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where he didn’t fit well. She could feel his giant bony knees in the small of her back.
    Drop me at Chief Looking Glass, would you? RL asked. I’ve got to pick up the trailer and it’s on the way. I’ll meet you down at Saint Pat’s.
    Layla smelled stale beer and cigar smoke and rolled her window down an inch. She didn’t want to, didn’t want to, didn’t want to. But she didn’t want to have to back the trailer, either. Edgar sat beside her, radiating anger. What was it about men? If she stayed with Daniel long enough, would he turn into one of these? Would he smell of sweat and sunblock and beer? Would he scratch and bleed? RL liked to see a little of his own blood once in a while. He really didn’t mind. Layla never understood this.
    They let RL off to run the shuttle, and then it was just the two of them on the way to the hospital. Layla couldn’t think of a single thing to say. It was going to be a half-hour drive from here at least.
    * * *
    How did this happen? she finally asked.
    It was just dumbass, he said.
    What kind?
    Edgar told her about the wreck, then, and when he got to the part about being caught underwater with his hand tied down, Layla could tell how frightened he had been. Still was. He said, I didn’t think I was going to get out of there.
    He held a hand out, palm toward the windshield, as if to ward off the death angel; and out of the corner of her eye she noticed that he was graceful in his movements, like the arc of a good cast—she could feel it in her own body, when it worked. Grace.
    Also the smell of sweat and beer and cigars was her father’s. With him gone, the truck just smelled of river water.
    RL is such an asshole sometimes, Layla said.
    My fault more than his, Edgar said. I was sitting at the oars.
    It just seems like this kind of crap always happens when he’s
around
, you know? And it never happens to him, either. Always to the people around him, the lucky bastards.
    Edgar laughed, then felt it in his broken arm. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him pale.
    * * *
    You got a mouth on you, he said.
    So I’ve been told.
    Did you grow up around RL the whole time?
    Layla laughed. She said, You think there’s a connection?
    Could be.
    Mostly I did, she said. When my mom first got back to town, she thought she wanted to try her hand at me. I went back and forth for a while till she left again.
    Went where?
    RL didn’t tell you the story? He loves to tell this story. No, she ran off and followed the Grateful Dead around, years at a time. She used to sell hemp necklaces with rocks and beads and stuff.
    Get out of here.
    No, it’s amazing.
    I’ve only seen her that one time at the store.
    No, she doesn’t look the part at all anymore. Unless you see her with a sleeveless shirt—she’s got this whole spiderweb tattooed on her shoulder and part of her arm. It’s huge. It’s actually kind of awesome.
    * * *
    Live and learn, said Edgar. They settled back into silence, but it was a companionable silence now. They were on the same side, though Layla didn’t know of what. After a minute, Edgar started to laugh. He didn’t explain himself, and she didn’t ask why. She didn’t need to. She already knew so much.

*
    Later in the bar they had beer and cheeseburgers under a wall of photographs of grinning fishermen and women holding unbelievably large fish out in the air. RL was half drunk by then and he had to be up at five thirty in the morning to take the clients Edgar could not. So he ordered a Johnnie Walker on the rocks for himself and another for Edgar.
    Who’s going to drive you home? asked Layla.
    I’m all right, RL said.
    You might be out of luck for today, she said.
    Out of
bad
luck, you mean. We used up all the bad luck. It’s going to be sunshine and sweet peas from here on out.
    * * *
    RL sat back in his chair and watched the waitress’s ass for a minute. He was being a dick and he knew it. But he felt obscurely that the other two were ganging up on him, a