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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780822947998 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Pittsburgh Press |
| Publication date: | 10/03/2023 |
| Series: | Drue Heinz Literature Prize Series |
| Pages: | 150 |
| Sales rank: | 1,092,925 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.30(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Excerpt from “Harmony”
After another week of clean blood draws and small talk with Dr. Small, she clipped an ankle monitor around Paul’s leg. She drew a circle on a Google Maps printout, with the Harmony castle as the red Google teardrop in its center. He could drive five minutes to the Starbucks across the highway from the surfer beach in Trancas. Paul had asked for privileges, but it was a letdown. He didn’t feel improved. His right hand had a tremor that came and went, an electrical fault somewhere inside, shaking itself out through his fingers. Dr. Small said the tremor was just the beginning. Of what she didn’t name. And he couldn’t drive. They’d taken his license the night of the accident.
Dennis had off-campus privileges and a car. That afternoon, they walked through the field of palm trees, the Trees of Reflection, to the residents’ parking lot. Dennis clicked the black square of the car key. The brake lights of a white Toyota Camry blinked from the third row.
“My assistant’s car,” Dennis said. “Camouflage.”
“What’s she driving?”
“My Porsche.” Dennis laughed. His linen pants hid the ankle bracelet. Paul’s pant leg caught up on his ankle band, pulled down his jeans at the waist. The ankle monitors were for special situations. Like vehicular manslaughter or, in Dennis’s case, court-ordered rehab for possession.
Dennis slid open the sunroof, and they coasted down the hill, away from Harmony. He rolled down the windows and dialed up Frank Sinatra. “Fly Me to the Moon.” Once they passed through the gates, Dennis straightened his elbows and gripped the steering wheel and accelerated into the curves. He’d raced cars for Pennzoil in the movie Formula One, his last on the big screen and memorable, it appeared, to him. Paul held on to the door handle. He didn’t think they’d go over the guardrail into the ravine, but in the speeding Camry with Dennis’s hair flapping and his white linen outfit rippling in the wind and Sinatra’s croony lyrics in stereo, the guy was an escapee from the asylum as far as Paul could tell.
At the coast highway, Dennis slowed for a stoplight.
“When we get out of the car,” he said, “don’t talk to anyone.”
Paul gave him a thumbs-up. His hand jerked with the tremor, and his thumb flicked out like he was hitching a ride.
Dennis eyed the dangling thumb and then the ocean across the road, the surfers in black wet suits on their boards, rising and falling with the swells.
“They’ll say it means your liver’s wrecked,” Dennis said. “So don’t listen to them.”
“It’s nothing,” Paul said.
“You know how if you cut the arm off a starfish, the starfish grows back the arm?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the liver,” Dennis said. “The liver rejuvenates.”
“Regenerates.”
“That’s what I said.”
Starbucks was on one side of a grocery store parking lot. Dennis parked at the end of a line of Harley motorcycles. He looked over the Starbucks patio, at the bearded bikers in black leather vests, the surfers in board shorts and flip-flops, the teenage girls in halter tops. “Casting call, Malibu,” he said.
Then he pushed his sunglasses higher up the bridge of his nose and checked his tousled hair in the rearview mirror.
“Do not talk to anyone,” Dennis said. “I repeat, don’t talk to anyone.”
If Paul had been paying attention, he would’ve noticed the girl in the aviators, the phone in her hand, how she tilted it slightly and pouted as if for a selfie. He relied on tipsters: valets, hairstylists, waiters, bodyguards, production assistants, doormen. Yes, he could say to the judge about the night the kid had died, I received a tip and was en route to the Peninsula Hotel. I didn’t intend to speed. [Pause.] But I suppose I was in a hurry. My livelihood depends on getting the first shot.
He followed Dennis inside Starbucks. They bought iced cappuccinos, triples. It took five minutes, maybe ten, before they picked up their drinks from the counter. It wasn’t enough time, but it must’ve been because as Paul followed Dennis out the doors into the sunlight, he heard the clicks—two Canons and a Nikon. Dennis crouched and turned his back to them instantly. Three men in dark T-shirts and faded jeans lifted and lowered the cameras, pushed in on them. Clicking and shouting for Dennis in his real name. For a second Paul didn’t understand who they were calling for. Dennis stayed low and grabbed Paul’s arm, pulled him close as if to protect him. Paul felt a pang of relief, of safety. Then Dennis swerved away from the Starbucks doors. He gripped Paul’s other arm, dug his fingers into the skin, and shoved Paul backward into the cameras. Paul flailed as he fell, his wrist smacking two lenses. The paparazzi yelled, “Hey, watch out, asshole,” and recoiled, lifted their precious cameras above their heads as Paul hit the pavement. His iced cappuccino smacked the ground beside him. He watched the men’s dirty tennis shoes as they turned and ran from him. They called after Dennis, who fled across the parking lot to the Camry, his sandals slapping the asphalt.
From the Starbucks patio, Paul watched Dennis climb into the Camry and speed out of the parking lot, the paparazzi firing their cameras at his back. They were Hail Mary shots. Worthless. He’d gotten away.
The girl in the aviators sat at her table, her phone sideways, scanning the scene on video. She paused on Paul. He gave her the finger. She put down the phone.
“What’s your name?” she said.
“Warren Beatty.”
She typed into her phone, and then he heard the swoosh of her email. She’d sent the video. Another five hundred dollars for the tipster.