Ahead of him, the strange golden light of the evening sang off the sage and sienna-hued flat planes of new buildings. Will suddenly realized what the new construction in the Pearl reminded him of—the Painted Hills, those bare clay mounds of stratified color so shapely and delineated, as if carefully constructed. And these buildings were as different from the faded paint-peeled warehouses and gray concrete overpasses they abutted as the Painted Hills were from their uneroded, rock-strewn neighbors. Will drove into the valley of the Pearl, looked unsuccessfully for parking, and ended up on the perimeter next to one of the unrenovated warehouses.
     Will chose not to take the elevator up to Kimmi’s fifth floor apartment. A decision he regretted by the third floor landing. Kimmi was not ready when he arrived, breathless, from the climb. She was toweling her black hair. It stood in short tufts and spikes.
     “Hi, Professor.”
     “Kim.”
     “I’ll be just a minute.” She headed down the hall.
     He wandered aimlessly around her living room. Kimmi lived better than he did. Her furniture was newer and her CD rack was five feet high and full. He stopped in front of the floor to ceiling window. Her view was St. Helens off to the north, on the Washington side of the Columbia. The summer sun had not yet stripped the volcano of its snow and the flat-topped cone was clearly visible.
     “You should see it at sunrise when it’s pink.” She had come up behind him. “It’s like it’s on fire inside.”
     He jerked around. Tried not to stare at her barely contained breasts. The black corset’s supple leather did not meet at the center and left exposed an inch or so of skin, criss-crossed with lacing. The corset that Emmy had been wearing had buckles, rather than laces, otherwise it was much the same. Will didn’t want to think about that, so he continued to stare at Kimmi. Her pants were a second skin and were also held together by laces that crossed a gap of at least two inches. She wore high stiletto heels. She’s a caricature, he thought.
     Kimmi stepped back, laughing. “Don’t worry, Professor, I won’t be touching you.” She motioned behind her. “Help me with my junk.”
     He was glad to have his attention diverted, to have a reason to look away. “Do we need all this? What’s in here?” Will hefted one of two travel bags.
     “Whips, chains, mostly.” She picked up the other bag and started toward the door. “Relax, Prof man. It’s just clothes and things I need. I’m skipping out of town. You can drop me at the bus station after the party.” There was a slight tremor in her voice that imbued her simple statement with deeper meaning.
     She was scared enough to be leaving town. Will felt selfish using her like this. But he led her to his car without comment and stowed her bags in the Triumph’s small trunk. He was sweating when they climbed into the car, and momentarily considered putting the top down, but he was afraid that it would tear, and he didn’t have any duct tape to patch it. You never knew when it might start raining, even though the sky was clear from horizon to horizon. So they rolled down the windows and let the sound of the freeway abolish conversation.
     As they entered the Sunset tunnel, the city towers gleamed yellow behind them. They drove beneath the West Hills and emerged in the woods rising toward the plain, toward car lots and fast food Beaverton, indistinguishable from hundreds of suburban strip mall American towns. A place whose origins have long ago disappeared under pavement and “clean” industry factories. Will had a distinct distaste for the suburban culture, too slavishly devoted to the automobile. Pedestrians were freaks here. A person had to get in a car just to cross the street safely. Why would anyone want to walk? The one time Zoe had dragged him out to one of Beaverton’s malls, Will had sat on a bench watching a group of retired folks speed-walking laps. Zoe had had to listen to him carry on about it for half an hour.
     But Beaverton was still ahead of them. Right now, they were passing a cemetery. Will chuckled, “Did you know that the relatives of the people buried there tried to stop construction of the light rail tunnel under that cemetery?”
     “I don’t blame them. Suppose the thing collapsed. It’d be awful to have to go and see your grandma all spilled out of her coffin on the tracks with piles of other corpses.”
     “That wasn’t the point. They thought the eternal rest of their loved ones would be disturbed by the construction.” Will felt the story going flat. He had thought it was pretty funny at the time.
     “You got a radio in here?” Kimmi asked.
     “It hasn’t worked for years,” Will lied. “The antenna is broken.”
     “Shit. I should’ve got my tapes out of my bag. Can I smoke? We could put the top down. Does the top go down?” Kimmi tapped her fingers on the canvas roof.
     He really didn’t want her to smoke in his car, but he wanted Kimmi to talk and he knew she would be more likely to cooperate if he let her smoke.
     “I’m thinking about changing my life,” Kimmi said, her chest rising as she inhaled deeply. “I’m thinking about religion. Are you religious? You know, do you go to church and stuff, believe in God and all that?”
     “I don’t know any more. I’d like to believe in something. What about you?” Will asked.
     “I used to go to church when I was a little girl. I don’t remember much about it. After church, Daddy used to take me driving.”
     “You and your father were pretty close then?”
     Kimmi gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Oh yeah. We were close. Like that.”
     Will glanced at Kimmi, she was holding up two fingers, entwined. She dropped her hand in her lap, limply. Will felt a chill. Too close. Where had it begun? Who was the first bastard to destroy his daughter’s life? “What is there about Connie Crage that made him attractive to you? He is old enough to be your father and one would think that would be enough to put you off.”
     “One would,” she mimicked. “Some psychiatrist you’d make. I knew he would take care of me and he does. I could see he had money and it wasn’t like he wanted to marry me. I could give him what he wanted and he could give me what I needed.”
     “What about Colin? I got the impression that you really care about him.”
     “Colin isn’t ever going to love me.” And as fast as that she was crying.
     “I’m sorry,” Will mumbled. He knew Kimmi was right. Why should she be faithful to Colin? Will had known too many Colins to argue the point with Kimmi. It wouldn’t matter what she did or who she was; Colin was disaster where women were concerned. Charismatic, compassionate and totally insecure.
     She stopped crying. “Besides he’s not mature enough.”
     Connie, Doug, himself, mature men. Old men, young women. Except that he had never seen Doug with a woman at all, let alone a young woman. A disturbing thought rose in Will’s mind. “Have you ever seen Doug Bartlett at one of these parties?”
     “Emmy’s cousin? No. But it’s funny. He and Connie are total buddies.”
     Will was relieved. He would have a hard time explaining himself to Doug. What would he say? Hi, Doug, I’m just here trying to see if any of these perverts knew your cousin, Emmy, biblically. And while I’m at it, I thought I’d find out if your best friend killed her.
     They were beyond Beaverton, passing Hillsboro now, the last suburban outpost of greater metropolitan Portland. Even out here the traffic was thick. It was Friday and all the worker bees were fleeing to the coast for a sweet weekend escape.
     The sun was very low now. In his eyes, glaring. Just ahead, the road split and Kimmi told him to stay with the Sunset Highway, onward toward Seaside with the weekenders.
     They were well into the Coast Range in the blue twilight, when Kimmi said, “Let’s stop at that store up there. I want some coke and we’re a little early, besides I need to explain some stuff to you. Etiquette, the Emily Post of B&D and all that.”
     It was a small roadside market full of marginally edible food. Neon beer and soda signs glowed blue and pink. Will stood on the chipped linoleum floor reading the labels on dusty cans of lima beans while Kimmi hunted down a cold coke and “something salty.” He was sure the kid behind the counter knew all about the party and had him pegged for a lecherous old man.
     Outside a single wooden picnic table, knife scarred and dotted with pitch, stood among a cluster of evergreens. They sat on the table, resting their feet on the bench. Kimmi was looking him over; an appraisal, Will thought. “It’s a little late now if you’re going to tell me I won’t fit in.”
     “You’ll need to adjust your attitude not change your clothes. You can’t go in there acting like you’re better than the scene just because you’re out of your pond,” Kimmi said.
     “I’m that transparent, am I?” It was his cover, his protective armor whenever he found himself in unfamiliar territory. He could pull that college professor elitism out of his bag of tricks and be the disinterested observer, untouched by the people around him.
     “I mean, it’s ok to watch if you’re into watching, but it’s not ok if you’re not.”
     It made sense. Will nodded. “What else? What happens when we walk through the door?”
     “You mean, is someone going to grab you and take you off to some dark room and start torturing you?” Kimmi laughed. “Nothing will happen that you don’t want to happen. Relax.”
     How many times had she told him to relax this evening? “All I want is to get some idea of the scene, as you put it. And maybe learn something about Connie Crage.”
     “I’ll let them know that you’re new to the scene. You’re just there to see if you want to get into it. There are codes that are supposed to be followed, like you don’t engage in play with someone until you negotiate the rules with each other. Connie’s parties are kinda different, though, ’cause he invites his newby swinger buddies who don’t always know what’s up. Loose cannons and such. A lotta folks I know won’t go to his parties ’cause of that.”
     Will began to feel a little sick.
     “Don’t worry, I’ll stick by you,” Kimmi assured him. “Now, let me tell you about the scarves. Connie’s got his place set up so there is a ring by the entrance to every room for tying the scarf to. This is his system. The color of the scarf is a signal to what is happening inside and whether or not they want company. If the room is empty there will be a green scarf. A red scarf means they want to be alone, a black scarf means you can watch, and a purple scarf means you can join in.”
     This was more information than Will wanted to think about. Green scarf means go, he thought, then reluctantly asked, “What else?”
     “I don’t know. I guess it’s like any social scene. Be polite, act like a gentleman and don’t be a jerk.” Kimmi shrugged. She wadded up the empty bag of pretzels and tossed it toward the garbage, a fifty-gallon barrel chained to one of the trees.
     “Why would anyone steal a garbage can?” Kimmi asked.
     “People will steal anything.” Anything could be stolen at any moment, the way Emmy’s life had been stolen. He felt her absence and it was more than the deepening evening that made him shiver with sudden cold. “Can we get going now?” He said it rougher than he needed to and was already moving toward the car. He heard Kimmi’s step in the gravel behind him.
     In the car, he sat gripping the steering wheel.
     “Are you going to start the car?” Kimmi asked.
     “Sorry, I was just feeling a little…lost. How much further?”
     “The road we turn on is about ten minutes, I think, and then it’s not far to his place. We can go now. We won’t be too early.”
     But Will was reluctant to start this last leg. Coming to a party like this was one thing, actually arriving was quite another. He was nervous as hell and felt sweat down the middle of his back; only a moment before he had been too cold. He wondered if he was getting sick. Maybe they should go back. He started the Triumph and pulled out onto the asphalt. It was much further than ten minutes. They were past the summit of the Coast Range on the western slope before Kimmi pointed out the turn off the main road.
     On the narrower county road, the trees seemed to close over them and the darkness drew deeper around the car. It was a clear night. There were stars above the trees and a moon, too. But here Will and Kimmi were cut off from the sky. The road wound and climbed, dipped and curved. A stream could be heard intermittently attending the road for a time and then disappearing.
     “There,” Kimmi said. “That’s the drive. Stop at the little intercom thingie.”
     He pulled over to a small box perched on the end of a curved pipe at the window height of a much larger vehicle. A tall iron gate barred their way. It was flanked on either side by massive, snarling concrete dogs, each with one paw raised. They looked Chinese to Will.
     “Push the button.”
     He pushed.
     Kimmi leaned over him as a voice crackled through the box, unintelligibly. “Hi, it’s Kimmi and a friend,” she called out.
     The gate swung open and they entered a gently meandering, unpaved—though evenly graded—road. Dots of light appeared in the distance. Behind them, the gate clicked shut. Far from highway 26 and the sounds of traffic, the forest predominated. A whooshing of branches rubbing together and the sound of the creek again tumbling somewhere very close by could be heard over the engine of the little sports car. The dots of light grew larger, remained low. They neared the first one, sweeping it with the headlights. It was a huge glass dragonfly lantern. It hovered a foot above the ground. Whatever held it there, fed it’s light, was obscured by the salal that grew beneath it. All along the road, on either side, scattered ahead of them were dragonflies in various poses of flight, glowing with an inward light through colored glass. Purple, crimson, lavender, jade. The soft lights had little effect on the darkness except to give some shape to the immense ferns that grew against the trunks of giant, moss-covered spruce. Will marveled at the size of the trees. Even if these were second growth, they must still be at least a hundred years old. No time at all to a giant sequoia, but still enough to give substantial girth to a spruce.
     Will caught sight of a light higher in the trees, but at some distance away. Then the road curved abruptly left and he saw that these lights were the windows of a house. The drive ended in a clearing. A dozen or so vehicles were parked randomly around the perimeter between rotting stumps and ferns. Will chose a spot where he would be least likely to be fenced in by later arrivals.
     Kimmi was eager. She was out of the car as soon as it stopped. Will stood still for a moment beside the Triumph, staring up at the three-storied house. Wider than it was tall, it seemed to be built right up against the slope of the hillside. It was flat and shuttered, like a French Quarter New Orleans house, sans decay. Low stone steps led to the sheltered door. From this distance, he could make out no details and the whole effect was one of suddenly arriving at a French villa in the Oregon woods.
     Faint music and human voices drifted down and mingled with the gurgling water. Frogs croaked from the distant shadows.
     Kimmi took his hand and led him over a footbridge. The creek beneath was small and shallow, its banks lush with Oregon grape and salal and towering ferns as tall as Kimmi. As he stepped off the bridge, Will was startled. There, crouched among the ferns, its mouth a toothy snarl was a smaller, but still ominous replica of the stone dogs at the gate. He reached out and touched the moss on its head, breaking the menacing spell. More dragonfly lanterns guided them along the path up to the front door. At the door on the flagstone step, one last lantern. This one though, was different. It was a box lantern dangling from an arm that extended from a slender post. Against the post, a wild-haired fairy leaned. On her pointed face, an indifferent smile.