Page 326 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Beep's mother let Dave in. "Welcome!" she said. "You're early--which is great, except that Beep's not here."

Dave was disappointed, but not surprised. He had anticipated spending the whole day looking at properties with Morty, and had told Beep to expect him at the end of the afternoon. "I guess she's gone to school," Dave said. She was a sophomore at Berkeley. Dave knew--though her parents did not--that she studied very little, and was in danger of failing her exams and getting expelled.

He went to the bedroom they shared and put down his suitcase. Beep's contraceptive pills were on the bedside table. She was careless, and sometimes forgot to take the tablet, but Dave did not mind. If she got pregnant, they would just get married in a hurry.

He returned downstairs and sat in the kitchen with Bella, telling her all about Daisy Farm. She was infected by his enthusiasm and eager to view the place.

"Would you like some lunch?" she offered. "I was about to make soup and a sandwich."

"No, thanks, I had a huge breakfast on the plane." Dave was hyped up. "I'll go and tell Walli about Daisy Farm."

"Your car's in the garage."

Dave got in his red Dodge Charger and zigzagged across San Francisco from its wealthiest neighborhood to its poorest.

Walli was going to love the idea of a farmhouse where they could all live and make music, Dave thought. They would have all the time they wanted to perfect their recordings. Walli was itching to work with one of the new eight-track tape recorders--and people were already talking about even bigger sixteen-track machines--but today's more complex music took longer to make. Studio time was costly, and musicians sometimes felt rushed. Dave believed he had found the solution.

As Dave drove, a fragment of a tune came into his head, and he sang: "We're all going to Daisy Farm." He smiled. Perhaps it would be a song. "Daisy Farm Red" would be a good title. It could be a girl or a color or a type of marijuana. He sang: "We're all going to see Daisy Farm Red, where the fruit hangs on the vine."

He parked outside Walli's house in Haight-Ashbury. The front door was unlocked, as always. The living room on the ground floor was empty, but littered with the debris of the previous night: pizza boxes, dirty coffee cups, full ashtrays, and empty beer bottles.

Dave was disappointed not to find Walli up. He was itching to discuss Daisy Farm. He decided to wake Walli.

He went upstairs. The house was quiet. It was possible Walli had got up earlier and gone out without cleaning up.

The bedroom door was closed. Dave knocked and opened it. Walking in, he sang: "We're all going to Daisy Farm," then he stopped dead.

Walli was in bed, half sitting up, clearly startled.

Next to him on the mattress was Beep.

For a moment Dave was too shocked to speak.

Walli said: "Hey, man . . ."

Dave's stomach lurched, as if he were in an elevator that had dropped too fast. He suffered a feeling of panicky weightlessness. Beep was in bed with Walli, and there was no ground beneath Dave's feet. Stupidly, he said: "What the fuck is this?"

"It's nothing, man . . ."

Shock turned to anger. "What are you talking about? You're in bed with my fiancee! How can it be nothing?"

Beep sat upright. Her hair was tousled. The sheet fell away from her breasts. "Dave, let us explain," she said.

"Okay, explain," said Dave, folding his arms.

She got up. She was naked, and the perfect beauty of her body brought home to Dave, with the force and shock of a punch in the face, that he had lost her. He wanted to weep.

Beep said: "Let's all have coffee and--"

"No coffee," Dave said, speaking harshly to save himself from the humiliation of tears. "Just explain."

"I don't have any clothes on!"

"That's because you've been fucking your fiance's best friend." Dave found that angry words masked his pain. "You said you were going to explain that to me. I'm still waiting."

Beep pushed her hair out of her eyes. "Look, jealousy is out of date, okay?"

"And what does that mean?"

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