“Good, cuz they’re evacuating. It just came on the radio.”
“Oh no,” I said, imagining all those people having to leave their homes. I pictured it like a movie because it didn’t seem real.
“Hope they make it out in time,” the waitress said.
“They will,” Ana said certainly. “It’s the twenty-first century.”
When the smoothies arrived, Ana took a sip and said, “This is so much better than Ensure. You know that’s what I should be drinking right now.” She touched her wig hair. She was solemn. “I should be drinking Ensure and dying in an institution.”
“It’s amazing you’re having so many good days,” I said.
“Right?” She plucked a shrimp off the side of the martini glass. “But let’s not talk about it anymore. It’s too depressing. I want to enjoy my life while I still have it.”
“Are you in pain though? Does your stomach hurt? Or, I mean…” I trailed off. I didn’t want to say the word pancreas.
“I am in pain. I’m just not showing you.” She chewed her shrimp with vigor and squinted at the sea. The sun glinted off the water in one straight line, straight from the horizon to us. “My flame is going to start petering soon. I can feel it.”
I thought I could feel it, too. It seemed inevitable.
“But I’m not ready yet. I have unfinished business.” She set the shrimp tail on the plate. “I can’t stop thinking about that horse. I don’t know why. I think I had a dream about it last night. That poor horse, being beaten for no reason. Maybe I can relate,” she said, her voice thin. “I just have to free that horse, Nan. It feels imperative.”
“Ana,” I said, pleading a little. “After last night and the boys and the fire and the police station and—it’s too much.”
“Nan, I know you’re upset right now, but I would urge you to ask yourself: Does this stuff really matter? The boys are fine. Liko is fine. Chuck is going to be fine. Yes, you might get a divorce, but you also might not. You don’t know yet. My opinion? Is that you should enjoy your life while you still have it. And use your time on this planet to set things right.”
As usual, it was hard to argue with her. She was dying. She understood things I couldn’t claim to understand.
The sun, the sky, the ocean. The ukulele music playing in the background, and this was the best smoothie I’d ever had. Was I enjoying it enough?
I wasn’t sure. Because I also wasn’t sure who was drinking this smoothie. Who was this woman at the Four Seasons, talking about freeing a horse? And why was she wearing this blue scarf that was kind of ugly?
“Nan,” Ana said, “I think you’ll feel better after you free this horse with me. It’s a good deed, clean and simple.”
The wind blew my scarf into my face. The blue striped pattern covered my view. Yes, I thought, ugly. An ugly pattern. But on the day I’d bought it at Marshall’s, I had loved this pattern. Well, Sheila had loved it, really. She was the one who told me to buy it.
Ana plucked the last two shrimps off the martini glass. She put one on my plate and one on hers. “This is the last time I’ll ask for your help, Nan.”
I looked at the clear, clear sky, and then at the vog in the distance. Was that Pahoa?
“We don’t even know where he lives,” I said.
Ana smiled. Her lips, her teeth, her pearly skin. She looked like a movie star. She looked like someone you would want to be sitting with at the Four Seasons.
“I got his address.”
“You did? How?”
She shrugged. “Small town.”
I sipped my smoothie. This is the best smoothie you’ve ever had.
“Please stop tripping out about Liko, Nan. It’s tiring, seriously. What you did last night was good. You were protecting your child.” Then she burped, which was not a movie star thing to do. “Good,” she said once more.
I stared at the perfect, clear horizon. “My lines are getting blurred.”
“Lines,” she repeated, like that was an interesting word. “Between good and bad, you mean.”
“Exactly.”
Ana sat up straighter, pulled her shoulders back. “When you’re about to die, you’ll see this as clearly as I do.” It seemed like she almost felt sorry for me. My poor brain was in a knot about something that was so simple to her.
“I wish I had your clarity,” I told her.
Gently she placed her hand over mine. I watched my wedding band be covered by her pale fingers. “You can take part in my clarity,” she promised. Her inviting eyes, so full of energy. How lucky she was to be having this many good days, and how soon they would be over. “Please help me. I need you. The horse is the last deed.”
We both already knew I would say yes. Because how could I say no to her? I couldn’t.
“The last deed?” I wanted her to promise.
Ana covered her heart with her hand. “I swear my life on it.”
28
We left before Chuck got home. If Chuck was coming home. We took Ana’s car. The boys in the back and us in the front. Ana wore a satin periwinkle dress I’d never seen before and she’d put on extra makeup.
“I just want to look pretty right now,” she’d called to me from the bathroom while we were getting ready. I was in the closet, looking for more scarves to donate to Salvation Army. Or to Marcy, if I ever saw Marcy again. “There’s this documentary you should watch,” Ana continued, “about women with cancer who go to this hair salon because they want to look beautiful. It is so inspiring, Nan. And kind of a desperate, vain attempt to avoid the deathliness of death, but still. Very moving. People at the end of their lives—they’re so raw and real, you know? We should all live like we’re about to die.”
“Uh-huh.” I was only half listening. I was too busy looking for more ugly scarves in my closet.
She emerged in the doorway wearing shimmering green eye shadow, lots of blush, and heavy mascara. “You’re beautiful,” I told her.
“Good.” She struck a pose. “Because I don’t want to look like an invalid in front of the boys.”
?
I felt better once we were driving away from the house. I always felt better driving away from that house, just like I always felt better when I was in her car. The wind on my cheeks, the lush jungle rushing past. I liked not having to drive. I liked being the passenger. I could just sit here and watch the world pass me by.
This was the point on the mountain where the lush jungle dried out. In one more minute, it would all be lava. It was dusk. The wobbly horizon line reminded me of rush hour on the 5. The air was thick and gray and smelled like sulphur. The vog—and it was unmistakably vog now—had rolled over all of Kona town. It looked sad, almost. If you took out the tropical ocean, it could have been some bleak boondocks place in central California.
“Out of curiosity, where are we going?” Cam asked.
“Books and Natch,” Ana told him. “And it’s a new moon tonight.”
Cam had assured us twenty times that nothing bad had happened at school, but at the red light I felt the need to ask again. “Are you sure no one gave you a hard time?”
“I’m sure,” Cam said.