“You have?”
“Please. We’re all fighting hamster-hood.”
?
Ana went into Longs to get us Vitamin Waters. When she came back, I said, “Can I tell you something else?”
“What?”
“I think my son might be gay.”
“Cool.” She chugged her Dragonfruit. “My first husband was gay.”
“He was?”
She went on to tell me that yes, she’d married gay Dave in a blackout at a twenty-four-hour chapel in Vegas. It wasn’t love. They were drug buddies. She broke out into hysterical laughter when she explained how they’d tried to sleep together that night—well, later that night, it was technically dawn—and he couldn’t get it up. “But,” she said, “that experience was what showed him the truth about himself. He was finally able to work through his internalized homophobic Mormon bullshit and face his true self.” She touched my arm. “But, Nan, it’s easier to be gay these days. What’s your son’s name?”
“Cam.”
“Cam will be fine.”
I was almost moved to tears by this obvious and simple reaction: he will be fine. I squeezed her shoulder. “Thank you for saying that. Really.”
?
When the volcano update came on the radio, she turned it up.
“This is a civil defense message. This morning’s assessment continues to show no advancement of any of the downslope flow areas. All current activity does not pose an immediate threat to area communities.”
“Oh good,” I said, “maybe that town will be okay.”
“Pahoa?” Ana said. “I don’t think so. Pele will get it eventually.”
“Pele?”
“The goddess of the volcano.” Ana turned to me. Seriously, she said, “This is her island, you know. She made this rock. And she can destroy it whenever she wants.” She chuckled. “Epic, right?”
I chuckled because she had. But I wasn’t sure I agreed with Ana. Because of course the lava could stop flowing. Or it could take a less destructive path. Pahoa might be fine.
?
“If I showed you a picture,” Ana said, “just a picture of a landscape with light in the sky, do you think you’d be able to tell whether it was dawn or dusk?”
I thought about that. “Yes,” I said. “The light is different.”
“Is it?”
“And the feeling is different.”
“But it’s a picture, so you couldn’t feel the feeling.”
“But you can. I think you can.” Our elbows touched on the center console. “Why are you asking me this?”
“I don’t know.” She stroked my hand. Then she rested her head there. Her hair was like doll hair. “I’m scared, Nan.”
That surprised me. Because Ana seemed so strong. Of the two of us, I had assumed that she was the strong one and I was the one who was trying to be strong like her. “You seem pretty fearless to me.”
“I’m not ready to die.” She rolled the end of her braid between her fingers. “Even though, honestly, a part of me thinks I deserve to be dead already.”
“No one deserves to be dead already.” I placed my hand on hers.
She sighed. “If you knew everything about me…” She stroked my fingers one by one, and then enough time passed that I realized she wasn’t going to finish this sentence.
“What?”
“You wouldn’t like me.”
I planned to say, No no, I would like you, but I only managed to get out one no before Ana bolted back to her upright position and turned the key. “We need to do more good stuff today,” she said. “It’s urgent.”
“But we’re out of sandwiches.”
“I know.” She drove fast out of the parking lot and started up the street.
I tried to stay curious. “Where are we going?”
And then a hitchhiker. She pulled over. This was what she’d been hoping to find. “We’ll give him a ride,” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” I whispered back. The guy looked like a friendly hippie—dreadlocks, a thick hemp necklace, a hat that said I LOVE YOU. But still, you never knew with people.
“Two against one,” she murmured out the side of her mouth, and then the guy was throwing his sack into the backseat and hoisting himself in, saying, “Up to Magics?” and Ana was saying, “No problem,” and I locked my eyes on the little mirror so I could watch his every move. For now he seemed to be enjoying the wind on his face.
“What’s your story, man?” Ana asked, glancing in the rearview and pulling the end of her braid.
The guy’s story was that he was Brian from Portland and he was here to sell hats. Like the one he was wearing. He took it off and held it between us so we could see. The I LOVE YOU had obviously been handstitched.
“That’s an incredible idea!” Ana was fervent. She grabbed my arm. “Yes!”
At Magic Sands we said good-bye and good luck to Brian, and watched him greet the hippie girl—also wearing an I LOVE YOU hat—who was twirling in slow circles in the sand for no apparent reason.
Ana smacked the wheel. “That’s what we’re going to do.”
“What? Make hats?”
“No, we don’t have the money for hats. But the idea is good. Saying ‘I love you’ to people. I mean, right? That’s a great idea for a good deed.”
“I think ‘I love you’ might send the wrong message though.”
“I see what you mean. We have to change it a little. ‘You are great.’ No, that’s not powerful enough. You are…you are…”
“You are loved,” I said.
“Genius.” Ana rolled her eyes and sighed, pleased. “Nan,” she said, “we should win the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, come on.”
We were driving back down Ali’i now, toward Ana’s house, where my car was parked. It was four o’clock already. Time to get home and make dinner.
When she pulled into her driveway, I was all ready to say the good-bye things I had prepared a little: Thanks for the wonderful day; I really enjoyed it. And give her a hug and say, “See you soon,” and maybe stop at Safeway for milk on the way home because we needed some, but then Ana said, “Come in for a sec?” to which I replied, “Okay, but I can’t stay long.”
?
We sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi, our feet in the water. We were both still wearing the same outfits we had worn to yoga that morning. It was unlike me to stay in my workout gear all day, but there was something about being slightly dirty that I liked. And I thought: when I was younger, younger and freer, I would often spend full days in a swimsuit, or in my pajamas, or in whatever because it didn’t matter that much. I was just going with the flow then.
But I was also thinking about Chuck—he’d be getting off work soon—and the boys—they were probably already home smelling of chlorine and looking for the snacks I hadn’t prepared. The orange sun was getting closer to the ocean, and it was probably four fifteen now. “I should leave in about five minutes,” I told her.
“Well, that’s perfect because I think I just figured out what we should do.” She took off her sunglasses. Her eyes, glimmering orange, two little suns. “Okay, just let this sink in before you judge it, okay?”
“Okay.”