After about a day of driving, Sam's car fell into a weird time warp thing and was transported to LA. This happened because his benevolent god realized that it takes about a week to drive from Boston to California, and that in that time span Diane would definitely run out of things to do, considering she was secluded in a single room alone. By sundown they had reached the Pacific, and parked on a scenic vista overlooking the beach. Sam let out a low whistle.

"Boy," he said. "Look at those waves."

"Actually," Cliff said, "they're the same waves from the Atlantic. In fact, all water is recycled via the process of hydroelectrosymbiosis – a fascinating theory ascribed to—"

Rebecca, who had been steadily making her way through the bottle of Jack Daniels, now wielded it blindly over her shoulder and smacked Cliff in the head. He collapsed into the beer cooler, completely unconscious.

"Oh, thank god," Sam said. "I'm so glad we fell into that time warp thing, I really couldn't have handled six more days of him. Hey, why don't you guys go out and look at those waves?"

"I dunno, Sammy." Norm reached into the cooler, digging around Cliff's head to extract another beer. "He sorta had a point. They look the same as the ones back home to me."

"Why don't you look closer, then?"

"You do it," Rebecca muttered, her head lolling back.

"GO LOOK AT THE FUCKING WAVES! IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT TO ME YOU GUYS OH MY GOD!"

Norm and Rebecca were starting to sense that this was really important to Sam. Apparently, all those years at the bar had enhanced their powers of perception. "Fine," Norm said irritably. He unbuckled his seatbelt and pushed open the door, lugging the cooler after him.

"Bring Cliff too," Sam said.

"But he's not even conscious!"

"HE CAN STILL FEEL THE SEA BREEZE CAN'T HE?!"

"There's plenty of sea breeze in the car," Norm protested, but he knew even while speaking that his efforts were in vain. After extracting the cooler, he grabbed Cliff's arms and yanked him out.

Sam rolled down the window, gesturing vaguely into the distance. "Well? Are you gonna go look?"

"Aren't you coming?" Rebecca asked.

Sam started the car.

"Hey Sam," Norm said. "Why are you starting the car?"

He shifted into reverse.

"Is he, like, driving away without us?" Rebecca said.

"Yeah, I think so."

"Why's he doing that?"

"I dunno."

"I HAVE TO RUN AN ERRAND OKAY I'LL SEE YOU LOSERS LATER! DON'T TELL CARLA!" Sam screamed out the window. And then he was gone.

"Well!" said Rebecca.

"Well," Norm agreed. He looked down at Cliff and the cooler. "At least we still have all the booze."

"Yeah." Rebecca shrugged. "Whatever."

They lugged Cliff and the cooler towards the beach and settled onto a sand dune, Norm finishing off his beer while Rebecca continued to make progress with her bottle of whiskey. Were she not totally shitfaced, she might have found it impressive that the bottle hadn't broken on contact with Cliff's skull, but unfortunately, Rebecca was always totally shitfaced these days and didn't notice much of anything.

"Hey," she said suddenly. "Where'd Sam go?"

Norm popped open the tab on another beer. "I think he's probably looking for Diane."

"Diane… Keaton?"

"Um."

"Feinstein? Diane Feinstein?! Isn't she like, sixty-three?"

"I mean, she's pretty cute for sixty-three."

"I guess," Rebecca said. "I dunno, maybe I'm just more of a Barbara Boxer kind of girl."

"It's such a toss-up." He coughed. "Anyway, I meant Diane Chambers."

"Who the fuck is that?" She reached towards Cliff, thinking she would google this on his phone, then remembered it was 1996 and none of that had been invented yet. Could she call Cliff's mom and ask for deets? That was sort of like Wikipedia, without the fact-checkers, right? As it turned out, Norm had all the information she would need.

"Remember?" he said. "Sam's old girlfriend? The one who pretended to be married to the gay dog groomer?"

"Oh, right." Rebecca had finished the bottle of JD and angled it over her mouth, banging on the bottom with her hand to see if she could extract a few stray droplets. "The one who got him to sell the bar, thus enabling this glorious chapter of my life to begin."

"Yeah, that's the one!"

"But what about Sally Bong?"

"Oh," Norm shrugged, "I think that was just an alibi."

"An alibi?! But she's so cute and spunky!"

"I guess Diane is cute and spunky enough for him."

But Rebecca could not fathom how anyone could be cuter and spunkier than Sally Bong. With some difficulty she drew her knees to her chest, staring out dolefully at the crashing waves. It was just so unfair! Norm had Vera, Cliff had his mom, Woody had Kelly, Carla had the men she met at her Sadomasochists Anonymous support group… and now even Sam had someone? Not only someone but someone he considered cute and spunky enough to eclipse the cuteness and spunkiness of Sally Bong? Meanwhile, she was still alone. Frankly, it was bullshit.

"How do you know, though?" she asked. "Maybe he's just getting flowers or something for Sally Bong." She had really been looking forward to watching Sam get shot down by Sally Bong, or better yet, shot down by the team of National Guard troopers surrounding Sally Bong's house to prevent her from getting too many random marriage proposals. That would have been fun. This was hardly fun at all, especially now that she was out of whiskey.

"Well," Norm said, "the time warp was my first clue. And then when he told us not to tell Carla, it all became pretty obvious."

"The time warp?"

"Well, yeah, I've just heard that God ships them really hard."

Ships? Rebecca had never heard this word before, but somehow it made perfect sense, though she could not have provided a definition if asked. "It sure didn't seem that way last time Diane came to Boston."

"Oh, well, that was a different god," Norm said. "He got fired for criminal negligence. You didn't watch any of that trial?"

Rebecca shook her head; she must have been passed out in a gutter at the time.

"It was pretty interesting," Norm said. "The judge was like, 'I wanna ask you about this World War II thing, and this Rwandan Genocide thing, and also this Sam and Diane thing.' He was totally stymied. He didn't know what to do. Criminal negligence, indeed."

Well, why didn't this fuckheaded god have the decency to ship Rebecca/Bill Gates? Or Rebecca/Warren Buffett? Not even Rebecca/Vladimir Putin? Rebecca/United States Mint? She should really become a Satanist. Setting the whiskey bottle aside, she drew a pentagram in the sand.

Oh, would she ever find love?!

With some difficulty, Rebecca hobbled to her feet. "Let's go, Norm."

"Where?"

"To find more whiskey!"

Norm peered into the beer cooler, finding it almost completely empty, and also hurried to his feet. "Good call." He glanced at Cliff. "What about him?"

"Can't we just leave him?"

"On the beach?"

"He'll he fine," she said, waving a flippant hand. "I mean, when do you ever hear about people being murdered in LA?"

"Practically never," Norm agreed. "Come on."

And so Norm and Rebecca beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly in the direction of the nearest liquor store.