“Thank you. Most people don’t recognize the difference.”

“And you wrote that thing about her family. Now that was awesome. Got the stupid animal brothers and the innocence of Janelle and her sister. Changed the names and places, but you got the truth of it down. A lot of people knew it was her.”

“Not everybody,” said Andy. “But, yeah. A lot of people.”

“People wanted to help her after that.”

Black strummed a change that Andy recognized from the Sandpiper set last Thursday night. “Smoke?”

“Sure.”

Black set the guitar down and went to the kitchen counter. “This sinsemilla is dynamite.”

“I’ve heard about it. You and Janelle smoke a lot?”

“No. She liked acid. Leary turned her on to a dose of genuine Sandoz and she took to it. Not every day. Maybe once a week. Liked a little tequila, too.”

Black rolled a joint in less than a minute. Tight, slender, and filled all the way to the ends. Torched it with a Bic. A sweet green smell and Andy felt the smoke fill his lungs and the instant tilt of his senses.

“Those were good songs at the Sandpiper,” said Andy. “Even without knowing Janelle I would have liked them.”

“Outtasight.”

“‘Imagine You’ blew me away.”

“Came in a rush. Wrote it in a couple of days. Right after I heard.”

They passed the joint in silence. Finished half and let it go out. Jesse cranked open a hummingbird stained-glass window. Took the Stratocaster and sat back in the yellow beanbag.

Andy looked north out a clear window to Main Beach and the lifeguard stand and the boardwalk. Waves lazy on the sand. A vulture shot across the sky startlingly close to the window. Could have reached out and touched him.

The door slammed open and the orange-haired girl swept in. Sheet still clinched around her with one hand and a beer in the other. Had to put down the beer to get the roach to her lips, the lighter to her sheet hand, and walk back out. Not a glance at either of them.

“Crystal,” said Jesse.

“Bummin’.”

Jesse shrugged. “She’s a good keyboardist. Kind of possessive, though.”

Andy could see the vulture, smaller now, framed in the window of sky. “I saw her. Janelle. After it happened.”

“I’m glad I didn’t.”

Andy felt his heartbeat echoing in his eardrums. Same thing every time, first few minutes of a high. The sinsemilla was stronger than any he’d ever had before.

“I’m not sure why I put myself through it,” said Andy.

“I’ve tried not to picture her that way,” said Black. “It’s bad enough to see that kind of thing in a book or something. But if it’s someone you loved, almost impossible.”

“The first time I saw her was by that packinghouse. This was, man, fourteen years ago. Something like that.”

“The fight.”

“The rumble. After it was over her sister ran down the embankment with rocks in both hands and threw them at us ’cause we’d just wailed on her brothers. Then Janelle, she was maybe like four or five, she’s got these two oranges and she’s going to throw them but she changes her mind. Blue dress and cowboy boots. Looks at us, drops the oranges, says something about her brothers, and runs away.”

Jesse was picking now, a muted aquatic twang when he pushed the tremolo bar. “First time I saw her was at the ’Piper. Playing a set on a dead Sunday evening. In she walks with some girlfriends. I played straight to her for the next hour. Directly to her. Forgot to take my break. Just her and me in that room. I sat with her and her friends after. They bought me drinks. I was freakin’ in love with her by midnight. Still am.”

At the same time, Andy and Black both leaned over and pulled small beaten notebooks from their pant pockets.

Black saw what Andy had done, dropped the notebook in his lap, and picked the Twilight Zone intro on his high E string.

Andy smiled and made a note of Jesse forgetting his break the first time he played for Janelle. Pot made you pay attention to the small things. All immediately fascinating. Most pointless.

“What did you write?” Andy asked.

“I wrote ‘in love with her by midnight.’ It came with this A-minor riff. A lot of stuff I write in Laguna does. I think it has something to do with the ocean, or maybe the hawks. Or maybe this dope I get from Ronnie Joe. Listen.”

He strummed some chords and sang “in love with her by midnight” in a melody over them. Then again, but a different melody. Then another one. Andy was amazed anyone could do that, just invent three different melodies in thirty seconds. Black was full of music like Andy was full of words.

“What part of the song is it?” he asked.

“Who knows? Chorus, maybe. You know, hook line for the radio. Sing it loud enough to hear in a car. What did you write down?”

“You, forgetting your break when you first saw Janelle.”

“I wanted to sing my way right into her pants.”

“Guess you did.”

“Later, yeah.” Black played the A-minor riff again, looking through a stained-glass window back toward Big Red. “I wasn’t alone there. In her pants.”

“No?”

“No. I told her she was free. I meant it. She had a dude. She’d been hooked up with him awhile, and I think it was a long while. Hardly talked about him. Never told me his name. Never told me what he did or what he looked like or anything. The only time she even mentioned him was if she couldn’t be with me. Once a week. Maybe twice. Then we’d be together three straight weeks and it was like there was no other guy. Then, well…she’d have to go.”

“Go for how long?”

“An evening,” said Black. “Sometimes part of a weekend day. She’d come up here after she was done. She’d be quiet. Not unhappy, really. But subdued. Still.”

“Numb?”

“Maybe,” said Jesse. “But not stoned. Not drunk. Just…calm.”

“You never saw him?”

“No. Never asked. Never followed her. Not my thing. People are free, you know? Free as they want to be.”

“Maybe she wanted to be less free,” said Andy.

“I don’t think so. She had a thing with Cory, too. He’s a bro. It was good karma for all of us. Least we thought it was.”

“She didn’t want limits and rules and security?”

“Not Janelle.”

Jesse plucked the opening notes of “Pretty Woman.”

“She was pregnant,” he said.

Andy’s heart dropped and flipped. Damned pot was bad enough, but then this ton of information. “Who was the father?”

“She didn’t know,” Black said quietly. “Maybe me. Maybe the mystery dude. Maybe Cory Bonnett. She was scheduled for an abortion on Friday afternoon. I was going to take her in.”

Andy’s heart rushing in his ears again. He remembered Meredith and him at the clinic in Santa Ana. Dr. Degaus Delineus. Suction. Over fast, but Meredith white and weak for hours. Dazed for days. Empty and distracted and tearful for weeks. So long to get over it. And he too foolish and young to understand what she was going through. What it meant to her body and her soul. What it meant that he hadn’t asked her to marry him and have the child. Andy felt the spiraling descent of regret long avoided. Not that he should have married her. Not that she should have had the child. But that he should have known. Known what she was going through. Known what it meant. Known what it was like.

No, not what it was like-what it was.

He looked out the window. Felt like a small pale child being tossed back and forth by the gods through a dark and violent sky. The damned pot could clobber you with the past if you didn’t look out. It would change your memories. Or change your version of them. Their shape. The revised history would slide right in and you’d think it had been true all along.

“She was going to have dinner with your brother the night she died,” said Jesse. “Your other brother, the minister.”

“David? No way, man.”

“David and a friend of hers named Howard. I never met Howard. I talked to David a few times, though. He came to one of my gigs. He and Janelle were really tight. I don’t know if it ever went off, the dinner. But that’s what she told me she was going to do.”