“Okay, then,” Nina said. She offered him her biggest smile.

“Eat up the pineapple in the refrigerator.”

“Go save the world.”

“Back asap, world all saved.”

She blew him a kiss. “I love you,” she said.

“Love you too.”

The day passed. Afflicted by a strange paralysis of the will, she slept, read, worried about Bob. Night came on. Sometimes she heard creaks from the wind, chittering, distant voices. Nina got up and sat at the kitchen table.

Who was Coyote’s partner on Siesta Court?

Had they understood Nate? Was there really a threat to some children?

Frustrated, she got up to sort laundry. She threw in a load of whites that tested the limits of the washing machine. She emptied pockets of pens and miscellanea, marveling at the things Paul stuffed into his pockets, reading each crumpled business card and receipt for clues to his inner self.

Wish’s half-burned jeans and jacket and socks were lying on the floor of the laundry room in the corner. She didn’t have time to deal with them now, so she rolled them up and left them there.

Paul didn’t return. Rain began falling on the roof. Sometime past eleven, Nina finally fell into troubled sleep.

PART THREE

19

A S NINA FELL INTO RESTLESS DREAMS at Paul’s place on Tuesday night, Elizabeth started and stopped the tape recorder with the foot pedal in her house on Robles Ridge, her fingers moving rapidly over the keys as she turned the party tape into written data.

She paused and moved to the word-processing file containing the draft of her article, and the title page came up:

Locals v. Newbies:

INTERACTIONS, AFFILIATIONS, AND CONFLICTS IN A

SIX-HOUSEHOLD ESTABLISHED NEIGHBORHOOD

UNDERGOING GENTRIFICATION

The title was too long and the word gentrification wasn’t technical-sounding. Still, it would do for the draft.

She sat at her desk, wearing her robe, curtains closed tightly against the rain, her notebook bulging with her transcripts and observations of the Siesta Court Bunch over the past two years, her tape of the over-the-top party on Saturday night at the side.

For the next hour, she rapidly processed the tape into word-processing files. Then she began organizing the local v. newbie interactions.

Locals: old-timers. They had grown up in the community and adapted very slowly to new conditions. They experienced jealousy and outrage as the more affluent newbies moved in and initiated rapid, sometimes devastating, change.

Newbies: newcomers. They moved in from San Francisco, L.A., or Silicon Valley. As soon as possible, they built their dream homes or developed their property to the max, and now did not approve of any further change in the neighborhood. They had what they wanted, and shifted over into conservationist mode.

She referred back to her Basic Population Description: eleven adults, eight children. Six households. Of the adult population, not counting Danny Cervantes, who had once been on the list:

Seven Locals:

Darryl and Tory Eubanks; four children

Sam and Debbie Puglia; no children at home

George and Jolene Hill; two grandchildren

Ben Cervantes

Four Newbies:

David and Britta Cowan; two children

Ted and Megan Ballard

She looked the names over, classifying them more closely in her mind: the Eubankses, young traditionalists, low in ambition, family-centered. They wanted to live as their parents had and deeply disliked change. They were perfect examples of young parents making do on working-class salaries. Tory would probably never work outside the home. Darryl would never make any more money than he did now. And they would never move, barring some catastrophe. They got along, went to church, adopted conventional opinions.

A stray thought went through Elizabeth’s mind: But Darryl doesn’t love his wife anymore. She would have to leave this out of the thesis: It didn’t fit at all. It was an aberration caused in part by her own presence, which she had intended to be invisible.

Yes, leave that out.

The Puglias. Also conservative, also low in ambition, also family-centered. Debbie was pivotal in the group because her gregariousness and lack of other outlets were the glue that had brought the neighbors into such close proximity. She wouldn’t allow them to isolate from one another. She had close ongoing relations with each household, greased by her social skills. Sam was an adjunct to his wife, less involved because he had the outlet of his work.

The Hills, examples of the older generation who had started disadvantaged and stayed that way, hooked into history because their Okie parents had come here as part of an important American geographical shift in the thirties. Also conventional and conservative. Financial problems had caused them to attempt change-to subdivide their property-but they hadn’t been sophisticated enough to get around the maze of land regulations.

And Ben Cervantes, saving for his house and his bride, which his parents, who had returned to Mexico, no doubt would pick out for him. A conservative from a minority group, grateful to have any job at all. His nephew, Danny, had fallen into the underclass due to his lack of education.

Ben had such fine eyes. He spoke well. Elizabeth wondered if he already had a fiancée.

Again she had to suppress a thought that didn’t fit into the descriptive paradigm: Ben was ambitious. He might move out and away from his origins.

Elizabeth had observed a subset among the locals: One group wanted no change, period, but the other group looked at the change going on all around them and said, get me some of that. Ben, who worked for anyone that would hire him, and George Hill, with his attempt to subdivide his property, adopting a newbie stratagem, belonged in this interesting subset.

The newbie population on Siesta Court was small but powerful. It hadn’t felt so small because she herself had been a part of the ongoing interactions over the years, but of course she could not insert herself into the thesis.

So: Take the Cowans and the Ballards.

David Cowan, inherited wealth, graduate education, rootless, moved every couple of years, unconventional outlooks. He had no interest in conservation per se but wanted to preserve the status quo now that he had built his palace on Siesta Court. His money made it happen, without consideration for the environmental impact or the impact on the neighborhood.

Britta Cowan, another flouter of the mores, only her area of impact was societal. Her dysfunctional relationship with her husband, her seductive attitudes, her negative attitudes toward her occupation, and her wild acting out made her a kind of relief valve.

The Ballards had to be considered en bloc. Ted and Megan shared the Cowans’ rootlessness and lack of interest in conventional societal mores. They also welcomed change and had disrupted the local environment with their building projects, but wanted no more change to the environment now that they had their own homes. However, Ted and Megan were different from the Cowans in that…

… in that they smile and flex all the time, Elizabeth thought to herself, tired. Quarter past eleven, and she had nowhere to go and nobody and nothing to do but think about these stupid people… She opened the curtains. Down the hill she could see through the mist a thin thread of river. Down there on Siesta Court, the Bunch carried on their pathetic… yes, she was losing it. She ought to knock off for the night.