Animals

They were calling it the Commune. This big, Spanish colonial compound owned by David Geffen north of Barstow. Georgia O’Keeffe had supposedly built it, then in 1968 Cream had cut their last album, Goodbye, there and years later, when his four-year-old fell from a window in Manhattan, Eric Clapton was offered the place to stay at again. To mourn. Out in the wind.

Now they were the last to arrive. Darly was in the passenger seat, her freckled arms refastening her bra. She watched Aaron out the dirty window as he came around the front of the car, his shirt up off his belly as he stretched. Except for the crisp twitching of the magazine pages on the dashboard there was nothing but the heat for miles, no sign of anyone beyond the dusty cars, a high bent palm glinting in and out of the sun.

“Rabbits,” he mouthed to her. “Rabbits ev-er-ry-where.”

A tall jack loped away when Darly opened the door. This was the golden hour, their blond hair burnished in it, the palm fronds airy and tired, a dead loveliness to them. And rabbits flicking by the cacti along the stucco wall.

“Anybody home?” Aaron hollered. But it was silent. Only the red-tiled roofs that encircled the courtyard and farther on a tower with a black cross on it.

They found Ford in the pool house. He was tall and half-undressed at the washing machine, his high, hairy buttocks out from under his T-shirt. He clapped Aaron on the chest, and Aaron could feel Darly trying not to look at his bunched penis.

“You don’t want a hug?” Ford laughed to Darly. Then more kindly, smaller, to her, “Welcome.” He extended his hand toward four other people, vague and splashing in the pool, “Welcome to The Commune.”

They were of a young set who’d met in and around the artistic mill of Los Angeles. The Group, they called themselves, partly joking—Ford, the painter; Marius, the photojournalist with the LA Times; Soo Joo, the model; Peter, the director; and his wife Laurel, who’d been a dancer before their son, Jonas, was born. Jonas was ten now, walking back and forth with his hand against the wall under several overgrown hanging ferns that dragged over his face and shoulders.

Soo Joo poured from a rosé and sat back with one foot up on her chair, her hair still dripping from the pool. There were three other green bottles of sparkling water. Then bowls crowded in the middle: a crisp cucumber salad, orzo and feta and sundried tomatoes, wet green beans. A board of cheeses. “Lunch,” Marius said, coming out from the kitchenette with two pans of whole fish. Let us take hands.” He stood upright, royal and skinny, his collarbones protruding, and addressed the whole of them, who seemed taken aback by his preparing to say grace.

Instead he whispered to Jonas, “Fish with the head, or without?”

The table came alive with the sound of silverware and bottles being passed, chairs scooted in. “Aaron said you’re an actress?” Peter asked.

There were a few sidelong glances, and Laurel said, “Oh fuck, Peter, just ask her the important question: how’s your scream?”

Aaron could tell that Darly didn’t seem to know how seriously to take the couple. They cursed in front of their child, who stood bare-chested next to his chair, eating.

“Sorry,” Aaron said. “She only does Christian movies.” He tried to get her to join the conversation, turning to her encouragingly. “You’ve been killed how many times—drunk driving, raped?” he said. “She’s always getting raped at prom for being too flirtatious.”

“Oh,” Ford said. “That’s happened to me a few times as well.”

Laughter. Laurel lobbed a cork at Ford.

“Don’t worry,” Soo Joo said, handing Darly a glass of rosé. “We’ll take care of you.”

There was a running conversation about what renovations they would do to the house if they owned...