“Any love interests?” Chuck asked. “Either of you have a girlfriend yet?”
I looked at Chuck: Are you serious? He didn’t notice. We had talked about this. I had told him that no, I wasn’t sure, of course I wasn’t sure. Who knew what kids did these days. But if Cam was gay, we should make room for that. We should let him know it was okay. Chuck and I had had a whole conversation about how we would keep our questions general—we had specifically agreed to avoid using the words girlfriend and boyfriend.
“Not yet, Dad!” Jed said. “School just started. Jeez, give us a second.”
Cam took a big bite of quinoa, looked at the nail in the wall.
“Or any kind of love interest,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be a girl.” I glared at Chuck. His face changed when he understood what had just happened. He grimaced, tightened his worried eyes. I could see exactly what he would say to me later: I’m sorry, girlfriend just slipped out!
“Mom, why do you always say that? We’re not gay!” Jed laughed, looked at Cam. Cam kept his eyes on his food.
“Well, I just want you to know you can be whatever you want,” I said, and then, for Cam, I moved on to a new topic. “I have a new friend,” I said. I was a little embarrassed by how excited I sounded.
“Marcy?” Chuck said. “Brad mentioned she came over.”
“She did. Unannounced. She brought a pie.”
“Sweet,” Jed said.
I could see Cam taking a deep breath. I could see him saying to himself: You’re okay, you’re okay. He looked up at me finally. I smiled and gave him a little nod. You’re okay, baby.
Chuck was talking about mulberry trees now. “They are native to the island, surprisingly.”
“So Marcy’s your new friend, Mom?” Cam asked.
“No. Well, yes, sure. Okay, I have two new friends. Marcy and Ana.”
“Ana,” Chuck said.
“It’s On-a, actually,” I said.
“What’s Ana like?” Cam asked.
“She’s nice,” I said. “Kind of a free spirit.” I almost told them more. I almost said, “And tomorrow we’re meeting up to do good deeds because Ana had breast cancer and—” but it would have been too much to explain. And when the moment passed and I still hadn’t told them, I felt good. You’re allowed to have your own life, Nancy. Chuck has Costco and the boys have school and this—Ana and yoga—this can just be for you.
After dinner, I gave Cam a long hug and then I gave Jed a hug for the same amount of time to make it equal. Doing everything twice was second nature to me.
When it was time for bed, Chuck pulled back the new hibiscus bedspread like it was something fragile. He whispered, “I’m sorry! Girlfriend just slipped out!”
“I know, Chuck,” I said, “I know.” I know everything about you. There are no surprises.
9
We’d agreed on 3:00 p.m. I pulled into her driveway at 3:05 because I wanted to show her I was more relaxed than she thought. I parked next to her purple Jeep. The fabric of my baby-blue tunic was sticking to my stomach in the heat. I tugged it away. Flow, don’t stick. Flow, don’t be tense.
I noted the vines again—crazy, but beautiful—and walked toward the door.
“Naaaaancy,” she called. Her voice was creepy but joking, and it was behind me. I turned. Saw just her feet on the ledge of the driver’s-side window. She sat up. I almost thought it was someone else, but no, it was Ana, with long orange hair. She looked like Wynonna Judd.
“What do you think?”
“You look like Wynonna Judd!”
“Wynonna? I don’t want to be Wynonna. I want to be Ashley!” She looked at herself in the little side mirror, tousled her bangs. “Fine, I’ll be Wynonna. Ashley’s boring.”
The top of the Jeep was off. I’d never seen it on. In the backseat was a cardboard box full of sandwiches in Ziploc bags. “Who are those for?” I asked.
“The homeless. Or half homeless, a lot of them are only half homeless. But it doesn’t matter how homeless they are. It still counts as a good deed. I was going to do something more complicated, but then I thought, No, keep it simple. Giving hungry people food. Obvious!”
“It’s perfect,” I said. And I was relieved. Handing out sandwiches? I could do that. Easy.
“And Nancy,” Ana said, pressing both hands into her heart, “I have to tell you, I don’t know if I’d be doing this without you. I mean, just in terms of the mechanics, it would be hard. Driving and passing out sandwiches at the same time. Although I guess I could walk. But what I really mean is that with you as my partner, I feel like this thing has expanded. The two of us—it’s so much better than just me. And your presence—it’s giving me courage. Really. I feel validated.” She made prayer hands and bowed her head. “Thank you, partner.”
“Of course,” I chirped. “I’m happy to help.” And when I said that, I thought: Pattern! Of course you’d be doing this, Nancy. Helping people who need help—I was always doing that. It was my thing. The PTA at Clairemont had named me “Most Involved Parent” two semesters in a row, which apparently was a record, and which pissed off a lot of the other mothers.
“Get in, partner,” Ana said, reaching to open the door for me.
“Okay, partner.” I felt exhilarated. I pulled my tunic off my stomach with a buzzy hand and leaped into the car.
Ana flipped her orange hair back over her shoulders, getting ready.
I thought this would be a good time to review: “We’re handing out sandwiches today.”
“To create space for better destinies,” she finished. She took her hands off the wheel. We still hadn’t left the driveway. “I would like to avoid disaster if possible. Death. Cancer. And I would hate it if Eunice sold this house.” She frowned. “And you, Nancy! Things for you!” She grabbed my knee. “I would hate it if Chuck cheated on you again.”
Flash to Shelly’s cascading blond hair. “I would hate it, too,” I said.
I still thought it was dangerous to want such specific things from the world. If it really were that easy to create destiny, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?
And yet something about it seemed very right. Of course good created good. Wasn’t that what the Dalai Lama thought? And even if doing this good thing wouldn’t create the good we wanted, it definitely wouldn’t create any bad either.
“I think it’s great we’re doing this good thing,” I said. “But we shouldn’t”—oh, it was so hard to say this looking at her hopeful face—“we shouldn’t expect anything though, you know? Because what if it doesn’t work?”
“Oh, it’s going to work.” She covered her eyes with her sunglasses. “It has to.”
?
Our first target was a skinny guy weaving green fronds into baskets on the rock wall by Huggo’s. “Target!” Ana yelled. She pulled over. “Hey!” she called to him. “C’mere!”
She grabbed one of the sandwiches from the backseat. They were very simple sandwiches—white bread with peanut butter. When the guy got to the car, she said, “Here, man, eat something.”