ON THE WAY HOME, NEITHER of them said anything for a long time. Michael was the first to break the silence: “I would never mistake you for anybody else.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I mean it. I might be a cranky old fool some day, but I’ll never forget who you are. Or what we’ve done together.”
Ben took Michael’s hand and kissed the back of it. “We don’t come with that kind of warranty.”
“Well, I do. Just take me to Pinyon City or . . . make me something vegan . . . or flop your balls in my face. I’ll remember.”
Ben chuckled. “He spooked you?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Me, too. A little.”
“You know, they say that marijuana actually helps prevent Alzheimer’s.”
“Who said that? Woody Harrelson?”
Michael mugged at him.
“Speaking of Pinyon City,” said Ben, “why don’t we head up there in a few days? Are you locked into anything work-wise?”
“Not that I can think of. Is there snow on the way or something?”
“Yep. You think Mary Ann would like to hang with you while I go boarding?”
“I dunno. She’s having the surgery next week.”
“Maybe she could use a change of scenery.”
“We could always ask,” said Michael.
There was still a light on in the cottage when they got home, so Michael went out to talk to Mary Ann. When he finally returned, well over half an hour later, Ben was already in bed with Roman, giving him his obligatory nightly belly rub.
“Watch out,” Ben warned. “He’s been farting.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Great.”
Ben gingerly shifted the dog to the end of the bed while Michael shed his clothes. “What did she say?”
“About what?”
“Pinyon City.”
Michael seemed distracted. “Oh . . . she’s up for it.”
“But?”
“Nothing. She wants to go.”
“So why did that take half an hour?”
Michael climbed into bed and snuggled into Ben’s side. “I had to hold her hand for a while. Somebody on Facebook mentioned somebody she used to date, and she was weirded out about it. It was no big deal.”
“What did they say?”
“Nothing, really. Just brought up his name.”
“Why would that weird her out?”
“She’s in a really dark place right now. Who can blame her? I think Pinyon City will do her a world of good. We can go to the hot springs, or maybe snowshoe across the meadow. Do we have a ski jacket she can wear?”
“Michael, who was this guy? What is it you’re not telling me?”
“She really hates talking about it, sweetie. I’m the only one she’s ever shared it with.”
“Fine. I won’t ask her about it. And I won’t tell her you told me.” He held up his hand, pointing to his wedding band. “Full disclosure.”
Michael took a while to compose his answer. “He was this creep . . . this pedophile who lived on the roof.”
“That she dated.” Ben gave him a heavy-lidded look.
“She didn’t know that when she dated him. He was just a shy guy who had a crush on her, and she felt sorry for him. They had dinner a few times, that’s all.”
“How did she find out, then?”
“Find out what?”
“That he was a pedophile.”
“Oh . . . she found kiddie porn in his room. Norman was in some of the pictures. He had one of those black bars over his eyes, but she could tell who it was. Plus, she recognized the little girl. They’d gone trick-or-treating together.”
Ben frowned. “Who’d gone trick-or-treating?”
“Mary Ann and Norman and this kid.”
“And she didn’t wonder what he was doing with this child?”
“He was supposedly babysitting for some friends in the East Bay.”
“Jesus. Did she call the police?”
“Of course. But he was gone by the time they showed up.”
“Gone from where?”
“Barbary Lane. He didn’t even leave his room key with Anna. He just left on Christmas Eve and never came back.”
“So he must’ve known that they knew about him, right?”
“Oh, yeah . . . I’m sure.”
For some reason, Michael didn’t sound entirely convinced about this, but Ben decided not to badger him about it further. “So when did this happen?”
“Thirty-two years ago. The first year Mary Ann was in town. You were barely on the planet at that point.”
Ben squeezed Michael’s arm in rebuke. “That doesn’t mean I’m not supposed to know about it.”
“I know you think she’s a drama queen,” said Michael, “but she’s had some actual drama.”
“Apparently,” said Ben.
Chapter 15
To Save Some Guy
With the weekend came rain—or at least a drizzly mist—so Jake proposed they blow off the new science museum and stay home. Anna was chipper about it, insisting that all she needed on a day like this was to snuggle up in the new gazebo with a pot of Earl Grey tea and a box of ginger snaps. Jake would have much preferred the albino alligator and the living roof and the four-story rainforest, but he knew that Anna’s energy was lower than usual, so there was no point in braving the park in this shitty weather.
He dragged a space heater into the gazebo and rolled down the plastic curtains before settling Anna in her chair with her Hudson Bay blanket. He was glad to see that the gazebo wasn’t leaking, since he’d built it himself a few months earlier. Anna was making a methodical show of appreciation, surveying the space like an astronaut checking her capsule before a flight. “Perfect,” she said. “I couldn’t ask for more.”
Jake pulled up a chair next to her. “Warm enough?”
“Oh . . . dear . . . before I forget . . . a young man came by yesterday when you were at work.”
Jake felt tightening in his gut. “Oh, yeah?”
“His name was Snow, I believe.”
“Flake,” Jake muttered.
“What, dear?”
“His name was Jonah Flake, right?”
“Yes! That’s it.” She rapped her knuckles comically against the side of her head, so as to reprimand her brain for its silly mistake. “He thought he had the wrong place until I told him I was your roommate. I hope I didn’t frighten him.”
“Who cares?”
“What, dear?”
“He’s a Mormon. He’s trying to save me.”
“How interesting.”
“Correction: he’s trying to save some guy I haven’t even become yet.”
Anna studied him for a moment, blinking her bleary blue eyes. “He thinks you’re gay, you mean? A gay man?”
Jake grunted in the affirmative.
“Well . . . isn’t that sort of encouraging?”
“C’mon. If he wants to fix a gay man, what the hell’s he gonna think about a trans man? I haven’t got time for that kind of shit.”
“Was this the boy from the floating island?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Well, he seems to like you. He said to tell you he was sorry.”
Jake said nothing; there was nothing to say.
“He looked like he meant it. He looked bereft, in fact.”
He shouldn’t have snapped at her, but he did. “Anna, did you hear what I said? He’s trying to save me.”
Taking her time about it, Anna tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear. “Or trying to be saved. Most of us are doing one or the other.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have no idea, and you won’t either unless you call him back.”
It was typical of Anna to toss out something mysterious like that, then run away before she was forced to explain herself.
Jake folded his arms with a sigh. “Would you like your cocoa now, Your Majesty?”
Anna ignored the question. “You know, dear,
I know exactly how that feels.”
“How what feels?”
“To know who you are inside when other people don’t.”
Of course he knew that she knew that, but he didn’t feel like a pep talk right now, even from his tran mother. He didn’t feel like anything. He felt dead inside, a total nonbeing whose feelings didn’t matter one way or another.
“The thing is,” Anna went on, “you can’t stay open to love if you’re always afraid of being hurt.”
“I wasn’t looking for love. He’s not even gay. I thought we could be friends.”
“Then how can you know if that’s possible if you don’t—”
“What? Come out to a Mormon? A guy who came here to stop gay marriage? He even calls himself a missionary!”
“Then you should be one, too.”
“That’s not me, Anna. I’m a private person.”
Anna rearranged her long, pale fingers in her lap. “I used to think the same thing about myself. But I was only postponing the chance to be loved as myself.”
“C’mon. He would freak out.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Probably, then. But this is about you, dear. You would be claiming who you are, whatever happens. There’s something to be said for that. Believe me.”
The rain was coming down harder now, clattering like a handful of gravel against the roof of the gazebo. Rather than argue with Anna, Jake made a dash for the kitchen, where he microwaved two mugs of tea and shook half a dozen ginger snaps into a wooden salad bowl. When he returned, he discovered that Notch had taken refuge in Anna’s lap.
“Poor old girl,” said Anna, stroking the little cat’s raggedy black fur. “The rain caught her off guard.”
“I wondered where she was,” said Jake. He set the bowl down on Anna’s flat-topped ceramic elephant, then handed her a mug of tea. She sipped it wordlessly, solemnly, gazing into the distance, letting the silence speak for itself.
“I get what you’re saying,” Jake said at last.
“But?”
He shrugged. “It’ll be easier to do when I’m finished.”
She nodded slowly. “The surgery.”
“Yeah.”
“You still want it, then?”
“Oh, yeah.” The issue, of course, was not whether Jake wanted the surgery but whether he could ever afford it. The nest egg he’d brought with him from Tulsa had been spent on his double mastectomy, and he’d been scrambling ever since just to keep his head above water financially. Michael paid him as well as he could, but—almost overnight, it seemed—the recession had turned gardeners into a disposable luxury.
“You know,” said Anna, “there have been people who regret having the change. Whatever direction they’re heading. I’m sure they told you that at your meetings.”
“Did you regret it?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not for a minute.”
“Okay, then.”
“I’m not you, dear.”
Jake shrugged. “Close enough.”
Anna smiled, taking Jake’s hand in hers and nestling it in her lap where he could feel the warmth of Notch’s percolating body. “I had a daughter once,” she told him. “It agreed with me tremendously. I think I could use a son.”
Jake retracted his hand. “You might have to wait a little.”
She shook her head. “No time for that, dear.”
“Maybe not but—”
“I’m paying for it, Jake, and that’s that. I don’t want an argument. I’ve spoken to Selina and Marguerite and they’re making all the arrangements.”
Jake’s face reddened with embarrassment. “It’s a lot more expensive than you think. I don’t even have health insurance.”
“Hush,” she said. “I’m about to shuffle off this mortal coil. The money might as well do somebody some good.”
Jake didn’t get the “mortal coil” part, but he caught her drift just the same.
Chapter 16
Like a Dog Before an Earthquake
Necrotizing fasciitis.
Shawna had heard the paramedics use that term the night the ambulance rushed Leia to San Francisco General. A day later, on Shawna’s second visit to the hospital, she heard it again as she passed the nurses’ station. It stalked her all the way down the hall to Leia’s ward, droning in her head like some creepy, demonic incantation.
Necrotizing fasciitis, necrotizing fasciitis, necrotizing fasciitis . . .
The common term for it was “the flesh-eating disease.” It was extremely rare in the general population, but not so much among street people who used heroin. Leia had an advanced case. The doctors in the emergency room had been far less concerned with the surface knife wound on her back than with the gruesome stew of rotting flesh on her left leg. The knife attack had actually been something of a blessing, in fact, since it brought immediate medical attention. Without it, they said, she’d already be dead.
Shawna strode into the ward, her eyes fixed straight ahead so as not to invade the tenuous privacy of the other patients. The salmon-and-green curtains on Leia’s cubicle were closed, so Shawna paused and read the sign that identified the occupant:
LEMKE, Leia
The last name was news to Shawna, since Leia had been too fucked up and frightened to reveal anything on the night of her admission to the hospital.
Shawna cleared her throat. “Leia?”
A growl from behind the curtain.
“It’s Shawna. May I visit?”
Another growl, apparently signifying yes.
Shawna pulled open the curtain and closed it behind her. Leia was sitting up in bed with an IV line sprouting grotesquely from a hole beneath her collarbone. As a nurse had explained on Shawna’s previous visit, there was no other spot on the patient’s over-perforated body that could accept the antibiotic. A tented sheet over Leia’s legs spared visitors—and presumably the patient herself—the sight of a body eating itself alive.
Shawna pulled up a chair. “They’re treating you okay?”
Leia grunted. “Methadone sucks.”
That may be, thought Shawna, but you’re not screaming anymore. You’re not clawing at your skin. You seem almost human now.
“You cut your hair,” Leia remarked. “It looks better.”
Shawna was touched by the observation, coming as it had from someone who’d long ago abandoned control over her own appearance. “I wanted something simpler,” she said, reflexively touching the tips of her new pixie cut. She had banished the Bettie Page look an hour earlier; she knew for sure now that it didn’t suit this new chapter in her life.
“Why are you doing this?” asked Leia.
“Doing what?”
“This. Hangin’ out with me.”
Shawna tried to answer truthfully. “I don’t know exactly.”
“You with an agency or something? Rehab?”
“No. Nothing like that. I just saw you under the freeway and . . . I really enjoyed what little I saw of you, so . . . I decided to come looking for you.”
“Lookin’ for me? You came there on purpose?”
Shawna nodded. “You think I normally go strolling down Cocksuck Alley at that time of night?”
A quick flash of ruined teeth as Leia laughed.
“Give me a little credit, lady.”
Leia regarded her soberly for a moment. “They wanna cut off my leg.”
Shawna nodded. “I know.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I hear you. I’d feel that way too.”
“Well . . . tell ’em I won’t, then.”
“No, Leia. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . . the infection will spread if they don’t amputate.”
“Fuck it, then.”
“It’ll kill you. It is killing you. You can start to get better once the leg is gone. That’s what these antibiotics are for . . . to get you stronger before they . . . do it.”
“Please don’t . .
. please.” Leia was sobbing now.
Shawna took her hand. “Would you like me to stay?”
“Stay?”
“Yeah. Be with you when you go in, and be there when you wake up.”
“FUCK THAT SHIT. THEY’RE NOT CUTTIN’ OFF MY LEG.”
“Okay,” Shawna replied feebly. “Whatever.”
“Get the fuck out of here, you pesky cunt. Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Shawna backed toward the door, then fled without another word.
SHE CALLED OTTO AS SHE left the hospital. Hearing the alarm in her voice, he offered to meet her for lunch at the Café Gratitude on Harrison Street. Otto was no more a vegan than she was, but the restaurant was an easy walk from the hospital, and they both liked the cheery neo-Aquarian vibe of the place. On previous visits, she had cut them slack about the pretentious-sounding menu items, but she was in no mood for that today.
“I’ll have the large café salad,” she told the pony-tailed girl server.
“You mean ‘I Am Fulfilled’?”
“Okay.”
“You want that, then?”
“Yeah. Are you gonna make me say it?”
The server gave her a curdled smile and turned to Otto. “How about you?”
“ ‘I Am Elated,’ please.”
“Would you like that with sour cream?”
“Yeah. ‘I Am Elated’ with sour cream.”
“Excellent.”
“And for dessert we’ll both have ‘I Am Awakening.’ ”
Seeing that Otto was enjoying himself, Shawna found herself smirking. When the server had left, she said: “ ‘I Am So Over This.’ ”
“C’mon. They have to say it. It’s part of the gig.”
Shawna heaved a sigh. “What am I gonna do, Otto?”
He didn’t have to ask what she meant. “You’ll go back, is my guess.”
“Then what?”
He shrugged. “You’ll be with her.”
“They say she’s dying. With or without the amputation.”
“Want me to go with you?”
“Would you? You don’t have to see her. I just need you there.”
“Should I bring Sammy?”
Her first instinct was to roll her eyes, but Otto had such a goofy, hopeful look on his face. “I don’t think that’s her kinda thing, honey.”