Carousel Court

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Dream Extreme. Those words welcomed them to Serenos months ago, in June, before the heat. It’s August now and they don’t see the white sign anymore, don’t pay attention to it. If they did notice it as they race along the Corona Freeway heading home, what they’d see instead would be the red graffiti tags defacing it. Nick and Phoebe Maguire make a sharp turn and pull their dirty white Subaru Forester in to Carousel Court. Jackson sucks a blue pacifier. Nick pulls his Mets cap lower, shields his eyes from the wind. Everything is bathed in this orange hue, like a vintage photograph. Looking around: abandoned new construction homes, kids playing outside on a yellow lawn despite rumors of mountain lions and bobcats, pit vipers, and Latino gangs trolling for new turf. The flap of an orange tent pitched in front of a house flutters wildly in the relentless wind that roars down mountain passes and through the valley on a straight trajectory toward them. A bullet train. A single spark these days — the dry season — will burn the whole place to the ground. And there’s the house. Bigger than it should be. It’s not on fire, though Nick wishes briefly it were, because what it is, is worse. It’s underwater, sinking fast, has the three of them by the ankles, and isn’t letting go.

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