A. Homes - This Book Will Save Your Life

"Yep, I know her," Richard says.

"Is that weird, to be so close to people?" Barth asks.

For the moment, Richard can't answer.

"Privacy is overrated," Ben says. "Nice ocean, calmer than I would have thought. Looking at water makes me have to pee. Where's the bathroom?"

"Down the hall on the right. You can drop your stuff in the last bedroom. A friend has been using the middle bedroom."

"You're allowed to have a girlfriend, you don't have to put her in a separate room or call her your friend."

"She's not my girlfriend. And she just got a place of her own. You'll meet her."

"About the closeness of people," Richard tells Barth, "I grew up in an apartment building in Brooklyn, there were people everywhere."

"Yes, I know," Barth says. "So did my father."

And then there is silence. Ben comes out of the bathroom and Richard stands in the hall, looking at him. So this is it — the big meeting that he's been anticipating, dreading. It's a little anticlimactic.

"I have tuna for you," Richard says.

"I'm kind of tuna'ed out," Ben says. "I've had it every day for about three weeks."

"Would you like a root beer?"

"Thanks," he says, understanding that Richard made an effort to get the things he likes.

"I thought I'd take you guys out and show you around."

"We've been driving for days," Barth says. "I'm interested in a clean towel and some toilet paper that doesn't feel like sandpaper. Which way was the bathroom?"

"Down the hall."

"I was wondering if I'd recognize you," Ben says when Barth is gone.

"Me too you. It's been almost a year."

"You look different," Ben says.

"So do you."

Pierced over one eyebrow, his eyes deep blue, his hair dark and thick, Ben is almost beautiful. When he raises his arms, the band of his underwear shows above the waist of his jeans. Richard wonders if he ever looked so self-confident, effortless.

Barth comes back from the bathroom, picks up a bag of Pirate's Booty, and walks around the house eating. There is something annoying about him, a kind of adolescent arrogance combined with an obliviousness that rings a bell. He's just like Richard's brother, only bigger and hairier.

"Let's go out for lunch," Richard says. "There's a place just up the road, we can walk."

"This seems kind of crazy. Do you do it a lot?" Ben asks as they trudge up the Pacific Coast Highway.

"No. And never at night. No one can see you."

Lunch is like being on a date. Richard feels the self-consciousness of trying to make a good impression, of being on his best behavior, and at the same time the peculiar intimacy that comes with being related. It's a kind of a dance. Does Ben even know it's a dance? Does he care? Richard feels like he's doing a fucking fox-trot — he's sweating.

At a nearby table, a group of children are having a birthday party. There are lots of screaming kids, and when the big moment comes, when the cake comes out and they all sing "Happy Birthday," the rest of the restaurant chimes in.

The birthday boy's mother asks, "Willy, do you want to cut the first piece?"

The boy nods solemnly, takes the knife, and starts stabbing the cake. He repeatedly stabs the cake while everyone watches. He stabs the cake again and again, until his father grabs his wrist and wrests the knife away. All the while he's stabbing the cake, the kid is making a high-pitched, piercing howl.

"It's OK, Willy," his father says, taking the knife. "It's OK."

"So, Barth, how's college life? What's your major?"

"Political science, but it's really all about becoming a documentary filmmaker."

"Barth won a bunch of awards for his early work."

"Early work — you mean things you did when you were twelve?"

"Eleven, actually. I made a film about a boy in my school who was dying of leukemia. It was nominated for an Academy Award and played in eight countries."

Richard nods. "Yes, I'm sure your mother wrote about it in her Christmas newsletter."

Barth continues, "When my dad was twelve he invented the glue stick."

"Did he? I don't recall him having a job when he was twelve."

"That's what he says."

Why is Richard being such an ass? Something about Barth prompts him to act competitive. He doesn't like what he's doing — devolving.

Lunch arrives.

"And what about you?" he says to Ben. "When does your position start?"

"I have to call them this afternoon."

"That's exciting — junior agent man." He's trying to be upbeat — too upbeat.

"I won't be an agent," Ben says. "It's more like mailroom boy, if they even have mailrooms anymore — I'm not sure, with everything going by e-mail."

"So what about you, Uncle Dick — what do you do all day?" Barth asks.

"Don't call me Dick," Richard says, abruptly. "I've never been called Dick," he lies. For a while a long time ago, his mother called him Dickie — he hated it. "Where's Dickie? What did Dickie do today?" she'd ask in a high-pitched, condescending voice. When he thinks of it now, he can still hear her saying it, feel the twinge in his ear. Why did they name him Richard? What a lackluster name, Richard Nathan Novak, a big nobody. Richard Nathan Nobody — he plummets into a depression. "What do I do all day?" he asks out loud. "Well, this afternoon I'll have Gyrotonics."

"Isn't that a kind of colonic?" Barth asks.

"It's a form of exercise. You two are welcome to hang out at the house, go down to the beach, or you can come with me, it's right up the road."

"I may need a nap — it's been a very long ride," Ben says.

He always liked his nap. Richard looks at Ben; it's hard to imagine how infant boys become men. "You should call your mother and tell her that you arrived safely."

Ben nods.

Walking home on the Pacific Coast Highway, Richard feels down on his luck, like a surfer or a hobo; a guy in a truck slows down and asks if they need a ride.

Back at the house, Richard sets the boys up with towels, sunscreen, water. "It's not like the East Coast. The sun in Los Angeles is very hot — and lately it's been even hotter than usual. And there's no lifeguard down here, and there are rocks, the tide is hard to read, and every now and then we have sharks."

"We get it," Barth says.

AT GYROTONICS, he spins, heels over head, head over heels. He has so much on his mind that every time the instructor says something she has to repeat it.

His mind keeps going to Nic, Nic and Sylvia, and how strange it is that he hasn't had sex in years and hadn't really thought about it until Cynthia brought it up and then Nic. He keeps seeing Sylvia's tits — like good red wine, he imagines drinking them.

Could he do it if he wanted to? Would he need help? A little something to get it up? He thinks he'd be fine, but suddenly everyone makes it sound like a huge problem — he's worried.

The Gyrotechnician is stretching him, lifting his legs; her head is between his legs, and suddenly he's paying attention, distracting himself from his distraction. He tries to make conversation. "How long have you been doing this? Were you always interested in Gyrotonics?"

On the way home, he stops at the Malibu newsstand, buys Time, Newsweek, Sophmore Frenzy, and The Best of Hustler. He hopes no one sees him — it's the first time he's bought porn in twenty years. It's funny and pathetic and he's got to know if it works.

At the house, he makes a straight line for the bedroom, tucks the bag deep under the sheets. Ben is down the hall sleeping. Barth is still out on the beach — Richard sees him from the bedroom window: blubbery, white, furry.

At six he knocks on the door and wakes Ben — "If you sleep all day you'll be up all night."

For dinner, the boys take everything out of the fridge and heat it. They eat all the food that Sylvia made for the entire week: the salmon, the meatloaf, the haricots verts, the molasses cookies.