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of poker hands; they might even take me to the cleaners.
"It's a little early," I said, taking the food dish from Orson.
"But You did have a very active night."
After shaking a serving of his favorite dry dog food from the box into
his bowl, I circled the kitchen, closing the Levolor blinds against the
growing threat of the day. As I was shutting the last of them, I
thought I heard a door close softly elsewhere in the house.
I froze, listening.
"Something?" I whispered.
Orson looked up from his bowl, sniffed the air, cocked his head, then
chuffed and once more turned his attention to his food.
The three-hundred-ring circus of my mind.
At the sink I washed my hands and splashed some cold water on my
face.
Sasha keeps an immaculate kitchen, gleaming and sweet-smelling, but
it's cluttered. She's a superb cook, and clusters of exotic appliances
take up at least half the counter space. So many pots, pans, ladles,
and utensils dangle from overhead racks that You feel as if You're
spelunking through a cavern where every inch of the ceiling is hung
with stalactites.
I moved throughout her house, closing blinds, feeling the vibrant
spirit of her in every corner. She is so alive that she leaves an aura
behind her that lingers long after she has gone.
Her home has no interior-design theme, no harmony in the flow of
furniture and artwork. Rather, each room is a testament to one of her
consuming passions. She is a woman of many passions.
All meals are taken at a large kitchen table, because the dining room
is dedicated to her music. Along one wall is an electronic keyboard, a
full-scale synthesizer with which she could compose for an orchestra if
she wished, and adjacent to this is her composition table with music
stand and a stack of pages with blank musical staffs awaiting her
pencil. In the center of the room is a drum set. In a corner stands a
high-quality cello with a low, cellist's stool. In another corner,
beside a music stand, a saxophone hangs on a brass sax rack. There are
two guitars as well, one acoustic and one electric.
The living room isn't about appearances but about books-another of her
passions. The walls are lined with bookshelves, which overflow with
hardcovers and paperbacks. The furniture is not trendy, neither
stylish nor styleless: neutral-tone chairs and sofas selected for the
comfort they provide, for the fact that they're perfect for sitting and
talking or for spending long hours with a book.
On the second floor, the first room from the head of the stairs
features an exercise bicycle, a rowing machine, a set of hand weights
from two to twenty pounds, calibrated in two-pound increments, and
exercise mats.
This is her homeopathic-medicine room, as well, where she keeps scores
of bottles of vitamins and minerals, and where she practices yoga.
When she uses the Exercycle, she won't get off until she's streaming
sweat and has churned up at least thirty miles on the odometer. She
stays on the rowing machine until she's crossed Lake Tahoe in her mind,
keeping a steady rhythm by singing tunes by Sarah McLachlan or Juliana
Hatfield or Meredith Brooks or Sasha Goodall, and when she does stomach
crunches and leg lifts, the padded mats under her seem as if they will
start smoking before she's half done. When she's finished exercising,
she's always more energetic than when she began, flushed and buoyant.
And when she concludes a session of meditation in various yoga
positions, the intensity of her relaxation seems powerful enough to
blow out the walls of the room.
God, I love her.
As I stepped from the exercise room into the upstairs hall, I was
stricken once more by that premonition of impending loss. I began to
shake so badly that I had to lean against the wall until the episode
passed.
Nothing could happen to her in daylight, not on the ten minute drive
from the broadcast studios on Signal Hill through the heart of town.
The night is when the troop seems to roam. By day they go to ground
somewhere, perhaps in the storm drains under the town or even in the
hills where I'd found the collection of skulls. And the people who can
no longer be trusted, the changelings like Lewis Stevenson, seem more
in control of themselves under the sun than under the moon. As with
the animal men in The Island of Dr. Moreau, the wildness in them will
not be as easily suppressed at night. With the dusk, they lose a
measure of self-control; a sense of adventure springs up in them, and
they dare things that they never dream about by day. Surely nothing
could happen to Sasha now that dawn was upon us; for perhaps the first
time in my life, I felt relief at the rising of the sun.
Finally I came to her bedroom. Here You will find no musical
instruments, not a single book, no pots or trays of herbs, no bottles
of vitamins, no exercise equipment. The bed is simple, with a plain
headboard, no footboard, and it is covered with a thin white chenille
spread. There's nothing whatsoever remarkable about the dresser, the
nightstands, or the lamps. The walls are pale yellow, the very shade
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