The Talisman

right?’ The words burst out of him. He could feel his fingers biting into his thighs.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, lighting another cigarette (she slowed down to twenty to do it; an old pick-up swept by them, its horn blatting). ‘Never better.’
    ‘How much weight have you lost?’
    ‘Jacky, you can never be too thin or too rich.’ She paused and then smiled at him. It was a tired, hurt smile that told him all the truth he needed to know.
    ‘Mom—’
    ‘No more,’ she said. ‘All’s well. Take my word for it. See if you can find us some be-bop on the FM.’
    ‘But—’
    ‘Find us some bop, Jacky, and shut up.’
    He found some jazz on a Boston station – an alto saxophone elucidating ‘All the Things You Are’. But under it, a steady, senseless counterpoint, was the ocean. And later, he could see the great skeleton of the roller coaster against the sky. And the rambling wings of the Alhambra Inn. If this was home, they were home.

CHAPTER THREE
SPEEDY PARKER
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    1
    The next day the sun was back – a hard bright sun that layered itself like paint over the flat beach and the slanting, red-tiled strip of roof Jack could see from his bedroom window. A long low wave far out in the water seemed to harden in the light and sent a spear of brightness straight toward his eyes. To Jack this sunlight felt different from the light in California. It seemed somehow thinner; colder; less nourishing. The wave out in the dark ocean melted away, then hoisted itself up again, and a hard dazzling streak of gold leaped across it. Jack turned away from his window. He had already showered and dressed, and his body’s clock told him that it was time to start moving toward the schoolbus stop. Seven-fifteen. But of course he would not go to school today, nothing was normal anymore, and he and his mother would just drift like ghosts through another twelve hours of daytime. No schedule, no responsibilities, no homework . . . no order at all except for that given them by mealtimes.
    Was today even a schoolday? Jack stopped short beside his bed, feeling a little flicker of panic that his world had become so formless . . . he didn’t think this was a Saturday. Jack counted back to the first absolutely identifiable day his memory could find, which was the previous Sunday. Counting forward made it Thursday. On Thursdays he had computer class with Mr Balgo and an early sports period. At least that was what he’d had when his life had been normal, a time that now seemed – though it had come to an end only months ago – irretrievably lost.
    He wandered out of his bedroom into the living room. When he tugged at the drawstring for the curtains the hard bright light flooded into the room, bleaching the furniture. Then he punched the button on the television set and dropped himself onto the stiff couch. His mother would not be up for at least another fifteen minutes. Maybe longer, considering that she’d had three drinks with dinner the night before.
    Jack glanced toward the door to his mother’s room.
    Twenty minutes later he rapped softly at her door. ‘Mom?’ A thick mumble answered him. Jack pushed the door open a crack and looked in. She was lifting her head off the pillow and peering back through half-closed eyes.
    ‘Jacky. Morning. What time?’
    ‘Around eight.’
    ‘God. You starving?’ She sat up and pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes.
    ‘Kind of. I’m sort of sick of sitting in here. I just wondered if you were getting up soon.’
    ‘Not if I can help it. You mind? Go down to the dining room, get some breakfast. Mess around on the beach, okay? You’ll have a much better mother today if you give her another hour in bed.’
    ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Okay. See you later.’
    Her head had already dropped back down on the pillow.
    Jack switched off the television and let himself out of the room after making sure his key was in the pocket of his jeans.
    The elevator smelled of camphor and ammonia – a maid had tipped a bottle off a cart. The doors opened, and the gray desk clerk frowned at him and ostentatiously turned away. Being a movie star’s brat doesn’t make you anything special around here, sonny . . . and why aren’t you in school? Jack turned into the panelled entrance to the dining room – The Saddle of Lamb – and saw rows of empty tables in a shadowy vastness. Perhaps six had been set up. A waitress in a white blouse and red ruffled skirt looked at him, then looked away. Two exhausted-looking