The Gaze of the Abyss

By Dorian Taylor

The first half of the book was published separately as
"Volitile Elements" it was reviewed by a reader on Amazon like this:
"I thought Top Forty was one of the most imaginative pieces of literature I had read in years so I naturally gobbled this one up. The Taylor of Top Forty was extremely innovative, all but putting his novel in a brand new category of fiction. In Volatile Elements he is purposefully derivative to the point of satire.
He creates a sort of landed aristocracy on California's Central coast and proceeds with the formulas and clichés of Regency romance, with graphic sex scenes. Along the way he skewers hi-tech, science, art, literature and anything else that comes up. One heroine, for example, grabs hi-tech by the balls, literally. When the Regency formula calls for duel or a sword fight, he substitutes a fetishy catfight.
All and all a nasty bit of satire peppered with allusions from page one's "A Letter from Sherry" to the last page's Dante Gabriel Rossetti. And to top it off, he explains himself. " And if you're going to write sex, about the only interesting thing you can include is the fact that 'she' had an orgasm. Hell, if the guy doesn't he goes to a doctor to figure out what's wrong with him."
As to the erotica, it isn't really all that hot. George Jean Nathan defined pornography as whatever gives an aged magistrate an erection. Taylor seems to get too much romance into most of it; it really doesn't get down and dirty. I'm an aged guy and I'm reviewing the book, and frankly, it ain't porno, which is strange because it is described as "Georgette Heyer meets the Marquis De Sade." His technique here is very De Sade type satire, but De Sade was pornographic, and that is the one literary talent Taylor doesn't seem to have.
Aside from the fact it could have been more porno, because what he is satirizing might have benefited, this is a real delight. More a literary novel with sex in it than stand up erotica, but not for the kiddies. It takes a fairly well read person to even catch on to what's going on. Loved it.

The second half, "Steady States" continues in the same vein through over fifty years of a steadily growing and increasingly powerful family in modern America. It is written to push the envelope a bit on literature and society viewing the modern world through an eighteenth century lens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sangraal Inc.
• Release date: Mar 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458199515

Dorian Taylor

The box came via the Post Office on a Thursday morning. The return address carried no name just a P. O. Box in Ventura California. It contained a sealed envelope and a dozen big ringed binders filled with neat handwriting. The envelope was addressed to me and marked "Personal and Confidential." It contained the following: Dear Rick, I suppose this is a surprise to you, but, for the life (or now death) of me, I couldn't find anyone else in the world to take it. You are the only person who ever paid me to write anything, my only editor or publisher. I suppose that you can throw it out, I know how hard it is to publish things. However, I had the idea that you might one day revive The Blue Review and, since for almost four years I was a contributor, I would hate not to be a part of that. The binders contain the miscellaneous writings of Dorian Taylor, the name by which you knew me. It is quite an improbable name and actually the name of the hero of the novel Top Forty, which you will find in the third binder. I am not going to give you my real name, because I have always rather despised it and, if by some miracle my writings find their way into the public eye, I would prefer they be under the pseudonym I created for that purpose. In Yard Sale, the novella in the first binder, I wrote the following: "All human endeavor resolves itself into group activity. The artist who paints alone in a garret cannot exist alone. In order to secure what he needs to paint, canvas, brushes and the like, he has to know a merchant who sells these things. Having painted, he must then sell his painting. In order to do this, he needs to know gallery owners. So it is with all things within society. It is never enough to be good, or even great. One must be both able and willing to join a group in order to enter society. Van Gogh, arguably the greatest painter of all time, at least the most expensive, was never able to do this. It was left, therefore, to a group of people to discover his paintings, and sell them, after the impediment of his physical presence was removed from the scene. Because Vincent did not cultivate the acquaintance of gallery owners, he painted beneath the glass floor. He could clearly see other painters of lesser talent and greater social skills, exhibit and sell paintings. He saw, but did not understand. Painting is incidental to success in painting. The social skills required to convince gallery owners to display and sell paintings are the prerequisite. The curious feature of this is that the best artists are often anti-social. This leaves any thoughtful person to imagine that the best of art goes out with the rest of the trash just before the estate sale. More than likely, this is the case." Since I have always been a bit unconventional I decided to change this formula a bit and send my artistic production to the only person who ever seemed to like it. You are, of course, invested with all it's rights etc. The only favors I would ask is that you dedicate any book to Valerie, with the poem I have included as the first page in the first binder, and that you credit my writing to Dorian Taylor. From 1997 to 2001, I edited a literary ezine called The Blue Review and Dorian Taylor had been one of my most popular contributors. I hadn't heard from him (or her) since I stopped publishing the ezine and I honestly know nothing about him (or her). The box was a total surprise, and a wonderful one. Whoever Dorian Taylor is, or possibly was as the letter seemed to indicate that he (or she) is no longer with us, he (or she) was a very inventive, interesting and enjoyable writer.

Book preview

Part One - Cambrium

Chapter One

Most everyone considered him both very lucky and extremely unlucky. He was wealthy. How he got that way, however, was the reason everyone felt sorry for him.

A broken radiator hose had saved him and condemned him. It had been Christmas Eve, just past Desert Center California when his radiator hose stranded him in the California desert for almost ten hours. By the time he reached the party in Altadena, his family was gone, his parents, brother, sister, aunts, uncles and cousins. He pulled up before the last fire engine left. Thirty-six people's ashes lay in the skeleton of his great uncle's house. In one afternoon he became the last member of a family that began in Alsace-Lorraine when a Prussian Captain fell in love with the daughter of a mayor in an occupied town, and the continent of Europe became too hot to hold them.

He was the only heir to a Chevrolet dealership (he hated Chevys), two large farms in Salinas (where there was a road named after one of his ancestors), a bottled spring water company, a custom car shop, a grapefruit orchard, two apartment houses, twelve houses scattered from Laguna Beach to San Jose, and three vineyards on the Central coast. It took a month to explain it to him, and six for the probate court to sort it out and transfer it to a trustee. Meanwhile he lived in his grandparent's house in Glendale, was judged too young for the drunk he desperately needed and kicked a hole in the wall.

The University of New Mexico understood that he wouldn't be in class for a while. The draft board understood. He wanted to buy a gun and blow the head off the next sonofabitch who understood.

In November, he had gotten the letter, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Sherri decided she needed to be free, starting college, and even though they were involved, we where just so young to be tied down. A month later, everyone in the world was gone, and he was rich. So he decided that he had better learn to get along without people. They always disappeared, and left you alone.

He sorted it out over a year, at ridiculous rates charged by the L. A. lawyer the court appointed to be his guardian. By his twentieth birthday, the beginning of the next December, he shed all but the vineyards, a beach house in Cambria, all of which had been owned by his great uncle Fred, and his parent's four-plex in San Jose. The rest were sold and invested in a trust fund carefully packed with blue chip stocks so that the composition could never come back on the trustee.

He started Cal Poly before he fully settled his estate, in September. He transferred his credits from Albuquerque and most moved. Two of his vineyards centered on Paso Robles one to the east, the other north. The last one was south of Santa Maria. The eastern Paso Robles vineyard and the one in Santa Maria sold their crops to a consortium that bottled them as jug wine under the trademark Union. Primarily Pinot Noir and Grenache varietals that yielded jugs of Burgundy after a first growth that was bottled as California Macon-Rouge. The third and smallest vineyard had it's own winery and had won a couple awards for it's Sangiovese. While Tuscan wines from California hadn't caught on, it commanded a good price for it's 5,000 case production. Just a hill removed from the beach, it replicated Tuscany almost perfectly, fog tempering the sunlight that ruined Sangiovese in most of the Golden state. It had a five-bedroom house where he took up residence. The proximity to the agricultural college at San Luis Obispo, allowed him the opportunity to learn his sudden profession.

His rebellion was to buy a Ford Ranchero and a Ford Bronco with part of the proceeds from the sale of the Chevrolet agency. His property ran over the hill and down to the beach. From the crest of the hill down it was leased to SamMar, the largest cattle ranch in the area. The Bronco allowed him to drive directly over the hill to his beach house, changing a twenty-five mile drive through Atascadero to a few miles. His great uncle had tried to make the coastal side into a vineyard from 1922, producing wine bricks, through a bad jug wine in the fifties, when he finally gave up and leased the land to Sam and Marie Brooks for cattle.

Sam and Marie gave him space, but nonetheless managed to become a species of surrogate parents. It was Sam who convinced him to enroll at Cal Poly, and Marie who convinced him that a horse was the best way to tend his vineyard.

Marie bred quarter horses, most of them stock horses for use on the ranch, but she dabbled in the racing and show horses. His was a black hunter, at sixteen hands a bit larger than the stock horses, and missing any white either as a blaze or on the fetlocks. Marie taught him to ride and jump. He named the horse Alphonse, after the eldest of the three brothers who established Chateau Lafite.

Three years into his vintage Sam came up with a plan to subdivide his six acres along the shore into twelve parcels. Over another year his solitary beach house became part of the summer weekends of the movers and shakers of the north county. Twelve farmers, ranchers, the owners of the orchards, avocado groves north of San Luis, spent summer weekends on the beach, shared their respective bounties and caught seafood for a collective barbeque Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

He'd surfed and dived as a teenager and took them up again. His trust fund grew as he dedicated himself to the wine and the vineyard. He filled his four-plex in San Jose with young engineers he met at Cal Poly. The orchards he grew up in were now producing silicon fruit. High Tech or prunes, the Santa Clara Valley moved the world. He kept an apartment and invested in the engineers. Of the six companies he gave start-up capital to, three would make him among the richest men in the world by the close of the century. And the real reason he kept going back to the valley was that the chance existed he'd see Sherri again. In 2000, a major financial magazine called him the canniest investor over the past half century. Yet he was only looking for a lost love and a quarter million here and there gave him the excuse.

He was a drunk. Quietly night after night he drank until he passed out. It was a rare morning he wasn't hung over. He took five years to get a bachelor's, and that was with a year head start. He became a good, some have said great, winemaker. He gradually changed the vineyard east of Paso Robles into a clone of a great Medoc estate. Basically Cabernet Sauvignon, with traces of Merlot, and smaller bits of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The Sauvignon won an award or two, the first before he graduated, but the blend fell short of his dreams. Eventually it would disappoint him at his death.

He met every daughter in the north county, after two years they started appearing from the rest of the state. One, an heiress from Santa Barbara had legs that reminded him of Sherri. But he was stuck in a rut. He was carrying a torch, a psychologist told him that it was because he couldn't really connect with anyone he had met after the tragedy that took his family. He discussed it with the psychologist because he mentioned Sherri to Marie in talking about the Santa Barbara heiress. Hadn't he connected with Marie and Sam? No, he was assured. So he went home and drank his jug wine until he passed out, which is what he usually did. He saw the psychologist twice. After that he decided fifty dollars an hour was too much to pay for what he didn't want to hear.

He became known in Silicon Valley. In the early to mid seventies everyone wanted start-up capital. Every trip was a party, he saw idea after idea, about a dozen would transform the world, three he invested in. Two starlets took him to bed and both were dutifully recorded in the National Inquirer, with pictures. The second decided it all should have led to more and he changed his phone to an unlisted number.

His world, when he was sober revolved around the vineyards. In 1970 he hired Kelly, right out of high school. She quickly became his right hand. Her workday, nine to five and whatever else was needed, was done in the extra bedroom refinished to fit her as an office. She was heavy, blonde, curvy, silhouetted against a window shade, felt in the dark even a blind man could tell she was female.

Since all the girls get prettier at closing time, Kelly working late eventually led to her waking up next to her office. He remained distant, but he was male and all those soft curves, the breasts that fill your hand with something left over to lick was too often left to nature to manage.

Kelly wasn't a virgin at eighteen. She learned that the curves, the softness of a well-formed woman were a powerful force of nature. She hadn't planned it. Still she ended up as a powerful force in the north county. His contractors had to be approved by her. Hiring had to pass her scrutiny. And most of all she handled the shit. The bookkeeping, the checks that needed writing, the germinating records from the greenhouses, Kelly handled them all.

Both of them might have handled a marriage and a business if Kelly hadn't been in love with Sam and Marie's second oldest, Evan. He was a virgin when she grabbed him on a weekend in the beach house. She was a year older, and damn good. She showed him how, and the skinny ones that showed up to give him an uncomfortable tumble in the sack when the multi millionaire vintner wasn't amenable, bonded him to the chubby girl from the wrong side of the tracks in Oceano.

Marie approved, Sam was skeptical, and he was radically opposed to losing Kelly when Evan proposed. To be fair it was a affair that his beach house supported, and in fact initiated. It took a long talk before he got on board.

He's mine, Kelly said. "I love him, I just make love to you. And you don't love me. You don't love anyone. The real shame is that you don't even love you. You're empty. You're a damn good lover, but you don't commit, it's like you learned to be good, graduated and do it. I fuckin' love Evan; don't fuck it up.

"The only time you've really lost it, you called me 'Sherri.' I'm not 'Sherri' whoever the fuck she is, and I'm not the only one asking. Find her, but don't screw up me and Evan. Sam thinks I'm a fuckin' gold digger. Marie understands. I want Evan.

He's got good grades, he wants to go to Silicon Valley. You can help us. Damn it! I've been good. I've run your businesses. I need to be happy.

As it worked out, Evan ended up the CEO of one of his three major investments and the woman behind that made sure he profited, but at the inception it just reinforced his distance. Kelly knew more about him than anyone ever had. She shared his bed. And she preferred someone else.

He liked the deal. A nice little merger between two chip manufacturers, it created a corner, the market would love it. He drove up in the Bronco. Usually he took the Ranchero, in a way prophetic, he'd need the Bronco.

He stopped in Gilroy for garlic. He navigated through the parking garage. When he walked out of he elevator he walked up to the receptionist, she turned and looked at him. It was Sherri. He looked at her left hand; there was no wedding band. Then they called him in. The true tragedy of being wealthy is that they don't make you wait. He'd have paid a million to have been told to have a seat and wait like everyone else, just to have the chance to talk to the receptionist.

Chapter Two

She was pregnant.

Her mother wanted to know the father. She knew. There was only one candidate, and she was pretty sure he wouldn't take responsibility. He was in college in New Mexico, maybe fifteen hundred or so miles away, nearly broke, and he never once told her that he loved her.

They had met at a dance in a roller rink. She picked him. He was hot, at least to her. Their second date, at a drive-in, he'd put her hand inside his pants, and crawled up the inside of her leg with his. She'd always stopped boys before, but somehow, this time, she didn't want to.

She tried to figure out if she was in love. He was different. She wanted him to touch her, and wasn't afraid when he did. She kept up the long distance affair with him through her senior year of high school, weekly letters, sometimes more between Sunnyvale and Albuquerque. The actual sex began Christmas break that year, the distance of the relationship a sort of mental condom in her mind. Christmas break they spent in Lake Tahoe, sleeping together, though registered with another couple in boy-girl fashion.

The affair made her popular, or at least envied at school. She had a man while other girls in her class dated boys. He came back that summer and resumed working as a salesman at a Ford dealership. He was good enough at it that his commissions exceeded the salaries of either of their fathers, and he had a new Ford Galaxie as a demonstrator.

The night before he left for Albuquerque, they spent in the back seat of the sixty Galaxie he bought to make the drive back to college. She knew that was the night she got pregnant. Her period stopped, and the figurative rabbit died the first week in November.

Early in October she knew. She didn't mention it in a letter, but she did hedge her bet a bit. She seduced Freddy, a man five years older and a recent graduate engineer who had just started at the plant where her father was a manager. Eric had three more years of college, Freddy had a salary, cover the bases.

She knew that she needed the hedge, she was frightened Eric didn't love her, he never said so, and it seemed most of their relationship had turned on sex. She needed something more, something to hang onto. She wrote to Eric to break it off. Actually hoping that, over Christmas break he'd prove he loved her by forcing his way back into her life. Meanwhile she lured Freddy into bed as many times as she could.

Christmas day, 1966, changed her hopes, her dreams and her life. A fire born of faulty Christmas lights, killing thirty-six people was national news. The lone survivor, a radiator hose late to the party, was overlooked. As far as she knew, Eric was in the ashes. She told her mother, finally, that Freddy was the father of her baby, and on New Year's Eve, got a diamond ring.

Freddy was a terrible lover. The first time she had been forced to tempt him into a second performance, because the first time he came in her hand. Eric, though she didn't know it, had been a virgin, the two of them learned together, and learned how to please each other. Freddy had misperformed with a few co-eds through his college education, and Sherri was so much prettier than they were, he was usually done before she started. She relieved some of the sexual tension with her fingers throughout her marriage to Freddy, re-living again and again her first two orgasms while Liz Taylor and Burton were playing Anthony and Cleopatra on the drive-in screen.

Freddy was an ordinary looking guy without a lot of talent. He dogged his way through school on average marks, and always thought he had to settle. Sherri even noticing him was a miracle to his way of thinking.

Sherri named her baby Cheyenne and as if the baby girl was in on the con of her stepfather, she showed up near the end of May nearly three weeks later than expected, though two weeks premature by the Freddy clock. The fact that she was well over eight pounds, golden blonde and pale skinned should have clued in Fred Antonelli that she was a rather improbable outcome, given Sherri was black Irish enough to pass for Latina, but he didn't tumble for a number of years.

She was pregnant again when Cheyenne or 'Shy' as she called her daughter was sixteen months old. One of three times in over a year Freddy actually made it inside her. Usually she could make him cum long before he got it in. This left her to roll over and surreptitiously finger herself and imagine it was Eric's hand on her and in her in the back seat.

Rodney, or Roddy as she quickly named him was born in September. Two children that close together had not done wonders for her figure except to enhance her cup size. She became almost a gym rat regaining her figure and the tautness pregnancy had cost her. She also got a prescription for birth control pills and was manic about taking them.

Despite his father-in-law Freddy didn't rise in the company. In fact, he slipped to little more than an overpaid office boy, not that he wasn't typical. He was part of an over-educated generation forced into colleges by the draft, getting Cs in things they didn't understand and then working at those things badly until they retired.

They might have gotten along for years, decades. She managed him easily. Lifted her shirt and put his head between her breasts, or slipped her hand into the front of his pants. They might have retired to a golden age condo eventually, if he hadn't found the letters.

Sherri kept them in a box with her high school yearbooks and mementos. It all seemed so promising then, and she took them down from time to time, just to mourn the loss they represented. He found them and went through them starting one afternoon when Sherri was at the gym.

Sherri had wanted three words so badly that she entirely missed the fact that they were implied throughout Eric's correspondence, a fact that wasn't lost on Fred. It took four sessions for Fred to read all of them. The mental arithmetic that followed wasn't pleasant.

Shy, or as her mother spelled it Chey wasn't his daughter. His marriage was a sham. Always had been. He'd been the any port in a storm he didn't even know was raging.

The name on the return address also struck him. Eric Randolph wasn't unknown in Silicon Valley. The Cal Poly moneyman, the general public didn't know him, but if you were in the business he was hard to miss. Frank checked back a bit. His background wasn't a secret. The fire that made him a fortune, his wines that were growing in reputation, his classmates at Cal Poly that were founding high tech companies, all of it was in the trade magazines.

It took him three weeks to confront Sherri. He got the admission he wanted, although Sherri seemed to think Eric was dead. He was angry, and hurt. The information had eaten at him as he discovered it. The confirmation brought with it a rage he couldn't control. He swung as hard as he could. He connected solidly with Sherri's right breast as she backed away.

The blow brought stars the pain was overwhelming. She barely felt the two slaps that spun her head and cut her cheek as his wedding ring gouged it. She sank to her knees. She fell beneath the range of his hands so he stepped into a kick between her legs. The pain exploded from her toes to the top of her head and she toppled over.

He watched her topple over, turned and left. He woke up in the drunk tank in San Jose almost a day later, with only hazy recollections of how he got there.

Sherri came back to herself in a pool of her own blood and vomit as her father helped her up to the kitchen chair. Chey had hidden from the yelling, and called her grandparents as soon as Fred left. Her father took her to the emergency room. A small scar beneath her right eye was the only permanent damage. Make-up nearly erased it and the only person who ever noticed it was Sherri, in the mirror, daily.

Sherri filed for divorce; Fred took a studio apartment near work. Fred made a stink over Chey. He demanded a paternity test and proved he wasn't Chey's father. He had a case, but his beating of Sherri turned everything against him. After alimony and child support, he barely had enough to live on.

Fred started sending out resumes as soon as he figured out he was condemned to a studio apartment and an old car as long as he stayed in California. In Silicon Valley he was pretty much a zero, but in a lot of the rest of the country he was a golden commodity. A headhunter in Palo Alto groomed him a bit and set up several offers. Companies beginning in high tech wanted his background, five years in the heart of high tech. He nearly doubled his salary when he sold his old car for airfare and relocation expenses to Easton Pennsylvania.

Fred snuck out of town, he had no intention of continuing to pay the woman who tricked him. He'd miss Roddy, but there was no way he'd ever get more than supervised visits for years.

Sherri returned to college when Fred moved out. When he disappeared she took a job in a real estate office as a receptionist. She only made a hundred and twenty-five a week and without her parents help she wouldn't have made it. She ran every morning to keep in shape, but missed the gym.

The real estate office did well, but it sat on a razor blade. The owner was a gambler as well as a salesman. A year and a half after she went to work he took a trip to Reno and lost the office, his house and a new Chrysler Imperial.

The next month was a horror. She almost lost the apartment and ate peanut butter sandwiches in order to save the real food for Chey and Roddy. She finally landed a job at a business brokerage at a twenty-five dollar a week increase in pay. She had learned a lot in the real estate office, it gave her the edge for the job.

She wasn't unaware that she was hired for her looks as much as for her small expertise, the lack of a modesty screen on her desk told her that rather clearly. Her legs in nylon beneath the desk were required. She dressed and made up carefully, and got through most of the first week with flying colors. Her bosses were kind and respectful, and actually shielded her a bit from the customers who hit on her. She was quietly efficient and friendly, by Friday morning she was comfortable.

Friday she was extra careful for some reason she couldn't fathom. The scar bothered her more than usual and she worked over it longer than usual. She went for the little black dress she wore for her interview, some leg, a bit of cleavage. She touched up in the office in her compact, it seemed important. Then he walked in, and she knew why.

Chapter Three

Sherri had just seen a ghost. That was the sensation. She was shaking as he walked by into the office of the senior partner. He hadn't really acknowledged her, but that had been the Eric she knew. He wasn't demonstrative at the best of times.

Eric was a bit shaken himself as he walked into the office. He didn't show it, he never did. The four men he knew. Jerry Heigl was his lawyer in Silicon Valley, Tom Klein his business broker. They had all graduated from the same high school. The fact that Peter Coughlan and Greg Fortney hadn't brought a lawyer bothered him.

Are we a couple lawyers short here? was his first comment.

I'm Peter's lawyer, as well as yours, said Jerry. As you know I recommended this, on both sides. Didn't feel it was a conflict of interest. I can withdraw on one or both sides if you think it is.

You'll be corporate counsel? Eric asked.

After it's signed, sealed and delivered, Peter answered.

Greg, Eric continued, This all right with you?

Has to be, said Greg. You know my cash situation.

I'll loan you the money if you want to postpone this.

It's a good deal for me, answered Greg. I get out of management, and I suck at it, go back to the software engineering and you support me. You and Peter are taking the risk. I don't have a downside. I just lose what I don't want.

Okay then, let's do it.

Everyone signed and sealed and Jerry put the documents in his briefcase.

Stay a minute, he said to Jerry after everyone shook hands and prepared to leave.

Peter and Greg left, hopefully to change the signs and letterhead before he said anything.

Kelly is leaving, he said. I need a replacement. I want the girl you have out in the front Tom. Tell me about her?

She's not Kelly caliber. Year and a half with a real estate firm, high school degree. You know about her?

Her first name is Sherri, her maiden name is Tyler and she's not wearing a wedding ring. I last saw her in September of 1966. She was my first love, and according to someone I trust, I'm supposed to find her, what else should I know?

Well, said Tom leaning back in his desk chair, "she's divorced with two kids. Husband beat her up pretty bad when he left, made the Mercury. She's efficient, but not a lot of experience. She's been here a week today."

How much you pay her?

Tom looked over at Peter, who shrugged. Between you me and the Bayshore, yard and a half a week.

If I give you six hundred can I take her now?

If she agrees, I'll take the hundred and a half I owe her.

Call her in.

Sherri was trembling as she walked into the office. They had her sit down and Eric got up walked to the desk and leaned back on it facing her.

My secretary is getting married and leaving me. Tom assures me you can handle everything. It pays six hundred and fifty on the first and fifteenth, along with room and board. That would be three rooms because you have two kids and they each get a room. If I pay your salary for this week, Tom says I can take you right now.

She just stared at him for a while. I thought you were dead, she finally managed.

What'd Twain say? Greatly exaggerated? No Sherri. I'm not dead. You once made me wish I was. But that was a long time ago. You'll come with me?

She was shaking now. The situation was unbelievable. You haven't changed. You're incomprehensible. I have to get the children. There are a dozen things to handle.

We'll pick up the kids, pack and you'll handle it from Paso Robles. Maybe next week we'll take a day off and move you. Right now I've got a vineyard to run. It's almost ten and if I don't get back before three the lady you're replacing will nail my hide to the nearest fence.

Let's go then, she said and got up and started out.

Stop,' he said, As an employee of Randolph/Kalte Vineyards, you get paid before you walk out. From now on it might not be just your money you're walking out on. It might be mine." He reached in his pocket pulled out two hundred dollar bills from a money clip. He handed them to Sherri.

No change. Consider it a tip from a satisfied client.

Sign your check, said Tom, handing her an envelope.

They walked out to the parking garage silently. They were both shell-shocked. If the immediate situation didn't call for conversation neither one could manage any. They got to the Bronco before the need to speak arose.

You have a car here? he asked as they reached the Bronco.

Aged Dodge on the first level. Won't make it to Paso Robles. May not make it to Sunnyvale.

Drive you down and I'll follow you.

He drove her down and let her off at an old Dodge Dart, sixty-five if he read the tail lights right. Her beauty hurt him, it was almost a physical pain. If he lost it, as Kelly said, it was remembering her. He thought he'd never see her again. They were so young, before his world collapsed and burned in Altadena.

She had trouble finding her keys and starting the car. Terror and beauty walked in on her all at once. She saw him and it was like a heart attack, a physical reaction. What she wanted most was for him to grab to her and kiss her. What did he mean that she once made him wish he was dead?

She drove slowly. Afraid for some reason he wouldn't be in her rear view mirror. Halfway to her parent's house she felt a panic. What would he see, feel when he saw, met Chey? What would be the bond, the knowledge, would he know?

They both pulled into her parent's drive way and walked in. She explained to her mother, Caroline.

It's been a long time Eric. Don't think I'm so old and senile I don't remember you, she said. We thought you were dead.

As I told Sherri, those reports have been exaggerated.

We would have helped, you could have called.

Caroline, for the first two years I couldn't have called myself with the number in my hand.

I think I understand, whoops. I'm sure you're ready to kill people who understand, aren't you? You've got a couple surprises coming up. I won't mess those up. The kids are out back.

They walked out back and the little blonde girl ran up to them. She looked at the two of them intently. Then she ran up to him. I'm Chey, she said.

No you aren't. he said.

She looked him over again, as if processing something in her head. You're funny, she smiled.

The boy hung back. Unlike his sister he was dark, even at six, brooding. He was frightened. Eric perceived it almost immediately and basically cornered him.

You must be Roddy? Yes? I'm Eric. I'm here to take you to your new home. You surf?

The boy almost curled into himself. No.

Funny, you look like a surfer boy. Want to learn?

Maybe.

I have a house on the beach, and a lot a friends who surf, I surf. If I buy you a board you think you'd like to learn?

Maybe.

Or just maybe you'd like to be a cowboy? You ride?

Chey ran up to him and grabbed his hand. I ride, she said. I had lessons before Mommy lost her job.

You want a horse? he said.

For my own?

Well, actually I live in a vineyard, you know what that is?

A place to grow grapes?

You've got it. And I don't want gas fumes on my grapes, so we ride horses. Which means you pretty much have to have one.

You're kidding me.

No, actually, it's pretty much a necessity. My horse is named Alphonse, he's named after one of the world's greatest vintners. Do you know what a vintner is?

Someone who grows grapes? the little girl said uncertainly.

Not exactly. It's someone who makes wine. Across the hill, where we're going, there are cowboys. And I just wondered whether your brother would like to learn that. How about it Roddy?

Real cowboys?

Real cowboys, about as real as they come, real cows, real cowboys. You'd like to come then?

I'll come, he said.

Once again she looked for him in the rear view mirror and nearly panicked if she turned a corner and he wasn't there quickly enough. Did he feel Chey? Did he know? Roddy was the needy one. He missed a man, a father. Eric reached him, however briefly. Dammit. She wanted him. This wasn't fucking real. She smelled like a mackerel, and was smelling herself. He was his damn incomprehensible self. Why didn't he say 'Sherri, I love you.' Was it too much to ask? He walked in, captivated her children, grabbed her out of her job. She wanted to get him alone and fuck his fucking brains out. She looked in the mirror again, and caught her scar. She reached her hand up to touch it as she turned the last turn to her apartment.

He followed her. The girl puzzled him. Something in her gaze, the unafraid, unprotected way she approached him. There was a connection there; he felt it instantly. Chey, shy? She was anything but, at least with him. How old was she? The math filled his mind. Blonde, like his family? Had she just turned about what? Eight? Was it eight? Had it been that long?

The boy was the needy one. He needed a male figure, a man, a dad. The girl was as strong as her mother could make her. The boy was adrift. He felt suddenly inadequate. He dived into jugs of wine to get from one day to the next. How could he be strong enough for a little boy who, rather suddenly, desperately needed for someone to be?

He was damaged goods. A man, who didn't bond, didn't need other people. They left him, disappointed him, like the lady he was following. The girl he wanted in his back seat, in his arms more than he needed to breathe.

They packed, Chey made sure to bring her riding boots. He drove over the hill into Santa Cruz, Stopped at the farmer's market he used, bought two stalks of brussel sprouts to set in wine, and a dozen artichokes and started over the five miles from Castroville to Prunedale and one oh one.

I know who you are, you know, said Chey.

You do? And who am I?

My Daddy. Freddy showed me your picture before he hit Mommy. It was in a magazine. He said you were my Daddy. That he wasn't my Daddy.

The bastard! said Sherri.

He reached over and put his hand on Sherri's leg. He needed to verify it, but he couldn't hurt the boy. She started to talk and he squeezed her leg gently.

Roddy, he said, you thinking about learning to ride?

I was thinking about surfing.

Why?

He'd made the turn onto one oh one and successfully avoided Chey's subject until he could turn off for gas he didn't need at Salinas. He sent the two kids into use the rest room and turned to Sherri.

She had sat there in a tangle of emotions. He didn't want her to talk. Had Freddy actually done that? To the child he raised? Okay he hated her. She had the scar and the memory to remind her of that. Maybe she earned the hate, the beating, but to take it out that way, on Chey?

Chapter Four

He turned to look at her, his look was hard, Is she telling the truth Sherri? Not about your Ex, about me?

Yes. Chey is your daughter, she said. I fucked Freddy because I wanted to be safe. You never said you loved me. The letter was a way to make you say that, damn you. That's all I needed. I felt like your vacation fuck.

He just grabbed her arm and pulled her across the console. Pushed her breast into his hand and stuck his tongue so far down her throat he might have touched her tonsils,

She melted, stuck her tongue back and he backed them off. I loved you enough to give you the space I thought you needed. You stupid bitch! My whole world crashed and burned. I was suicidal with your goddam Dear Eric letter, what do you think I felt when I showed up to everyone I loved dead? And you dead to me? What was that like? Chey could have given that a sunrise, a chance. You could have at least told me. I needed that.

In my defense, I thought you were dead.

Well now we pretty much have to get married. I love you. Are those the words you needed? Was that the hold-up? I don't care for them. We were inside each other, I wrote you my soul. You needed the fuckin' words, you've got them, probably the last time. They make me sad. You fuckin' left me, when I needed you. You won't do it again. I'm fuckin' rich. I'll prove she's my daughter, and Roddy needs a man, a father. I said it. You say it. You'll marry me. You love me.

I never stopped loving you. You could have called. I'd have told you. I used to masturbate, stick my own damn fingers up myself imagining it was you, in bed with Freddy.

She licked her fingers and wiped the make up off her scar. See that? That's just the sign of what it cost me. Now when do I become Mrs. Randolph? And do you at least have a full sized bed?

A Cal King.

And your secretary's been in it?

She's getting married.

Then why do you have a king sized bed?

He put his hand between her legs , moved it up to the end of her stockings and pulled her mouth to his, So you can explore every inch of it.

They were still kissing when the two kids came back to the Bronco.

He turned back onto one oh one before he spoke. He formulated it carefully in his head. He couldn't leave Roddy out. Yet he had to connect with Chey, for himself and for her.

They were nearly at Martinez before he got it right enough to talk about it.

Okay Chey, you need to forget Fred. From now on the family is in this car, right now. I'm the father, Sherri is the mother, you are the daughter and Roddy is the son. You got it?

But what's true?

What I just told you.

I'm really your daughter and you're really my daddy?

Absolutely, positively. You're a ray of light I just found. My family died, I was totally alone until I found the three of you.

Freddy wasn't my father, he said so.

What am I telling you? Roddy, who's the father, daddy?

You are, you said so,

Chey, he said and hoped it worked, "I once lost everyone who loved me, everyone, Chey. That was before you were born, One night soon, when you have your horse, you and I will ride across a ridge between the shore and valley, at night, with the new moon, in a night as black as the world provides. When you learn to ride, Roddy, you and I will ride that ridge, You will feel as alone as I did. In that dark a night everyone feels alone. And you will understand what it is to be alone. And once you understand that, you will understand why it is I love you. All my life that shadow has followed me. And why the two of you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Chey, Roddy, wait. The rest of my life will be dedicated to proving that I am worthy to be the father.

Then you aren't really my father? said Chey.

You think it's a con job little girl? Freddy lied? I'm your father, and you're a princess, soon I'll show you the kingdom. Beauty that you grow, you and your horse in a hundred miles of beauty that belongs to you that you are the princess of. You are my princess. In your deep understanding of being a princess can you exercise the patience to wait to see it? You Roddy, can you wait?

Roddy retreated; It was difficult to deal with.

I'm a princess? I don't feel like one. My mommy didn't even get dinner last night. She ate a sandwich.

Did you see that Roddy?

Didn't.

Chey fought him until he gave up and turned off at King City. He took his daughter by the hand and led her to the end of the gas station/store lot.

Chey, he said, Your mother told me Freddy was right. I can't leave Roddy out. Please don't you. You love your little brother?

Yes.

Well then, you don't make a big deal out of what Fred told you. It would be too easy to leave Roddy out of this Chey, you understand? We can't do that.

I didn't have a father before.

"You just didn't know him is all. I hope to get that through to Roddy. We have to be a family now, to make this all work. And that means all four of us. So we don't divide ourselves up. You and Roddy have a father now. That's the way it's got to be. We don't talk about what Fred told you unless Roddy can't hear us. It'll make him feel bad, left out. And