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I thought about it, the more I was realizing that almost everybody was. Like Erica, Paul didn’t look far beyond his own pale, and he also had other issues that figured in. He was deeply insecure; it seemed to be in his nature, and it was compounded by a feverish yearning to be a player in the world of L.A. finance and glitz. He was the only one of us kids who’d gravitated toward business. He’d gotten an MBA from Cal Irvine, and since our father’s death he’d started managing the family finances. But he didn’t quite have whatever it took for the big time, and he never got past the second string. To cover for that, he’d developed a blustery, can’t-be-bothered air, always trying to act like he knew exactly what he was doing. But in reality, even small crises threw him and his facade crumbled, which he feared almost pathologically. This situation was a threat in all ways, so he was avoiding it.
    I’d long since decided that, what with my three siblings’ and my own unadmirable traits—the self-righteous judgments I made about them, for openers—we qualified as a dysfunctional family. But then, I wasn’t convinced that there was really any other kind.
    â€œIf you get hold of him, tell him to call me, will you?” I said. “I was supposed to go up there and meet him this afternoon, but I’ll have to bail.”
    â€œIs this about those movie people?”
    I nodded.
    The family property we called the Lodge—a pristine chunk of near wilderness in the mountains northwest of L.A.—was special to me, the only one of our holdings that I took a strong personal interest in. As a kid I’d spent as much time there as I could maneuver. After Dad’s death there’d been some reshuffling of assets, with Paul wanting the Malibu place to build a glossy new house there. I’d much rather have put the land or the proceeds from its sale to some kind of public use. But he was hell-bent, and eventually we’d come up with a compromise I could live with. I would claim the Lodge as a trade-off, then donate that property to a federal or state agency. Paul wasn’t any happier about that than I was about his Malibu plans, but I could be stubborn, too. From the time I was young, I’d realized that a surprising number of people had surprisingly firm ideas about who I should be and what I should do—family, teachers, coaches, girlfriends. I’d become quite adept at disappointing them.
    Around that same time, Paul had gotten an offer from a film company—an outfit called Parallax Productions—to lease the Lodge as a set. I’d agreed reluctantly, partly to pacify him and boost his ego with a rare business coup, partly because I’d been swamped by our father’s passing, the new worries that brought about for Mom, and a few stresses of my own, including breaking up with my girlfriend, moving out of our apartment as a result, and trying to meet the demands of a comparatively new job—in other words, life. It was also true that the Lodge was essentially lying fallow these days, with nobody living there, me being able to visit for only an occasional weekend, and the rest of the family not interested.
    A couple of weeks ago, Paul had informed me the set construction was mostly complete and filming about to start; that would take another couple of months. But there was a new wrinkle—Parallax wanted to extend the lease beyond that. Of course Paul had urged me to agree, but I was torn. I didn’t want to kick him in the teeth, but I half regretted signing on to the deal in the first place, and I was anxious to get the whole thing out of my hair. I’d come up with another compromise. I hadn’t had a chance to get up there since they’d moved in; I’d go look the place over, see how they were treating it and get a general sense of their operation, and make my decision based on that. Paul then invited me to a