So Beth must have refused half a dozen of Sam’s travel ideas before the Mendocino plan. Suddenly she agreed. Sam arranged for two rooms at a dog-friendly inn and a vehicle big enough for the six of us, and we set off at a comfortable hour on a Friday morning in May.

The ride went pretty well. Corky puked once when the road started winding, but I was prepared for that and caught the mess in paper towels. All three dogs are females, and Corky had to contest for status with Raquel, Sam’s and Beth’s oldest, but we managed then and throughout the trip to place easy-going Baby as a buffer between our feisty bitches; the canine pack settled rather gracefully.

The primate pack dynamic wasn’t quite as smooth. I tend to be direct and talkative. Beth is the most passive/aggressive person I’ve ever known. We never argued but we also never eased into the comfortable companionship that we used to enjoy and that Sam so wanted to see.

That’s not to say we didn’t have a good time. At least I did, and I believe Sam when he says he did too. There’s no assessing Beth. Not only will she lie to us, but she is forever flipping in her heart between resenting her loved ones and nurturing her enemies; the woman is more ambivalent than a parent.

We walked on the headlands with the dogs. We lunched on café porches, with the dogs. We hung around our cabin-like rooms, drinking the champagne we bought on the way there and watching the dogs romp. Sometimes we left the dogs in the car and went into a restaurant, but mostly we cooked junk food in our kitchenettes, munched junk food on our couches, chowed down on junk food while lolling on our porches. Sam and Beth share a binge eating disorder, and I’ve visited there enough myself that I could get back into it for the weekend. We’d driven to the Fort Bragg Safeway even before we checked in, and we had stocked up on every kind of treat that appealed to any of us. Normally Beth hides her binges; to dine with her one would never guess how she manages to pack in and maintain the 200 or so pounds she carries on her short frame. But we have enough history that she’s not ashamed to let me see her at it, and that weekend she went for it. Sam was with her most of the way, and I kept up with them at times: nuts, chips, candy, ice cream, cake and pie, frozen fried shrimp, pizza rolls and pizza and taquitos and fries and onion rings and then a start-over, always careful to alternate the salty with the sweet with the fat so we only had to stop when we slept.

Sam and I did a bit of clambering around the rocks and near tide pools but Beth didn’t join us for that. The fact is she’s not very limber. It’s been a long time since Beth could pick something up off the floor without holding onto a door frame and counterbalancing by sending a leg up behind her. She really wasn’t fit enough to make it down the rocky path to the water, let alone back up. So Sam and I had some brief excursions with the dogs while Beth read People and fashion magazines in their room. Sam talked then about their plans to go on a diet together – he had a business trip to Hawaii coming up in a few months, and he knew Beth would find a way to duck it unless she could get into a bathing suit – and I think I was very restrained, not letting him see on my face how hopeless I thought it would be, unless they started to get some sort of regular exercise. I’ve told him before that it’s not the calories activity burns; it’s the mind-set toward health that’s the charm. But I kept my mouth shut. I’ve finally learned not to beat that poor dead horse.