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“Is it not – Oh, God, is it not a very pitiful sight?” -- Edgar Allen Poe, “The Premature Burial”

Growing up on Lula's suburban oak-lined street, she found that there were very few other children to play with.   At least, ones she liked.   There were one or two, but the pickings were pretty slim, unless she wanted to take her chances with a kid slightly older and inevitably more hyper than she.   She often found herself hanging back, away from other children during those years before school forced them all to play together.   So until she reached school age, she usually chose to play with dogs.  

She didn't have one of her own to play with because her mother claimed to be allergic to them. While this was true, Lula also suspected that her mother, already caring for four children, didn't consider having a dog around quite the necessity that Lula did.   Lula worshipped animals, although she was not allowed to keep anything beyond a goldfish.   She was in awe of her friend Lorrain, whose family owned three cats and three dogs—one per child—not to mention a swimming pool.   Well into her adulthood, Lula could remember all their names: Garcon, a woolly mammoth of a Newfoundland; Ashes, a sweet, mild-tempered mutt; Holly, a golden-haired lab mix about two sizes too small; and in the feline department there was Mamma Cat, Fluffy and Boots.  

At the end of her street was Timmy and after Timmy died, there was Hector, both German shepherd mixes.   At the other end of the street was Waldo, who always barked a greeting to Lula, who immediately recognized it as a doggie hello, not a warning.   In fact, he was so excited to see her he would almost get his nose stuck in between the wires of the cyclone fence.   Lula would likewise stick her hand through the fence to pat his head, and if the lady of the house happened to see this happy exchange, she would invite Lula in.  

But the one that stuck in her head the most was Timmy.   When Lula was five, she and Timmy were great friends.   He seemed as big as a pony to her, and he was a good substitute for one as far as she was concerned.   And Timmy, not getting out much, was always happy to see her, since she was all he had in the way of childish company.   Later, Lula could only wonder what the older couple who owned him thought of her, the little girl who would stroll down to the corner and ask if Timmy could play.

Living in the City now, Lula often found herself thinking back on all of this.   She wondered if perhaps being around animals so much as a child was what brought about the disappointment she felt upon discovering the inherent insincerity of human beings.

*   *   *

Terry Fenster did not have much of a childhood to look back on, either one involving other children or animals.   He had a few friends when he was quite small, but his parents were Jehovah's Witnesses, and they tried to keep him away from interacting with those outside their church as much as possible.   With these people as his only other option, he decided early on that he had no desire to speak with them.   He was completely disinterested in religion in general, a miniature existentialist by the age of five. He was not surprised to find that other children were more of a herd mentality, but since he'd had a lot of early practice as an outsider, it didn't appear to disturb him. He could not be upset by alienation when it was the only real thing he knew.

By the time he was twelve, he had become well-accustomed to having his lunch over by the fence, generally standing up and staring through the cyclone fence that encased the playground's field.   Back there at there at the fence, it was usually just Terry, a tree, his lunch and a book.   Sometimes, staring through the fence, he would catch the watchful gaze of an adult passer-by who immediately recognized Terry's plight.   Everyone, even Lula, hundreds of miles away in another part of California, knew what it meant to be the kid who spent lunch over by the fence.   If they were lucky, they did not know from personal experience, but rather because they had been part of the kid society that did the silent ostracizing.   The adult would sometimes give Terry an apologetic look that suggested that they were sorry, but there was nothing they could do.

So Terry got used to it.

After all, he was never told to go and spend his lunches alone by the fence.   It was simply better than the alternative of having to face the sameness of the others on a daily basis.   He did not even fit into the nerd category; he was not neat enough or interested enough in science fiction to excel at being a nerd.   He was simply shy and awkward, two things that were socially deadly to young pre-adolescents.  

Terry had become used to being termed an outsider in high school, although by no means rebellious.   He actually learned to enjoy watching the other students around him rather than searching for escape.   He began making up elaborate stories about the other students. There was one group in particular that spent its lunchtime in the grassy area near the library.   There were four girls and a changing number of boys and boyfriends, although there always seemed to be a core group of about two guy friends who chatted with the girls, and always remained there with them.   He thought about how lucky they were, and wondered if they knew. Most likely not.   They probably thought their lives were drab and awful.   The girls leaned on each other deliciously, suggesting there existed somewhere a closeness among humans based solely on enjoying each other's company.

His fantasies usually involved being a part of this circle of friends, and usually rescuing one or sometimes all of them from deadly extracurricular peril.   His favorite fantasies revolved around saving one girl in particular.   Her name was Sydney in real life, but in his daydreams he called her Caroline, as she had long dark hair suitable for a Caroline.   All he really knew about her was that she played cello and always had a slightly Victorian, slightly punk look about her, combining light, white flowing garments with oddly colored tights and striped shirts.

Generally, in the Sydney/Caroline fantasies he would be walking along, minding his own business, when he would overhear her being mistreated or threatened by Coach Simms, the detestable lecherous football coach who always made Terry run extra laps during P.E.   Saving Sydney/Caroline would often involve wrestling away some sort of weapon from Coach Simms, which he could do by suddenly knowing some smooth Kung Fu move, and in the ensuing scuffle, Coach Simms would die, ironically enough, by his own weapon.   Sydney/Caroline was always eternally grateful and turned on by the end of every such incident, and Fantasy Terry always knew what to say.

By junior year, Terry had taken to scribbling down story plots during Study Hall and American History.   They weren't really stories; they were more like set pieces or story outlines.   Sometimes, they were simply character sketches.   One thing they all had in common was that they completely lacked dialogue.   He felt uncomfortable with speaking in real life, so he left it out altogether.   He had no idea at the time what these writings were; he just wrote whatever came to mind.   Anything was welcome that would take him away from the drudgery of teenage outcast life, as long as it didn't involve actually talking to people.   Watching movies fueled his passion for daydreaming, and luckily he managed to escape getting sucked into the Dungeons and Dragons crowd at school, which he was later grateful for.   In reality, they weren't much of a crowd; they were four pasty-faced, sex-obsessed sixteen year olds who always seemed to wear down parkas (with removable sleeves, thus becoming parka-vests), no matter what the weather.   The only girl they ever spoke to was the little sister of one of the teens, who constantly tried to deny her relation to this group as she struggled to get onto the cheerleading squad.

Oddly enough, this same girl developed a crush on Terry during her freshman year.   Also oddly enough, her name was Caroline.   She probably developed this crush because he was older, different, and no one seemed to know a thing about him.   No one had fond memories of things he did in elementary school; no one told stories about the pranks he pulled at summer camp.   This was because these stories simply did not exist.   They never happened.   He wasn't bad looking, although he was far from football-player good-looking.   Still, he was a junior and tall, and that was something.   He had black hair, a nice voice when he occasionally was forced to speak, and the charming looks of a teenage John Cusak.   His silence was intriguing to her. They shared Study Hall her first year at school and she instantly sensed he was a man of mystery.   He never spoke, except to say "Here" when the teacher called his name during roll.   Even then, he avoided doing this when a simple wave would suffice.   Fighting to gain her own sense of where she belonged in the high school food chain, Caroline saw a potential partner in crime in Terry Fenster.   After all, a guy who had so little to say would surely not put up much of a fight, she supposed.

She supposed wrong.

About mid-way through the first semester in Study Hall, Caroline managed to switch seats with Sandy Gellar in order to be next to Terry, at which point she attempted several times to engage him in meaningless school-related conversation.   At first, he seemed stunned that he was being directly addressed by anyone, let alone by a girl. She obviously didn't know that talking to him was the social equivalent of the kiss of death.   To spare her, he did nothing more than nod in reply to her question about how dull school was.   Undaunted, she once even went so far as to ask him the time as they exited the classroom, despite the huge clock hanging over the door.   Finally, one of her friends, seeing what was coming and hoping to prevent it, pulled her aside and warned her that Terry wasn't a mysterious older guy, he was just a remarkably weird junior with practically no social skills.

This seemed to only fuel her fire.   She could change him; they would become the most popular pair in school.   Students would talk about them for years to come: remember that girl with the geek brother who moved here from Wisconsin and turned that weird guy into the coolest guy ever?   She saw him as a challenge, and she was up to it.   To give her credit, she did try very hard and for most of her freshman year.   He eventually responded a few times, although her hint-dropping about not having a date for Homecoming and later, the Christmas dance, fell upon deaf ears.   He sensed that she liked him, and he was definitely intrigued by her, but he was thoroughly unprepared for what to do in real life.   Fantasy Terry would have been smooth from day one, but Terry Fenster just exchanged niceties in a highly marginal manner.   Why was she doing this?   Couldn't she see this was pointless?

Of course, the inevitable happened: summer came, they weren't reassigned to the same Study Hall again, and she forgot about him.   She was always nice and smiled at him, but it wasn't long before she broke free of her status as sister of a terminal nerd and was accepted onto the Drill Team - not as popular as the cheerleaders, but more physically fit and generally considered more intelligent.   Caroline moved on, and later in life she would wonder what ever happened to that poor guy she had a crush on during her freshman year.

What happened next was the only natural thing for him.   He went on to a local college, got a degree in civil engineering and a job that allowed him to make a good a living without having to talk to too many people.  

Terry's job entailed little more than shuffling papers and approving or denying applications for various district licenses, and he was therefore easy to ignore.   As a result of a nearly total lack of socialization, at 34 years of age Terry was largely lacking in conversational skills. He often found himself ruminating on this as he returned home to his small South Park apartment in the South of Market area of San Francisco, thinking perhaps it was just as well.

He still scribbled away on notepads in his apartment, mainly creating fantasies based on people he saw out the window from his work and home, as well as just jotting down observations and opinions.   He felt no compulsion to write about the people at work.   He was relieved they didn't want to talk to him, and viewed his apparent invisibility as a blessing.   He found work to be more than dull, but what was going on outside was far more interesting and certainly worthy of note.   There was an alleyway directly below his office, which was apparently a favorite place for businessmen to park with hookers during lunch.   The deli across the alley also seemed to have a new soap opera occurring out front weekly.   People fought, made up, and chased after thieves.   The bus ride home was filled with nothing but interesting, if not downright disturbing, life forms.   Old Chinese women fought their way onto the crammed bus with grocery bags that smelled of fish, while potential sex criminals "accidentally" bumped and fondled women.   Insane people who smelled and yelled at invisible companions seemed to rule the bus; Terry enjoyed watching the sea of businesspeople on cell phones suddenly part to make room for wandering lunatics.   Babies howled, couples fought in hushed or loud tones, old women chattered ceaselessly and teenagers spoke in a blurred dialect that was quickly becoming unrecognizable.  

It was wonderful.

Of course, his ride was a relatively short one, and if it lasted even a mile longer his opinion may very well have been different.   Still, there was something exciting about pushing his senses to their limits before stepping off the stuffy tin of pandemonium into the crisp night and seeing the scattered trees of South Park.   South Park was really just a block of buildings surrounding a small park deep in the South of Market area that had recently become trendy, driving the value of Terry's apartment building high enough for rent to be three times as much for the newer tenants.   Only Terry and two other people in the building, Lula Prescott and Clancy Walker (Lula Prescott lived next door to Terry, and Clancy lived upstairs), got in at the right time and still had affordable rents.   Of course, back then, South Park was a considerably more dangerous place to live, the park itself being inhabited by junkies and homeless people, with few businesses in the immediate area.

Terry was . . . complacent.   The number of notebooks he'd accumulated was becoming obscene.   He was unable to throw any of them away, not even the ones from high school.   He kept them in his closets, stacked high against the walls.   He never had visitors, but in case he did, he didn't want them just lying open for anyone to see.  

*   *   *

Lula's neighbor was not just strange; he was entirely bizarre.   He'd lived next door to her for as long as she'd been there, but she never heard a single noise coming from his apartment.   This in itself was unheard of.   Surely there had to be a radio in there.   She'd notice his lights were on as she left to go to work at the bar, and although it appeared his lights were off when she came home late at night, when she looked up at his apartment she could see the dim light of a cigarette smoldering in the dark.   At first, it gave her the creeps to know that he was probably watching her as she crossed the tiny park to their building, but she soon realized she was grateful that someone was watching out for her.   His strangeness didn't frighten her by any means; it was a constant in an uncertain world.   They knew each other's names from the mailbox, and felt comfortable enough to wave or say hi, but they knew where the neighbor boundaries were, and never crossed the line.

Until Lula got the letter, anyway.

*   *   *

Terry came home as usual one Friday evening, pausing only to get his mail.   He noticed Lula standing stock-still by her mailbox, keys still dangling from the slot's lock.   Her back was to him, one hand holding onto the mailbox door, head cocked to one side, the other hand gripping a letter with her painted black nails.   Being used to noticing things rather than participating in them, he saw that there was an envelope on the floor.   The curtain she had created by tilting her head so her vermilion-dyed bobbed hair would hide her eyes gave away her wish to conceal her face.  

Terry Fenster, despite his social ineptitude, knew that something had happened, and for once, he thought he should try and investigate this particular situation. Having watched her in the park and on her balcony many times, she was one of the few people in the City he felt he knew something about, and he felt a responsibility to say something to her.   What to say, though, posed a problem.   For years, he had only responded to questions, not asked them.   Even he, for all his problems with people, knew that a simple "How's it going?" right now would probably be the worst thing he could say.

He got his mail, trying to think of what he might say.   "Bad news?"   Yuck.   Best probably to just forget it; she didn't even notice he was there.   He locked his mailbox quickly and headed for the stairs.   Before he got all the way there, though, something made him turn around.   He didn't even think of the fact that this was the first time he had addressed someone purposely of his own free will in his entire adult life.   "Lula Prescott."

This was remarkable to Lula; it was the first time she'd ever heard her name spoken by Fenster out loud.   She looked up at him and, seeing he was stuck with nothing to say besides her name, she smiled a weary smile.   "Fenster."

"What is it?" he found himself asking dumbly.

She slowly closed and opened her eyes, and smiled wryly.   "It's . . . the strangest thing."   She took out the rest of her mail and picked the stray envelope up off the floor.   He knew then that she wasn't going to say anything further about it.   "I'm going to be late for work if I don't get moving."   Terry realized then that she was on her way out.   She still stood there, though.   Finally, she asked, "Will you watch the park tonight?"

Fenster didn't know if she was asking him to do a favor or was simply curious, and was momentarily flustered, blinking a few times.   "I might."

Lula shoved something into his hand quickly then.   "Don't stay in there too long.   You never know . . . "   Her voice trailed off then, and she backed away.   "I have to go.   Good night."

"Good night, Lula Prescott."

She turned and went out the door then, her zebra-striped sandals click-clacking against the pavement.   Terry looked down at his hand and saw that she had given him a little postcard.   It was a club flyer advertising a band called Iambic Pentameter, which was apparently playing later that night at Club Ajaxx, not more than a few long blocks away.

So that's where she works, he thought.

*   *   *

“Hey, Ronni, can I borrow the car tonight?   I'll have it back in a few days.”

Veronica Summers, the other cocktail waitress, at Club Ajaxx, sighed. “I don't know. I could use Jack's car, I guess, but…you want to borrow   it for the whole weekend?”

“You know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't really important.   I have to go out of town.   Remember that thing with my aunt I told you about?”

Veronica's brow smoothed out then, and her voice became quieter.   “Yeah?”

“Well, I have some business to settle up, and it'll take a few days.   I'll pay you $50 for it, and hey, I'll even return it in one piece.”

“Well, what can I say to that?   Sure, Lu.   Forget the money. The registration and insurance is in the glove box.”   She tossed her hair and, anxious to change the subject, added, “Reno says we need to work through both sets the band plays, till 1:30."

“Shit,” Lula sighed, adding, “I was hoping to hit the road tonight. Who's working the bar tonight? Perry?”

"No, Reno is. Perry's got some kind of family emergency.”

“I thought he didn't have any family.”

Veronica shrugged.   “Then he's not very imaginative with the excuses, I guess.” Lula snuck a quick drink before their shift began, and she left her barstool to take care of the two customers in her section.

She almost dropped her tray, for there was Terry Fenster sitting at one of the tables.

He was writing away in a notebook, appearing to be thoroughly—and purposefully—engrossed.   She served the other table first, then went over to his table.   He looked up at her for a moment, then returned to his writing.   "You're surprised."

"I've never seen you outside of that hallway before.   If I'd known it would take so little to get you outdoors, I'd have done it a long time ago," she laughed.

"I was just curious," he mumbled, looking up once more before closing the notebook.

"I see.   What do you want to drink?   Or do you drink?"

Terry shrugged.   "Not really.   Um, but how about something with vodka?"

"Vodka?   Sure, I think we've got some of that lying around."

Terry nodded disinterestedly stumped for something to say.

"Why, Fenster?" she asked then.  

He noticed she was sipping from her own drink that she'd brought over.   "Why what?"

"Why now?   Why did you speak?"

He looked back down at his notebook.   "Because."   He intended to have something else to say, but he didn't.

"Because why?"   She wasn't smiling anymore, despite this recitation of childish inquiry.

He opened the notebook again, and flipped the pages.   He finally stopped on one page, and pointed at it.   She looked at it, read it.   It read:

"Clancy was wearing his usual militaristic garb today.   Maybe he's really the Unabomber and everyone's wrong about Kaczynski.   He uses his lights even less than I do.   He mutters often, usually to no one.   Christ, he's going into the coffee place across the park.   That's just what we need—a caffeine-ridden psycho.   I guess I'll be one of those people that they interview on the news after he goes nuts, the one that says 'He kept to himself; he was a real loner'."

The entry ended there, and Lula looked at him.   She squinted.   "I don't get it."

Terry smiled, but it wasn't at all happy.   "It's just one of those things.   Either you see it or you don't."   He took the notebook back from her, wondering what had possessed him to show it to her in the first place.  

"Is there anything in there about me?"

Terry shrugged.   "I write what I see."   He added, “I saw something different today.”

She just looked at him then, and felt afraid.   Not afraid of him, but afraid of remembering what she was working so hard to forget, just for a few hours.

"Lula!" Reno called.   "I don't pay you to sit around on your bony ass.   Go serve up some drinks."

"You forgot the magic word," she said as she rose up, beginning to feel the drinks she'd consumed.  

Reno grinned, knowing full well what he was expected to say.   "Go serve up some fucking drinks?"  

"That's better."   She turned back to Terry.   "Hey, you're sticking around, right? It's your big night out, and the band is pretty decent."

"I guess."   He saw there would be no shortage of writing material milling about the room.

"Good.   Talk to you later."   She stood up then and went to the bar.

Lula realized as she went about serving drinks that she had never really thought much about Terry Fenster before.   All she had known about her neighbor was that he was tall, strange, maybe even socially retarded, but then she'd never read his stuff before, either.   He was pretty right-on about Clancy, too—the guy was creepy.

Maybe Fenster had a lot to say, but said it in different ways.

*   *   *

The band played two sets, and Terry Fenster never once moved from his spot behind the speaker.   Lula went over to him during the break.  

"How come you're not writing?" she asked.

"I'm watching."   He was sipping his third screwdriver cautiously.

"What do you think?"

"I think . . . I have much more to write about than I did earlier."

"Fenster, are you trying to be mysterious or are you just drunk?"

He thought of Fantasy Terry then, and tried to figure out what he would say.   "Probably both."   Close enough.   Nothing seemed very real to him tonight, and nothing was surprising him much, either.

Her eyes narrowed to little slits then, and she moved her head slowly to one side, like an animal straining to hear something very far away.   She could barely hear over all the noise of the club. “What brought you here tonight, anyway?”

"I suppose I was curious about the letter," he replied, before his brain could tell his mouth not to speak the words.

Lula nodded slowly, her eyes still shut.   Finally, she opened them.   "If I can't tell a stranger, who can I tell?"  

Terry felt like telling her about lots of things then.   About lunch by the fence, about the passers-by who would not help him, about the fictional Caroline and the real Caroline. “I don't think of myself as a stranger.   I think I know some part of you pretty well, actually.”

“What, from watching me come home at night?   My mail?” she laughed.

“You used to go out with a guy on a motorcycle for a few years, up until last year.   I could hear you; you fought a lot.   He hit you one time.”

Her smile disappeared.   She said nothing.

“But then you threw him out, so I knew you'd be okay.   Then it was quiet a lot.   Not even music.   That was strange.   That was when I worried.   You're always playing music on the stereo.   But it was off then for a few months.   You only left to go to work.   Once, he came to the building while you were gone and waited just around the corner for you to come into the park.   It made me nervous.   I thought he was going to try something, so I called the cops and they picked him up.   He tried to hit one of them and run away, but they took him in.   I think he was drunk, or on something.”

“My God,” she breathed.

“I haven't seen him around for a year.   He's gone.   I didn't tell you because you seemed like you were starting to liven up again.   Anyway, you have family in Palo Alto.   Also in Seattle.   You get packages from there.   You like red.   You like coffee.   You like to sit on the fire escape in your pajamas with coffee and smoke on Sundays.   You like to sit on the swings at night sometimes, when you know I'm watching.   Maybe you think it's safe with someone watching.   You look for my cigarette in the window in the dark, I can see you, and then you go to the swing.   I think sometimes you're drunk then, on the weekends.   You—”

“Okay, okay,” she cut him off then, holding up her hand.   “Point taken.   Maybe you do know me better than I thought.   But if all you want to know about is the letter, then read it yourself and figure it out.   You know all that about me, you don't need me to tell you.”   She went behind the bar, fumbled around in her purse and extracted the envelope.   She came back and placed it in his hand, as she had the flyer for her band earlier that night.  

Terry noticed how angry and sad she looked, and he refused the envelope, placing it back in her hand, avoiding actually touching her.   “No.   I'm sorry.   I don't want to read your mail.”

“No?”

He shook his head then, the way someone speaking a foreign language will shake their head when being misunderstood.   “No.   Look, I didn't mean to make you mad.   You asked, I answered.   I'm just not used to . . . talking out loud.   I'm probably being rude or something and I don't even know it.   I shouldn't have come.”   He set down his empty glass and picked his notebook up off the speaker.  

Lula caught his hand suddenly.   “No, wait.   You stay till the end of the set, and I'll tell you.   You just, you freaked me out is all.   I didn't know all that.   It's important that somebody stay.   I want you to hear about it later.   The letter, I mean.”

He just looked at her uncertainly, looking at his hand.  

She released it then.   “I'm sorry.   That bothers you?   I'm sorry.   I won't do it again.”

“I'm just not used to it,” he mumbled.

“Anyway, I may not be a stranger to you, but you're a stranger to me.   And I think that's a good thing, not bad.”   She could only shrug.   “Anyway, it is today.”

Terry looked at the band onstage, getting ready for the last set.   “Don't you get tired?”

She wasn't sure what he meant at first, but she stuck with her first reply.   It applied to everything.   “Every day.”   She smiled then, and they were both relieved.   She caught the closest thing to a real smile she'd ever seen on Terry's face, but then it was gone as quick as it had come.   “Hey, want another?”   She motioned towards his empty glass.

“I think that might be an extraordinarily bad idea.”  

“Okay.   Well, this crowd is taking a toll here, so I'm going to get another one.   She felt light again, more her joking, easy self.   Less like a bug under a glass.   “I don't suppose you drive?”

He shook his head, the look on his face asking, Drive where?

“Didn't think so.   I'll be sure and sober up before 1::30.   But I'm taking this with me for later.”   She pulled a small bottle of Absolut Mandarin out of her purse and shook it like a fetish briefly before returning it.   “Hey, watch my stuff, okay?”

He straightened up at being given a task, and again was silent.   He nodded.

He watched Lula without trying to hide it like he normally did when observing people.   His mind, used to noting every detail for his notebooks, tracked everything she did.   She skipped over to the bar, donning her brazen club persona for her co-workers and the regulars she knew.   Her zebra-striped sandals showed off her toenails, painted black like her fingers.   The red she wore yelled out that she was enjoying herself more than anyone, confirmed by the jangling of her many bracelets.   She staved off advances from all the people at the bar who seemed to try to talk to her, and he could tell by the way she pointed towards the surrounding tables as an excuse not to talk.   Reno handed her a drink and a bottle of water, and she lit off, a moth to the flame.  

Terry Fenster felt then that he knew Lula Prescott better than anyone in the bar.  

*    *    *

By the time 1:30 rolled around, they were both ready to go.   They got in the car, and Lula turned to him.   “Fenster, how do you feel about a little detour?”

He looked at her, not knowing what she was talking about.   “What, you mean driving somewhere?”

“Yeah.   Sort of a road trip.   An adventure, like in the movies.   Except without the car chases and the driving off cliffs.”   She sensed he was already apprehensive even about getting a ride home with her, and she added, “It's okay.   I won't do anything . . . untoward.   I'd just like some company.”

He hesitated, the words “road trip” and “adventure” both frightening and exotic.   He shrugged, trying to see her reason.   “Why me, Lula Prescott?   Why not one of your friends?”

“Because they all talk too much, and something tells me you don't have that problem.”   She could see the trace of the smile again, and gave him a soft punch in the arm.   “Come on. It'll be different, if nothing else.”

He knew there was something else stuck on the tip of her tongue; he even knew what it was.   “Besides, you can't go alone.   You need . . . someone.”

She leaned back against the driver's seat, once more surprised by his perception.   She half-shrugged in agreement, one shoulder trying to touch her ear.   “Will you help me?   You helped me before, looked out for me all these years.   Can you come?   Just for a while.   I'll bring you back, even in time for work Monday if you want.”

The thought of being away more than a few hours surprised him then.   “Where are you going?”

She shook her head.   “Surprise, surprise.”   She said nothing more; she wouldn't ask again.

Fantasy Terry, Terry Fenster.   He weighed them once more, thought about who would win. “I guess.”

“See?   It's more interesting when you don't know where you're going.” Her spirits seemed lighter then, as she started the car and moved it into gear.  

They were silent for most of the way out of the City and across the Bay Bridge.   Traffic was light due to the late—or early—hour, and she sped along.   “Hey Fenster,” she finally said when they passed Oakland.

“Yes?” he replied, suppressing the urge to say “Here,” as if in class again.

“How come you call me Lula Prescott?”

“How come you call me Fenster?” he replied.

“You're good,” she grinned.   “But really, you can call me Lula.”

He shook his head.   “I don't . . . feel comfortable with that.”   Too familiar, he thought. She still called him Fenster.

“Okay.   Fair enough.”   They were quiet some more until they passed Dublin, when Lula asked, “Who were your friends when you were little?”

“No one.”  

“Really?   Not a single person?”

Terry just shrugged at her surprise.   “I had a few friends when I was little, but mostly I was kept away from other kids.   Eventually, I stayed away from people.   They made me feel strange when they tried to talk to me.”   He paused, remembering, and added, “There were a few people in high school who tried their best with me, but even with them I felt—too uncomfortable.”

“Personally, I was very disappointed when I discovered that people weren't very reliable.” She lit up a cigarette then, rolling down the window now as they moved out of the cold San Francisco summer fog and into the nighttime heat of the valley.

“Disappointed,” he nodded.   “Yes, that's true.   I didn't like it when people would try to get me to talk.”

“You're talking to me.”  

“But I spoke to you first,” he told her, as if surprised by her lack of logic.

“Oh, yeah.   That you did,” she laughed briefly.   “What made you?   Talk to me, I mean.”

“I don't know,” he lied.   Because you seemed just like me in that instant by the mailbox, and I wouldn't wish that fate on anybody.   Especially not someone who wasn't used to it.

“Yes you do.”

He shrugged and changed the subject.   “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Not to Livermore, that's for sure,” she told him as they passed the Lawrence-Livermore Labs on I-580.  

They headed east some more, past the windmills near the Altamont Pass, past Tracy and towards Modesto.   Terry had been staring out the window for a good twenty minutes or so as they slid through Manteca.   “Hey, having a good time?” Lula asked suddenly, startling them both after such a long silence.

“Certainly,” he said, with a simplicity that made her look and see that he was smiling—was that sarcasm?—a bit more in the dark.  

“Well, it's more entertaining than the window in South Park, that's for damn sure.” She added, “Thanks for tagging along, Fenster.   I appreciate it.”

He nodded, staring out the passenger window.  

Lula sensed her gratitude made him uncomfortable than he had all night, and feeling like the hostess, she decided to take the pressure off.   “Hey, you watch movies, I bet.”

He nodded, appearing to be engrossed by the passing billboards.  

“Have you ever seen any Jayne Mansfield movies?”

Another nod.

“Well, she died in a car accident.   It was pretty awful, I guess.   I don't know, it might not be true, but they said her car, her convertible, drove right under a big semi, and she was decapitated.   Whoosh, just like that.   Starlet to corpse in a few seconds.”   She snapped her fingers and paused.   “I wonder what happened to her head.   I mean, did they try to keep it with the body, or just get rid of it?”

Terry looked at her then.   He couldn't understand where this topic came from, and gave her a look.   “Lula Prescott, you're not planning to drive under any semis tonight, are you?”

She grinned then.   “I knew I could get a remark out of you sooner or later.”

Once past the planted rows of vegetables and orchards of Oakdale, the roads began to twist around, and Terry sensed a slow rise in elevation as they drove on.   There were dips and rises in the road for about 20 or 30 minutes as they continued through the hills, and soon it became a steady rise as they passed through Jamestown.

“That was a ghost town once,” Lula mentioned, the first words since Oakdale.   “Now I guess it's just quaint.”

Soon the roads became mountain roads, tall pines and boulders all around them.   Terry finally remarked, “It smells like artichokes up here.”

Lula lost her determined look and smiled widely.   “I never noticed before, but yes, they do smell kind of like artichokes.   It's the pine trees; they smell beautiful here.   Not like that fake pine smell in floor cleaners.”

He stated, “You've been here before.”

“Of course.”   Just then, she took an exit that took them off the highway, and she slowed to 30, then 25 miles an hour as they passed rustic-looking but well-cared-for cabins.   A small general store appeared on the left, and he noticed Lula shake her head as she looked at her watch —not open yet.   The beginnings of daylight had barely begun to peek through, and it was obviously far too early for any store to be open.

It was then that he saw the lake, blue-gray in the early morning's dim light.   It wasn't a very large lake, perhaps 4 miles around, with cabins spread all around it.   They were too far away to really see them from the car, and some rocky parts of the lakeshore made it clear that no cabins could exist there.   He could hear the distant rush of water, perhaps from an inlet somewhere.   He stared at the lake on their left as they drove by, while Lula hardly glanced at it.

She drove south along a road that ran close to the water's edge, slowing to 10 miles an hour so she could squeeze the old station wagon between two pine trees and into a small parking lot.   “No Day Parking” was the warning from a nearby sign.   “Resident Parking Only.”

“Oh well,” she sighed, “I'll have to come back later to put the permit in.”   She got out of the car, darkness still lingering even as the day tried to push its way through.   It was just light enough to see, but not very clearly.   Lula walked down towards the shore, then veered right onto a path that went along the shore heading east.   Terry followed about twenty uncertain paces behind.  

They walked along a dirt path, although at times cement had been poured to keep it from washing away.   Cabins peppered the hillside to their right, while on the left the still shimmering water of the lake lapped at the shore.   Despite the patches of light fighting through the darkness of early morning, Terry found himself stumbling slightly as his toe caught the occasional rock.   He thought of the city, and how the crowds on the sidewalk near his office always confused him. It was different from the crowds on the bus, where he could stand still.   He never knew how to walk among the people on the street coming his way, how to avoid crashing into them, so he tried to walk along the building walls whenever possible.   Still, it seemed there was always someone coming the other way along the wall, and one of them would have to move.   He would stumble on the cracks and potholes, flustered by the people who apparently didn't see him.  

Lula, seeming to know exactly where to step, didn't have this problem.   After ten minutes or so, it was turning into something of a real hike, and Terry found they were climbing makeshift steps hewn out of rocks or logs. Though they still passed cabins once in a while, he noticed they were fewer and farther between as they proceeded along the trail.   He didn't ask where they were headed, because he knew how foolish the question would sound.   She clearly knew, and they would get there soon enough.   Her clackity sandals became a hindrance, however, and she took them off and carried them in one hand as they climbed in rockier parts, placing them back on once briefly before making a face and taking them off for good.

Finally, after about thirty-five minutes of walking/hiking/stumbling along the lakeside path, Lula turned towards a tree-shrouded cabin surrounded by pines.   The porch jutted forward, seated on a large boulder, thick moss covering the porch railing and proudly proclaiming the cabin's seniority over any of the newer cabins further down the path.   Towards the lake, there were steps leading down to a currently raised floating dock and sundeck, ties up to a nearby tree.   The cabin seemed to state obvious ownership of the dock, simply out of proximity and the lack of other cabins close by.   He followed her up wooden steps fashioned from logs split in half and set firmly into the hillside, past a tiny stream and up to the small two-story cabin.   A wooden sign reading “Drake” hung on the porch railing.

Lula climbed on top of a porch chair and felt around behind a small “Gone Fishing” sign hanging over the porch door until her fingers returned with a key.   Terry helped her move the huge protective door shutter away from the front door.   She unlocked the cabin and peered into the dim, musty darkness.   “Nobody's been here for a while, I guess,” she finally said.   The window shutters were still shut to protect the cabin from the rain and snow of fall and winter, and a layer of dust covered the old sheets draped over the furniture.   Undisturbed cobwebs hung in the corners, and some more brazen wolf spiders had taken up residence on the woodpile next to the fireplace.   They scurried to more hidden places, disturbed by the sudden sound and movement.   Lula pulled the sheets off a sofa and easy chair near the fireplace.   “I know it's almost daylight, and it'll be warmer later, but right now I'm freezing.   Can you start a fire?”

Terry looked suspiciously at the spider-infested woodpile, then nodded.   “Where are you going?”

“Gotta turn on the electricity, water heater, and all that fun stuff.   Opening the whole cabin takes too long, so I'll just do this much today and leave the major cleaning to some other time.”   She disappeared into the kitchen, and he heard another door open and close, possibly into a mudroom.  

After Terry got the fire going, he once again began to feel out of place in his suit.   He still couldn't bring himself to remove his coat and tie, but he was bold enough to remove his boots, now that the fire had begun to warm the wooden floor.   He sat on the rug in front of the fire, leaning against the sofa, but not believing it spider-free enough to actually recline upon it.   He soon heard the hum of the refrigerator and other telltale sounds of electricity, but after a while he could block most of it out.   He preferred not to hear them.

Lula soon reappeared, a box of cereal, an unopened bottle of cranberry juice and two glasses in hand.   “Thank God for the emergency supplies.   The cereal's dry, but unopened, so the mice haven't gotten to it.   And at least now I have a mixer.”   She poured some of her vodka and cranberry juice into a glass, and handed it to Terry.   He shrugged and accepted it.   She poured another one for herself.

It suddenly struck her that she was here, in her nightclub clothes and muddied feet, in this sacred and unchanged place.   She stared at the homey paintings and ancient skis that hung on the walls, at the woodsy tschatchkas on the mantelpiece, at the huge 30 year-old coffee table that seemed to take up the whole room.   She looked at the old paperback novels on the bookshelf, the familiar worn copies of Sho-Gun and The Shining now joined by several John Grisham books and The Bridges of Madison County .   Everything was unchanged, had remained as it was.   Only she had grown, gotten older.   She sat on the floor next to Terry and polished off her drink in a few minutes before the fire.   She looked at the exposed furniture behind them.   “Huh.   Wise move, Fenster.   You don't want to sit on that sofa until it's been well-beaten on the porch, trust me.”  

Terry watched and sipped at his drink as she made herself another one.   “Lula Prescott.”

“I know.   And I've got to hand it to you, you've been very patient with me.   You've kept quiet when others would've been nothing but questions.   So thanks.”

He still just looked at her expectantly.   He had gone along this far with her, and now it was her turn.   She reached into her purse and withdrew the envelope.   She handed it to him so he could examine it.   It was handwritten, and the return address was Peggy Drake in Modesto.   He handed it back to her.   It wasn't his place to take the letter out.

She took out the letter, the one she received just a day ago, but what seemed like a week, a month, a year.   “It's from my Aunt Peggy.   This used to be her cabin.”   She had another gulp of her drink and stared at the fire, speaking now as if Terry weren't there.   Once again, invisible.  

“I used to come here with my cousins. My mom had to raise us kids on her own, and it was a blessing for her to get rid of us for whatever amount of time she could.   My brothers went to camp, my sister the penny-pincher liked getting endless babysitting jobs, and I came here with Aunt Peggy and the cousins.   My cousin Wendy was the one I palled around with the most.” Lula tentatively opened the cereal box and unsealed the package inside.   “God knows how stale this will be.”   She gnawed on a few Cheerios, and nodded, surprised.   “Not bad.   Must not be that old.   Want some?”

He took some, still watching carefully for some change in her face.   For all her earlier animation at the club, she now seemed to wear no expression at all.   Not sad, not happy, not even thoughtful.   Just there.   She broke her reverie suddenly, eyelashes batting away a floating cobweb.  

“You know what we used to do when we were kids?   We'd jump off the dock all the time to swim, and I'm telling you, it's pretty damn cold in there sometimes.   Especially in the early summer.   And one time, I think we were about eight or nine, we dared each other to jump into the lake with our clothes on.   It seemed totally outrageous at the time.”   She rolled her eyes and smiled at the memory.   “Very Dukes of Hazard of us, I suppose.   Of course it's pretty tame now, but it seemed very daredevil.   And both of us were afraid that the other would chicken out and only one would end up being the dope in the water.   So we grabbed on to each other and jumped.   It was cold, of course, but it was also great.   The best, in fact.   So it became a regular thing, every summer.   Only we kept progressing to more interesting places to jump from.   One was this big rock.   On the other side of the inlet, there's this little peninsula over there.   I guess that's what you'd call it.   And there's a big flat boulder you can jump off of into deep water.   No rocks under the surface, not even if you swam really deep.   We'd just jump right in and sink so deep . . .”

Terry knew she was feeling the cold of the water then, and he was right.   She felt the cold, and smelled the copper smell of the lake.   Felt her Keds fill up with water, her t-shirt balloon up over the bathing suit she wore from morning till dusk every day of the summer.   Saw her breath rush up in bubbles around her swirling long brown hair.   Saw Wendy next to her, grinning and pointing at her, the water turning her grin into a strange grimace.

She finished off her second drink and set aside her cup.   “Almost a year ago, Aunt Peggy, calls me and says Wendy's dead.   Killed herself.   Guess where?”

Terry looked nervously around the cabin, as though searching for the ghost of Wendy.   Lula looked at him and rolled her eyes, seeming relieved for a reason to laugh a little.   “Not in the cabin, Fenster.   Christ.   But nearby.   Like I said, they drain the lake quite a bit after Labor Day.   Lake usually goes out all the way past the dock; they always had to pull it up at the end of each summer so it wouldn't break with no lake to float on.   It's pulled up now.   We'll have to lower it and the float to get out on the lake," she said matter-of-factly, as though the agenda had been written already.

Lula paused then, returning once more to her quiet, story-telling voice.   “So I guess what Wendy did was, she went to the old rock and took a dive alone.   Unfortunately, there actually were rocks just beneath the surface.”   She took another gulp from the bottle, looking at Terry instead of the fire for the first time since she'd started talking.   “I guess it was a real mess.   No one even knew where she was.   It was pretty late in the season, and the rock was pretty far off the path.   Still, someone was climbing around over there, and he found her all smashed up, there on the rock.   Whoosh, just like that.   Live Wendy to corpse in a few seconds.”   She snapped her fingers.   “What did they do with her, what did they do.   I mean, did they keep her all together? Or did they just toss bits of her in a bag and forget about the rest?   It's these little things that I wonder about, Terry, that keep me awake at night.   These little nagging questions.”

Terry looked at her for a moment, then said, “It was a wig.”

Lula blinked a few times, looking at him.   “What?”

“Jayne Mansfield.   It wasn't really her head that got cut off.   Some reporters saw her wig on the dashboard and—well, they liked the sensationalism of it.   So did we, I guess.   Look at which story stuck.”   He watched as she thought this over, realizing that she had finally used his first name. “But you knew all this months ago.”

Brought back into the present, she spoke.   “Which brings us to the infamous letter.   What does it contain?   The last words of a dead woman, perhaps?   Some pearls of wisdom from someone so deranged that she'd take a header onto some pointed rocks?   Nah, 'fraid not.”   She tapped the envelope briefly on her knee, glad hadn't taken the shutters down yet.   It was probably bright outside by now, and she preferred to think it was still nighttime. “Obviously it's not something from Wendy.   It's from Aunt Peggy.   She says that she found some papers of Wendy's and even a will she made out before she dove.   I guess Wendy wanted me to have this place.   Even though we weren't close after we grew up. Like I'm supposed to keep this place alive.”   She yawned deeply then, her story told.   “So that's my tale: I've now got a cabin that has a 40 year lease with the Parks Department.   I mean, it's part of a Homeowner's Association, for Chrissakes.”

Terry looked at her closely.   “You're glad.”

She shrugged again, this time with a hint of a smile.   “Yeah, I guess I am.   Maybe I'll be able to jump in the lake. I could stop the clock for a while, and just enjoy being.   Jeez, maybe I should just pack up and move out here.”

“No, you can't do that, Lula,” he said, shaking his head.   She gave him a look with raised eyebrows and a sly grin, and he shook his head again.   “No, I'm not saying that because of me.   I mean, if you live here all the time, it won't be special anymore.   It won't be your . . . hideout.”

“Hideout,” she nodded, warmed by her drinks and the fire.   “Good word, I like that.” Sitting next to him now, she shook his hand briefly.   “I congratulate you—you make a good argument.”   She shrugged, and suddenly noticed a strange shape inside Terry's coat pocket.   “You wearing armor under there, or what?”

Terry looked at his jacket and pulled out his notebook.   In his usual deadpan fashion, he replied, “You might say that.”

Looking at the notebook, she remembered, and asked, “Hey, what was that about earlier?   That bit you wrote about Clancy.”

Terry opened it up to that page again.   “You asked me why I came to the club last night.   This is one of the reasons.”   He read part of it again.   “I guess I'll be one of those people that they interview on the news after he goes nuts, the one that says 'He kept to himself; he was a real loner.'”   He shut the notebook, seeming surprised by Lula's confused look.   “You should know by now.   Who would say who's the loner? Who would be the one most likely to eventually go nuts?”   He took a drink directly from the bottle and shrugged.   "I've considered the whole diving thing before.   Frankly, it didn't seem like a good way to spend my time.   But if you think about it long enough, pretty soon everything else doesn't seem to really matter, and even watching people doesn't seem to be much better than simply ceasing to exist."

Lula didn't say anything.   This seemed far worse than anything she had to say.   Or at least, it allowed her to suddenly feel bad about everything.   She didn't cry, didn't feel like it.   Only pitiful.  

"It's not sad.   And it's not like that all the time.   If I have so much trouble going to a club, how would I get up the nerve to do anything as drastic as jump off the Bay Bridge?”   He paused then, seeming to seriously consider something else.   “Besides, who would make sure you got home safe at night?"

Lula smiled wanly then.   "Well, I'm glad I could play some small part in your sticking around.   And there's the club, did you like that?"

He seemed to consider this for a moment.   "I admit, it was . . . different."

"Well, there you go.   And there's here, the cabin.   Now you've got two things that you can like.   And me, too, if you want."

"And you what?"

"Well, you like me, I hope?   Or am I still a creature from another planet?"   Lula warmed her hands by the fire, looking at the flames.

"Hmmm.   Ask me tomorrow," he said, and laughed a little.   Lula looked at him, surprised.   "Yeah, I know how to laugh.   Things are better when you don't do them all the time, remember?"

"Terry, if nothing else, I consider this trip worth it for that laugh. And for the record, it is tomorrow."

"Well, then, I guess you're not an alien. Unless aliens drive Ford Falcon station wagons."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Terry, you're a regular laugh riot," she said, brightening.

He stopped grinning then, and returned to the question at hand.   "An alien?   You're Lula Prescott.   You're Lula.   The other one like me."   She was silent, and then all he said was, "Yeah, I like it here.   Of course I like you, Lula.   What sort of question was that?"

She shrugged.   "I guess—I don't know."

"Do you think I'd come along on this trip with a stranger, with someone I didn't know to some extent?   With someone I wasn't concerned with?"   He stopped, becoming the agitated Terry Fenster from the club, unsure of what he was doing there with her, if only for a moment.   "Would you have asked me to come along if you thought of me as a real stranger?"

Lula shook her head slowly, but she said nothing.   Sudden exhaustion of every sort seemed to hit her then, and her back, neck, and head all seemed so heavy as she saw the sun fighting its way through the cracks of the shutter. "I'm so tired, Terry.   Really, really tired."   She leaned against him, and having gotten used to it a little, he didn't mind it, didn't move away.   He made no comforting move. It would only be trite and unwelcome.   “I'm so tired.”

Terry knew what she meant.   “Rest now, Lula.”   He watched her as she fell asleep, as her breathing slowed, as her eyes moved rapidly beneath their lids.   Not a single mutter, not a nervous twitch.   She was at rest here.  

He remembered watching her walk across the park late at night, during those few hours of quiet when he could sit and watch and enjoy the City. He remembered how she would sit on the swing and look up at his window, watching for the glow of his cigarette.  

Once he felt sure she was safe and asleep, he felt tired as well. Never before had he slept so long as he did that day, and over the subsequent years of watching Lula sleep, he would never again tire until she was safely at rest, at peace, asleep.