A. Homes - This Book Will Save Your Life

"I will drive your car," Anhil said. "I have never driven a Mercedes."

Richard nodded.

"See you tomorrow," Anhil said, and Richard didn't know if it was a joke or not.

"See you," he said, leaving the donut shop filled with possibility, with breakfast, with his spare collection of donuts in a box on the seat next to him. He felt good, buoyant.

Did he get lucky? Did he survive something? He had the sense of having traveled a great distance, of time having been suspended. Maybe this was IT, this was luck, it was all supposed to happen this way. Maybe that's what he was supposed to think — how lucky he was — he had a nose that worked, the weather was good, who could want more? Maybe everyone was lucky and didn't notice — was it foolish to think that even when everything fell apart it was luck?

He belched — the full flavors of coffee, eggs, donuts repeated, and he thought of Anhil. He smiled.

"NICE BEING UP in the morning, isn't it?" the driver said, catching his smile in the rearview mirror. "I used to work the night shift. I felt like a creep, a vampire. And talk about coffee, I drank so much coffee, even after working a twelve-hour shift I couldn't sleep. I'd go home and shake."

Richard nodded. The taxi climbed up the hill. As they got closer, it was harder to think forward. The donut-and-coffee combo was turning into a bad mix, the acid, the sugar, the high becoming sugar confusion, a cold hard crash. He didn't want to go back — he couldn't go back. Filled with dread, he was tempted to tell the driver to keep going, he'd made a mistake, he didn't want to get off.

The taxi stopped in front of the house. And he was out, standing at the curb with the box of donuts in hand.

He could stand outside and wait until Cecelia came, and pretend that he didn't have his key, that he was locked out. He could sit on the front step and admit he was afraid to be home.

"I'm afraid," he would call out to anyone looking out a window. "I'm afraid," he would announce to the paperboy tossing the morning news out the window of a station wagon while his father coasted downhill in neutral.

He forced himself to walk to the front door. The grass was damp, tickling his ankles — he hadn't put his socks back on in the ER, they had vomit on them and he'd just left them there. Brown socks. He didn't want to wear brown socks ever again; he didn't want to wear any socks. Shoes without socks, blisters and raw skin — who cared? He couldn't cover everything up anymore, he needed to feel everything as it was.

"MORNING," he called, opening the door. "Morning," he called as if expecting someone to answer.

The brushed stainless-steel kitchen gave off a modern, reflectionless, dull shine. Everything was in order, perfectly placed, perfectly clean. To the left was the living room, matching white sofas, an Eames chair, glass-topped coffee table, handmade Belgian shaggy rug. Each item chosen for its beauty, its perfection. These were the things he wanted: controlled, precise, ordered. He had bought them when he moved here. On the walls were paintings, important paintings, paintings that museums wanted. It was part of his plan when he moved to Los Angeles. He told himself he was setting up a new life, a good life, and he wanted beautiful/important things to be a part of it. He told himself that he'd worked hard and should surround himself with proof of his hard work, his assets. He should surround himself with art, so that in some way he himself would become art.

The house was still, pulled tight as though holding its breath, motionless, trying not to be. He breathed deeply — nonscent. The house had no smell at all except that it smelled clean, almost lemony and crisp.

The comfort of the familiar had become uncomfortable; it was too comfortable and not comfortable at all.

He put the donuts down, flipped the box open. If he ate one, maybe he'd feel good again. Eeny, meeny, miney, mo — which one to pick, which one would do the trick? Plain cake. "Classic," Anhil called it.

Richard glanced at the clock on the microwave — 5:37 — almost twelve hours, almost one half-day since he'd dialed 911.

In the living room there were scraps, scattered debris of the incident, spare parts from the IV kit, the semicircular peel-off backing from the electrodes they put on his chest, a cotton ball with a large red bloody dot on it.

What had happened?

He took off his shirt and touched his chest; there was goo in the hair.

The whole thing might have been a weird dream, a hallucination — except that he had proof, the debris, the sticky stuff. Like an alien abduction, he'd been taken, probed, and returned, wondering what the hell had happened. Would he ever feel like himself again? And what did he feel like in the first place? He had no memory.

He was standing at the point of the house, where two thick panes of glass meet, a sharp corner jutting out over the hill like the prow of a ship.

Below him to the left was the dent, the depression. He almost thought it was growing as he watched it — wider, deeper.

"Something happened, don't ignore it," the doctor had said.

AHEAD ARE ROOFTOPS, Spanish tile roofs, flat modern roofs, peaked slate roofs. Between the houses is lush, vibrant greenery, purple and yellow flowers, roses, orange trees, dashes of color like specks of hot pepper, something is always blooming.

And she is there, down below, in her hummingbird-red suit, crawling through the blue water, with strength and purpose. She gets to the wall, flips, pushes off, stroke, stroke, her head turning and lifting for air. He is usually on the treadmill, he is usually running while she is swimming, but now he is afraid of exercise, afraid for his heart. He imagines himself underwater, out of air, suffocating. As he imagines it, he feels it.

She stops swimming, pulls off the goggles, and looks up.

To the woman down below, he is simply the man up above, staring.

Accidentally he touches the glass. It is cool. He presses his cheek, his nose, his mouth to the glass. He takes a deep breath and exhales long and slow, fogging the glass, and for a moment everything, even the swimmer, is gone.

He is standing at the glass waiting for his life to begin.

"YOU ALL RIGHT?" Cecelia the housekeeper asks.

"Yeah, why?"

"You're just standing there, staring. I've been here fifteen minutes and you haven't moved. You're not wearing your morning clothes, and you don't have those headphones on. You sure you're all right?"

He can't decide whether to say anything, whether to tell her about last night. He decides to act normal, to act like nothing happened.

"Fine," he says.

"Where'd the donuts come from? Fund-raiser? Kids going door to door?"

"On my way home; help yourself."

She looks at the address on the box. "What were you doing all the way down there?"

"I was starving."

She looks insulted. "You know if you need something I always bring it to you — you just call me and I'll bring it with me. I do a good job taking care of you — don't I fill your fridge with good, healthy foods? This kind of thing isn't for people like you."

"I had a craving."

"I could take them home with me," she says, "save you from them, but then I'd eat em myself. I should resist that temptation." She picks up the box and dumps it in the trash. "Nothing worse than eating other people's garbage. Now, are you ready for breakfast?"

"I was thinking I'd shower first," he says.

"All I can say is, I hope you got lucky, because this is so not you, not the man I know, and I just want there to be a good reason for it."

In the shower he opens the retractable skylight; steam rises like smoke. He imagines he can use his washcloth to send signals, messages, up the canyon. Covered with the creepy crawl of the emergency room, he scrubs himself, washing off the night. There are a couple of electrodes still attached. The Band-Aid on his hand slides off and is sucked down the drain.