Larry and June met the old-fashioned way: in a bar, drunk. They exchanged glances over their friends’ shoulders until June finally got off her stool and wobbled on her high heels to Larry, extending her hand and a greeting—borne on a light spray of gin and tonic—that was almost completely drowned out by the rockabilly house band. He wasn’t exactly her type, but something about his looks kept her eyes wandering back to him. He was thin and loose-limbed, his curly blond hair a length no longer fashionable, his nose a little too long, his smile gentle and slightly crooked. 

 

I don’t usually come on to strangers like this, she said.

 

How do you usually come on to strangers? he asked, deadpan. She laughed. Let me buy you a drink. 

 

You’re on, he replied.

 

They walked to the bar together. June glanced back at the friends Larry was leaving behind; he hadn’t bothered to excuse himself. Her own friends giggled and gave her the thumbs-up sign.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here, he said, a tumbler of whiskey, neat, in his hand.

 

That’s because I don’t ever come here, she replied, leaning over another gin and tonic with a look intended to be mysterious.

 

He cocked his head, as if waiting for elaboration.

 

June sighed. I live in Los Osos. I don’t get down to Santa Barbara often. 

 

He nodded at her drink. But you sure take advantage of it when you do.

 

She flushed. I don’t usually—

 

He placed a hand on her arm. Hey, I didn’t mean it as criticism. He raised his glass. A toast?

 

A toast, she agreed. To what?

 

To what? To us.

 

To us—that sounded glib, and presumptuous, and outrageous, and somehow right and fitting. She raised her glass. To us.

 

* * *

 

She hadn’t done this in a while, waking up in a strange man’s bed. Larry’s bedroom was empty except for a small table and chair and a nightstand. A pale light came through the cracks in the mini blinds. Her head throbbed and she faintly heard noise from another part of the house. June turned on her side, tucked an arm under her head, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the light through the blinds was brighter and Larry was kneeling beside the bed with a tray of croissants, a teapot, and two cups. 

 

I hope chamomile is okay, he said.

 

Chamomile is just fine, she said, sitting up, careful to pull the sheets over her breasts as she did.

 

He blushed. If you like, we can eat in the kitchen.

 

She nodded.

 

* * *

 

I’m into Chinese medicine, Larry said, as they sat at the kitchen table. I meditate. I’m a vegetarian and I eat only organic food. I exercise regularly. I consider myself an environmentalist. I’m the worst stereotype of a Santa Barbara liberal that you can imagine, he mock-grimaced, and put down his tea cup. Don’t hate me too much.

She had meant her question—who are you?—to be rhetorical as in, What am I doing here with you? How did I come to spend the night with you? June smiled wanly. Backstory, from what she remembered, hadn’t been too important last night.

 

Larry was ten years older than June. His father was a renowned local surgeon who happened to pass through Santa Barbara as a young man one December in the 1960s. He took a look around and decided then and there to abandon his hometown of Detroit. His medical practice soared along with the city’s reputation as a refuge for wealthy Angelenos. Taking note of the trend, he poured his earnings into real estate, and within a decade was making more through sales and rentals than he was practicing medicine. Larry’s mother was what he later learned to call depressed: she barely had the energy to get out of bed in the morning and spent her days at home, fighting a losing battle to block out the sun with heavy drapes. If I can’t enjoy the sunshine I’d rather not know it’s sunny, she once told Larry. The older he got, the more his mother faded from his life, until she was just a faint presence in a dark room. She died slowly and painfully from breast cancer before she was sixty.

 

June, who was nearing forty, ran a daycare with her mother in Los Osos. She’d majored in early childhood education at Fresno State, with a minor in wild partying that came to an end her senior year after several encounters in frat house bedrooms left her with the sensation, if not clear memories, of having been violated. She stayed in Fresno for a year after graduation, working at a daycare and living with an older man, a veteran of the first Iraq war. She was drawn to Bill because he was cute and he seemed stable—a large, placid man with blond, hairy forearms who ran his own plumbing business. One night, a few months after she moved in with him, he barricaded himself in the house with her, blasted heavy metal on the stereo, and forced her to have sex. They never spoke about the incident. She continued with Bill for another few weeks in a state of alternating numbness and anxiety and then left without explaining or saying goodbye. Bill never tried to get in touch with her. At times, while leading the children in song or reading them a story, June caught herself thinking about him, about them, sweating and straining on the living room couch as Metallica blared.

 

I take care of kids, she said. With my mom. In Los Osos. She was aware that this sounded pathetic. 

 

There’s nobility in nurturing the next generation, Larry said, without irony. 

 

I suppose there is, she conceded, although it’s mostly just exhausting.

 

Most great things come only through great effort, Larry countered.

 

She smiled at him and sipped her tea.

 

* * *

 

When Larry found out that she didn’t have a bike, he bought her a second-hand Cannondale with a cushy seat and stored it in his garage. He took her on rides through wine country and along the coast, even though she rode slowly and she could tell it nearly killed him to ride at her pace when every fiber in his body and clothes—padded Lycra biking shorts and colorful jersey—screamed out for speed and exertion. She stubbornly refused the biking clothes he wanted to buy her, preferring baggy gym shorts and T-shirts.

 

He organized kayaking trips at Gaviota State Park, boat trips to the Channel Islands, and dinners at his favorite restaurants in Santa Barbara. She didn’t have the strength to resist the pull of his restless energy, so at odds with his laid-back, liberal Santa Barbarianism. It was as if, because they only saw each other on weekends—the nearly two-hour drive from Los Osos to Santa Barbara effectively ruled out getting together during the week—he wanted to fit in as much activity as possible.

 

June often drove down to her sister’s house in Santa Maria on Friday evenings and met Larry there. May was four years older than June and had married her high school sweetheart right after graduation. Paul owned his own construction company, they had three little kids, and had just moved into a house in a brand-new development on the sprawling edge of town.

 

May said that if he were younger, she’d call him a nerd. May had never been shy about sharing her opinions, although she had the good sense to voice this one only after Paul had taken Larry into the garage workshop and the women were alone drinking coffee in the kitchen. Maybe a nerd’s father, she added with a laugh.

 

June, who liked that he looked harmless, didn’t respond. May wasn’t the kind of person you could really disagree with, she thought; she wouldn’t listen, she’d just bowl right over you. That obnoxious parent riding the ref at a youth soccer game? That was May. Although she was also the parent organizing the team snack and handling arrangements for the out-of-town tournaments. June hated team sports.

 

What does he do for a living? May asked, resting her elbows on the table. 

 

He manages rental properties, June said. She didn’t add: For his dad, the big-shot Santa Barbara surgeon, aware that May’s likely reaction to this information had already leached into her thoughts.

 

Collecting rent, eh? 

 

That and doing maintenance.

 

He doesn’t look like the type who’d know the business end of a circular saw if it cut his nuts off.

 

June knew that wasn’t true. His workshop was almost as well-equipped as Paul’s, and he was building a split-level redwood deck in the backyard, which seemed to June to require a great deal of skill.

 

 

* * *

 

Larry isn’t my type, she told herself. She wasn’t sure anymore what her type was. Aging bad boys with jacked-up pickup trucks, nervous married men with office jobs and wives who’d given up taking care of themselves, young Latinos fresh from construction sites—she’d had an array of types, which she rotated as often as she did the bars she frequented with her friends between Paso Robles and Santa Maria. But since meeting Larry she’d stopped making the rounds. Her friend Pam joked that June was going to stop eating meat and start voting Democrat, and June heard a sharp sliver of envy and hurt in her words. The truth was that she was getting used to the way she ate when she was with Larry, and even enjoying it. It was good to get out and get some exercise, too, she thought. 

 

Most of all she thought about the future. Larry had never hinted at her moving in with him, and she wasn’t sure she would do it if he asked, but the idea of spending the rest of her life in her mom’s house was more and more oppressive. She tried to convince herself that she stayed more for her mom than for herself. Mom would be crushed if I moved out; she doesn’t have anyone else except for May and May’s busy with her own kids and helping Paul with the business. Sometimes, when June looked at herself in the mirror hanging on the inside of the closet door in her childhood bedroom, she had trouble summoning up her image as a young woman, heading out to college, with vague but exciting ideas of making a life for herself. I’m nearly 40, she thought, and I’m still living with my mom.

 

* * *

 

June had a hard time reading Larry. Getting into and paying for college had been a struggle for her, but she went, she finished, and she was doing something with her degree, even if it didn’t pay that much and the work itself was hard and not that satisfying. He went to a private college in the East and could have gone to law school or become a doctor like his father, but he chose to study history. 

 

What did your parents think about that? she asked him.

 

I did it to rebel against my dad, he said. 

 

And?

 

He thought it was great, he told me he’d support me whatever I wanted to study, Larry said. He just wanted me to be happy. Larry shook his head. I wanted to fight and he didn’t.

 

June wanted to say that she would have loved to know her own father—fight with him or receive his unconditional love, anything. He’d left June’s mom before June was born and never came back. He was a major topic of the silent conversation that each of the women in June’s family held with herself.

 

Some weekends Larry didn’t call, and he didn’t return her calls. It’s okay, she told herself, everyone needs space. But it wasn’t okay. She wanted to know that he wanted to see her, that he missed her during the week, but she didn’t want him to think she was dependent on him for her happiness, even though that was kind of true, although she had to admit she wasn’t always happy when she was with him. She was definitely not happy when she wasn’t with him. 

 

She asked him once why he hadn’t returned her calls. You’re not the only one who’s disappointed with life, he snapped, and clammed up in sullen silence for the rest of their hike in the mountains behind Santa Barbara.

 

* * *

 

In December, June and Larry went to a small canyon by the beach in Goleta where each year monarch butterflies stopover in a eucalyptus grove on their migration to Mexico. They arrived mid-morning when the sun was not yet shining down into the canyon. When Larry invited her to see the monarchs, she had had images of a swirling vortex of orange and black butterflies in a sun-dappled glade. When they reached the area where a sign pointed toward where the monarchs should be, all she saw were gray sad-looking trees, their long, dagger-like leaves hanging limply. She felt deflated. Larry smiled at her slyly. Just wait, he whispered. Ten minutes, twenty minutes went by. Small groups of hikers trudged up the hill, stood next to June and Larry, read the signs about the monarch migration, waited impatiently for a minute or two, and then continued.

 

At last, June had had enough. Larry, I can’t—

 

Shh, he said, look at the leaves.

 

She looked.

 

Closer, he whispered.

 

She took a step closer and leaned over the little rope suspended between two posts to keep people out of the canyon. The air was still but she saw a leaf, lit by a shaft of sunlight, stir. Then another leaf on the same tree moved. It took her a moment to realize that what she had taken for leaves were actually the dull undersides of monarchs hanging from the leaves. For the next half hour, as the sun slowly penetrated the small stand of eucalyptus, the butterflies awoke, gently flapped their wings, and began flitting in all directions.

 

She laughed with delight. He smiled and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, breathing in his freshly washed smell.

 

* * *

 

Winter turned to spring turned to summer turned to fall. The butterflies went to Mexico. Children outgrew the daycare, and new ones entered. June continued to see Larry most weekends. She felt herself settling into a routine with him. Not unpleasant, she thought, but some essential element was lacking, as if each weekend they were together were unconnected to the previous one, building nothing, generating no momentum.

 

One Saturday evening they walked down by the pier. They stopped at the skateboard park. Boys and young men in sagging pants and oversized t-shirts performed acrobatic feats on their boards. June noticed that they never broke into a smile or shouted with triumph. Occasionally one would nod to the other in recognition of a particularly remarkable act. Most were pumping music through white earphones, sailing on their own individual sonic seas. With a few exceptions, the skaters were Latino and black, and the spectators white, as if the park were some sort of zoo or nature preserve. 

 

Near the pier, a huge flock of birds stood facing into the wind. Larry motioned for June to follow him as he slowly walked a few steps closer, then stopped. He repeated this until they were about twenty feet away. 

 

Those are funny-looking seagulls, she whispered. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any with long orange beaks like that before. 

 

Actually, they’re elegant terns, he said. 

 

What? 

 

Terns, elegant terns. T-e-r-n-s. 

 

Sometimes, when he shared a piece of exotic, pointless knowledge, she would feel ashamed of her ignorance, or angry at him for being such a know-it-all. Now she just felt sad: at his age, trying to impress the girls. And she was hardly a girl anymore.

 

Every so often a bird would flap its wings and rise up a few feet, suspended by the stiff breeze, and hover for a moment before touching down in the same place. June was mesmerized. They were beautiful, with their gray bodies and snow-white necks, a shock of black hair that swept back over their heads and fanned out mad-professor style. After a few minutes, a little Latino girl in pigtails let go of her mother’s hand and ran toward the birds, screeching. The terns took flight, scattered, and reassembled twenty yards farther down the beach. The girl chased after them. Let’s go eat, Larry said.

 

As they walked away from the beach, a thin woman in black spandex with a blond ponytail jogged past them on the sidewalk. 

 

I can’t go on like this, June said. 

 

He looked at her. Like how?

 

I’m going to get married and become one of those skinny, leathery middle-aged women who go biking and jogging and kayaking and…

 

I don’t see what getting married has to do with it, Larry said, warily.

 

Is this the price of not being alone, June thought, a low-grade fever kind of relationship, like living with a slight headache or a pebble in your shoe?

 

* * *

 

By the time June had made up her mind to break up with Larry, it was December and Larry’s father had taken a turn for the worse. He’d been living in a retirement home for the past four years and had recently been moved from his semi-independent apartment to a building for residents who required skilled nursing care. Larry didn’t talk much about him, and she hadn’t met Dr. Turner before, but when Larry suggested they go visit him right before Christmas she felt she couldn’t refuse. Besides, she had decided to break up with Larry after New Year’s—no reason to totally mess up the holiday season.

 

Granada Retirement Community was a collection of one-story buildings squatting at the foot of a palm-topped hill a short drive inland from the beach. The buildings were connected by a series of breezeways. A jaunty gray-haired woman riding a three-wheeled bicycle slowly passed Larry and June as they walked toward the skilled nursing wing. She rang her bike’s bell and waved, without looking back. June felt compelled to wave even though she knew the woman couldn’t see her. 

 

Larry caught June’s eye. Some people in the Active Living wing are still pretty active, he said. My dad was like that when he arrived. They walked in silence for a moment before coming to a building with a glass door, which he opened for June.

 

How may I help you? the woman at the reception desk smiled up at them.

 

We’re here to see Art Turner, Larry said.

 

Ah, Dr. Turner, she said. Let me check where he is. She tapped her keyboard. He’s in the dining hall now.

 

Larry thanked the woman and led June down a wide corridor. A white woman in a bright red and green cardigan shuffled a walker along the hall, head down. A short, stocky Latino woman gently held her elbow and murmured to her. 

 

The dining hall was brightly lit, and its faux brick walls were adorned with wreaths and strings of Christmas ornaments. Christmas music played softly, mingling with the muted sound of conversation and the clinking of silverware on plates. The tables were full, and black-and-white-clad waiters bustled around, bringing food and taking away empty plates. Nursing assistants hovered along the walls, talking to each other without taking their eyes off their charges.

There he is, Larry said, motioning to a far table. He took June’s hand and stood for a moment in silence, hesitant. She squeezed his hand. He led her over to the table.

 

Larry’s father, even sitting, was impressive: His hair was a confection of white as wavy, elaborate, and brittle-looking as a meringue, his shoulders broad, his nose long and fleshy. His shaking hands were cutting his food into very small, even-sized pieces.

 

He looked up when Larry approached. 

 

Dr. Turner placed his silverware on his plate and labored to stand, embracing his son. June saw Larry close his eyes and grimace.

 

Dad, I want you to meet June, he said, after extracting himself from his father’s arms and the old man was sitting once again.

 

You the girl who’s going to marry Larry?  he asked.

 

She looked to Larry for guidance. Larry’s shoulders were hunched, his head jutting forward slightly. He reminded her of a turtle without its shell, vulnerable in only its wrinkled, dry skin.

 

Well, I…

 

Because I can tell you a thing or two about Larry here that’ll make your hair stand on end.

I’m sure you can, Dad, Larry interjected. But June didn’t come here to…

 

Larry never had any ambition, Dr. Turner continued. In that, he took after his mother. But I don’t blame her that much—she was raised in a different time. Women were expected to be housewives and take care of the kids. Nowadays, women can do anything men can do, and maybe even better. But Larry… and he shifted in his chair. It looked to June that he was settling in to embark on a long speech.

 

We were too indulgent with him, his mother and I, Dr. Turner said. Too soft. If he wanted something, we gave it to him. We should have said “no” more often. We should have set more limits, as they say now. Sometimes I think we should have stayed in Detroit. There’s something to be said for struggling through winter each year, and living where you can’t avoid seeing people who have less than you do. But I was seduced by all this—he waved his hand toward the room, filled with elderly, frail people whose bodies and lives were slowly extinguishing, but June understood Dr. Turner’s meaning well enough: sunshine, palm trees, beaches, mountains, wealth, all abetting the seductive illusion of perpetual health—and never looked back.

 

June glanced at Larry, who stood still, his breathing measured. Maybe this explains his interest in meditation, she thought.

 

What did we know? The brisk confidence of Dr. Turner’s voice yielded to something more resigned. We were young, we thought everything would last forever, we thought there would be time for everything, we thought we wouldn’t miss our families back in Detroit. He shook his head.

 

But Larry isn’t young anymore. I’m sure you realize that, he said.

 

Dad, we just came to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year—But look on the bright side: The major mistakes have already been made—there’s not much chance to make any new big ones. A man’s set in his ways by the time he’s fifty. From then on out, his mistakes are just tinkering around the edges. Or rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. He laughed at his own joke. 

 

Thank you, Dr. Turner, June ventured, when it became apparent that the old man was through talking. He had squared his body back up to his plate and continued cutting up his food. I will definitely keep what you said in mind. 

 

Dr. Turner nodded and lifted a forkful of food. Thank you both for your visit, he said, then buried the fork in his mouth.

 

Larry turned and walked toward the door. June stood for a moment and then patted the old man on the forearm. 

 

She weaved her way through the tables. In the doorway, a thin woman with wispy hair cut in uneven bangs sat in a wheelchair. She caught June’s eye and smiled. June smiled back. 

 

Suddenly, the woman glared at her. Well, are you going to take me out of here or not? the woman demanded in a sharp voice. I want to get out of here!

 

June stopped and looked at her in surprise. I can’t take you out of here, I don’t work here.

 

Well, I don’t work here either, the woman stated firmly. Take me out of here right now! And she began fumbling with the seatbelt that secured her in the wheelchair.

 

Ma’am, I can’t take you out, I don’t work here, June said, suddenly desperate. 

She glanced around for help. Larry was still walking down the hallway toward the building’s exit. The nursing assistants remained attentive to the old people dining. June felt drained. 

 

I wish I could help but I can’t, she said, as much to herself as to the old woman.