“Even better,” Ana said. “What are you up to today? Do you want to Jacuzzi?”
The truth was that I had wanted her to ask, and I had brought my suit in case she did. “That would be lovely,” I said, and we walked to the parking lot, where Ana said, “Follow me?” and I replied, “In my van.” I may have stuck out my tongue when I said “van.”
Instead of continuing on to her car, Ana paused right there. She looked at the van. She looked at me. She clasped her hands in front of her. “Sounds like you despise your van. Do you despise your van, Nancy?”
I forced a laugh. “I completely despise my van. I’m hoping it will die soon, but Hondas never die.”
“Why don’t you trade it in today?”
“Today?” I laughed.
“Yeah, today. Right now. I’ll go with you.”
My first thought? Chuck would be pissed. Which I couldn’t say out loud. It sounded codependent. And then I started waffling. How pissed could Chuck possibly be? It was only a car.
“Let me ask you a question.” She blew air up into her bangs. The sun was shining brighter now and poor Ana was probably so hot under there. “When you think about this van, okay, when you really think about it, do you see a long future or do you know you’re going to say good-bye to it soon and you’re just holding on until you get the okay from your husband?”
“Oh,” I said, “I hate that you just said that.”
“Because it’s true?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“So you and this van are going to part ways soon?”
“I hope so.”
“Then why not part ways with it today? Let it go. Set that giant car free. You’re probably spending way too much on gas in that whale anyway. You need a little shark car. It’ll save you a ton of money in the long run.”
I looked at my van. The EAT, SLEEP, PLAY WATER POLO sticker had faded badly on the bumper. And the bumper itself had faded. Did it used to be black? Because it definitely wasn’t anymore.
“We’ll go to the Honda place,” Ana said. “I’m a great negotiator.”
My heart started beating fast. I was buzzing like I might explode. Was this how it felt to truly be living?
?
In the Jacuzzi, I said it again. “I got a new car.”
Ana sank deeper into the water and then popped back up. “You got a new car.”
“I got a BMW.”
“You got a beamer.”
“I got a white convertible beamer.”
“No more hood to hide under. Exposed to the world.”
“No more hiding.”
“Exposed.”
I checked to make sure my breasts were still in my swimsuit. They were.
“You should name it,” Ana said, dipping again so the water was at her chin.
“My little shark car.”
“Sharkeeeeeeee.” Ana kept going until she ran out of breath.
“Sharkie,” I repeated. I rested my head on the Jacuzzi’s plastic side. “Chuck says we got a good price,” I said. I’d called Chuck right afterwards. “And it will save us a ton of gas money in the long run,” I’d told him. Chuck was a little disappointed he hadn’t been there with me to pick it out, but he’d quickly regrouped. “I’m happy for you, Nance,” he said, and I was relieved.
“I told you I’m a great negotiator,” Ana said.
“You were amazing. I can’t believe how you talked to that guy. How do you know so much about cars?”
“I’ve lived many lives.” Ana tilted her head back so all I could see was her creamy white neck. Then she looked at me. “You’re indebted to me now,” she said, and I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. I had already planned on making her the healthy blueberry buckwheat muffins my blogger said were “to die for times twelve” (or, as she literally expressed this equation, “2 die 4 x 12”) as a thank-you, but now I was thinking: Oh, should my thank-you be bigger than that? Maybe muffins and flowers. And a card, obviously a card.
Ana stood up in the water, walked the length of the small plastic bench, which was only two steps, and then walked back the other way. “I do have a favor to ask,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Will you hand out sandwiches with me again?”
“Ana,” I said, “I would be honored.”
?
We stood at Ana’s kitchen counter making sandwiches. I was on one side and she was on the other. Our fingers were prunes from sitting for so long in the Jacuzzi. Incense was burning from a tiny hole on top of one of the Buddha’s heads. The sound of the waves crashing outside was a little louder than Ana’s relaxing yoga music. There was no rhythm to that music, but we were working rhythmically anyway. Our own little factory of two. We were quiet for a little while, spreading the peanut butter and adding the top piece of bread and opening the Ziploc, which was the hardest part, and putting the sandwich in and zipping the Ziploc, and I could feel Ana across from me, her movements like a mirror. We tossed our sandwiches into the pile at the exact same time.
I started a new sandwich, but Ana had stopped.
I noted the obvious. “You stopped.”
“I just realized something.” She looked outside, at the clouds maybe, and then back at me. We were the same height so our eyes were level. “I felt this before, but I wasn’t absolutely sure until just now.”
“What?”
Her glimmering eyes. “We are kindred spirits.”
I hid my joy with a little skepticism. “We are?”
She cocked her head. “How old are you?”
“Forty-eight.”
“What!” A look of disbelief. “I just got the chills.” She held up her forearm to show me. “I am forty-eight.”
“So?”
“Don’t you see? We are twins, like your boys. We’re both forty-eight. Everyone thinks we look alike. And we even have the same freckle on our wrist.”
I may have liked that she had noticed this. I had noticed, too, but I never would have told her.
“I’m going to call you Nan from now on. No more Nancy. And don’t you see why? Don’t you see how the letters of our names match up perfectly? Nan and Ana! Yin and yang!”
She took my sticky hands and drew herself toward me until our foreheads were touching. On the counter: my two pieces of bread, waiting to come together.
Her forehead was hot and maybe pulsing, and she said, “We were meant to find each other for a reason, Nan, and I have a feeling it’s a big reason.”
At the time, I was sure this reason was as simple as sisterhood. With our foreheads touching like that, I felt so close to her. I felt warm and fuzzy—the same feeling I got sitting in her Jacuzzi. Weeks later, she would say, “If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. If you turn the water up slowly, it will boil.” And even then, I didn’t think: Jump. I thought the same thing I thought whenever she spoke, which was: Oh, how interesting.
Water
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