Charlie calls me this morning. I didn’t expect it. It’s been ten days since we talked. I’m happy to hear his voice. That’s what I feel at first before the confusion kicks in. Charlie’s sweet. There’s no bitterness in his voice. He’s tentative. I suppose, I am too. Things begin to feel normal while we talk about the news, and then Charlie goes off on Rudy Giuliani.

“Consider the Rudy trifecta, Pina. First he get’s played by Borat’s girl and starts to beat-off; thankfully Borat rushes out in his outlandish costume and stops him. Then the Rude does his horseshit press conference on the outskirts of Philly, at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, beside an adult bookstore, across from a crematorium. And he caps it off at another presser, where he doesn’t have a single fact to argue, and sweats rivulets of black dye down his face. It’s like the end of a bad horror film.”

“You sound like you really enjoy the Rudster, Charlie,” I say, and think back to watching the new Borat with Charlie, his legs wrapped around me on the carpet.

Charlie keeps talking and I’m glad to listen. He tells me about his friend Arrow painting Trump’s death in multiples.

“Like Andy Warhol?” I ask.

“No, no,” he says, “distinct serial deaths.”

He describes some of the ways Arrow kills Trump. I just listen. For a moment I think we might not get around to anything personal in the conversation.

“I miss you,” Charlie says, breaking the spell.

“Me too.”

“Hmmm,” Charlie says. “Hmmm.” He sounds like he’s lost his way. And when he finally speaks it’s in an altered voice: “Can we meet somewhere?”

He’s all business, like a boss about to explain why he’s firing you. Or is that just what the paranoid worm in my brain makes of his change of tone.

“Where would you like to meet?” I ask, forcing my voice to bloodlessness.

“Somewhere outside where we can be safe.”

The choice is mine, apparently. “Meet me at Kelly’s Cove. We can stand ten feet apart and nobody will bother us.”

We make a date for tomorrow afternoon, at the top of stairwell number five. I’m not sure if I’m going to show up.

The business of being a minimalist is beginning to wear on me. I have exactly one sweater, three blouses and three pairs of pants to my name. I wash everything by hand in the motel’s bathroom sink because I’m phobic about the laundromat. It’s a tedious business and the clothes, especially the jeans, take forever to hang dry. I’ve thought of calling Charlie and asking him to bring a couple suitcases of my clothes, along with my computer and stash of weed, but in the end I‘ve decided not to ask him for anything.

The other problem is eating. Although I eat well, I’m tired of the set-up. The motel boasts a mini-fridge and an electric teakettle, but there’s no hotplate. I’ve thought of buying one and cooking on the sly, but I know this temporary. I subsist on milk and cereal, ramen, raw vegetables and fruits, nuts and dried fruits, eggs, bread, cheese, deli meats, olives, tinned fish. Unfortunately, I’m at the end of my big jar of Greek caviar, taramosalata, but I know where to get more. I’ve figured a method for preparing soft-boiled eggs with two shifts of boiling water in a bowl. Yes, it’s a diet of privilege. I do know how to look after myself and feel no need to catalog on my liquid diet.

But the cost of living in a high-priced motel is unsustainable. This morning I spotted an apartment on Craig’s List. A junior one-bedroom, just a few blocks from here, 46th and Anza, 450 square feet, $2,290 a month, immediate availability. In this market, that’s a good deal. It’s only three blocks from the ocean.

I had to resort to some unseemly charm, covert flirtation, to get to see the place. The leasing agent was showing it this afternoon, and his times were all booked up. “It will be gone by the end of the day,” he boasted, ready to hang up.

“Then show it to me this morning,” I said, with honey-burnished elocution.

This tripped him up. He couldn’t quite end the call.

“Why? Why should I show it to you?” It sounded like he was posing the question to himself, but I took it as an invitation to explain why.

“Because you’re a decent man and I’m just a few blocks away.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

I slowed down my delivery: “I have all the qualities you want in a renter. I’m professional, discreet, and comely.”

It was the last two words that got him. I doubt he knew what they meant, but somehow they woke up the little man in him. He was ready for phone sex right then, and he put some giddy-up into his voice. “What time to do you want to meet, honey?”

Fuck you, you prick, I thought, but I wanted to see the place. “Ten-thirty.”

“That’s a half an hour from now.”

“Will you have to helicopter in?”

“I’ll be there. Bring a credit report.”

Up yours.

The leasing agent—blimp-like, somewhere between thirty-five and fifty—stands outside the building when I get there. He looks as wide as he’s tall, a very stout Mickey Rooney in a soiled khaki sport coat, perhaps size 64, boxy, over a yellow oxford cloth shirt with the top buttons open so that thick sproutings of blond hair above his vast chest tumble forth indecently. His feet swell out of his penny loafers. It isn’t hard to keep my distance. I pick up his aftershave from fifteen feet. It smells like the worst kind of sugared fart.

I remember Vince, during one of his daily jazz history bulletins, telling me about a singer built like this agent, named Jimmy Rushing. His nickname was the punch line: Mr. Five by Five. Why I retain this shit I do not know. But here I am standing across from Mr. Five by Five, only he’s not black or beloved for his voice, which soared over Count Basie’s band. This guy’s a putz, and, yes, I‘m being uncharitable. I’m not sure why; I’m not usually big on body shaming. The dude’s Mt. Rushmore mask doesn’t help. Is that code for Trump because the bastard fancies his head carved into the mountain?

In his big boy voice, the blob introduces himself, “Josh Rook.”

Crook, I think. “Like the chess piece?”

“Exactly.” He’s delighted with the association and nods his head a couple of times. He appears to no longer have a neck.

“Pina,” I say and step back from him. It’s involuntary, I fear.

“Pina, Pina,” he repeats. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name.”

“Nobody has.”

The building doesn’t look promising. It’s definitely the ugly duckling on the block, which is otherwise made up of immaculate stucco bungalows from the thirties or early forties. I shouldn’t even bother with this.

The agent sucks in his enormous girth, trying to stiffen up and turn to business. “We can walk up. It’s only on the next floor.” He stands back, for me to go first, but I don’t want this sloth behind me, breathing on my neck. He goes first; that way I control the distance. Otherwise he could throw me down and sit on me. I don’t want to end up like some poor chick in “Silence of the Lambs.”

The problem with walking behind him is that he climbs very slowly, panting with each step. If I’d gone first I could have raced up and waited for him. Now I fear he’ll fall backwards or the earthquake will hit and we’ll both be done.

“Folks are swallowing up these apartments out by the beach,” he says, turning to smile at me. “Nobody wants to be in crowded neighborhoods nowadays.”

I agree but I’m not about to tell him.

Mr. Rook’s saccharine fart pong fills the L-shaped room, which is a disaster. Somebody with cats lived here and even with the carpets gone and a fresh coat of paint, the apartment is a feline morgue, and it’s dark—the three windows are narrow and slung low—while the kitchen nook, with creamed corn wallpaper and budget appliances seems like a reasonable place to blow your brains out. I have a flash of despair. How much am I going to have to pay for a decent apartment?

“With a little imagination,” the agent says, and actually winks at me, the fat fuck. “With a little imagination you can make this place . . .”

I turn on my heels. “Sorry, I don’t think this is the apartment for me.” I hurry out the door.

“We can make an adjustment on the rent,” he calls. His voice echoes in the stairwell. “Let’s take a little ride in my Audi.”

Charlie’s leaning over the ocean wall when I get there. It looks like he’s nodding to the waves. The water is choppy today with plenty of whitecaps. Charlie’s hair’s all tousled. I’m trying to decide if his eyes are closed. He’s so cute in his ugly green alligator cardigan. It’s from the seventies and he’s proud of it. He picked it up at the Church Mouse in Sonoma. I make fun of him every time he wears it and now I’m touched that he’s worn it today. He still doesn’t see me. I don’t give a damn what he came for, I’m glad he’s here.

“Charlie,” I call, “what you doing in that ugly sweater?”

He turns, a wide smile on his face. Sweet man. I walk up as close as prescribed and grab my own spot against the concrete wall, turned to face him.

Charlie raises his eyebrows. “I’m glad you decided to come, Pina.”

“What? I’m not late.”

He looks at his watch and shrugs.

I want to tell him about the grotesque man and the apartment I just looked at. I want him to know that I’m flexible about where I live and that I take responsibility for my wayward action, but before I have a chance to say anything to him besides Hey, he bursts out with: “I fucked up. I fucked up really major, Pina.

Somehow I find this news refreshing, but Charlie’s face has turned sober. He looks like somebody’s just given him grim news, which, apparently, he’s going to give it to me.

I try to help him. “How did you fuck up? Something to do with Roscoe?”

“No, with you.”

“Me? I’m the one that fucked up, Charlie.”

He bites his nails a moment. I’ve never seen him bite his nails. “I came to the city last week,” he says, and shakes his head. “I thought I might drop off a suitcase of clothes for you and your laptop. You know, with your concierge who’s not a concierge.”

I can’t see where this is going.

“But I thought I’d take a little drive through the city first. So I head to North Beach. Drive up Columbus Avenue. There are lots of people eating at these new parklets and I think, Why not get myself a plate of gnocchi. It’s sunny out, there’s a distanced table waiting for me. So I’m deep into my gnocchi. It comes with sourdough bread and a dipping bowl of olive oil with pepper flakes.”

I don’t know why Charlie is telling me all this or what the fuck his plate of gnocchi has to do with me.

“And I’m nursing a tumbler of dago red. Oh, I’m sorry I said that. I don’t know why I said that.”

”Hey, it’s okay, this dago doesn’t mind.”

“I am sorry. Anyway, the point is, I’m completely absorbed with my meal, when this homeless man, really a mess, comes up to me without a mask, and starts hassling me. Freaks me out. I mean, the guy’s breathing all over me. By the way, I took a COVID test a few days later; it came back negative the day before yesterday.”

“So that’s good news,” I say, wondering where his shaggy dog story is going. I’m getting a little tired of it and turn my gaze from Charlie to the horizon line.

“When I got out of the restaurant, I took a little walk up Grant Avenue just to get myself to chill, and when I finally got back to the car, there was a ticket on it and some motherfucker had broken into the trunk. Your laptop and your beautiful clothes . . .” Charlie drops his hands over his face.

“Gone,” I said.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Pina.”

My relief that this is the extent of Charlie’s fuck-up regarding me is palpable. The dramatic thing to do would be to display some remorse, but I’m not into being the diva. “Don’t worry,” I say, “I have everything backed up on the cloud, and I needed a new computer anyway.”

“I’ll buy you one,” he says, eagerly. “But some of your nicest clothes . . .”

“Guess who gets to go shopping.”

“On me.” Charlie sighs as if the weight of the world has been lifted.

I’m a little surprised by my equanimity. I worry about my computer for a moment, what hadn’t been backed up. The loss is negligible. I have no reason to extract damages from Charlie. Anyway, I want the man to be happy

He suggests a walk up the beach. I’m agreeable. I try not to get anxious. We hurry down brutalist stairwell #5. I kick off my Birkenstocks and have my feet in the sand. Charlie watches me. He either loves me or thinks that I’m crazy. I talk him into taking off his shoes; we hide them in a hollow beside the wall.

We start up the beach, walking in an out of the water. I’m in peddle pushers and Charlie rolls up his jeans. We stop to watch a family of sandpipers skedaddle across the damp apron.

“I read a story,” Charlie says, “in the Chronicle: Since the city has gotten quieter during the pandemic, the local birds are singing more quietly and they’ve added more nuance and lyricism to their songs. Here’s the part I really like: Baby birds learn songs from their parents’ example, and if they’ve been in the nest during this quiet period their lyrical vocabulary will have greater complexity when the world gets noisy again.”

“Isn’t that wishful thinking?” I say, even though I’m thinking wishfully.

“It could be.”

We start up the beach again and I turn once more to the razor edge of the horizon. I can sense Charlie watching me. What does he see?