11   When I woke up the confusing train of thought that had lulled me to sleep was back, racing around my mind. But I now realized that it was, as the French warning signs say (Un train peut en cacher un autre), hiding another, even more confusing one: if I liked Chris, and I was sure that I did, was it for herself or for her role in distracting me from my obsession with Libby? Was Chris the methadone to Libby’s heroin? Was she a surrogate, not addictive or slightly so, for the ineluctable elixir of lust that Libby Schlemmer dispensed with her sheer presence? There was only one way of this dilemma, but that way was a labyrinth through a thicket of conflicting possibilities. The way that I would know how I felt about Chris would be by going to bed with her. If our lovemaking turned out to be good and pure, without another woman’s shadow over it, then – and only then – I would know that I desired Chris for herself. But this way was precluded by Chris’s need to find out for herself how she felt about me – not whether she was attracted to me, which she admitted to being, but whether she wanted it to get serious. It was as if we were driving toward each other, but on roads that did not intersect. I forced myself to stop thinking about Chris. I checked my answering machine, and the message was indeed from Greg. “Hi, Dad,” it said. “Call me on my cell in the morning, but not too early.” It was now a little before eight o’clock. At nine I would be setting out for Mount Tamalpais, where an abbreviated hike would be followed by our group’s annual Labor Day weekend picnic. I would call Greg just before leaving, I decided. At eight I turned on the radio. I had meant to listen to music, but the dial was already tuned to KQED and Weekend Edition came on with the news that the Chief Justice of the United States, William Rehnquist, had died of thyroid cancer the night before. It seemed unclear whom Bush would appoint to replace him. The nomination of John Roberts to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor, who had announced her resignation but had not actually resigned yet, was put on hold. The Louisiana Superdome, now almost empty of Hurricane Katrina refugees, was awash in filth and squalor. Two evacuees whose planned New Orleans wedding was interrupted by Katrina were married while waiting with a thousand others gathered at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson.   “Hey, Dad,” Greg began. “I’m in Sebastopol, at Rebecca’s parents’ place. They’re having a barbecue tomorrow afternoon. Wanna come? You’ll get a chance to meet Rebecca.” “I think I’m free…” I began. In fact I knew that I was free – the only engagement I had for the weekend, other than the hikers’ picnic, was a gathering at Jerry’s on Labor Day proper – but I prefer to be tentative with Greg. “Mom and Joyce will be there,” he put in. I was grateful for this piece of information. There were very few things I was feeling sure of at this time, but one of them was that I did not want to see Margo. “… no, I guess I’m not,” I said. Greg probably understood. “But, you know, I’m going to be in Marin today, so I’ll already be halfway there. If it’s okay with them, perhaps I can drop by in the late afternoon, to meet Rebecca and her family.” “That sounds cool. I’m sure it’ll be okay with them, but I’ll check and call you back.” “On my cell,” I said, “and leave a message. I’m on my way out.”   I checked my cell-phone voicemail when I arrived at the parking lot, and indeed there was a message from Greg. “Yes, Dad,” it said, “the Petriches say it would be great, and they hope you can stay for dinner.” He went on to give me the address, which was not in fact in Sebastopol but several miles outside, on the Bodega Highway. I thought that I might enjoy going there by way of Highway One, along the shore of Tomales Bay, and then inland by way of Freestone. The Petriches. I had imagined Rebecca’s family of Sonoma County apple growers to be Italian, not Croatian like the ones around Watsonville. As soon as I put the phone in my pocket, I realized that Rose was standing in front of me, waiting to talk to me. “We can walk together, just the two of us,” she said to me after we hugged each other, “and I can tell you more of the Andy Stone saga. And it is quite a saga, from what I’ve learned so far.” “First of all,” she began once we were on the trail, the fog swirling around us, “just following the links was like a maze. From the embassy in Washington to the UN mission in New York, then the embassy in Ottawa. And then I found out that there’s a young Namibian doctor who’s doing a residency in Vancouver, Doctor Thomas Muphongo, who knew Andy Stone back in Windhoek. I spoke with him briefly last night, when he was on a break from his hospital work, and I’ll talk to him again next week, maybe as soon as tomorrow.” “And what did you find out in your brief talk?” “Well, some of it is first-hand and some if it isn’t. When Andy first came to Namibia, probably around ninety-five, Thomas was in med school in South Africa, since there aren’t any in Namibia. When he came home on vacation – on holiday, as he put it – he heard about this handsome blond young man who was working for an American company, trying to run some tests for an AIDS drug. The government at the time, and this was just a few years after independence, didn’t want to acknowledge that there was an AIDS problem, so Andy was in trouble with the authorities right off the bat. Then he also got in trouble with his company because he wouldn’t do what they wanted him to. What that was, I don’t know yet. So then, apparently, Andy switched from testing drugs to helping people with AIDS.” “As he still seems to be doing.” “But I think there’s a lot more. Apparently there’s also a woman in the picture.” “What?” “You heard me. Actually, Thomas said a lady, and then he said the woman. He promised to tell me all he knows.” “It’s curious,” I said. “Andy hasn’t exactly been out of the limelight since he’s been here, especially since he’s been with Peter, but he’s been silent about all this stuff. I wonder if there are things he wants to hide.” “That’s how it seems to me,” Rose said. “This might have the makings of a movie.” “More like a serial novel,” I sand. “Is there any more in the first installment?” “No, that’s all I have so far. Are you going to be at Jerry’s party Monday?” “Probably.” “Well, I may have more for you then.” We had fallen well behind our group. We stepped up our pace in order to catch up. When we were almost there, I asked Rose a question. “Tell me something, Rose. Do you ever call yourself a Latina?” She hesitated before answering. “If someone asked if I am one, of course I would say yes, but no, it’s not what I would call myself. Back in Florida we always call ourselves Cubanos, and being different from the Puerto Ricans and the Venezuelans is more important than being Latinos. Why do you ask?” “I recently met someone who calls herself that. She’s Peruvian.” “Interesting,” said Rose. “Hi, speedies,” Frances Kelly said by way of greeting when we joined the hikers. By three o’clock the picnic was over. After doing my share of the cleanup I called Greg’s cell phone. He answered. “Hi,” I said. “I can be there around four-thirty… no, make it five. Is that okay?” “Hold on, Dad.” I heard some muffled speech that I didn’t understand. “Yeah, five will be cool. And you’ll stay for dinner, okay?” “Sure. Thanks!” I had added an extra half-hour because I thought that I might feel like stopping along the way, perhaps in Point Reyes Station, for a cappuccino and for a foray into the Palace Market for a bottle of wine to bring to the Petriches. The fog had burned off around noon, and it was now clear and mildly warm. I rolled both front windows halfway down and felt the ocean breeze caress my cheek as soon as I left the parking lot. I drove west along Ridgecrest Boulevard, a route I had never taken before, with the mist-shrouded Pacific Ocean on my left. I turned left when I reached the Fairfax-Bolinas Road and followed its many hairpin turns down to the Shoreline Highway. I drove as fast as the road and my innate cautiousness would allow me, not because I was in a hurry but because I felt on edge. About halfway down, however, I got stuck behind a slow-moving camper whose driver stubbornly refused to use any of the available turnouts in order to let me pass. I turned on the radio and tuned it to KALW, which was broadcasting Celtic-sounding folk music that helped me relax. At the Shoreline Highway junction the camper went on toward Bolinas. I turned right, and fifteen minutes later I was in Point Reyes Station. I parked beside the Palace Market and got out of the car. The Station House Café was closed – it was the break between lunch and dinner – so that I got an organic coffee to go, along with a fifteen-dollar bottle of organic white wine, at the market, which had, since the last time I was there, turned into something more like a health-food store. I drove on – the songs being played on the radio were now about mining disasters and other working-class miseries, probably in honor of Labor Day – and found a parking space on the highway facing Tomales Bay. I rolled my window all the way down and looked at the waterfowl dancing in the air while on the radio Springhill Mine was followed by Hillcrest Mine. As I neared the outskirts of Sebastopol I slowed down so that I would arrive at the Petriches’ exactly at five. As I pulled into the long driveway, past a mailbox with an American flag attached to it – I was not sure if it was there permanently or for Labor Day – I came upon a tableau that could have been a genre painting: Greg and a blonde standing side by side, holding hands while in their outside arms they each held a cat – hers black, his calico. To call Rebecca a blonde was an understatement. Had she not been a young girl, I might have taken her, at least from a certain distance, for white-haired. From her large, dark eyes and her decidedly non-Nordic features I deduced that the color was not natural, but if so then the dye job must have been a recent one, since the long, straight strands showed no roots. She wore a white tank top, with red bra straps showing, and faded jeans. She was cute – an adjective that I apply only to girls who are twenty or younger – but quite unlike other girls that I had seen with Greg, who tended to be urban sophisticates with punk tendencies. “Hi, Gary,” she said when I got out the car. She dropped the cat to the ground and slowly let go of Greg’s hand – I had a sense that they had made love only a short while ago – in order to give me a hug. She was small-breasted, and the feel of her torso, for a split-second, reminded me of Margo. I was pleased that Greg had informed her of my dislike for being called Mister Einhorn. “It’s so great that you could come and, like, meet me. And my family.” She giggled pleasantly. I put one arm around her and the other around Greg, who was still holding the cat until it jumped out of his arm in order to follow the other. “Hi, kids,” I said. “You two seem happy.” They looked at each other as if to say he knows. “We are,” Greg said. At that moment the word daughter-in-law shot through my mind cometlike, prematurely no doubt. Looking down the driveway, past the house, I could see a sea of fruit trees, not only apple but pear and plum as well. The house itself was ranch-style and relatively small. “Is this your family home,” I asked Rebecca, “or a weekend place?” “Oh, it’s home. It’s bigger than it looks. Everyone thinks, like, at first that it’s like so small, but it isn’t.” She giggled again. The comet shot past again, this time with a question mark in its tail. “She’s right,” Greg said. “You’ll see it in just a minute,.” “I forgot something,” I said, and went back to the car to get the wine. I then followed Greg and Rebecca to the side-door entrance. The moment Rebecca opened the door the two cats appeared from nowhere and darted through. We followed them into the house. Rebecca’s parents, her father looking at least fifteen years older than her mother, were getting up from a sofa in the living room, which did in fact look larger than I had expected. Another small American flag was planted on the mantelpiece. “Carl and Jill Petrich,” Greg said, “meet Gary Einhorn.” “Welcome to our not-so-modest home,” Carl said. “Thank you. It’s a pleasure.” “The other kids aren’t here today,” Jill said. She, too, was a blonde, her hair fashionably streaked and permed. “There are three of them,” Greg said, “and, believe it or not, they all have their own bedrooms. Plus, there’s a guest cottage.” “Got a good twenty-five hundred square feet here,” Carl said. “It’s those tall redwoods around the house that make it look small.” “I must say,” I said, “I fell for the illusion.” “Anyway,” Jill said, “it’ll be just the five of us for dinner. Usually it’s a lot more.” I handed her the bottle of wine. “Then maybe this will do,” I said. “Yeah, for the first course,” Carl said and laughed. “If you’d like, I’ll show you our cellar.” “Sure,” I said. “I’m not a connoisseur, just a drinker, but…” “Then it’s perfect for you. It’s a drinker’s cellar, not a connoisseur’s. I know a lot of the vintners around here, and they tell me what’s good to drink.” “Is growing apples your business?” I asked as we all sat down. “No, it’s a hobby,” Carl said. “It used to be my dad’s. He owned some big orchards and leased some more, but most of them got sold and turned into vineyards. I helped him with some of the selling, and that’s how I got into real estate. That’s what I do. Or, rather, that’s what we do,” he added, smiling at his wife. “I came to work for Carl when he first opened his office. I guess he liked my work,” she said with false modesty. “Yes, that too,” Carl said with a lascivious laugh. “I understand that you and Greg’s mom used to work together too,” Jill said to me. “Yes,” I said. “That part was fine.” I paused and changed the subject by addressing Rebecca. “Where do you rank in the family, Rebecca?” “You mean like age? I’m like the oldest. The others are still like in high school and middle school.” “And you?” “I just finished freshman at Sonoma State, and then I, like, went to summer school at Humboldt, and that’s where I met your son.” She giggled. “Now I’m back at Sonoma, but I think I’m going to transfer next semester. Right?” she asked Greg, extending her arm toward him and grabbing his by the elbow. “Right,” Greg said. I calculated that Jill was in her early forties. She was pretty, but not particularly youthful or fit like other women that I knew in her age group, including Barbara, Rose and Chris. As I thought about Chris, her image came into my mind and stayed there for a while before my thoughts returned to Jill. She was probably a knockout in her early twenties when she went to work for Carl Petrich. I wondered if Carl was married at the time, or had been married before. As if to answer my unexpressed question, Rebecca said, “I’ve also got an older, like, half-sister, from dad’s first marriage. She’s like thirty, and she’s a doctor in Santa Rosa.” “Thirty-one,” Carl corrected. “Whatever,” Rebecca said. I gathered that she did not care for her older, like, half-sister. I looked at Greg. He and Rebecca still had their arms in a hand-over-elbow lock, and he was looking at her in a way that could be interpreted as loving, lustful or both. Or perhaps neither. For the first time in his life I found his feelings hard to read. When he was a baby I was always a better judge of his moods than Margo. Perhaps his new inscrutability was an assertion of privacy that went with his adulthood. Or perhaps he simply had mixed feelings about Rebecca Petrich and her family. I had never reached the point of meeting my college girlfriends’ families – that didn’t happen until I met Margo in law school – but I remembered sometimes feeling the sense of good in bed but not much else. Was that what was in Greg’s mind? I hoped that I would find out some day, but perhaps the days of his confiding such matters in me were over. As Carl served chilled glasses of white wine – not the one I had brought, which was still chilling – the conversation moved on to family matters from which I felt comfortably left out. It occurred to me that if my relationship with Chris were to move on to being a relationship then I would want Greg to meet her. Would he then scrutinize her as I was scrutinizing Rebecca? Would he find her attractive? When I was his age, the women that I found most desirable were actresses who were older than me by a decade or so, the likes of Faye Dunaway, Julie Christie and Charlotte Rampling, and I would fantasize about them while fucking college girls. Now I seemed to be doing the opposite, at least on my last night with Kaycee, when I imagined Libby Schlemmer. But then Libby was of the same age now as Faye and Julie and Charlotte were then. Was I, then, forever fixated on women around thirty, like Balzac’s femme de trente ans? The best sex for Margo and me, or at least for me with Margo, was when we were both in our early thirties, when Greg was a baby and – not coincidentally – her bra size went from 32A to 34B. I suddenly became aware of a garlicky aura invading the living room. Jill was in the kitchen, opening the oven, and shouted, “It’s almost ready! Come in and eat!” The kitchen was huge, and had an ample dining area with a round oak table, probably an antique, that could seat ten and could be expanded with leaves to seat even more. We had some antipasto, washed down by my wine, which turned out to be quite good. “I’m told that you and Jerry Brucker work together,” Carl said to me. “We’re friends, and we have offices in the same little building, which I own,” I said. “You and mom,” Greg corrected me. “Yes, Greg’s mom and I own it. But Jerry and I don’t actually work together.” “Jerry Brucker’s got quite a reputation in the real-estate world, especially the female hemisphere,” Carl said. “Even here in Sonoma County?” “Oh yes, lots of San Franciscans are buying property here. We work with San Francisco agents, and they bring Jerry out here to do the legal work. Once he came to our office, I wasn’t there but Jill was, and soon enough he was hitting on her, wedding ring and all.” Just then Jill came in from the kitchen, bearing a leg of lamb on a large platter. “He was just flirting,” she said. “Just being pleasant.” “Jerry can be very pleasant,” I said, “but he means it.” “Yes,” Greg seconded, “that’s why mom never goes to his parties any more.” It was a relief to be assured that I would not run into Margo on Monday. I had been aware of her absence from Jerry’s parties for some time now, but I was only now learning that this was a policy. I could not quite understand, though, why Jerry’s flirting would bother Margo. A full-bodied red, a syrah, was served with the leg of lamb, slightly more well-done than I would have preferred but delicious nonetheless. Dessert was apple pie made with homegrown Gravensteins. Their flavor was unmistakable, even when baked. Around eight-thirty the other teenage Petriches came home. I decided not to stay around long enough to find out where they had been, only to thank their parents for their hospitality, to tell Rebecca how much I had enjoyed meeting her, and to suggest to Greg that we spend some time together in the near future. “Sure, Dad,” he said. I took the direct route home, using Highway 101. There was a delay at the Golden Gate Bridge, and it was a little past ten when I got home. After brushing and flossing my teeth I went straight to bed.