LITMIR.BIZ

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in L.A. and being part of what had lured her back. But whatever the reason, or combination of reasons, Laura had grown increasingly depressed, and Jackie, who’d been so happy for their first year and a half together, watched with interest, then concern, and then growing despair as Laura slipped further and further out of reach.

      Jackie arrived at Laura’s door and knocked softly; Laura opened it a few seconds later. She hadn’t changed much in the two years and eight months since they’d met. She was thin, 5’4", with dirty blond hair—but her eyes were often watery now, and a little puffy around the edges. She looked very tired these days.

      “Hi,” she said, moving aside.

      Jackie held her bag out. “New York Super Fudge Chunk?”

      Laura smiled sadly and took the bag. “Thank you, sweetie.”

      Jackie stepped inside and Laura hugged her, holding on as if they hadn’t seen each other in months. This embrace, Jackie knew, was about her grandfather’s death; was meant to show love and support. But it was hard for her to stand through it. Lately all their hugs had seemed out of proportion to the situations in which they occurred—and she didn’t feel like she deserved this one anyway.

      “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the dinner?” Jackie asked as they separated.

      Laura nodded. “Yeah. I’m tired anyway.”

      Jackie looked around. “Where’s Rodent and Amy?”

      Laura smiled, finally looking just a bit happy. “They’re both of out of town.”

      Rodent—Rodney Adams—and Amy Carillo were Laura’s two roommates, acquaintances from Stanford. Amy was a second-year student in the screenwriting program at USC. She was almost always home, working on her screenplay or groaning over other people’s, which she read part-time for an agency. Jackie preferred her, though, to Rodney, who wrote music for TV and movies. He had a huge fancy set-up in his bedroom—synthesizer, drum machine, three-foot speakers, and a set of control panels that looked like they could be used to fly a plane. Rodney often had women in his room, watching him worshipfully, as he created the theme song for a new pilot at Fox, or wrote the music for a death scene in a horror movie. He worked off and on from dawn until midnight, and Jackie always felt, when she was there, with Rodney’s music in the background, as if she and Laura were trapped in a bad sitcom.

      “Both out of town,” she said. “How tragic.”

      “I knew you’d be disappointed. Here, come into the kitchen with me. I was just heating up some milk for hot chocolate.”

      They walked hand-in-hand, Laura pulling Jackie along.

      “Wow,” Jackie said as she sat down at the kitchen table. “It’s so quiet. Wish I hadn’t been busy all day.” She recounted, then, the more innocuous parts of the day—cancelling the AOL account, going to see the house, which was, it turned out, in horrible shape. “So obviously,” Jackie concluded, “it would have been a lot more fun to hang out here with you.”

      Laura smiled. “I wouldn’t have been very exciting. After Marie left, I actually ended up doing some work.”

      “Work?” asked Jackie. “On Saturday?”

      Laura frowned at the pot, turned down the stove, lifted off the thin membrane that had formed across the surface of the milk. “Get used to the idea, honey. In a few months you’re going to be working a lot more Saturdays than me.”

      “Don’t remind me. So what were you doing?”

      “Some stuff for Manny. He’s giving a report next month on immigration statistics, and on health and education benefits for legal immigrants. He’s trying to prove that people who were granted amnesty in ’88 are doing better financially since they’ve been eligible for services. Anyway, he’s kind of obsessed with this, which means I have no choice but to be obsessed with him.”

      Jackie nodded. Manny was Manny Jimenez, the City Councilman from the 4th District. Although he was a lawyer and wealthy entrepreneur, he still lived in one of the seedier parts of Hollywood, the same neighborhood where he had grown up. He’d been elected by an uneasy coalition of mostly poor Latinos from Hollywood and liberal Jews from the Westside, and now, in his second term, many people considered him a potential candidate for mayor. Jackie was suspicious of the man, as she was of all politicians, but she also respected what he’d done; either way, she was impressed by Laura’s proximity to him.

      “What do you have to do?” Jackie asked.

      Laura poured the steaming milk into two green mugs and stirred. “Oh, you know. Research, statistics. Some services are going to be cut, too, and I have to figure out what’s practical to fight for.”

      They went, mugs in hand, into the living room. There they settled onto the couch, with Laura’s blanket thrown over them and Rodney’s cat, Cedric, curled up somehow on both of their laps. They watched an old movie and then Saturday Night Live, getting up between programs to eat leftover pasta, and Laura was asleep by “Weekend Update.” Jackie kept watching, though, glad to have something she could laugh at. The stress of the day was finally receding. Her grandfather was dead and accounted for, and she had one final errand to do, after which she could get on with her life. When the show was over, Jackie extracted Rodney’s cat, who emitted a sleepy mew in protest, and then half-dragged both herself and Laura to bed. She was so tired that, for the first time in several weeks, she wasn’t worried that an aftershock would jolt her out of her sleep; she was unconscious as soon as her head hit the pillow.

      At nine a.m., Jackie opened her eyes and listened for the TV music from Rodney’s room that normally ushered them into the morning. She felt Laura stir, and they looked at each other.

      “Silence,” Laura said. “Can you believe it?”

      Jackie had noticed this too, but her first thought had been, thank God, no wake today, no funeral, no family obligations. “No,” she said. “Maybe we’re still asleep.”

      “We can’t be. I have to take my morning pee.”

      “You’re right. They’re really gone. For, like, the first time ever.”

      “So what should we do?”

      “Let’s celebrate.”

      They jumped in the shower together, giggling as they soaped each other up, and then made their way back to Laura’s bed, not worrying about the noise they made, the roommates. Afterwards, they lay naked on top of the covers, letting the sun and fresh breeze play over their bodies. They were both spent and relaxed now. No matter how heavily their problems weighed on them, Sunday mornings were still inviolate. In the mornings, they hadn’t argued yet, they began with an empty slate, and if they spent a few satisfying hours together—in bed, over brunch—it could set the tone for the rest of the day.

      Like today. They had brunch at the Farmer’s Market and then drove out to Venice Beach, which, on this unusually warm day, was crammed with roller skaters, street performers, barely clad sunbathers, hemp activists, tourists, and dealers. They walked up and down the strip several times, and when the sky began to darken at five, they sat on the beach and watched the sunset. When the last bits of orange and pink cloud had faded back to gray, they headed to Laura’s place, picked up her work clothes, then drove over to Jackie’s apartment. That night, they ate a light dinner and read on opposite ends of the couch. Jackie settled down with her Tax Law reading, crossing her feet on Laura’s lap.

      But she couldn’t concentrate. She was thinking about calling Loda Thomas in the morning. And she was thinking about all the days she’d spent with Frank when she was little, how she’d been closer to him, once, than to anyone else. And she was thinking about Lois again, how lost she’d seemed lately; how after the funeral she’d sat on the hood of the car and had not known what to do. Ted had wanted to go out to dinner. Lois wanted to go home. Jackie didn’t care, but thought they should do something, something to celebrate the fact that they were still alive and to put a cap on the miserable day. When her grandmother died, what to do had been obvious—after

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