It was two in the afternoon when Cale unlocked the door to the Catalina house. “Hey! I’m here! Jud?” He dropped his bag on the floor and headed for the kitchen, tossing the newspaper and some magazines on the dining table as he beelined for the refrigerator. Leaning on the open door, he guzzled half a carton of milk—one of four inside. Jud had done the shopping: eggs, bread, lunch meat, cheese, steaks, potatoes, salad stuff, and fruit, even a jug of orange juice. There were probably new boxes of cereal lined up neatly in the overhead cabinet. Cale counted off Cheerios, shredded wheat, and corn flakes, pancake mix, syrup, coffee, creamer, sugar. The kitchen had everything needed for three squares a day. His brother—the poster boy for good nutrition. Hell, he even ate perfectly.
Cale tossed the lid from a container of spaghetti toward the sink like a Frisbee, missed, and grabbed a fork. Shoveling cold spaghetti into his mouth, he headed for the sliding glass doors to the deck. The beach lay a hundred feet away, and beyond, the glassy water of a slumbering cove. At the edge of the deck, hanging off the end of a lounge chair, were two really big and bony bare feet.
Jud lay in the sun, his arm slung over his face. He was snoring. Cale kicked his brother’s feet. “Wake up, you lazy bastard, and say hello to your little brother.”
Jud groaned, then mumbled into his arm, “Little my ass. You’re two inches taller than I am.”
“And twice as good-looking, too.”
“Normally I’d argue that point, but I don’t think I can today.” Jud pulled his arm away. His face was a black-and-blue mess.
“I hope the other guy looks worse than you do.”
“Got away without a cut.” Jud tried to sit up and winced. “Damn, that hurts. Everything hurts.”
“You look like everything should hurt. What happened?”
Jud rested his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging loosely between them, and he looked at him—at least, it looked as if he were looking at him. He wasn’t too sure. Jud’s eyes were so swollen it was more of a squint, like being stared at by a bruised pig.
“I tried to play Galahad and save some sweet young thing from a bunch of drunks.”
Cale straddled a lounge chair and sat down. “I hope you won some reward for sacrificing your face. Is your nose broken?”
“Only swollen and hurting like hell.”
“Tell me she gave you her phone number for your trouble.”
“Nope. Not even her name.” Jud shook his head, winced, and buried his head in his hands. “Remind me not to do that again.”
“What? Try to get lucky? Get into a fight? Or shake your head?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So, big brother, you ended up battered and bruised and without a date.”
“I’m not sure I looked very impressive passed out facedown and bloodying up the sidewalk. Stop laughing, asshole.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“I can hear it in your voice.”
“Okay. I’m laughing.”
“Hell, I didn’t get in a single solid punch.”
“Looks like it.”
“Go to hell.”
“I don’t want to go home. Victor’s there.” Cale lifted the spaghetti container in a salute and with his mouth full said, “Good stuff.”
“I made it last night.”
“Before or after you ran into Joe Frazier?”
“Before.”
“Here. Catch.” Cale tossed him his napkin. “Your nose is bleeding.”
“Again?” Jud blotted his nose. “Damn.” He started to get up.
“Stay there. I’ll get you something.” Cale came back with two steaks from the freezer. “Here, put these on your face.”
Jud frowned at the steaks. “They’re frozen.”
“Yeah, but steak is good for the black eye and ice for swelling. Two remedies in one.”
“The best I can get is frozen steak from the future Dr. Banning?”
“Shut up and put ’em on your face. After they thaw, we can barbecue them.”
“And I heard premed was hard.”
That cut deeply, but Cale said nothing. He had studied five nights straight to get a low B on his last test in anatomy. He held up a magazine, centerfold open. “Here’s a cure. Look at this.”
Jud pulled the steaks off his face and lifted his head up. “Nice.”
“Nice? That’s all you can say?” Cale studied the centerfold again. “More than nice. I’d to like to meet a girl like her.”
“You did last year and your grades went in the toilet.”
Cale’s big mistake now hung in the air between them. His brother lay there with meat on his face, yet Cale felt as if he’d just taken a punch.
Jud crossed his feet. “How’s school going?”
“Okay.”
“You keeping your grades up?”
“Jesus … You sound like Victor. It’s bad enough I have to get flak from the old man. I don’t need it from you, too.” When Jud didn’t say anything, Cale added bitterly, “I don’t need you judging me.”
“I’m not judging you.” Jud pulled the steaks off again. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Something’s wrong. You’re way too touchy. Come clean.”
Cale tossed the magazine on the deck. “Med school. Almost all of them have turned me down. Not even my Medical school admission tests—which I aced—are helping my apps.”
“I thought Dorsey was just horsing around on the phone yesterday.”
“He was and wasn’t.”
“All of them turned you down?” Jud sounded as if a college turning someone down was as unrealistic as Martian landings or statues of the Virgin Mary that cried real tears.
Right then, Cale wanted to hit Jud himself. “I’ve still got three schools left. University of Texas, UCSD, and USC.”
“I’m sorry, bud.”
“Yeah, well, there’s not much I can do about it now.” Odd, how it was harder for him to swallow his big brother’s pity than his judgments. He felt like the wrong half of a man talking to the right half. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if I don’t get into one of these last three.”
“They can’t all turn you down.” Jud lay back down. “You’ll get in.”
His brother’s world was so easy. Just that easy. The spaghetti turned over in Cale’s stomach and felt as if he’d eaten a pound of it. He sagged back in the chair, looking out at the water because he felt like nothing when he looked at his brother.
There was no breeze and a light haze in the sky, almost like earthquake weather, but seagulls were flying all over the place. In the moments before an earthquake, all wildlife vanished. Utter and complete silence ruled, as if the world were holding its breath.
Cale listened to the seagulls whining overhead, and a few feet away, the quiet lap of the water against the sand. In the distance was the mainland. A wildfire burned in Malibu. A cloud