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tropical fish and walking like an Egyptian. What The Bangles had to do with aquatic life was never explained.
    No doubt, Rocky would later reflect, it was the worst excuse ever made up by an overly creative type.
    The other one who asked her out was Nicholas Grimes, a science whiz who looked like it, and who needed arm candy for the prom. Rocky was a junior and Grimes a senior and apparently the pool of senior fishettes had run dry.
    After Nicholas got turned down by three other juniors, or so Rocky was told later, he landed on her.
    At first her father refused to pay for a new dress, but he finally relented under her brother Arty’s single-minded campaign on her behalf. Their mother had died eight years earlier, and Arty did his best to offer Rocky the advice their mother might have given her about what a guy liked. It basically boiled down to, Be yourself and don’t worry.
    She worried. And then got angry when Nicholas spent the first half of the prom with his science buddies talking about the relative merits of the Apple Macintosh versus the IBM Peanut.
    No dancing.
    When they finally got around to it, the dancing was ludicrous. Nicholas Grimes knew calculators. He did not know choreography. Rocky enjoyed dancing. But the more she got into it, the more Nicholas seemed to distance himself.
    Nicholas asked Rocky if she could find a ride home. There was something going on at one of the other guys’ house, and he had to go with them right away. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “I had fun.”
    So much for romantic high school memories.
    After that, she could count her boyfriends on the fingers of one hand. None lasted more than a few months.
    Except Boyd. Coming after a gap of three years, he lasted longer because she thought he was her last, best hope.
    Kind of wrong about that , weren’t you , girl? Rocky unlocked the apartment door. She closed the door and waited for Boyd to respond to the sound.
    No response.
    Where was he?
    She listened but heard nothing. Not even the sound of his heavy breathing.
    Maybe Boyd had decided to avoid a scene and taken off. Good. That was probably the best thing all around.
    Her things. Now was the time. Pack again and get out. Before he came back and they had to go through a whole ordeal.
    She went to the bedroom, looked on the bed. Her stuff wasn’t there. No clothes, no suitcase.
    She looked around.
    Nothing around the room.
    She looked through the dresser drawers.
    All her stuff was gone.
    He’d taken everything.
    Just to be sure, she searched the apartment. Maybe he’d packed and put the suitcase somewhere inside. But it wasn’t there.
    Maybe he put it by her car, which was parked in the back.
    She took the stairs and went out the back of the complex, out to where her parking space was.
    The back window of her car was smashed. Her ancient Volvo, which she named Sputtering Sue, was now as scarred as her owner.
    Rocky caught a whiff of smoke. Not like someone barbecuing on their balcony. More like someone burning leaves.
    Though here in the Los Feliz district, burning leaves was illegal.
    She saw smoke coming from around the corner, where the Dumpsters were. Something told her there was a connection.
    When she got there, another tenant, an old woman whose name Rocky didn’t know, was rattling her walker.
    “Who did this?” the old woman shouted. Her voice was like a nail scraping the Dumpster’s shell.
    Rocky didn’t answer. She looked inside, saw the last bits of flame dying down, the charred remains of clothes, the unmistakable remnant of her suitcase.
    “You know who did this, don’t you?” the old woman said. “Let me tell you, there’s going to be hell to pay. I won’t stand for it. Hell to pay!”

    As she emptied the saddlebag, a state of calm came over Liz. It surprised and pleased her. It was like something she’d once heard about, a Zen moment. In the midst of the most horrendous trouble, people were able to stay focused and peaceful.
    In control.
    It was