Hand-Me-Down by Lee Nichols

Author:Lee Nichols
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Dress Ink
Published: 2005-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

The next morning I cleaned the remains of the feast and took Ny for a long walk at Ellwood Park in Goleta, the town north of Santa Barbara. It was a half hour drive out there, an hour walk, another half hour back—plenty of time for mulling over my job hunt. But I got distracted by the fields and the cliffs and the beach. In the winter, monarch butterflies fly up from Mexico to mate or lay eggs or something—tens of thousands of them. There weren’t any to distract me at the moment, but I still managed to spend a half hour wondering about them, instead of mentally polishing my resume.

I couldn’t decide if the monarchs were to be envied or pitied. On the one hand, butterflies are about as aerodynamic as envelopes, and they had to fly two thousand miles just to get lei-ed. What, did they live with their parents? They couldn’t get any butterfly nookie at home? It was ridiculous, going to those extremes for sex and company. So I pitied them.

On the other hand, they knew what they wanted. They knew what they needed. Somewhere in their pinhead insect brains, there was this driving urge to leave home for warmer climes, to romp with equally pea-brained creatures exactly like them in every way but one. Like college students on Spring Break. They had no Vague Dissatisfaction. They had no questions or worries or regrets. They just flitted for a couple thousand miles and bellied up to the bar. Enviable.

I walked down the path to the beach, and moodily tossed a stick for Ny. He ignored it, intent on the perfume of rotting seaweed. Maybe I shouldn’t have quit. Rip gave me three weeks’ vacation pay, so I was okay for money, and there were always temp jobs. But I wanted something real this time. Something that inspired me. And something that paid well. Maybe I could work at Mott & Kensig. Then Helene could fire me. That’d be neat.

I sulked along the beach, caught up in bright scenarios of unemployment and failure, until we got to the Bacara. The Bacara was a huge luxury resort squatting among the sand dunes that always reminded me of the resort hotels in Mexico or Hawaii. It was perfect for people whose only desire was to nap by the pool or play golf. I always wished it were more like Esalen in Big Sur, with oceanside hot tubs and yoga classes and human development programs and macrobiotic cooking. More of a retreat center. Nobody was better than I at retreating.

Daydreaming of a new job as social director at Bacara, once it spontaneously transformed into Esalen South, I headed back to the car. We got home and I hosed Ny down outside. Hosed myself down inside, got dressed and was looking at my big ass in the mirror when the phone rang.

“Guess what?” Wren said.

“Objects in mirror are larger than they appear?”

“What? No.” She emitted a noise of pure contentment. “But some objects are larger than at first sight.

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