The Goddesses

Marcy worked diligently, sitting forward in her chair. I worked in a relaxed fashion, sitting back. Every once in a while, Auntie Moleka offered more gems of third-generation lei-making wisdom. “Stab in the centah!”

Marcy, unprompted, went ahead and told me everything that was on her mind. She raved about Brad’s pool skills—“He’s fabulous at geometry; that’s why he’s so good”—and said Brad was just thrilled that Chuck had decided to join the team. And wasn’t the name Tide Poolers so clever? In other news, she’d found the perfect hat at Hilo Hattie’s—with a floral pattern, of course, “to get into the spirit of aloha.” And she’d discovered a shortcut from the main road to the beach that didn’t even exist on Google Maps. As far as mulberry pie, she planned to bake her own from now on because going down south—it was just too much to ask. On the subject of food, Marcy missed her California burritos and had heard of a Mexican place in town called Pancho & Lefty’s that was supposed to be just “fantastic” and we should go there after this. I was starving and said, “Sure.”

I listened to her and passively agreed with everything she said—“Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm”—while stabbing my needle through the centah of my plumerias. I’d added a few orange flowers because they were within reach. I liked that Marcy kept talking because it meant I didn’t have to. Her voice was like a distant whir. I could tune in and out as I pleased. The things she was saying and her animated way of saying them—the true delight with which she delivered, “And then I found the perfect hat!” for example—reminded me of Sheila and Donna and the rest of the water polo moms in San Diego, who also found inexplicable pleasure in the minute details of their uneventful lives.

Marcy started a new lei while I continued to work on this one slowly. Getting to the knot-it-off part would include asking how to knot it off, and I wasn’t ready for that yet, so I just kept adding flowers, making them as tight as possible.

While Marcy told me about the astounding difference in price between the beef at Island Naturals and the beef at KTA, I eyed the other women and thought they were homely. And very serious about their leis—almost sadly serious, because this was obviously the highlight of their day. I may have felt a little superior knowing it would not be the highlight of mine. I may have noted that my laid-back position in the chair and my who-cares workout attire suggested I had a life beyond stringing flowers. I may have also noted that everyone at the table had covered their flabby middle-aged arms with distracting floral fabrics while my shoulders were proudly exposed.

“And then I found a centipede!” Marcy widened her small eyes. She had moved on from the beef monologue.

“Oh,” I said, feigning a little concern. “What did you do with it?”

“I killed it,” she said. “I sprayed it with Febreze until it died.”

Flashback to last night: Ana capturing a roach in a tissue and setting it free outside. I had said, “You didn’t kill it?” And she had said, “Hello. Karma?” She’d then told me that according to Buddhism, every life is worth the same amount. All her little Buddha figurines were looking at me from their perches, and I had thought: Is that true?

“I try to put my centipedes outside,” I informed Marcy politely. This wasn’t true. I’d never even seen a centipede, but I had heard they could be the length of your forearm here. “You know, because it might be bad karma to kill them.”

Marcy pulled her lips back. “Oh.”

“Anyway,” I cleared my throat, “that’s what Buddhists think.”

“Are you a Buddhist?”

“No.” I laughed. A few months ago, no one would have asked me this. “I’m not anything.”

“I used to be Catholic,” Marcy recalled, maybe a little sourly, “but now I’m not anything either.”

?

From the terrace at Pancho & Lefty’s, I could see the work Ana and I had done from a more expansive view. YOU ARE LOVED, YOU ARE LOVED, YOU ARE LOVED. The ones I had written were all caps. Ana’s were cursive and sometimes embellished with a smiley face or a star. They were disappearing already under everyone’s footsteps, which was a shame. I wondered if enough people would notice before they disappeared completely. And then a tourist took a picture—of one of mine—and I rubbed my lips together to stop myself from smiling because I didn’t want Marcy to ask me what I was smiling about. I stretched my arms up. My back still hurt, but it was a satisfying kind of pain.

Marcy ordered her California burrito, and I ordered a mahi-mahi burrito. I couldn’t help myself. After she had said, “I hope they put lots of French fries in,” I said, “Look. Someone wrote YOU ARE LOVED all over the sidewalks.”

Marcy peered over the railing. “Oh yeah.”

I rubbed my lips together again, enjoying the present moment with the sun on my arms.

Marcy’s burrito turned out to be mostly French fries—“Be careful what you wish for!”—and my burrito was maybe the worst burrito I had ever had in my entire life. I ate part of it anyway because I was so hungry. Marcy resorted to just eating the fries, dipped in guacamole.

I pretended to care about the view of the ocean, but really I was looking at the people down on the sidewalk, waiting for someone else to take another picture so I could tell Ana I’d seen at least two people doing that. I turned Marcy’s whir to a low volume—she was talking about her oven now—and leaned my head farther over the railing because I thought a man in a fisherman’s hat might be fishing a camera out of his bag. And then there was a change in the atmosphere. It took me a second to realize that Marcy had stopped talking. And she was looking at me. And I was looking at her. And she still wasn’t saying anything, which was unlike her.

Casually, I said, “Ovens are frustrating when they don’t work.”

“Is yours not working?”

“No. It is.”

“So is mine. It’s brand-new. It’s given me no trouble at all.”

“Oh.” I grabbed my water glass. “I must have misunderstood you.”

Marcy moved her sunglasses up so they became a headband. I may have heard the crackling sound of her Aqua Net hair. She rubbed her small eyes. “I know I talk a lot,” she said, and set her hands on her pink cheeks. “I’m sorry if it’s too much.”

I was stunned at this reveal of Marcy’s self-awareness. “No, no, it’s—”

“You don’t have to do that, Nancy. You don’t have to make me feel better. It’s fine. I talk a lot when I’m feeling insecure, that’s all.”

Again, stunned. “I understand,” I said, paying real attention now because inside Marcy’s Stepford Wife chest a real heart was beating. “I do that sometimes, too.”

“Really?” she said, not believing me. “You don’t seem like the type who does that.”

“Okay fine, maybe I don’t. I’m pretty quiet. But I still understand.”

“Honestly?” she said. “I hate getting to know people. It’s so hard, isn’t it?”

I laughed. “It can be, yes.”

“I left a lot of good friends in San Diego.” Her eyes went distant, thinking of them. “I was comfortable in San Diego.”

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