U Is for Undertow

face of the racket should feel on contact with the ball, but that was as close to having sex as he’d come, so to speak.
    The best part of writing, at least the best part of trying to write, was that it allowed him to spend time alone, tuned to the static in his head. Once in a while a line came through, like an unexpected message from the outer limits of the universe. He recorded those isolated images and phrases, wondering if one day there might be more. At the end of the week he didn’t have much to show for his time, but he gathered up what he’d done and stuck the sheaf of papers in a file folder that he handed to Mr. Snow, who said, “Have a seat.”
    Jon sat down in the front row, looking on self-consciously while Mr. Snow went through his pages.
    “What’s this about? You plagiarized Hemingway?”
    “I typed a couple of chapters as warm-up. I tried Faulkner, too. You told me to bring everything so I did.”
    Mr. Snow rolled his eyes and read on.
    Jon watched his face, but he had no idea how his work was being received. When Mr. Snow was done, he straightened the pages, lined up the edges, put them in the folder, and handed it back.
    He didn’t make a comment so Jon was finally forced to clear his throat and say, “So what do you think?”
    “As a general rule, beginning, middle, and end are nice, but at least you kept at it. Go back and try something else.”
    “Like what? I mean, I’m really having trouble coming up with stuff.”
    “Fancy that.”
    Jon went back to work. He wrote at night, usually until three, when he fell into bed. In the morning he slept late. At lunchtime he showered and dressed and headed over to Walker’s house at the top of Bergstrom Hill, half a mile from his house. If he kept to the winding streets, the travel time was five minutes by scooter, but Jon found another route, skirting the Ravine along its easternmost edge, putt-putting along the bridle paths that formed a warren of meandering trails. It required his crossing one two-lane road, but there was scarcely ever any traffic. Late afternoons he’d spend forty minutes lifting free weights in Mona’s home gym and then do a long run of six or seven miles. After that he’d shower, put on his slippers and sweats, and sit down at his desk. For most meals he ate cold cereal or Top Ramen, which was all he could afford after the money he’d spent on furnishings.
    Meanwhile, Walker was spending his summer vacation selling dope. His parents were clueless and didn’t seem to grasp the import of his frequent absences from the house or the unannounced visits from an assortment of friends whose names they were never told. In the fall Walker would start his freshman year at UCST. He had no interest in living at home, but he didn’t have the money to pay for off-campus digs. Even if he went in with five other guys, he’d be coming up short, dope money notwithstanding. Jon was in the same boat. Once Mona and the family returned, she’d make his continued residency dependent on his paying rent. Lionel would explain this was for his own good, a means of building character, not just a variation on Mona’s abuse. Jon could see he’d have to find a job and juggle work with classes at City College. Mr. Snow had a point about avoiding the draft.

19

    Wednesday afternoon, April 13, 1988

    Deborah Unruh agreed to meet me on the beach in front of the Edgewater Hotel. The spot she suggested was across from the hotel entrance, at the bottom of the concrete stairs that led down from the frontage road. It was a point she’d be passing in the course of her regular weekday walk, a loop that extended from her Montebello condominium to the wharf downtown. Avis Jent had called her on my behalf and after the preliminary chitchat, she’d summed up my mission as succinctly as I might have done in her place. Deborah didn’t seem to require much in the way of persuasion.
    I arrived fifteen minutes early and parked on the narrow road that ran behind the hotel. I locked my shoulder bag in the trunk of my car and took a shortcut through the property. I crossed the frontage road and trotted down the stairs. A dense fog was rolling in, spreading a thick marine layer that blotted out the offshore islands, twenty-six miles away. The April air, mild to begin with, was changing its character. Erratic winds topped the waves, creating whitecaps in the chop. It was close to 3:00 by then, and I was already operating on sensory overload. I needed time to