A. Homes - This Book Will Save Your Life

"No," Ben says, earnestly. "I really had a good time, I'm saying I had fun."

"Yeah? Me too — I liked Disneyland."

And they both put on their mouse hats, duck behind the sofas, and start throwing things at each other — socks, dish-towels, pillows. The dog barks.

THAT NIGHT, the evening news reports a run-in between the mysterious big cat and a tractor-trailer, which jackknifed when the driver swerved to avoid what he described as a "lion." "One of the animal's toes was severed in the incident, and the highway was closed for over an hour while the county coroner and animal-rights activists alternately gathered evidence including the toe and blood samples and fought over possession of the items. According to veterinarians at the Los Angeles Zoo, it is likely that the animal survived the incident and has headed into the hills. Tonight, the Los Angeles hill country is alive with trackers and wildlife advocates, all searching for the wounded animal, in a race to find him first. Clearly, whoever finds him will have a lot to say about what happens next: there are those who believe the animal should be shot on sight, those who want to trap and study him, and others who believe it is humans who are standing in his path." The camera cuts to the Natural History Museum, where "members of the He Was Here First campaign are gathering for an all-night vigil down here at the tar pits in support of the animal."

"MALIBU hasn't touched his dinner. Are you all right?" Ben asks the dog.

"He's all right; sometimes he eats too many dead fish and gets a stomach ache."

"Maybe you shouldn't leave the door open all the time," Ben says.

"He's a beach dog, I don't want him to feel trapped, he has to be able to come and go. Don't let him lick you on the face."

"Why not?"

"He rolls in dead fish, licks his balls, and then you want him to lick your face? 'Nuff said."

Richard's cell phone rings. It's Cynthia; she went to her kid's soccer game in the new car. "It was fantastic; I stayed, I cheered everyone on, ate a hot dog, and then said good-bye and left. The best part was, I didn't have to drive anyone home."

"Did you see their father?"

"He's away on business — the gardener's wife is staying with the kids."

Richard senses that there is something more, something she's not saying.

"And?"

"I went on a date?"

"With who?"

"A weatherman. I met him at the gym."

"Really." He's a little bit jealous.

"In a spinning class. I was saying how much I liked the Weather Channel, it's very relaxing, and he said he was a weatherman, and then we had to stop talking because the class started on the uphill, and when it was over he asked me out— breathlessly."

"And?"

"It wasn't as strange as I expected. We went to the movies."

"Do you think you'll see him again?"

"You're jealous."

Richard doesn't say anything.

"Admit it."

"OK," he says.

She laughs. "You don't want to sleep with me, but you don't want me to date someone either."

"I didn't say it was healthy. Do you like the guy?"

"I have no idea," she says. "I just thought that since he asked I should go — it's what the girls at the rehab call practice dating. You should try it."

BEN IS STILL on the deck, with binoculars. He likes to watch where Malibu goes; he worries about the dog's heading up onto the highway.

"He's not interested in the highway," Richard says. "He's lived here a long time, you have to assume he knows what he's doing."

"He's a dog, he doesn't know about traffic."

Ben turns the binoculars onto Nic's house. "Dad, Dad, come here."

Richard rushes over. Ben hands him the binoculars. "Do you see what I see?"

Richard takes a look, peering into Nic's living room. "A woman with frizzy hair? I think it's his cleaning lady."

"It's not a cleaning lady, it's Bob Dylan. Look at his nose."

Richard takes a second look. "He looks old."

While Richard is looking, Dylan comes out onto the deck and stares at him from all of fifteen feet away. "Hey, man, don't look in, look out. The performing seals are that way." He points to the sea.

Richard lowers the binoculars and waves apologetically, "We were looking for the dog."

"Malibu," Ben calls, "Malibu."

The dog barks, races up the steps, tail wagging, and Dylan goes back into Nic's house.

"Oh, that was good, really ripe. I was just spying on someone," Richard says.

Ben goes to the front door — opens it.

"Now what are you doing?"

"I want to see what kind of car he came in." They both look out; there's an impossibly long black limo parallel-parked, spanning the width of two houses, with a cord of white lights down the side that make it look like the Queen Mary, or the Nimitz.

"I wonder how Nic knows him?" Richard says.

"Do you know who Nic next door is?" Ben asks.

"You mean what he does?"

"Who he is?"

Richard looks blank. "He's a screenwriter."

"He's Nicholas Thompson, he wrote My Brother Country."

"Was that a movie?"

"It's a book, Dad, a totally famous book." Ben leads Richard to his computer and Googles Nicholas Thompson; fifty-seven thousand results pop up. "That's him," Ben says.

"Now that you mention it, the name rings a bell — vaguely."

"Vaguely? What planet did you grow up on? He was the spokesman for your generation."

Ben clicks, opening a picture of a beautiful young man with thick blond hair in a buckskin jacket with fringe — a cross between a football player and a god.

"Well, Nic looks nothing like that guy," Richard says. "That guy was fantastic-looking."

"He was younger," Ben says. And then Ben clicks on a link to Rolling Stone and there's Nic on the cover with the headline "He Speaks for You." And then he finds another, later article, in Time, "Missing in Action," all about how Nic has gone underground and is living as a recluse somewhere in Los Angeles.

"He's hardly missing, he's right next door, he goes to meetings at the movie studios, plenty of people know where he is."

"Well, his fans are looking for him — he kind of ducked out on the whole fame thing."

"I don't think he wanted to be a writer," Richard says.

"But he is a writer. He also wrote a bunch of books under the name Michael K. Stone — Concrete Castle, And There I Was."

Richard and Ben sit at the computer, reading about Nic, while Nic is next door having a beer with Bob Dylan. It's a little weird. Richard feels like a spy, a cheat.

IN THE MORNING, the limo is gone and Richard wants to knock on Nic's door, but he's embarrassed and a little intimidated. He thought Nic was his friend, he was happy to have developed a friendship with a guy his own age, a guy he had something in common with, and now he doesn't even know who Nic is or was, or if Nic was playing some kind of game with him.

RICHARD GOES to Anhil's. "It turns out Nic is famous."

"Of course he is," Anhil says. "Everyone in America is famous. Only a famous person could toss such a great wow-wow."

Is Anhil confusing famous with fabulous?

Barth is there, helping Anhil make the donuts. "I told him he can't make a movie about a donut maker without knowing how donuts are made." Anhil winks at Richard. "Two hours of donuts equals a half-hour of movie shooting."

"Why didn't you guys tell me about Nic?" Richard yells to Barth, who's in the back mixing donut batter.

"We couldn't believe you didn't know. I ID'ed him on the first day."

"Have you read the book?"

"Yeah, in junior high. It's one of those young-man-goes-on-a-quest-in-search-of-himself stories."

"Where is the other big bag of sugar?" Anhil asks, and Barth hauls a huge bag of sugar out of the storage room.

"Was this book translated into my language? I don't like to read in English — the English language does not really have much variety."