Ana lived in a pink house by the sea. A pink the color of Pepto-Bismol, with white trim. Vines grew fiercely up the walls and over some of the windows. I thought it was charming.
Right as I was about to knock, she opened the door. She was wearing a gecko-green top and red linen pants with wide parachute legs. She looked very relaxed, like maybe she’d just woken up. In a gravelly voice, she said, “I heard your car.”
“Wow, you have good hearing!” I exclaimed. You’re nervous, Nancy. Calm down, Nancy. It’s only a friend date, Nancy.
“I was just doing a little meditation.” She motioned to the yellow yoga mat on the floor behind her. On it was a blue satin pillow, and at the edge a stack of books with a gold Buddha figurine on top.
“Oh, is this a bad time? I can come back if you want,” I said too fast.
We both knew I didn’t mean it.
“This is a perfect time,” Ana said. “Please, come in.” She smiled her flawless smile. In the shadows of the house her face looked more angular. Her cheekbones were enviably pronounced. I slid off my shoes and added them to her bamboo shoe rack by the door and wondered if my cheekbones looked more pronounced in this light, too.
Her house smelled like a blend of incense and orange spray. It was very tidy and bursting with color. Tibetan prayer flags on the wall and orange curtains lining the sliding glass doors and vibrant afghans in perfect taquito rolls near the couch. Her furniture was minimal and low to the ground. It gave the illusion of spaciousness, even though the house itself was pretty small. On the coffee table was another Buddha figurine. And another in the corner. And on the bookshelf. And in the soil of a leafy plant. There were Buddhas everywhere.
“I brought you some jam,” I said, and handed her the jar. I’d bought it in town from a woman named Sylvia who was obsessed with whales. She told me she’d moved to Hawaii just to be near them, and then she went on and on about their blowholes and their migration patterns and this one mother and baby she was tracking, and I stopped listening after a while because it was just too much information.
“Thank you,” Ana said. She looked at the label. “Oh, Sylvia’s jam.” She cocked her head. “Did she tell you about her whales?”
“Yes!”
“Of course she did,” she said, and I was glad I’d bought Sylvia’s jam and not another jam so we could bond over knowing her.
Ana seemed to be pondering my face, which made me nervous. She was so present, much more present than I was, and obviously very intuitive, and what was she thinking? My swimsuit had shifted into a bad position under my clothes. I tried to ignore it.
“I’m just going to put my stuff away, and then let’s have some tea.”
“Sure, no rush,” I said, trying to relax. Adding new people to your life is always a challenge, I reminded myself. The getting-to-know-you part is the worst, and after that it gets better.
While Ana rolled up her yoga mat and put the blue pillow on the shelf, I put my hand on my waist and did my best to act natural.
“I like your Buddhas,” I said.
“The Chinese ones are my favorite. They’re so fat and happy. Look at him.” She pointed to the one on the coffee table. “He’s laughing his ass off.”
I picked it up so that my hands had something to do. The Buddha was heavy, cackling, and wearing a necklace.
Ana bent to pick a speck of something off the floor. Then she fluffed a pillow on her couch.
“You’re very neat,” I told her.
“Did you expect me to be messy?”
“No,” I said. “No!” Although maybe I had expected her to be messy, or at least a little messier than this.
“You know what they say about neat people.” Ana took the Buddha from me and set it down and swiveled it back and forth until she’d found the right angle. This was when I realized that all the Buddhas were facing the same way: out the window. “Neat people fear death more than messy people. It’s about control.”
“Right,” I said. And I really meant that. It did seem right. It seemed like kind of a revelation, actually.
I followed her to the kitchen, which was right there, and looked out her sliding glass doors and said, “Your view!” She was literally right on the ocean. Which I’d known, obviously, but seeing it from here—it was stunning. And so close. After the doors was a cement deck with a small Jacuzzi perched on the edge, and right after that all you could see was the light blue ocean and the lighter blue sky.
“Sometimes it reminds me of heaven,” she said, like heaven was a place she had been to.
I sat myself on a bar stool and watched her add water to the kettle, which was scratched and dented but very clean. On the counter was a basket filled with miniature soaps.
“Oh, that’s for you,” Ana said. “It’s a welcome basket. Welcome to Hawaii. Alo-ha!”
“What?” I picked up a soap and smelled it. Lime. They were all different flavors. “This is so nice of you. Thank you.”
I said “thank you” at least four more times, and then I said yes to green tea. Ana took out two packets and set them inside two small mugs that were chipped and baby blue, and then she stood there, looking sort of at me and sort of at the view, and then she traced her eyebrows with her fingers. She seemed to be making sure they were still there. “If you’re wondering why my eyebrows are basically nonexistent,” she said, “it’s because I had breast cancer.”
“Oh,” I said. Her eyebrows looked completely normal to me. Losing them must have given her a complex. I put the soap in my hand back in the basket. I didn’t look at her breasts. I now understood why they were so perky. Implants. And her hair—of course. Of course it was a wig. How had I thought it was real? “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “But you’re okay now?”
“I hope so.” She chuckled. “I’m in remission. It’s funny though, I always had a feeling I would get cancer.” She set her elbows on the counter and clasped her fingers together. “I’m kind of surprised it took so long, really. Karma is a strange creature. A mysterious bitch. That’s what my friend calls it. Funny, right?”
“Right.” I looked at the floor to find my thoughts. Cheap linoleum but sparkling clean. “But wait. Do you think karma had something to do with your cancer?” I asked slowly.