Shallow Graves

voice.
    He opened the door.
    “Hi there,” he said and let Janine in.
    “I was just passing by . . . You know.” She laughed and set a shopping bag on the table. She surveyed the rooms. “Reminds me of, know what? An airplane.”
    What was that smell? It entered with her. He thought of newly mown grass. He looked outside then shut the door and locked it.
    “This is luxury,” he said. “At the studio they call these honey wagons.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “There are several theories,” he said. “None of which I really ought to go into.”
    “Look, I heard about your friend. I’m so sorry.”
    “Thank you.”
    “What happened?”
    Pellam believed that grief, like joy, was best explained simply. “Car accident.”
    “That’s so sad. Terrible.” She looked like she meant it and he wondered if she was going to start crying. He really hoped she wouldn’t. She said, “What I was saying the other day, about Cleary? You read about car crashes every week in the Leader. ” She surveyed him and nodded toward his thigh (scary about these small-town rumors—man, they spread fast). “How’re you  ?”
    “Right muscle. Wrong leg. I’ll be okay.”
    The sorrow in her voice was gone; he was grateful that she’d expressed it but hadn’t overdone the emotion.
    “I’ll give it a massage. I studied Rolfing.”
    “Maybe later. It’s a bit tender right now.”
    She studied the camper carefully. Her eyes lingered on the one decoration: A New York Film Festival poster of Abel Gance’s Napoleon. She kept giving faint little laughs, as each new thing she noticed surprised her.
    “I heard they aren’t going to do the movie here.”
    “True.”
    “But you’re staying?”
    “True also. I got fired.”
    “No! Why?”
    “It’s Hollywood.”
    “What a downer.” She didn’t look real down, though. She touched his arm. “I’m sorry about the movie but I’m glad about you.”
    He didn’t respond.
    She waited a few seconds then let go and looked around again. “Don’t you get claustrophobic?”
    “It’s not bad.”
    “I’m not disturbing you?” Though as she said it she was sitting down in the small dining alcove, making herself at home.
    There are times to say, Yes, you are, and times to say, No, when asked that question.
    He said, “No, not at all.”
    “I brought you some dessert.”
    “Dessert?”
    “I remember you liked dessert. The cake at Marge’s? When you picked me up? On Monday?” Her eyebrows raised with every sentence.
    “I remember, yeah.”
    Picked her up?
    “Terrible cake,” he added.
    “Could’ve warned you. My desserts aren’t terrible.”
    She unloaded the bag. Carefully wrapped in foil was a small package. Next came a thermos, two mugs, a jar of honey.
    “Tea. Herbal tea. Rosehips and lemon grass. It’s very relaxing.” She opened the foil. “And brownies.”
    “Ah, brownies.” Pellam looked at them closely.Then he grinned. “Wait. Are those . . . ? They aren’t really, are they?”
    “Uh-huh. They’re a little bitter but, hey, so’s peyote, right? They’re worth it, though. Man, I’ll tell you . . . It’s not as strong as a Thai stick, but then again you won’t wake up with a cough. You have a plate?”
    He dug into the cabinet. “Plastic.”
    “Shame on you. Disposable? What’d nature ever do to you?” Janine cut the brownies—she’d also brought a knife. He tried one. It tasted bitter and left bits of soggy vegetation in his mouth. The tea was awful but you needed it to wash the grass down.
    “Honey?” She held up a jar.
    “No.” He sipped the weed water. He glanced at the bottle of whisky. Was tempted. But he figured that Janine might feel that making liquor was an unnatural thing to do to plants.
    “Really great,” he said. She’d already finished her piece of brownie. He chewed down the rest of his.
    She looked at what he was typing. “You mind?” She pulled it forward and read intently. After a few minutes she gave another of her breathy, surprised laughs. “This is fantastic. It’s like poetry. Is this the way they write scripts?”
    “It’s the way I write scripts.”
    “I didn’t know you were a writer.”
    “I write scripts that nobody reads, just like . . .” He stopped himself. He was going to say, the way you sell houses that nobody buys. Good line, wrong woman. “. . . everybody else in Hollywood.”
    “I hear you. But aren’t you, like, fired?”
    “It’s a crazy business out there,” he said