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He’d go off to Stanford with a whole new understanding of the clitoris. She’d actually be doing him a service. And the women of Stanford. Yet she’d have to live with the fact that she’d defiled a teenager, and that was just too sad to comprehend. As demented as she was, she had a conscience.
    Nancy waved her over at lunch from a picnic table outside, but Zadie kept walking and got into her car, on a mission. She drove down Ventura and pulled over in front of the Sportsman’s Lodge, parking near the entrance. She’d read in Soap Opera Digest that Days of Our Lives was having a fan club luncheon there. She wasn’t going in. Christ, she wasn’t that pathetic. She just wanted to see him walk by. Just to make sure she wasn’t upset anymore. She shouldn’t even be reading Soap Opera Digest , but her subscription was endless. It just kept showing up. She happened to
notice the mention of “Eat Quiche with the Men of Days! ” on the cover. It’s not like she was here to stalk him. She just wanted proof that he was a cheesebag who now wore leather pants.
    The day that Zadie realized she was in love with Jack, it had been pouring rain. El Nino rain, which somehow seemed wetter than normal rain. Jack was lying on his stomach in the mud, changing her tire on the side of Laurel Canyon. Cars were whizzing by, water was rushing down the hill in a stream that was about ten minutes away from being a flash flood, and Zadie was warm and dry inside the car while Jack spun her lug nuts off. Most guys would’ve called Triple A. At least, most L.A. guys. Most guys would’ve yelled at her for hitting the curb and slicing the tire open on the edge of a grate. Jack simply said, “Stay here, I got it,” and got out to change the tire. The fact that he’d been capable was a plus. The fact that he’d been willing was a four-star bonus. Zadie was overcome with such a huge rush of love for him in that moment that she rolled the window down and stuck her head out in the rain to tell him. He got up on his knees, kissed her, and told her that he loved her too. They’d been dating for two months at the time.
    Zadie checked her watch. She’d been waiting for thirty minutes. If she didn’t leave soon, she was going to miss eighth period. Right as she turned on the ignition, she saw a Porsche pull up. Jack got out and sauntered into the restaurant, waving at the screaming housewives who clamored up behind him.
    He had sunglasses on.
    It was cloudy.
    There was no conceivable glare that he needed to shade his eyes from.
    Zadie started her car and drove away. She felt nothing. Except overwhelming nausea and a blinding stab of rage.
    Once she was back out on Ventura, she saw a drunken homeless man sitting under the awning of a doughnut shop, holding out a cup. She pulled over and stopped, rolling down her window.
    “Hey. I’ve got a job for you.”
    The homeless man looked up, not sure if he was excited or dismayed at the prospect. “What is it?”
    Zadie pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to him. “See that parking lot over there? There’s a silver Porsche Boxster in the last row. I want you to piss on it.”
    “You want me to piss on a car?”
    “Make sure you get the door handle on the driver’s side.”
    “Whose car is it?”
    “Osama bin Laden’s.”
    “No shit? We should call somebody.”
    Damn. A responsible drunk. “It’s my ex-fiancé’s.”
    “Was he mean to you?”
    “He made me cry for a very, very long time.”
    The homeless guy frowned, then nodded. “I’m your man.” He pocketed the twenty and unzipped his pants as he walked toward the Sportsman’s Lodge.
    Zadie drove off, trusting him to do his job well.

six
    When Grey picked her up to go surfing on Saturday, she was in the midst of trying to deodorize her wet suit. She’d left it in the trunk of her car after the last time they’d gone and it had been cooking in there for the past month. It now smelled like something a bulimic would sniff