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uncomfortable for two reasons. First, the delicate, Italian design, selected by his wife after perhaps one too many glasses of wine at lunch, was incompatible with his expansive, American frame. (He stood six feet five inches and weighed more than two hundred pounds, and while he used to boast it was two hundred pounds of pure muscle, that was three years and thirty pounds ago.) Second, despite the old building’s spanking new air-conditioning system, which kept the temperature of his office hovering around freezing, the leather somehow always managed to stick to his back. Every time he shifted position, the leather would rip away from his shirt like a Band-Aid, leaving creases in the once crisp, beige cotton. As a result, John always looked vaguely unkempt. His wife, Pauline, complained that people no doubt attributed his slovenly appearance to her poor ironing skills. “They’ll think I just lie in bed all day, drinking and watching TV,” she once whined, a lament that might have been funny had it not been perilously close to the truth. As far as John Weber could tell, lying in bed, drinking and watching TV, was exactly what his wife of nearly sixteen years did with her days.
    John stared out the long window that occupied the west wall of his office and wondered how long he could put off going home. Almost everybody else had already left. Only a skeletal staff remained, since nothing much ever happened in Torrance after dark, other than the occasional traffic accident or an impromptu outbreak of fisticuffs. It was almost six o’clock now, and if he stuck around another hour or so, there was a good chance that the frustrations of the day would be offset by a glorious sunset. And John loved the sunset. Not just because the spray of brilliant oranges, pinks, and yellows spattered across the turquoise blue of the sky was so achingly beautiful it made his heart sing, but because the whole process was so wondrously tidy. Having spent most of the last twenty years cleaning up other people’s messes, forty-five-year-old John Weber had developed a profound appreciation for all things neat.
    Of course, if he stayed in his office until after the sun had set, he’d have to contend with Pauline’s familiar rant that he was never home, that he was always working, and didn’t he want to be with her? Didn’t he want to spend time with their daughter?
    The answer to the first question was easy: no, he didn’t want to be with her. The answer to the second question was also no, although not so easy. Much as John Weber hated to admit it, he didn’t care much for either his wife or his only child. And while it was somewhat acceptable to dislike the woman you’d married because you were too inebriated and careless to appreciate the consequences of not wearing a condom, it was another matter entirely to dislike your own flesh and blood. Their daughter, Amber, named for the color of the wine they’d been drinking the night she was conceived, was now sixteen and already hovered close to six feet tall. She might have been a formidable presence had she not been so damn skinny, and not justnormal, everyday skinny, but bones-jutting-out-from-every-angle, so-skeletal-it-made-you-nervous-just-to-look-at-her skinny. As a result, he tried not to look at her. Lately, he avoided even glancing her way, doing so only when it was unavoidable, and then trying his best not to cringe, although one time he couldn’t help himself, and she’d caught the look of horror in his eyes and run crying from the room. That was months ago, and he still felt guilty.
    The whole thing was his fault after all.
    He’d been arguing with Pauline because she’d forgotten to call the plumber about the leak in the faucet of the bathroom sink, and the damn dripping was keeping him awake half the night, and she’d promised she’d do it first thing that morning, and of course she hadn’t, which meant he’d have to endure another night of Chinese water torture, and then