For several months after Wyatt's return the band struggled, and then they got lucky and one night the right person was in the audience and they were signed by a major label. Feeling hopeful, they renamed themselves Euphoria and gave their album the same name. They had an unusual pair of hits: one on college radio, and one on top 40. They opened as the lead act for another band, then followed up with another tour, as the headliners.

The second tour was a disaster from the start. They made money, but for the first time they fought with each other. When they finally got home, Wyatt thought everyone would calm down and they would be as they'd been before the tour: friends having fun. He wanted to write some new songs. It had been months since he'd had the time. He put five per cent down on a cheap house in Ocean Park, bought a refrigerator, bed, and desk, and settled in.

Dave and his new girlfriend dropped in to see Wyatt one day, changed into swimsuits, and walked down to the beach. Dave swam out to sea and vanished. This was the final straw for Gregg, who left for Europe without bothering to tell anyone. He sent Wyatt a postcard from London three weeks later:

"Having a great time. Glad you're not here."

Barry left next, saying he wasn't interested in a smaller band, or a band with different personnel. He moved to San Francisco. Then Brad quit and took a job as a computer programmer in Marina Del Rey. He said he was sick of living like a student; he was ready to join the real world. He wanted a new car, instead of a heap. He wanted a job where his ears didn't ring all the time, and where he wasn't constantly confronted with the temptations of drugs and easy sex with women who gave him diseases. He wanted to see more daylight, and to get out of bed at the same time every day. He continued to get together with Wyatt regularly, and even to jam with him, but he refused all chances to play on stage.

Wyatt was alone. He had a poster made of himself wearing half-a-dozen instruments, with the caption "one-man band". He hung it on his bedroom wall. In a cartoon balloon coming out of his mouth he lettered an admonition: "Anyone can handle failure, but few can handle success." He was determined to be one of the exceptions. He found work quickly as a studio musician, work that suited him because it allowed him plenty of time between studio appointments. He used the time to write songs and send them around. A few were picked up and recorded, and the royalties started to trickle in - and "trickle" was the word. Two of the albums his songs were covered on went platinum, but Wyatt made next to nothing on them. Some of his money came from touring with bands that needed a keyboard player, but that was only the gravy; the bread and butter was session work on other people's albums. He was in demand because he was versatile and showed up on time, was always prepared, and caused no trouble. He had finally become an adult, on his own, dependent on no one, but it didn't feel like a victory. Money was not a problem, although he had far less than he should, considering that he heard his music regularly on radio and even on the p.a. at the gym.

He spent his time in the interiors of recording studios, in rooms without windows, on band busses and airplanes, and in dressing rooms filled with tobacco and marijuana smoke. He became claustrophobic, and touring grew increasingly difficult; he craved space and feared crowds. When he was home, he lived on the back deck as much as he could, sitting at the picnic table, writing lyrics and trying out tunes on a portable keyboard. In the evening, especially during the colder months, he went to the beach - it was only three blocks from his house - and wrote, or read, or watched the waves. He took up running. Every year he did one marathon, to prove he could. He took up weightlifting. And finally, he took up backpacking, which he enjoyed more than the running or weights. Every chance he had, he went to the Sierras.

Several years after the breakup of the band, he took a month off and backpacked much of the Pacific Crest, starting north of Yosemite and heading south. He had time to think. Although he was well-known in the industry, most of the public had never heard of him. He had no commitments. His goal had always been popular success. It was time to get serious. He turned down all engagements for six months and spent the first third of the time alone in his house writing the lyrics and music for a solo album. He spent the next four months in the studio, recording and producing it. The album was a big, though not huge, success. It earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album. It would go golden after five years of steady but unspectacular sales. To capitalize on the album and make some money, he did two tours. After the second one, he had enough to pay off the house and live for six months, and he repeated what he'd done with his first album - refused all engagements while he wrote and cut another solo album. This one sank like a stone; he would say later that he'd had to pay people to listen to it. He decided to be content as a hired man, and stuck to studio work and touring with bands that needed his talents.

He stayed in Los Angeles a decade, laboring anonymously in the music business. Along the way he acquired a live-in girlfriend, an actress who called herself Angela Torres. She was half Japanese and half Indian, had grown up in Honolulu, and had moved to L.A. the day after graduating from high school. Wyatt met her a few years later when they worked on a music video together; she was one of the dancers. Most of her work was that sort of short-term assignment: music videos, magazine ads, television commercials, bit parts in movies, and the lead in a slasher/horror flick. She had been stalked by the man who founded her fan club.

Her real name was Indira Shimomura, a name she hated and described as "schizophrenic". She was in her mid-twenties, at the peak of her beauty, stunning in a way that is more common in L.A. than anywhere else. Her skin was smoky and her lips were full, like her mother's, and like her father she had the Mongolian fold at the corner of her eyes, and that certain glossy texture of black hair unique to Japanese and Chinese. She had an athletic body, flawless skin, and D-cup breasts. Her face was full and round.

Wyatt liked how she looked, but in a detached way; he didn't need her. Mostly, she was convenient, and he thought she probably felt the same about him. Sometimes he thought she stayed with him because he was the only man she knew who was straight but didn't fawn on her. He liked her; she was pleasant and she didn't talk much. She made few demands, she didn't bicker, and the sex was fairly good, though not as frequent as he would have liked. He even grew to like her dogs, although they were too big for the house and were hard on the furniture and carpets. But eventually he realized that she bored him.

They were getting ready for bed one evening and Wyatt was reading an old Life magazine from the 50s - he had a large collection of them - while he waited for Angela. She was sitting at the dressing table, which had a half-length mirror in the center. She had an unfailing evening ritual of brushing her hair before going to bed, brushing while nude and admiring her reflection. She was staring critically in the mirror. She had found a flaw. Wyatt knew that it would bother her until she found a way to minimize or ignore it. She had to dwell on the flaw first. Her narcissism was annoying.

"Are you coming to bed?" he asked.

"In a while."

She went in the bathroom and turned on the shower. He wondered whether she was using the sound of the water to cover the sound of her vibrator. He knew she did this occasionally, and he was also sure she didn't know he knew. He had watched once, through the keyhole, as she'd had ten or twelve orgasms in a row, more than a man could have given her. He didn't mind. He just wished she didn't use it so much as a substitute for him. He wanted sex more often than she did.

He doubted that she was using the vibrator. More likely, given the blue mood she seemed to be in, she would just stand under the water as long as it ran warm. She consoled herself this way when she was unhappy. He sighed and turned out the reading light. Time for another backpacking trip.

Two days later he drove up to Desolation Wilderness. It was late in the season and his was the only car at the trailhead. His radio was broken, and he hadn't checked the weather report before he'd left. This was a mistake for which he would pay. He ended up wandering around in a whiteout for hours when he lost the trail. Then he slid down watery slabs and out into the air and landed on his back. The new, frameless pack absorbed most of the shock, but it was destroyed by the impact. He was in terrible pain. He lowered his arms and let the torn pack drop to the ground. He rotated his shoulders and his neck and head and arms, and lifted his legs. He felt everywhere he could reach. He leaned forward and back. Nothing seemed broken, although he couldn't be sure. He took a few careful steps, then sat down and said a prayer of thanks to the God in Whom he had never believed. He filled his pockets with what he could carry and set off, limping on an ankle he feared was broken, but which he was afraid to look at - if it swelled, he might not get it back in his boot.

He spent an uncomfortable night in a boulder field, unable to sleep, nodding off and waking immediately. Occasionally he turned on the headlamp and looked at his watch. Time moved with infinite slowness. He had been there for weeks by the time midnight arrived, and then time slowed even further. He began to shiver uncontrollably. The sound of the running water had stopped. The little brook had frozen.

Finally, above the rim of the mountains, the rim only a suggestion of a line between two different intensities of darkness, there seemed to be a lightening. It was there, and then it wasn't. Little lights danced in his eyes, from staring. Then the light seemed to be there again, and after a time he saw the outline of the peaks, and a faint coppery glow. It brightened imperceptibly. The sun. The blessed sun. The light deepened and grew, more slowly than he had ever thought anything could. Shapes began to appear around him, dim, faint, but recognizable as trees and rocks. There was a small round bulge of light, which grew above the horizontal line, and then the sun had finally come. He rose, his body complaining like an old man's, and began to walk again.

He wandered all day, never finding a trail, scrambling up watery slabs, crossing bare rock, sliding down scree slopes. Toward evening he climbed a small peak, hoping to orient himself. A lake, not the one he had planned to camp at, was below him. A small stream spilled from it. On the far side of the stream from him was pitched a single tent. He yelled as loud as he could. There was no response.

He could not find a way down the mountain on the side between him and the lake and gave up and turned back the way he'd come. Halfway down he contoured the peak. He crossed a saddle. Now he was on the same side as the lake. By the time he had descended evening had gathered. He rounded a corner and once again saw the tent, but now there was a fire in front of it, and a couple staring into the flames and holding out their hands.

The next morning they packed and started out, walking slowly to favor his ankle. That evening they camped again, and talked. He watched them around the fire. He watched them around the camp stove. They kept trading tasks, wordlessly. The man would point at the handle and hand the woman the potholder so she wouldn't burn her hands. She would hand him things as he worked around the camp, before he had asked for them. They seemed to be able to talk without words. They were unhurried, patient with what they were doing and with each other and with Wyatt.

The man worked for the EPA as an environmental scientist. The woman taught fifth grade. Everything they did showed Wyatt that they were happy with each other, that they had been together long enough to understand each other without any need for explanation. They had been married for thirty years. There was helpfulness and candor in everything they did and said. They reminded him of Ada.

The couple drove forty miles out of their way, one way, to take him back to his car, which was at a different trailhead from theirs. They refused the money he offered them. They refused when he tried to buy them dinner. Finally, because they lived in Los Angeles, they accepted an invitation to his house the following weekend.

They arrived dressed like twins, the man in plain blue pants and plain blue shirt, only needing his name embroidered above the breast pocket to go right to work as a mechanic. The woman was wearing a plain blue dress that almost matched the color of her husband's clothes. It reached below her knees. Her shoes were black walkers, the practical kind that waitresses and nurses and women who spend the day on their feet often buy. Her husband's shoes were the same, but heavier. Angela wored a long dress that showed off her skin and breasts. Wyatt was in a Hawaiian shirt, white slacks and sandals. When had he become like this, he wondered. There had been a time when he dressed as plainly as these people did. But the other couple didn't seem to notice the difference in clothing, and the dinner went well, although they startled Angela by refusing the wine, a Lafite-Rothschild, no less.

When she was getting ready for bed Angela remarked, "Those people were really strange".

"They seemed normal to me."

"They're so plain," she said. "No style. Ordinary. Like they were trying to be - I don't know."

"Inconspicuous?"

"I guess. Don't they want to be noticed?"

"Why would they?"

She looked at him as if he had spoken a language she didn't understand. That was when he made up his mind. He took his time, but only to figure out the best way to make the break with her. He considered telling Angela about all the women he'd had sex with on tour because it would be effective - she was jealous, and afraid of sexually transmitted diseases, and prudish - but he didn't want an embarrassing scene. He took the direct approach.

"I want to break up."

They were at a new restaurant, an expensive, trendy one she'd been mentioning for months, having dessert and coffee after their dinner. He'd chosen the place and time in the hope that she wouldn't make a scene.

Tears poured down her face. She picked up her purse and rose from the table. "I'll be in the car." Her voice was calm.

He watched her leave. She was trying to look as if nothing were wrong. Her dancer's walk was as graceful and her posture as perfect as always. She was extraordinary, and knew she was, and even feeling broken knew how to maintain the beautiful pose. For the first time, he felt admiration. She had courage.

The drive home was silent. When Wyatt opened the door to the house she threw herself on the sofa and curled up into a ball, sobbing. Finally he gave up trying to get a response, and went to bed.

She shook him awake in the middle of the night. "Why? You said I was beautiful, so what is it? Is the sex bad? Are you bored? Do you want me to get rid of the dogs? Do you want me to read books so I can talk about the stuff you like? Are my tits too small? I'll get the operation so they're bigger. Are you screwing someone else?"

He closed his eyes. The light was hurting them. "No. I just don't want to live here any more. I don't like this town. I don't like the lifestyle. I don't like the people. I don't like the Ferraris, or the car alarms. I don't like the clothes, or the houses, or the freeways. I don't even like the air."

"You - don't - like - L.A.?"

"No. I only live here because of the music business. I've got enough money and I don't have to stay here any more. I can fly in for recording sessions. I'm going back to Kansas."

"Kansas?" she shrieked.

"Yeah. The place with more farm animals than people. Want to come?"

"Are you fucking insane? What about my career?"

He was glad she hadn't surprised him and agreed to move, or he'd have had to find a different way to cut her loose. She pleaded for him to stay. She looked for compromises. The conversation went on until the middle of the day. It was tiring, but not difficult. She had a small advantage because she was clothed and he was lying in bed, but he was much smarter, and better at arguing, and more experienced. And he understood her better than she did him. In this game he was always a move or two ahead. Even when she screamed and cried and begged, he knew how to handle her. (He checked the clock on the bedside table, timing the progress of the talks.) The most difficult part was at the end. She lay next to him, and in a small voice, a little-girl voice, asked him to hold her. He knew what was coming, but he made the mistake anyway and had sex with her. She wept all through it, and watched his face the entire time, though he only looked occasionally at hers. Each time he looked, her eyes were leaking tears. She had to keep wiping them off, to keep them out of her ears. At least she wasn't on top; he couldn't have handled all the tears dropping on him.

She didn't come, although he made the sex last a long time. His weakness was that he couldn't refuse her anything when she was in pain. There is a moment when the situation finally turns, a moment to be detached, sympathetic but indifferent, patient but clearly waiting for it to be over. Otherwise, the woman wins, or thinks she has won, and it will be necessary to go through the entire thing again. Wyatt knew this, but he couldn't be calculating enough, so a breakup that should have taken two weeks took two months instead.

After he'd found a buyer for his house and signed the papers, the week before he had to be out, he rented one side of a nearby duplex for Angela. She liked the neighborhood - it was one of the things they had in common - and he was glad he'd managed to find her something nearby. He paid her first and last month's rent and moved her with a U-Haul. She had enough money to pay for it all herself, but he wanted to do something for her before he left. Besides, he felt guilty, as if he'd been using her, though the truth was probably more like her using him. Who could tell, anyway? The balance sheet always grew too complicated with time. There was no way to keep track, no simple bottom line for all the give and take, the big things they'd done and shared and said, or even the million little everyday events, most of them now forgotten. It wasn't a matter of plusses and minuses, and who ended up in the red or the black. After a while, there had been Wyatt, and Angela, and a third being who lacked a name, but lived with them and in them, and was no more visible or apparent than their illusions. Now that third existence was coming to an end. He saw that for her the third person had been love, for him it had been convenience, and that if he'd ended the relationship earlier he would have saved her some pain.

Except for clothes, she didn't own much. He gave her his desk and easy chair and a floor lamp and the bed and the kitchen utensils so she'd be comfortable. She tried to refuse them, but he was determined to give them to her anyway. Brad helped Wyatt load the heavy things at his house and then excused himself from coming along. He thought a scene with Angela was in the making, and he didn't want to see it. They shook hands in the driveway and said goodbye, then looked at each other, both of them knowing without saying that this was the end of a fourteen-year friendship. They might get together occasionally when Wyatt came out on business, or they might not. They'd been drifting apart in recent years. Brad had married and was father to a young son, and he was working long hours since he'd moved into management. His life didn't match up with Wyatt's now.

Wyatt parked the truck in Angela's driveway and refused to move it until she accepted everything. She helped him carry it all inside. When they were done, and all the furniture was where she wanted it, he walked to the door.

"You're really serious, aren't you," she said. "You're going back to Kansas."

"Sure. I have to. I took their money and signed the papers. Did you think I was doing it just to get rid of you?"

"Yes."

Well, there was some truth to that. At least it had been a convenient excuse.

"Wyatt, you were really special. I don't know how to say this. You treated me like a person. All the other guys, all they wanted was to fuck me and brag to their friends about it, or drag me around like some..." She gestured dismissively.

"Ornament?"

"Yeah. An ornament."

"Is that why you stayed with me?"

"Yeah, at first. Later it was more like, like, you know." She waited, but he didn't reply. "You know? I love you, Wyatt. I just never said so. I thought you didn't want to talk about it. I thought you loved me, too." She waited again. "So, like, if you change your mind, even if you decide you made a mistake and want to come back here, there's room for you. Any time."

"Thank you." He was touched. "I will. I'll stay here when I'm in town, then?"

"The spare room's yours, or you can sleep with me. Either way. I'm sorry I wasn't a better girlfriend."

"You were a great girlfriend. This isn't your fault. I've never learned to settle for what I have. Mostly I just want to go home. Lawrence is still home. That thing that happened in the mountains was a wake-up call. I want to go back where I belong, where I'm comfortable."

"I'll miss you, Wyatt. I didn't know how much I need you. I just went along and never thought about it. You were good to me. Good for me. I know we didn't talk - "

"Stop. It's easier not to talk. We're good at that."

"Will you visit? Did you mean it, when you said you'd visit? You weren't just being nice?"

"No. I meant it. I'll visit."

"Thanks. Send me your phone number. I'll need to hear your voice. This is going to leave a big hole. I mean, think about it. I started living with you when I was twenty. I wasn't even an adult. You're the only man - "

"You won't have any trouble finding a boyfriend," he interrupted. "You're beautiful. Any guy would jump at the chance to be with you."

"No. See, it's, they don't want me. I'm not smart, I'm not that talented, I'm not very interesting. But I look good. That's what I've got. That's what they want, the looking good. They want to fuck Angela Torres, but then they wake up with Indira Shimomura and they can't get out of the apartment fast enough. Sometimes they don't even stay till morning. Besides, they won't play with the dogs, the way you do. They won't wait for me while I shop, the way you do. They won't listen, the way you do. That's why I chose you."

"Well, then." He cleared his throat.

"Yes?"

"Goodbye."