A World the Color of Salt Read Online Free Page A

“I can quit my friggin’ job now.” She worked at a small import electronics firm in Laguna Hills, performing everything from minor sales to inventory control, but basically she was a clerk. I remember when she started wearing jackets with her dresses so she’d be taken more seriously. “When I sell my first million-dollar home, that is. Till then, tote that barge.”
    â€œNext week,” I said.
    â€œNext week,” she agreed. “We’re in a recession, right? Well, they are just not going to quit building homes, no way. I was driving up from San Diego last week and could not believe my eyes.” Her red curls swung. It was not hard to imagine her telling a potential buyer, Have I got a dollhouse for you.
    Any fool could have sold houses two years ago, and though this year’s market collapsed for the ritzy ones, there was still potential in the more modest homes, she said. And she was right. Hills everywhere are shorn and scraped to white bone. Rows and rows of pink, peach, white, sand, and buff structures cut across the horizon in layers, with about twenty feet between them and no visible trees. Whole communities spring up virtually overnight. First you notice the giant water tanks rising like stacks of beige poker chips on the brown hills. Later, quick-growing trees will hide them. On the freeways pickup trucks with illegal aliens in the beds, their hats pulled low, arms dangling on their knees, travel to the new sites to work landscaping and any other back-breaking labor. Above it all float the dislocated ravens, circling, perching on lightstandards or scavenging cast-off lunch sacks, always with their mates, but sometimes in congregations of four or six, croaking, saying, What the hell is going on here, folks?
    Though I live near the beach and work inland, I drive south often with my neighbor’s dog just to feel I’m getting away. I walk the washes or park on a hill, take out my binoculars to look for birds, and see instead the methodical scouring of Orange County. Especially in the spring, you can’t escape the steady pock of carpenters nailing roofs, shirts off and muscles gleaming in the sun. Or the low rumble of earth movers. Once, in a sort of valley, the sun had pinked the sky to the west, the workers had gone home, and there, in the blue shadows of a horseshoe-shaped set of hills, I counted thirty-one beige hulks, gathered like insects settling in for sleep. It was scary.
    I said to Patricia, “You realize there’s going to be no more room for marines or illegal aliens anymore? They might get rid of Pendleton,” referring to a base down the coast.
    â€œWon’t that be too bad,” she said. She’d been staring at my hairstyle for a long time without saying anything. I’d had my hair cut three weeks before, readying myself for my return to work. Ever since, I’d been feeling like a victim of a Carol Burnett skit. With the sunny part clipped off, the hair was definitely blah, more brown now, but not a pretty brown. She finally said, “Your hair looks good.”
    â€œYou’re full of shit. Thank you.”
    â€œNo, really. I’d go even shorter. You got the ears.” She pulled her own hair back to show off flaps, I will admit. I smiled. It’s not often you get a compliment like that. Then, changing subjects by making a funny wince, she said, “I’m sorry I didn’t get by.”
    â€œNo problem. I wasn’t crazy about seeing people.”
    â€œI hate hospitals.”
    â€œSo do I.”
    She’d already waved down the waitress and told her what I’d drink, ordering for herself a vodka Collins to my Bud. Patricia used to kid me about Colorado Kool-Aid when I drank Coors. What I really like is whiskey. The reason I like it is the reason I stay away from it.
    I said, “We got a serious murder my first day back.”
    â€œAren’t they all? I couldn’t handle it, I really