“Yeah, I know.”

Andy raised his glass and finished off the vodka. Wondered if J. J. Overholt and the Vonn girls might have different ideas about who was noteworthy.

Gunnar finished his, too, and collected Andy’s glass. “Did you like The Dwarf?” He’d loaned Andy the book a month ago.

Andy had grown up believing that written words were to be respected. That some were even sacred. An enthusiasm for words was in his blood but he didn’t know how it got there. The Beckers had a big bookshelf in the living room but his mother and father had never talked directly about writing. It was just something natural, like his taste for alcohol or his limitless desire for Meredith Thornton.

“It was great, Gunnar.”

Gunnar smiled, pointed teeth in a lined and somewhat wicked old face. “I knew you would like it.”

AFTER BURGERS Andy parked on the street and took Meredith into the little orange grove not far from her house. The night had cooled sharply and she wore her long red overcoat. They came to their clearing and Andy spread the blanket. He lay down first, then Meredith arranged herself next to him with a kind of gentle formality. They could see the house lights of Tustin scattered below, and the black acres of the groves.

“I really like you, Andy.”

“I like you, too.”

“It’s nice to be up here with you.”

A meteor with a tail sailed across the sky, left to right, the tail dissolving behind it. Then another, in the opposite direction. Some were just short flashes, like sparks.

Andy watched the meteors drop and skate through the darkness, thought of Alma Vonn and her daughters. Wondered how it had happened, who had walked into the bedroom, had she knocked? Or maybe Mrs. Vonn was in the bathroom or the garage. How old were those girls-ten, twelve? He wondered what type of rat poison it was, where she’d gotten it, how much of it she’d taken. When did she decide to do it? What was she wearing? Anything playing on the radio? Was it painful? Did she turn a color? Did she regret it? What finally made her do it? Did a vision or some review of her life take place?