MacArthur Park. Andrew Durbin

you enjoying it? It’s hard writing a book, as I’m learning.”

      “It’s OK.” Marissa placed a small bowl of ice cream in front of Helen and me, and lingered a few seconds, as if to eavesdrop on our conversation. There was nothing to hear. Helen wanted to know more but I told her I didn’t have much, if anything, to report. “I’m far from done,” I explained.

      Simon came over and said hello to Helen as she rose to discuss the project’s evening plans with Marissa. “I’ll let you two catch up,” she said. To me: “But let’s talk at the bonfire. I want to hear more about this book of yours.” She put her hand on Marissa’s back and steered her into the kitchen, where together they waved everyone around them to organize the cleanup.

      4

      The bonfire was built midway between the house and the river, about a hundred feet from the nearest cabin, in a dugout cleared of grass. All the lights at the project had been put out, and the main house was swept into the country dark as the fire formed a lonely, bright point on the compound, outside of which the night seemed to revolve in a separate time from that of the penumbra that enfolded us.

      After dinner, we made our way down from the house with folding chairs, bottles of wine, and a huge bottle of tequila that a guest had lugged up from the city. Helen’s residents had set out logs around the fire for the guests to sit on, with trays of marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers arranged around the circle. (Simon: “I hate marshmallows.”) About half the guests, none of whom I knew, were left. Marissa carried down a portable speaker from her cabin, to which a younger resident, a larger boy who had been wiped of any distinguishing features, hooked up his iPod and played pop music, beginning with Rihanna. The aging speaker crackled out her single “We Found Love” in a hiss of noisy, damaged sound, we found love in a hopeless place,