Would they wonder about this stranger who looked like Puggy but wasn't?

I turned off the key, went inside, and started to pack. From the condo next door, some kind of head-banging music echoed through the wall. College kids celebrating the summer break.

The phone rang, and the noise drowned it out at first. The answering machine beeped, and something in the cadence of the voice on the message drew me around the corner. I knew who it was even before I turned up the volume. Aunt Donetta stretched words like taffy and began every conversation with southern endearments and the enticement of fattening food. In some way or other, pie was relevant to every conversation.

"Hal-lo-oh ... Hal-lo-oh?" She paused, waiting for me to pick up, before finally covering the phone with her hand (which was never enough to mute Aunt Donetta). She talked to someone else in the room-no doubt, she, Imagene Doll, and Lucy were all there in the beauty shop, where I'd pa.s.sed long hours of my childhood observing haircuts and absorbing gossip.

They discussed my possible whereabouts while the answering machine recorded. Imagene theorized that I'd gone out to purchase some traveling necessity, like toothpaste, extra socks, or underwear.

"I doubt that'd be where she's at. Who goes out for underwear at four in the evenin'?" Aunt Donetta argued.

In the background, Lucy chimed in. She probably said something intelligent, but her voice was so soft, I couldn't make out the words-just the choppy ping-pong of her j.a.panese-accented Texas tw.a.n.g.

"I imagine she's got underwear." Aunt Netta's fingernails drummed the phone receiver in a rhythmic click, click, click.

"I don't know." Sometimes I wondered if Imagene and Aunt Netta argued just for the fun of it. "I was thinkin' I'd have to buy some when we go on that cruise. It's different when you're home all the time. You can just wash it out and hang it in the shower."

"I imagine they have showers on the cruise."

"You wouldn't want to leave your underwear, what with a maid and all ... "

"A gal just thirty-one years old shouldn't be home all the time." The conversation hopscotched, as usual. "She should be out ... livin' life."

"Well, maybe that's where she's at right now ... out havin' fun."

Aunt Netta spat a puff of air, then returned to full volume. "Way-ul, I guess you're not there ri-ight now, sweetie. ... " She waited, as if she knew I was standing with my finger just above the b.u.t.ton, almost ready to push it.

Finally, she went on with plans. "Way-ul, anyhow, this is Aunt Netta and the girls. We just wanted to see what time you were gonna get here tomorrow. Now, you don't even worry about a thang, all ri-ight? Your old bed's still in the sewin' room, and I'm gonna clean it out soon as I get home. And don't bring anythin', y'hear? I got a big ol' ham in the freezer from the FFA sale last Christmas, and I'm gonna slow roast him with some brown sugar and pineapple, and a little beer, but don't tell anybody-I did one for the church potluck and it was sure enough good. Uncle Beans's gonna fry some catfish out in the carport, and maybe we'll fire up the grill, too. I saw some good sausage down to the Buy-n-Bye. Imagene's gonna make us a pie ... or two. Just come on, all ri-ight?" She waited for an answer, then added, "Okay, hon, you be real careful drivin'. Don't rush. Just be here when you get here, and we'll all have supper. Your daddy and his friend Willie, and Willie's girlfriend, and Lucy, and Imagene are gonna come over, too, and we invited Brother Ervin when he came by the shop while ago. It'll be a regular Daily event."

Aunt Donetta's voice jingled with the excitement of a big feed. In the background, Imagene and Lucy were already planning for more pies. "Night-night, sweetie. Love ye-ew." The voices of Daily faded into a series of beeps as Aunt Netta pushed the wrong b.u.t.ton to turn off the receiver. "Ye-ew know, I hope her answerin' machine couldn't hear all tha-ut about the underwear. ... "

The machine clicked, and the New Message light blinked. I pushed Save, then went to my bedroom, threw the last few things into my suitcase, turned off all the lights, and headed for the door. After so much time away, I wasn't prepared to roll right into a Daily gathering. If I tried to tell Aunt Netta that, it would hurt her feelings, and probably the ham's. By heading out now, I could drive straight through, get there sometime around two a.m., sack out in one of the empty rooms at Aunt Netta's hotel building downtown, and surprise everyone in the morning. ...

Years of experience had taught me that the only way to defend against the combined social planning of Donetta Bradford and Imagene Doll was to arrive in town before the ham hit the oven.

Leaving Manhattan, Kansas, felt better than I'd thought it would. I was filled with the exhilarating sensation of breaking free, of finally taking action. The problem was that each pa.s.sing mile brought me closer to Daily and all the things that were so much easier to forget amid the hustle and bustle of campus life. On campus, surrounded by hundreds of twenty-somethings who were progressing through weeks, and semesters, and years of higher education, it was easy to forget that while the students were hitting all the expected milestones, I was standing still.

Maybe I should keep going, I thought. Skip the turnoff at Waco and head all the way to Mexico. Take a vacation, a hiatus, teach anatomy in Spanish somewhere below the border. Reinvent myself again and see if it turns out better this time. I entertained a guilty vision of leaving it all behind, just driving and driving until I landed in someplace sunny, with a beach and palm trees, where nothing was the slightest bit familiar.

But then what would Aunt Donetta do with all that ham? The thought made me laugh. I pictured Aunt Netta bustling around the kitchen, the table so loaded it sagged in the middle like a swaybacked horse. She'd tell everyone not to bring anything. Everyone would bring food anyway. They'd clean out every Wal-Mart bakery, bulk barbecue joint, and roadside vegetable stand along the way. When the gathering was finished, Aunt Donetta would beg people to take food home, because she and Uncle Ronald didn't need it.

From his chair in the living room, Uncle Ronald would give her dirty looks and watch with great concern as future midnight snacks were evacuated in Ziplocs and cottage cheese containers.

My body warmed with the ethereal glow of childhood memory. I hadn't let myself relive those gatherings at Aunt Donetta's in so long. It felt good to go back, even in my mind.

On the heels of that thought, I felt the loss of it all, the undercurrent that would be like an elephant in the room now. No one would talk about the night of the flood, the accident, the funerals, but we would all know. They'd give me sympathetic looks behind my back, fish for information about whether I was seeing anybody, pull out a few well-meaning anecdotes about grief and recovery, and life moving on.

I wanted to head for Mexico.

I wanted to go back to Daily.

I wanted Daily to go back to what it used to be.

As the sun slowly descended and the sky softened to evening hues near the Oklahoma border, I drifted far back in time, relived countless trips to Oklahoma City for the stock show and the National Finals Rodeo. In the early years, my mother was with us. I was never quite sure if I remembered all those times or if I only knew them because Aunt Donetta kept the stories alive, but I preferred to think I remembered the feel of being safely snuggled in the back seat while my parents chatted and the miles pa.s.sed by.

Crossing the Red River as the moon rose high overhead, I heard the echo of my mother saying, h.e.l.lo, Texas! Four more hours to home. Let's play a game.

One of my mother's games, which Aunt Netta later carried on, was Who's in Daily-a let's pretend exercise in which we predicted, as we drew nearer to home, what everyone had been doing while we were away. When we drove into town, we looked around to see how close we'd come to reality. We usually weren't far off.

I waited until I was looping Dallas before I began my own game of Who's in Daily.

When I left home, Amber Anderson was a skinny high-school girl trying to work up the courage to sing "Lion of Judah" with the Vacation Bible School kids. Now she'd hit the big time. Daily had become the home of a superstar, a developing tourist trap with a new claim to fame. My father was going into the movie business.

No telling Who's in Daily now.

Rolling down the window, I let the night air flow over me, soothing the knotted muscles in the back of my neck as the miles pa.s.sed. The roads became familiar eventually, winding ribbons of asphalt known to the girl who'd grown up in Texas and thought she never wanted to leave. She'd planned to have a ranch, raise horses and kids, become a veterinarian, and take over for Dr. Potts, whose clinic was fifteen miles outside of town, next to the livestock auction barn at Hilltop.

The dream caught a breath as Hilltop came into view. Slowing the car, I gazed up at the tall false front of the auction barn. The place seemed to have waited patiently while I was away, the peelingpaint letters still advertising sheep, goats, cattle, horses on Tuesdays, swine occasionally. How much of my childhood had I spent out behind the sprawling silver barns, running up and down Caney Creek with my friends while my father did business inside?

I sank into the feeling of home. Even after two years away, I could have driven the road from Hilltop to Daily with the headlights turned off and my eyes closed. Each rise and fall, each hill, valley, and curve were familiar. Even the knotted juniper tree affectionately dubbed The Old Man in the Road was waiting, just as always. He waved a greeting in the headlights, then pa.s.sed out of sight, his big-nosed silhouette a k.n.o.bby profile in the rearview mirror.

Ahead, the ambient glow of town pressed back the night, a tiny bubble of light against the darkened hills, a little bright spot you had to be looking for in order to find it. Overhead, the stars twinkled at full volume, unchallenged by the Daily illumination.

I let the SUV slow, enjoyed the swell of memories as I wound through the valley, then up the hill, around the curve by the bluffs above Caney Creek. There were so many good memories hidden beneath the painful ones. I'd tucked them all away in a box like old tubes of paint, and forgotten there were more than dark colors.

The live oaks parted, opening like a curtain around my hometown. Emotion welled in my throat, and even though my body was stiff and my eyes were burning after driving so many hours, I was glad I hadn't stopped to rest somewhere else. In the morning, I would just be here. Surprise! Puggy's back in town.

I pictured Aunt Donetta coming into the shop (after having tucked Mr. Ham safely into the oven with the timer on), and finding me there. Maybe I'd get up early, go downstairs and sit under one of the old sixties-style dryer hoods. See how long it took her to notice. When Kemp and I were kids, we loved to hide in closets, under the counter, in the dumbwaiter by the hotel stairway, then wait for Aunt Donetta, Imagene, or Lucy to come by. We'd pop out, and they'd jump and squeal. Every once in a while, we miscalculated and scared a customer. Once, we scared Betty Prine so bad she ran out into the street and almost became part of the postal jeep.

Aunt Donetta made us apologize, but Mrs. Prine didn't offer forgiveness. She said Kemp and I would probably end up in jail someday, and she wouldn't be a bit surprised, considering how we'd been raised-dragged off to rodeos and auctions constantly and all.

Aunt Netta felt so bad about what Mrs. Prine said, she took us down to the Buy-n-Bye for an ice cream bar. Back then, the little cement-block store was the place where we bought sodas after biking around town on hot summer days. With our confectionary treasures in hand, we sat on the curb, shared c.o.kes, and tried to figure out how many licks it really took to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

Now it was the last place where everything was normal. The last place Danny and I had stopped the night the floodwaters changed everything ...

Now I couldn't even look at it. I turned my head until I'd crossed over Caney Creek Bridge and the little store was safely dozing in the rearview mirror.

Main Street was quiet in its early-morning slumber. Rather than turning past the bank building to go to the back alley entry of the hotel, I drove through the business district, leaning near the front window, taking in the changes. The stores were still mostly empty on the side of the street by the washateria, but the pharmacy on the corner had reopened as the home of the official Amber Anderson Fan Club and gift shop. The windows were plastered with posters and T-shirts sporting everything from Daily, Texas, Home of Amber Anderson to the old tried-and-true The Dailyians Have Landed, with a glittering flying saucer below.

The McAmey dry goods shop, where my father had taken me for my first pair of cowboy boots, sat dark and silent, aging merchandise still visible in the streetlamp's glow, but a sign announced that it would reopen soon, and down the block, the old Texan Talkies theater, which once showed twenty-five cent movies on Sat.u.r.day, had a message on the leaning marquee. Way to go Amber. Welcome American Magastar fan! Bodie Rogers never could spell.

Across the street, the Daily Cafe's neon sign blinked on one corner, and next to it, the Daily Hotel Building advertised Daily Hair and Body, beauty salon, auto paint and repair, insurance welcome.

The alley behind the hotel building was just as it had always been. Traveling between the buildings of Main and B streets was like stepping back in time-pallet stacks behind the newspaper office, trash cans, rusting bread racks by what used to be the Watson's Grocery loading dock, bits and pieces of car bodies my father hoped to someday use, the remains of an old bicycle that had probably belonged to Kemp or me. Even the sign above the back door to the hotel was just as it had always been-a struggling neon Hotel Welcome. Two pallet stacks away, the rear entrance to my father's auto shop had an actual working light bulb, for a change. I parked beneath the light and found the key just where it was usually hidden, in the discarded b.u.mper of a '59 Ford pickup. Half the population of Daily probably knew it was there.

As usual, the lock was stubborn. Dad never fixed it because he liked it that way. He said it kept out people who had no business coming around-mostly curious teenagers wanting to sneak into the hotel and investigate Daily's oldest ghost story.

Unfortunately, tonight the lock I could have opened blindfolded as a teenager was keeping me out, as well. After fifteen minutes of unsuccessfully trying to sweet talk it, and then resorting to threats and intimidation, I was marooned in the alley with my eyes burning, my body turning leaden, and the trip catching up with me.

"Please," I whispered, pushing the key into the lock again. The tumblers refused to turn. So much for Aunt Donetta's old theory that sweet talk could accomplish more than brute force. Right now, neither one was working.

Bleary-eyed, I watched the moon slowly descend behind the hulking gargoyles on the old bank building and tried to decide what to do next.

Chapter 4.

Nathaniel Heath As afternoon ticked toward evening, I'd mysteriously remained at Justin's beach house, sitting on the deck with the script occupying s.p.a.ce beside me. I'd picked it up and looked at it, put it down, picked it up again-like weightlifting of a sort. Everything from the stilted dialogue to the lack of a perceptible three-act formula was worse than I'd imagined. The main character appeared to be more interested in waxing nostalgic about the cowboy life and hanging out with his ranch dog than he was in helping the female lead, her autistic son, and their broken-down racehorse-all that was left to her after her husband committed suicide amid a financial crash and left her penniless.

No wonder this thing had been stuck in development forever.

Run while you still can, the pages whispered as a breeze danced by. Save yourself. This dog is already dead.

Inside, Amber cleaned house and baked homemade cookies for our trip. In between batches, she stepped onto the deck to repeatedly remind me that as soon as Justin got there, we had to be ready to go.

I'd been with Justin long enough to know that was code for He hasn't told Randall and Marla he's taking off. Another typical Shay maneuver-duck the entourage, trash all commitments, and do what feels good. If I involved myself in this, and Randall found out, the payback would be swift and decisive. If I ever wrote anything good, Randall and his cronies would make sure n.o.body touched it. I'd be finished. Completely.

I'd have to be an idiot to get involved.

"Tell me he's not taking off without the bodyguards again," I said to Amber, finally. The last time Justin had gone on the lam without security, he'd ended up with a cracked rib, and I'd lost a chunk of hair so big I'd heard it pop out of my skull. Whoever had grabbed it was probably disappointed when it was light brown, not dark, like Justin's.

"He won't need any bodyguards where we're goin'." Amber's tw.a.n.gy a.s.surances weren't much comfort. "Daily's not li-ike other places. Folks there are real friendly."

Marla made it sound like a blast, I thought, then it occurred to me that Marla would be completely irked about the little Texas junket, which did make the trip more tempting, but not tempting enough. When Justin showed up, I'd tell him it was time for at least one of us to grow up; he was on his own with this one. I'd finally take the advice Mama Louise had given me when I flunked senior English after skipping school one too many times to get blasted with Justin. "You're a good boy, Nate," she said. "You've got a G.o.d-given talent, but if you follow where the world leads, you'll get what the world gives. That's the saddest kind of life there is." Mama Louise knew all about sad lives. She'd taken in forty-two of them over the years. She told me I needed to let Justin find his own way.

Five o'clock came and went. Amber paced the floor, checking her watch and the driveway, her little pink bags packed and waiting on the entry tile.

I was standing in the kitchen, letting my mind wander out to sea, when the front gate buzzed. Justin squealed through into the portico in an SUV with tinted windows, high-chrome rims, lowrider tires, and an eagle decal on the hood. As the truck vibrated to a stop, Justin's personal trainer, Frederico, tumbled out the pa.s.senger-side door looking dizzy and slightly green.

"We're taking Fred's car to the airport," Justin announced, striding into the house. Frederico gaped, as if this was a complete surprise to him. It undoubtedly was. Justin's limo was probably parked in front of the gym, waiting along with several security guards and the obligatory group of Shay-obsessed fans and paparazzi. About now, they would be deducing that Justin had slipped out the back.

At most, we had a fifteen-minute window of opportunity before Marla tracked us down, bringing the limo, the bodyguards, and the paparazzi to the gate.

"Let's go," Justin urged, and Amber trotted over to get her bags. To my complete amazement, Justin picked them up. He never even carried his own bags. "Got your stuff packed, Nate?"

"I never unpacked." Too busy wrestling with my conscience all day, sorry.

"You get some stuff out of the closet?"

I vacillated by the newly filled cookie travel container, trapped in my own personal dilemma. "Listen, dude, I think I'm gonna sit this one out. Got something in the works in Mammoth Lakes and all, you know?"

Justin stopped with one hand on the door. "Roll with me here, Nater. This project's got SAG nomination written all over it."

It was hard to know how to answer that, but I of all people was aware that Justin had about as much chance of getting a Screen Actors Guild nomination as I did of playing tailback for the Rams. Some dreams you just have to grow up and let go-realize life is what it is. Reality bites sometimes, but after a while there's no point denying it.

Justin stiffened, his chin going up as if he were about to fleaflick me off his shoulder and move on. The door vibrated in his hand, ready for a slam that would take the hinges off, but then he melted against it, his forehead resting on the cool wooden surface. "Come on, Nate, don't whiff on me now. I'll make this good for both of us. I promise." For a fraction of a second, he dropped the mask, and his face said it all. Whatever the reasons-career downturn, midlife crisis, new attempt at rehab-he needed me to believe in this project. He needed me to believe in him. "We been down the road a long time."

Survival instinct whispered in my ear, Last time, the road had a nearly fatal experience on it. Sooner or later, Nate, you'll end up dead right along with him. But then there was Justin saying, "We been down the road a long time." The road started the night of high school graduation, when we packed a '76 Comet and headed out of Joplin, bound for the big town. By the time I called to let Mama Louise know where we'd gone, we were sharing a cheap LA apartment with six other dudes of varyingly dubious reputation. Justin didn't want to call home at all. He figured a foster parent, even a nice one, didn't rate any explanations. A couple years later, he sent Mama Louise a new Cadillac to make up for the Comet. By then, I'd already paid the debt by waiting tables, but she probably enjoyed the Cadillac, too. Justin spent everything he made from his first bit part to buy it, which was stupid, because after that he didn't work for a year.

The dream never went quite like we thought it would. It was a wild animal with a will of its own-hard to tame, vicious sometimes, unpredictable and temperamental, yet irresistibly alluring.

"I'll get some stuff," I said, and seven minutes later, we were out the door, comfortably secured among the plush velour seats and red s.h.a.g carpet of Frederico's SUV, ready for the trip to Daily, Texas, where the friendly folks lived and the culvert by the jailhouse had been newly cemented in Marla's honor.

Frederico made the sign of the cross over his spandex T-shirt, and Justin gunned it through the front gates. Things got crazy from there. With Justin, life is like a twenty-four hour movie marathon- there's not much difference between truth and pulp fiction.

By the time we made it to the airport, Marla was buzzing all the cell phones incessantly. I didn't have to listen to a half-dozen new voicemails to know what they said.

Before getting on the plane, we attempted to kidnap Frederico and bring him along to act as security. He said no because his twin sister was almost nine months pregnant and he was to be the G.o.dfather. Justin couldn't understand why that would be a problem.

"Dude, if she has it, you can just get on a plane and come back," he said, then offered another thousand.

Frederico shook his head, muttering in Italian and looking embarra.s.sed.

"Dude ... "

"Leave him alone, Justin," I said finally. "The man wants to be here when his sister's kid is born."

Justin frowned, the little computer in his brain trying to figure how the birth of a child could possibly rival a trip to the middle of nowhere with The Shay.

"You said we wouldn't need security when we got to this Daily place, anyway," I reminded him, although that was hard to believe. Justin needed security in the middle of the Moroccan desert.

Right now, he looked b.u.mmed that he couldn't buy Frederico.

"If we need security, we can just hire some when we get there," I pointed out.

"We could call and have the security team sent."

"Not unless you want Marla and Randall on your tail."

"True." Justin squinted toward Frederico again.

I grabbed my things and headed for the plane. By the time Amber and I got onboard, The Shay had wooed Frederico. They joined us, and Fred took a seat in the back. Amber sat in front to watch takeoff.

The Shay and I ended up in the middle seats, side by side. "You read the script today?" he asked.

"It's lousy."

"You'll fix it, Nater. You always do."

"I'm a writer, not a magician."

"That's pretty much the same thing, isn't it?"