Even worse, he had lost face in front of Karen. Since Karen’s contributions to civilization had eclipsed his own, Senderovsky had felt even more in need of her approbation. Having a “lovely family and a lovely home,” to quote his Los Angeles agent, would be proof that unlike his divorced, childless friend, he “had it all.” And now Karen had seen his daughter run away, sing to sheep. （Although maybe she had taken it as proof of the child’s imagination and independence. The younger Karen would have.） A few more incidents like that might segue into diagnostic talk, which would lead to still more mention of her schooling which was filled with the most perceptive teachers ever to wield chalk and where, despite their many interventions, Nat still did not have any friends.
And, while he was searching for Nat around the property, he had gotten a vague message from the Actor about being late, or maybe not coming tonight, or maybe not coming ever, which, if true, would mean there would be no progress on the script, which, in turn, would evaporate Senderovsky’s half of Nat’s fifty-nine-thousand-dollar tuition. Not to mention the costs of feeding his guests indefinitely and heating and cooling their bungalows. On the other hand, Senderovsky knew that once the Actor arrived, the atmosphere would change from a Visit to Sasha’s Deluxe Bungalow Colony to an Evening with the Actor in Some Country Setting. He would either struggle to make himself heard above the Actor’s beautiful silence or try to provide a laugh track, which in the end would mean the same thing.
Three cars had gathered at the intersection of two major state roads. Senderovsky had forgotten the rules on which vehicle should take precedence during such an event, assumed it was his own, and stepped on the gas. Similarly, half a mile later, he drove past a yield sign, but refused to yield. On the approach to the bridge, slowing down because of a likely police car waiting ahead （his side mirror was still dangling）， he slammed on the brakes and heard a great reshuffle in his trunk ending with the unmistakable symphony of shattered glass. Devil take it. Once again, he had forgotten to remove the cartons of alcohol. He pulled over to the side of the road to the Kiss & Ride parking lot. Senderovsky, who had never lived by a far-flung train station, could never figure out why the lot was so named—an incitement to prostitution? He opened his trunk, which immediately reeked of spilled alcohol. He sighed. Could it be the eighteen-year-old bottle he had bought to impress Ed and the Actor （who, he had forgotten, didn’t really drink）？ He rummaged through the cartons until he sliced his finger, mildly, on a run of broken glass. He sucked on his finger for a while. Finally, he dared to look down. The expensive bottle was safe, but two bottles of country rye had crashed into each other and bled out into the carton. Senderovsky brought the carton up to his lips, tipped it over slightly, and drank, his tongue screening out little bits of glass. Now he was in his natural state, moderately drunk in his dressing gown, his wife and child a world away. If state law or federal law or intergalactic law would allow it, he would have spent the next hour at the Kiss & Ride drinking himself into tragicomedy before hurtling his car toward his friend. He dumped the remains of the bottles into a waiting trash bin, then stood by the side of the road, watching cars swoosh mindlessly onto the bridge, their drivers bathed in the electronics of their cockpits, looking small, indistinct, unprepared for this moment in history.
The city across the river had recently become fashionable, but was still studied by urban planning graduates as a cautionary tale. Highways meant for far-larger metropolises had been built to separate its neighborhoods by race, and like a not-especially-clever clinical mouse Senderovsky often entrapped himself in cloverleafs and roundabouts. The bus station, catering to an obscure statewide bus company, somehow ended up in the trendy, formerly Black part of town, by the thriving new café and bookstore and a score of restaurants with dim interiors and urbane prices.
Senderovsky found Vinod standing alone by the shabby building, two plastic suitcases at his feet, looking like a slightly updated version of his father the moment he had emigrated from India, too late in his life to succeed in the New World as the owner of a computer store. Masha had insisted on upgrading his fundless friend from a bus to a train ticket, believing it was safer healthwise, but Vinod had refused her aid with the same obstinate politeness he had refused Karen’s.
Senderovsky braked within inches of his friend’s suitcases and leaped out of his car. The men stared at each other. For a second, both were fifteen, back at their freshman orientation at the high school for bright beaten foreign youngsters. Vinod had a full head of graying hair haloing down to his shoulders, peppery whiskers commencing to a salty beard, and somewhere amid all those outgrowths were once-frantic eyes that had recently, politely, extinguished themselves.