Monday and Tuesday

She didn't wish me to photograph (she said this a few times) so it's lodged in my mind: C attached to L's breast, blond on blond, their skin blending into one: his small body with only slits for eyes yet (sensate) on her knee using his force reaching up towards her, her breasts dripping milk, she transfixed by him. She hates Philip Roth. P kept locking the door.

At A's house there was a fake Picasso with the same texture as the walls (three-dimensional from a machine). L called it a subdivision on steroids: on the crest of a hill cascading down to farmland to the right and left so each house has a view.

She had a gift-exchange for the 5.0 tennis players from the Women's League. Family picture in the hallway: four sons one at Riverside her hubby's an orthopedic surgeon met in Pomona after some test and her friend left her at the bar. So many things had to line up right. He makes pencil drawings from pictures of the family that line the wall by the pool table (she says: he's never taken a lesson).
J works giving mammograms and plays tennis in the off-time. Her husband is a police-officer. Her in-laws live in Chino Hills. Her black hair goes down to her luscious ass. Her body is tight with curves. L says you always have the cutest dresses. Striped sweater mid-thigh. When she goes to get her gift the women say "move slow so we can look." The coach took her scarf to give his sister. I got the rhinestone earrings which got taken from me and a pint of CandyCaneSoap. L got a red bracelet. Someone got a bottle of vodka. There was a ceramic platter with a snowman for cookies and another made of tinted glass and movie tickets deep in the bag.
J made cauliflower gratin. Broccoli with bacon and mayonnaise and chicken taquitos and white wine and baileys for the coffee.
S kept saying she's a professional photographer. We lined up by the stairs across from the table with pictures and flowers and the family photo on the wall and put the camera on a timer. S (her son was playing tennis with P) turned to show us "bebe" spelled on the seat of her pants like the shirts NP wore when she was 12.

L looks at C: he doesn't know about pain yet, she says.
He's beautiful and eventually it will develop into features.

Later, 6:15:

A tire spun out and hit my car by pyramid lake: the force of the impact left a tire-mark on the bumper, but otherwise unscathed.
It was dark.
Some road-workers in their orange vests stopped to put cones out.
One lay on the ground beneath the car and wrapped blue tape around the falling plastic so it wouldn't drag.
He was tall, young, blond.
I had no money in my wallet.
It's scary out here, he said, between the grapevine and the valley.
Nothing but low colorless brush.