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small porch only stood and stared at the quiet street. Her chest, shoulders and hair were just a shape above the ragged juniper bushes until she listed to one side and twirled slowly into the porch light. When she stretched her arms above her head, I was able to make out a loose tank top over her snug t-shirt, one breast in the shirt bulging from the tank. Though covered, the breast gave the impression of an accidental spill that had yet to be noticed by its owner. It was a purposeful wardrobe malfunction, designed to attract attention. This was very Los Angeles, like the whale tail thong that ‘accidentally’ rides above the waist of the pants.
     
    She bent over and raised a bottle of wine, pulling a respectable measure down and wiping her lips with her forearm. She hiccuped in silence and looked down as if just now realizing it had come to this. I could not see her hands. With the slightest quiver of her arm, the wine bottle shot into view, arcing high over the porch railing and into the polluted pink sky before falling back to earth where it disappeared into the juniper bushes. A damn good-looking broad, littering like it was the seventies.
     
    Oh baby , feeling my buzz, I just fell right the fuck in love with you.
     
    Her need came at me in a warm pulse. Somehow I knew she was alone and not thrilled to be here. Someone had driven her from her last home and this was the last stop before things went from bad to beyond redemption. I imagined a boyfriend with four motorcycles and a fierce left jab.
     
    She turned, facing me across the expanse of grass and driveway between us. I waved my beer can at her halfheartedly. ‘Hello,’ I said too quietly for her to hear. My porch light was not turned on, so I guessed she had no way to know I was smiling.
     
    She slumped and turned away. Her screen door creaked and slammed itself home for the night.
     
    Nice roll, Hastings. Another gutter ball.
     
    Inside I flicked on every light as I floated through the main floor: dining room, living room, gallery, sun room, laundry, both first-floor bathrooms and kitchen. Light was good, light was essential. The house was too large to live in alone, and the downstairs had become my domain. The bathroom had a shower, I kept a basket of clothes in the laundry room, and the living room lived up to its name spectacularly. I made my bed on the couch and dozed off.
     

     
    The home phone trilled, startling me awake. I don’t answer the phone most days, but I arose with the hope it might be Lucy Arnold calling to chat about the arrival of our new neighbor. I was hoping to draw out some gossip on the son from Barstow, why he had cleaned the house out so quickly, and who this new tenant might be. I marched over and stared at the cordless cradle on the end table. The time was 1.28 a.m. and the small gray screen read CALLER UNKNOWN. On the fifth ring I picked up.
     
    ‘Hello.’
     
    The connection was there, but no one spoke. I thought it might be one of those automated bank reminders that dials through a database of customers and patches a service representative through only after the machine has recognized a voice. Were the computers calling in the middle of the night now?
     
    ‘Hello?’ I repeated.
     
    Normally I would have clicked off after three or four seconds, but something told me to wait. I sensed a person there, listening, huddled in a darkened room.
     
    ‘Can I help you?’
     
    ‘I want her back,’ a man said. The voice was as thin and lifeless as any I had heard, the voice of a disgraced violin tutor after three glasses of Chardonnay.
     
    ‘Who is this?’
     
    ‘I want her back.’
     
    ‘Who?’ I said. ‘Who’s calling?’
     
    ‘I want her baaa- aaack .’ The voice cracked, on the verge of tears. ‘Please bring her back to me, please. I’ll do anything you want.’
     
    One of Lucy’s cast-off suitors? The rejected masher or some other nut job who’d been stalking her? Had some psychotic lover seen us