Over doughnuts and Puerto Rican coffee, Mercedes told Kyle: "Let Jen grow, even if it's away. Last night, while you were back at the office, she told me, oh-so-subtly, she doesn't think you need her." Mercedes paused, "Except for the physical. Be careful, my friend. Give her some room." Kyle had hoped that his fusion with Jen would empower service to others. Now he was being reminded that he and his wife didn't yet have friends here they could drop in on. Jen and Kyle had no enriching networks or crossover of interests, either. Mercedes conceded how one now-divorced couple had discovered "their friends no longer meshed. She wants to go so many places. She's an overachiever, just like me. He needs to get out of that town, as you did. Instead, he just stays there, sinking into nothingness."

The words pained Kyle on many fronts. Instead of coming together in a network across the continent, he and his wife were coming apart within the same household. He had no idea what he could do for her.

Before driving Mercedes back across the mountains, he read her one of his latest drafts. "You've deepened," she replied. "When we first met, we were all on the rebound, innocent and yearning, having tasted love that had turned on us. We were waiting for everything to come together." It was true. No wonder the circle had seemed so magical. Their friendships had been built on need - consuming, fiery, transmuting heat. News of subsequent divorce dispelled the illusion. Love was supposed to cure everything.

The trip to Seattle took much longer than Kyle had planned. Fabulously jagged mountains hovered over the town of Ellensburg, and for once, the Stuarts were cloud-free, Alp-like, and entrancing in their resemblance to Wyoming's Grand Tetons, seen on so many wall calendars across the country. Through Mercedes, Kyle saw how naively Jen at nineteen had followed him to Indiana, and then on west. On the outskirts of Seattle, traffic backed up hopelessly on the floating parking lot, both going in and on his trip out again. The thirty-five-cent-toll bumper-to-bumper grind never got beyond second gear. But the extra hour of travel allowed Mercedes to clarify much, as only certain friends can, bringing discernment from a distance. Finally, they pulled up in the University District, where she was spending the night - with an ex-boyfriend from the Bronx, rather than Kyle's old buddy - someone, in fact, who had only one bed, which rolled out from a closet. Kyle was deeply flustered. His good buddy Back East was being betrayed.

"Farewell, Mercedes, farewell," Kyle should have said in this, their final encounter.

As Kyle headed home, Rainier refused to show its head until he was somewhere past Ellensburg. He would learn that the mountain often remains aloof from everything. Under a liquid yellow sky, Kyle was saddened and slightly disoriented. Mercedes had reminded him that their shared wilderness back then differed from what either of them wanted to remember. Jen's illusion, however unending and unanswerable - BUT YOU HAD FUN - was a lie she would never prick with historic truth. "Jen, that oppressive sorrow, confusion, and intense loneliness between highs was nothing like my present," he wanted to tell her. "The moments you envy were surrounded by miserable darkness. It‚s amazing that anyone survived. Maybe that's why I ride out your gloom, waiting for your sunshine to reappear. Boogie, you and I remain wild, but in different ways. Consider the bout of vegetarianism, or Mercedes‚ Œno pork‚ now, the early morning hours of my Dedicated Laborious Quest. Consider your interest in textiles or mine in natural history. There are long tracks across these desert landscapes - in this time and space, we can let the warp and weft of the present and the remembered converge." And the future, he hoped, would unfurl in its own wholesome harmony.

He parked on the street. Opened the front door.

"About time you showed up," his father-in-law greeted him.

"Hey, you‚re back!"

After the initial patter, Jack mumbled something about "knowing you wouldn't mess around with your best-friend's fiancee, but sometimes it's hard to tell your mother-in-law that." Next thing Kyle knew, the old man was talking about hydrogen bomb tests.

Evelyn jumped into the conversation. "Jen told me what you're paying for rent. You two could be buying your own house for that. It seems such a shame to throw all that money down the drain."

"Yeah, but don't you need a down payment? We still owe what we borrowed to move out here. Besides, it takes a while to discover the right neighborhoods."

"I suppose you're right. But you really should be buying."

Then, after another roasted chicken, stuffing, tons of pasta, and two bottles from a nearby vineyard, they all headed off to sleep. Kyle's in-laws took the bed, of course, while Jen and Kyle retreated to their much-loved double sleeping bag.

Next morning, Jen scrubbed the kitchen. With everybody gone, the place held an unfamiliar quiet. The party was over. She cleaned up as if nothing had ever happened.