100 Days (22 page)

I woke more than an hour later with Agnes standing over me grinning and holding a box of tissues. “It's for the drool,” she said.

Deb came into the living room from the kitchen. “Your mom's probably wondering where you are,” she added as I stood up fast and tried to clear my head.

“Whoa,” I mumbled. “Sorry. I must have fallen asleep.”

“Ya
think
?” Agnes giggled.

Deb just smiled. “Nothing to be sorry about. Here.” She handed me a brown paper shopping bag with the top rolled down to seal it closed. “I packed a container of the chicken for you to take home. Maybe your mom will like it, too.”

I took the bag from her. It was warm. “Thank you,” I said, but I couldn't look at her for too long. I was afraid I'd do something psycho, like start crying out of gratitude.

Throwing off the blankets and getting up from bed, I head to the kitchen in the dark, open the fridge as quietly as I can, and pull out the container of leftover Moroccan chicken. Mom woke up after I got back from Agnes's house last night, and she had some of it, too.

“This is delicious,” she said.

“It is,” I agreed. “It's almost as good as that one chicken recipe you used to make. What was it again?” I knew the answer, but for some reason I wanted her to say it. I wanted us to have an actual conversation.

“Chicken cacciatore,” Mom said, studying her plate.

“That's right. It was really good.”

“Not as good as this.” She smiled at me for about half a second. I'd take it, though. I'd almost forgotten what her smile looked like.

“Yours was definitely as good as this,” I told her, bending the truth just a little, since nothing was as good as this. “It was just different.”

Not much was said after that. Still, a part of me hoped that maybe this could become a new thing. Maybe we could sit down to a meal together once in a while and chat like a normal family.

Now I close the door of the fridge and grab a fork. I don't even bother to heat up the food first. I just sit at the table and eat it cold, right out of the container. A lump starts to form in my throat again.

It's been so long since anybody has taken care of me.

 

63

MOIRA

DAY 38: MAY 18

Grant lives in the world's tiniest apartment above a Greek delicatessen on Telegraph Avenue. I sleep on the twin futon that takes up his entire living room. When I wake up in the morning, it's to the sound of traffic on the street below and the smell of meat and exotic spices ribboning in through the heater vent. My first morning here, the first thing I thought about was how I survived the flight despite the lightning bolts of adrenaline that shot down my spine every time we hit turbulence and also when the landing gear clunked into place. Three days later, I'm still proud of myself for not coming unglued.

Fern comes by while I'm folding up the futon. She doesn't have to work her library shift until this afternoon, so the two of us head downstairs for an early lunch. I have no clue where to even begin with the menu.

“Everything's good,” Fern advises as we walk through the door of the delicatessen. “Believe me.” A man behind the counter smiles at her. “Hi, Gregor,” she says.

As I'm trying to interpret the menu, clearly lost, he points to me and says in a thick accent, “You: gyros and souvlaki.”

I hesitate. “Both of them?”

Gregor smiles and nods.

I look around to see who might be listening, to see which of the college students packing the place is going to make a crack—
Hey, fatty. Why stop at two? Why not order three or four entrees?
—but nobody gives me a second glance. Except for one guy sitting behind an open biology textbook near the back wall. He's wearing retro-frame glasses, and he is not un-handsome. He brings a gyro to his mouth, takes a big bite, and gazes around the room. Our eyes meet briefly.

I pay for my two items (because, okay, why not?). As I'm waiting for Fern to pay for her stuff, I scan the deli again, looking for a place where we can sit down. Bespectacled biology guy is still looking at me, smiling this time. It's not a creepy smile, and it's not a mean one. It seems … Could it be a genuine signal of goodwill from an attractive stranger of the opposite sex?

This does not compute. I just stand there and stare blankly back, unsure of what to do next. Should I return the smile? Flip him off? What's the protocol here? Clearly, I think about it too long, because a blush rises to the guy's face and he looks down at his food.

Fern's eyebrows are raised when I turn back to her. “Looks like somebody has a fan,” she says.

“What? Oh, please.”

“I'm just saying.”

I feel color rising into my own cheeks. I hope the extra pale foundation I'm wearing today (China Doll #728) is enough to cover it. When I get up the nerve to look back at the guy one more time, he won't look at me.
Smooth move,
I tell myself.
Way to terrify the locals.

*   *   *

Later, when we're back out on the street, wandering into and out of the various shops, a woman in a wraparound sari-type dress and big hoop earrings walks in front of us. She's about the same size as me, but unlike me she holds her head high and sways her ample backside proudly from side to side as she strolls. I watch the eyes of people walking toward us to see if they're going to laugh or say something insulting, but nobody does. If anything, I catch a few oncoming females looking at the swaying woman with admiration. Several of the men look at her with something different, something more like adoration. From the back, I can't tell if she returns their stares with smiles or dirty looks or what. I'm guessing smiles, probably secret ones. Not that it matters. Clearly, this woman is moving through the world for herself and herself alone, with little concern about what other people might think.

More than anything else, at this moment I want to reach forward and tap her on the shoulder. I want to offer to buy her a cup of coffee so I can pick her brain and ask her how she got this way. Maybe I could be her apprentice. For the first time in my life, I'm looking at a big, mighty, curvaceous gal like myself and thinking,
This. This is who I want to be.

 

64

AGNES

DAY 37: MAY 19

In the middle of finals break, Boone takes me with him to haul water.

I'm waiting on the front step when he pulls up. A jumbo fiberglass tank is strapped into the bed of his truck. “Our cistern's almost dry,” he calls out to me from behind the wheel. “Not that water hauling is much of an adventure, but you said you wanted to get out of the house.”

I check with Mom, who says it's fine. She says she knows I'll be careful.

“That thing looks like a big white space pod,” I tell Boone as I walk toward the truck and climb in.

“I've always thought it looked like an alien egg,” he replies. “Like it's going to hatch and a thousand alien babies are going to come out and take over the world.”

“Ew.” There's no booster seat, and I have to hold the seat belt strap to keep it from covering my face.

As we approach downtown, we see a truck parked in a dirt lot with a For Sale sign in the window. The truck is beat-up and yellow with a thick brown center stripe. Boone stares at it as we drive past.

“Looks like an old banana,” I say.

“Yeah, but it's not as old as this one.” As if in response, his Chevy lurches and sputters. I'm thrown forward a little, and Boone sticks an arm out to brace me, just like Moira would.

“Sorry about that,” he says, cranking the stick shift into a lower gear and stomping on the gas to keep the engine from dying.

Next, we pass a billboard advertising a local mattress outlet. The model is wearing a silky negligee. She's sleeping on a bare mattress with a big sexy smile on her face and long brown hair fanned out all around her shoulders.

“Who sleeps like that?” Boone says. “I mean, at least put a
sheet
on the bed, for crying out loud.”

“She has the prettiest hair, though,” I tell him, sighing. “It's like … religious hair.”

He's laughing now. “What does that even mean?”

“You know…”

“Um…”

“Oh come on,” I say, swatting at him. “Hair! Hair that's, like … blessed or something. It's like … childbirthing hair.” I play with a few strands of the curlicue wig I put on this morning.

“Okay, now you're just scaring me.” Boone turns onto a narrow side road and navigates the truck under a long hose hanging from a standpipe that's connected to the city water tower. He turns off the engine and looks at me.

My arms are crossed over my chest now. “You're never going to understand this,” I tell him. “Try to imagine what it would be like if you had no hair.”

“I'd be cool with that.” Boone opens the door and gets out of the truck.

“Shut up!” I open the door on my side and jump down to the ground. With help from Boone, I climb up onto the open tailgate and watch as he unscrews a cap from the fiberglass tank so he can place the standpipe hose inside. He fishes a bunch of quarters from his jeans pocket and feeds them into a coin-op machine. Seconds later, water roars down through the hose and whooshes into the tank, making the entire truck rumble beneath me.

Boone finishes feeding quarters into the slot and leans against the tailgate. “Seriously, I'd totally rock as a bald guy. I'd be like Yul Brynner or something.”

“I don't know what that is.”

“Yul Brynner?
The King and I
?”

My face is blank.

“Seriously?” Boone takes a step toward me and holds out one flat palm.

“What are you doing?”

“Shall we dance?”

Silence.

“And you accuse me of being out of the loop with your whole ‘religious hair' thing,” he says. “Please tell me you've heard of
The King and I
.”

When I shake my head, he does something I wouldn't have expected in a million years. He takes a deep breath, holds both arms out, and begins to sing.
“Shaaaaaaaall weeeeeeee DANCE! Bom bom bom!”
He launches to the left in a spin, one arm held low in front of him now, as if on a lady's waist. He holds the other hand higher, at about ten o'clock, like he's holding his partner's hand aloft.

I sit there, stunned, on the bed of the truck as it lowers under the weight of roaring water.

Boone keeps singing about flying on a cloud of music, his voice deep and strong. It only falters a little bit on the higher notes.

The sound of the water in the tank is suddenly muted. There's a gurgling, and then the water is overflowing. It runs down the side of the space pod and sloshes into the truck bed before I can get out of the way. In an instant, my pants are soaked and I'm shrieking. I'm only a little surprised when Boone whirls back, punches the emergency stop button on the coin-op, picks me up from the tailgate, and twirls me along with him all in one fluid motion.

I watch the horizon to keep from getting too dizzy as Boone spins me around, still singing. Then he stops and our dance ends. He sets me down and looks at my clothes. “Oh, boy,” he says. “I'm so sorry, Agnes. I don't know what got into me. My mom loved that movie. Man, you're soaked. I must have put too many coins in by mistake.” The look of concern in his eyes is one I've rarely seen from anyone other than immediate family members. It's the look of someone who's seeing past—seeing through—my veiny scalp, my crooked teeth, my beak of a nose.

Above all else, this is the thing about Boone that I'd put inside a sealed jar on my bedside table if I could. This is the thing that makes me … what?

Like him as more than a friend?

Maybe even … love him a little?

Well, yes. There's that.

 

65

MOIRA

DAY 36: MAY 20

Grant drives us across the Bay Bridge and into San Francisco so I can see the Haight-Ashbury district.

“It was the heart of the flower child movement,” Fern says from the backseat of the Subaru. We're driving high above the choppy, slate-blue water of the bay. Sunlight glints off the tips of waves like a million stars, as if the inverted night sky is below us.

San Francisco—with its wisps of fog swirling just out of reach, the Muni buses and trundling trolleys, the people in all shapes, sizes, and colors wearing the kind of perfectly cobbled together, edgy outfits I'd pretty much kill for—is a wonder. When we get to the Haight, Victorian houses line the streets. They're not so different from my own house, really, but these are all painted different colors, like they're Easter eggs and Haight-Ashbury is the basket.

We go into an enormous music store, and when we come out half an hour later, a man in a full formal suit and fedora is standing outside the store playing an upright bass. There's a carnation in his pocket, and he reminds me of Boone somehow, with that stature. I feel a pang of homesickness. Not that I don't love it with all my heart here, and not that I don't appreciate everything Grant and Fern are doing for me. I just wish Boone was here to experience this place with me. Agnes, too, of course. Grant puts a few bucks in the bass player's tip jar.

We check out a store filled with wigs in all different cuts and colors, everything from conservative and gray to wild and neon. Agnes would flip. Feather boas and irresistible tights, in patterns I've never before considered, hang from dozens of racks shoved close together in the small space. It's obviously a store for drag queens, but I couldn't care less. I buy a pair of tights with a swirling, psychedelic pattern in reds and blues and oranges. It's way more color than I ever wear, but I can't help myself. Maybe I'll wear them under the full-length black skirt I made last month in the home ec room, just to know they're there. On second thought, maybe I'll whip up a black miniskirt when I get home so the tights are fully visible. It would be almost refreshing to give the simpletons at school something new to torment me about:
Hey, Rotunda,
I imagine them saying as they gawk at my ginormous rainbow legs.
Nice … colors.