I found fingers scrabbling at the front of my jeans and a warm, alcohol-soaked tongue tackling mine. I went rigid for a second, but my initial shock was washed away by a surge of desire. I grabbed his a.s.s with both hands, fingers digging in and pulled our hips together. He groaned into my mouth. Wherever he touched me, my skin tingled. He nipped along my neck, and he slipped his hands under my T-s.h.i.+rt. I rubbed my crotch against his and quietly moaned into his neck.

"Who's Jez?" Mark asked, leaning back a fraction.

"What?" I said dizzily.

"You were saying his name. Never mind. I'll be him for you."

I pulled back, finally able to focus a little. I looked at Mark's perfect teeth, perfect eyebrows, perfect cheekbones, and l.u.s.t-filled eyes-that were just the wrong shade of blue. s.h.i.+t.

s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t.

He looked great, and he looked all wrong.

"I'm sorry." I mumbled apologies and clumsily disentangled our limbs. "I can't... Just can't. Sorry."

Mark looked put out and baffled, and even through the haze of my considerable buzz, I felt like an a.s.s.

"The pilot will be a hit," I blurted out. I didn't know where that had come from, just that I wanted to say something to make it up to him, and at the moment I said it, I even believed it. I beat a hasty retreat out of the house.

The fresh air sobered me a little, but not nearly enough. When I moved my head, the lights left cool trails. I amused myself with that for a little while, till I realized I really couldn't go back inside to find Sandy and pressure her to get me home. After some deliberation, I decided I could just wait for her in the car, but I couldn't find it. Not only could I not find anything mint green anywhere, but the spot where I remembered we'd parked-as much as I could remember anything-was conspicuously empty. I commanded my two conscious brain cells to come up with a plan. Aha! The gorillas at the gate! With alarm, I realized that said brain cells were attempting to channel Sam Spade.

I ambled down to the gate to question the "gorillas" about Sandy. The errant brain cells a.s.sured me that I looked and sounded just like Bogie in The Maltese Falcon.

"Now listen up"-I tilted up my imaginary hat-"because I won't repeat myself. Did you see a dame in a small green convertible leave?"

The two guys, each as big as a door, exchanged a grin.

"Hot blonde in a Bug?" one of them asked.

"Yeah, that's the one, buster. So where is she?"

"I don't think I have to tell you anything," he said, folding his arms over his chest. Judging from the snickering of the other gorilla, they were both having a good time at my expense.