The next man’s crime was much worse. Peter looked unassuming at first—a small farmer in a broken straw hat and a flannel shirt with the arms scissored off. But as he began to talk, I realized my first impression was wrong. He wasn’t meek. He was kind of scary, and definitely disturbed. “Sometimes, when I feel the jitters, I take a stick to my horse’s behind and beat on her a little.” I could tell Ana was trying hard not to break character when she said, “Does it need to be the horse you take a stick to, Peter? Can it not be something else? Like a chair, perhaps?” she asked. “After the horse, I take the stick to myself,” Peter said, his leg jittering under the table. Ana asked Peter about his mother, who he described as “a fine lady,” and then she suggested that maybe Peter could name the horse after someone he loved. Maybe he could even name it Mom. At that, Peter’s lip curled up and his mouth began to twitch and he got up and left before Ana could tell him his future was so, so bright.
Many people were confused about love. The Dallas Cowboys guy sat in the chair after his massage and said he thought his wife was cheating on him. A Latino man asked in broken English if his corazón would ever be fulled back up again or if he should no longer think about his reina and only think about work instead. A soft-spoken woman in her thirties admitted she had never been in love, not really. In a monotone voice, she recited it like something she had learned but didn’t want to know. “I worry the common denominator in all my failed relationships is me.”
Ana was uplifting and moving and decisive. Everyone left feeling inspired. She was at her best doing this. She knew just what to say, and she also knew when to say nothing. Later she would tell me it was easy because it was mostly listening. “People just want to be heard. And then they want a line to walk away with. Something that’s easy to remember and never too harsh.”
Ana always seemed to have the perfect line, and after she delivered it, she reminded each person that their future was so, so bright.
The people didn’t stop. Sometimes the line dwindled and I thought we’d take a lunch break, but then it would grow again. At some point I went and bought us bananas and water from my vendor, who told me her name was Coco. “I’m Nan,” I said, surprised I had called myself that.
Ana ate her banana in three bites and said, “Next!” As the next person walked up, Ana half turned toward me and whispered out of the side of her mouth, “I feel high on this.”
At one the sun came out, blazing and full. People put their umbrellas away. I began to feel hot under the tent. A massage flyer had blown onto the ground in front of me. I picked it up and fanned myself and kept changing the position of my legs. I’d been sitting for a very long time. But my discomfort was apparent to me only in small bursts, which were easy to ignore because I was so thoroughly engaged in the conversations at the tarot table. The way these people were so willing to confess their sins to Ana. It was fascinating.
I stopped fanning and stilled my body, straining to hear the low voice of Jan, a sixty-something woman who was asking Ana where she should throw her husband’s ashes. He had never told her. In their forty years together, how had he never told her that?
And then, like a car crash: “Nanceeeee!”
Several people, including Jan and Ana, looked up at Marcy, who was Tasmanian-deviling her way toward me through the maze of massage tables. “I didn’t know you came down here on Sundays!” she said, closer now, and just as loud. I stood, mouthed “Sorry” to Ana, who didn’t notice—she and Jan had resumed their conversation—and Marcy threw her arms around me with the drama of a soldier who’d just returned from war. Her crunchy hair stabbed my face and I said, “Sshhh.”
She pulled away. In her normal voice, which was still too loud, she said, “I’m so happy to see you. I was worried. After that lunch,” she tucked her hair behind her ear, “I was worried you might not like me.”
“No,” I whispered, flapping my hand. “No no no.”
Marcy adjusted her visor. “Why are you whispering?” she whispered.
I pointed to the tarot table.
“Oh,” Marcy mouthed.
I motioned for Marcy to follow me, and stepped out into the sun, far enough away from the tarot table so that her voice wouldn’t ruin any more important moments.
Marcy had made some assessments on the way. “Are you part of the”—she looked at the sign—“free tarot?”
“I aaam,” I said hesitantly. And then, with overcompensating confidence, “Yes, I am. I’m here helping my friend.”
Marcy looked at Ana with judgment. It was hard to tell because she was wearing sunglasses, but I assumed it was judgment. “Oh.” Marcy studied Ana. “She has rhinestones on her face. I wonder where she got those.”
“The store,” I said quickly, and it came out sounding rude.
But Marcy was unfazed. “Maybe Michael’s?” she asked. “Anyway, Brad and I are just going to lunch. Do you want to come with us? It would be great to catch up.”
I was starving. I’d been diligently ignoring the noises from my stomach for the last ten minutes. But lunch with Marcy and Brad? I preferred to suffer a little longer.
“No, I just ate,” I said, recalling the small banana. “Plus I should stay here and help my friend.”
“Oh.” Marcy was disappointed, and she didn’t seem to understand either. “Are you reading tarot cards, too?”
“No,” I laughed. I had no idea how to read a tarot card.
“So you’re sitting behind your friend while your friend reads tarot cards?”
“Yes,” I said, now resenting Marcy for making me feel self-conscious about this. Was it strange that I was sitting behind Ana eavesdropping as people exposed their inner lives? Yes. But no, because it was more than that. It was us, me and Ana, and we were on a mission, Marcy! But even if I explained this to Marcy, I knew she wouldn’t get it. I was looking at the ground now, preparing what I would say next, when my eyes latched on to Marcy’s Tevas. Which looked very familiar. Because I had Tevas at home, in the same style with the same blue straps. I was about to tell her, but instead I decided to throw my Tevas away the second I got home, and then I said, “Guess what?”
“What?”
I paused for emphasis. “I walked the Pig Trail alone.”
“You did?” Marcy was impressed. “Wow.”
In my most laid-back voice, I said, “Yep.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Very much.”
“It was a little scary though, right?” Marcy said, trying to bond.
“No,” I said, not condescendingly at all, “I didn’t think so.”
“Maybe we can go together sometime then. You can lead the way!”
I lied. What else was I supposed to do? “That would be nice.”
“Okay, well, see you later, Nancy. Have fun”—she looked at my chair in the corner with judgment—“enjoying the shade.”
My stomach lurched. I hoped she hadn’t heard. “I will, Marcy. You have fun at lunch.”
I watched Marcy walk away in her floral tunic and her khakis and her Tevas, and then I watched her find Brad, and then I watched them hug each other, their silly doughy middle-aged bodies wrapped in a cartoon embrace. Brad saw me and waved, his ridiculous gold watch catching the light and reflecting it sharply right into my eye.
?
At five I told Ana I know and I’m sorry and I really, really want to go to Natch with you tonight, but I have to get home to the boys.
She did not use the term “domestic chains” again, which I appreciated. Instead she said, “Good for you, Nan, that’s a good thing to be doing. I feel so good after all the good I did today. Holy. Shit. That was groundbreaking. Those people. Right?”
“I can’t believe how much they told you.”
“People love to tell me their secrets,” Ana said. “I don’t know what it is about me, but it always happens.”
“It’s a gift,” I said, and hugged her good-bye. “I’ll call you later.”