The Goddesses

by Swan Huntley

  The boys looked scared.

  “Plus,” Ana chuckled, “crying makes you pee less.”

  “You’re dying?” Cam’s concerned face.

  Ana nodded.

  “Shit,” Jed said.

  “Shit is right,” Ana said. “But this will not be our dinner topic. No more cancer talk. Agreed?”

  She looked at each of us and we nodded.

  “Let’s enjoy this food.” She scooped a heap of steaming pasta onto Cam’s plate. She was so selfless. Then she scooped for Jed, and then me and then finally herself.

  “Bacon pasta,” Jed said, his mouth full and his eyes bulging. “Dude.”

  “It’s divine,” I said because I knew she liked that word.

  “Oh, Nan,” Ana said sweetly. Then she pulled a long steaming bunch of spaghetti from the pile with her fingers and lowered it into her mouth.

  I laughed. “No fork tonight?”

  A line of red sauce ran down her chin. She smiled. “It tastes better with your hands.”

  Jed laughed. “I want to try.” He pulled the spaghetti up and waited for it to stop steaming—he was more sensible than she was—before lowering it into his mouth.

  We waited for his verdict.

  “You’re right, it’s totally better,” he said, going in for more.

  Cam and I tried with our hands and decided that no, we preferred our forks.

  “You are the fork people,” Ana said, “and we are the animals.”

  “Where are you from, Ana?” Cam asked her.

  Ana stuck out her tongue, which was red from the sauce. “The armpit of the world.”

  “El Cajon?” Jed asked.

  Ana sipped her apple juice. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a part of San Diego,” I told her.

  “Oh, well, I’m sure it’s nicer than New Jersey. That’s where I’m from. When I was nineteen, I moved to Vegas, and then I moved here.” Ana made dots in the air to show us.

  Cam twirled his pasta. “Did you go to college in Vegas?”

  “No,” Ana said. “I dropped out of college and became a stripper.”

  I looked at the boys. They looked at each other as if to say: Whoa. And I felt proud to have this eccentric friend who could teach them something new about the world. Which, clearly, they needed. I couldn’t believe Jed thought that El Cajon was the armpit of the world.

  “You weren’t really though, right?” Cam’s wide, earnest eyes.

  “Why not?” Ana said. “It’s a real job.”

  “What’s the most money you made in a night?” Jed asked, maybe not believing her either.

  “Six grand,” Ana said. “An Arabian prince and his entourage.”

  “No way,” Jed said.

  “Way,” Ana said.

  “Mom”—Jed slapped the table—“I’m going to be a stripper.”

  “Whatever makes you happy, honey,” I said, which I knew got me some Cool Mom points. Although, of course, I hoped something other than stripping would make him happy.

  “College is a better choice,” Ana said. “If I had to do it over again, I would go to college.”

  The boys seemed to really get this when Ana said it, and instead of rolling their eyes or rolling their whole heads around in the latent beginnings of a tantrum, they nodded like knowing adults.

  “How’s high school going?” Ana asked them.

  “Sucks,” Cam said.

  “It’s okay,” Jed said.

  “I’m with Cam,” Ana said, patting his hand. “High school blows.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Jed said. “I think it blows, too.”

  “I hated high school,” I said, remembering what a shell of a person I’d been.

  “Let’s cheers,” Ana said.

  They reached for their apple juices. I grabbed my water. We held our glasses high above the flames.

  Ana made the toast. “Fuck you, high school!”

  Mid-sip, I paused. Movement to my right, and there was Chuck in the doorway looking either confused or angry or both. It was hard to tell with all the lights off.

  I cleared my throat. “Chuck.”

  “Fuck high school?”

  Okay, he was definitely angry. Which—I might have been too if I were him.

  “Come here, Chuck,” I said. “I want you to meet Ana.”

  Ana stood up, which was very polite. Chuck walked toward her carefully and they shook hands, and she said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Chuck. And we were kidding about fucking high school.”

  Chuck took his hand back. “Why is there a tree branch on the wall?”

  Ana raised her eyebrows. We all tried not to laugh.

  “It’s moving.” Chuck leaned closer. “There are ants crawling all over it.”

  “It’s alive!” Jed made a scary face.

  Chuck looked at me: Are you serious?

  I may have winced for him. I’m sorry?

  “Anyway, Chuck,” Ana said, “thank you for letting me stay here.”

  “You’re welcome,” Chuck managed. I could tell he was really trying.

  “Are you eating with us?” Ana asked.

  “I just came to get my shirt,” he said. “I have a game tonight.”

  “Nan tells me you play pool,” Ana said.

  “I do,” Chuck confirmed. And then to the boys, “Boys, did you work on the shed this afternoon?”

  “No, Dad,” “No, Dad,” they echoed.

  Chuck nodded. He didn’t look pissed. He just looked sad, which was worse. “Well”—he pointed to the hall—“I’m just going to…”

  “Get your shirt,” Ana finished.

  We were quiet while Chuck got his shirt. It took two seconds. When he came back out, I said, “Please be careful tonight, Chuck.”

  “Don’t worry.” He walked toward the door. When he stopped, I knew exactly why. “What is this?” he said, pointing at the tank and then crouching to see more.

  “A lizard,” Ana said. Candlelight flickered on her face.

  In a flattened voice Chuck said, “It doesn’t look like a lizard,” and then he walked out the door.

  We were completely silent, listening to Chuck’s footsteps recede down the stairs. Ana closed her eyes. She said, “The energy in this room has changed.”

  •

  In bed, I said, “We were like a happy family tonight.”

  She grabbed my hand. “I love your boys.”

  “They love you,” I told her. “Jed called you a baller.”

  “He did? When?”

  “After dinner.” I held her eyes. Remember her now, remember her like this. “I’m so happy you’re here, Ana.”

  “There’s nowhere else I’d rather die.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going to die.”

  “I wonder what it’s going to feel like.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I hope it feels like nothing.” A beat. “You didn’t flush that turd I left for Eunice, did you?”

  “No.”

  Her smile. “I knew you wouldn’t.”

  “I thought you would know if I flushed it.”

  “How would I know?”

  “I don’t know. You know things.”

  “I don’t know jack shit, Nan, I just talk.”

  “No,” I said, because she was wrong. “You know things. You pay attention. That’s why I like you.”

  “Okay,” she said, “I know things.” She hit my leg with the pillow.

  “Hey!” I hit her back.

  She got up on her knees and started batting me with a new pillow. I got up and fought back. We laughed, laughed harder, laughed until we could barely breathe. We kept going until Ana said, “Wait, wait, I’m sweating. This is going to ruin my night cream,” and fell onto the bed. I hit her once more and fell onto the bed next to her. We landed on opposite ends, with her feet at my face and my face at her feet.

  “Good night, Nan.” She put her hand on my foot and left it there, so I put my hand on her foot.

  “Good night, An
a.”

  “Good night, Nan,” she whispered. “Don’t say anything else. I like to be the last one to say good-bye.”

  Wind

  25

  “Your shoulder blades are wings made of ice,” she said. “Melt them. Melt them onto your back. Feel them drip. Stand up tall. Taller. Taller. You are an ivory tower. You are a telephone pole. You are attached by a string to a cloud. The cloud floats up. You lift. Lifting. You are lifted onto a higher plane. Good. Now extend your hands up, up, up and look up at that cloud. Yes, Nan, that’s beautiful, yes.”

  Remember this, I told myself. Everything Ana is saying about these postures and the neon-green gecko with two hot-pink spots and one orange one making kissing noises on the overhang and how Ana strokes her cheek with the eraser of that huge I HAWAII pencil when she is concentrating.

  When Ana put me into savasana, I splayed my arms and legs expansively off the mat to show her that I was a person who was willing to take up space in this world. She pressed my shoulders down with her warm hands and traced my eyebrows with her warm fingers. I heard her walk back to the chair and take a sip of the peppermint tea I’d poured her. The pencil made a soft scratching sound on the yellow legal pad as she wrote. The birds and the geckos and the water heater and how there were so few people in the world you could really be silent with like this.

  After one or five or ten minutes, she said, “Now come back. Back, back, back. Wiggle your fingers, your toes. Roll to your right side. This is important for your kidneys. When you’re ready, sit up. Head comes up last. Press your palms into one another equally. The right into the left and the left into the right. Good. Now touch your thumbs to your third eye. This is your intuition. This is the voice you should never ignore.” A pause. “Ooooommmmmmmm.” Just the two of us and we were so loud. The power of our voices together reverberated up the mountain, down the mountain. Its echo might have carried for miles.

  “Peace to all beings, no exceptions.” We bowed. “And that means no exceptions.”

  I opened my eyes. Ana had put a blanket over her head like someone in the wilderness preparing for a natural disaster. She smiled at me, a huge smile. All those glistening white veneers and how they dulled the brightness of everything else.

  She whispered, “You are reborn.”

  “I am reborn,” I whispered back.

  She tapped the eraser against her lips. “I wonder what they’re doing down at the beach without us.”

  “I miss that class,” I said, thinking of Patty and Kurt and Sara Beth. I wondered if Patty had bought a new cat yet.

  “I don’t,” Ana said certainly.

  “You don’t?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m dying, Nan. I don’t have time for longing.”

  I told myself to remember that: I don’t have time for longing. I watched her write something down and thought, I should start writing some of this stuff down.

  “So,” I said, “who’s next on the list?”

  Ana looked at me as though this were very interesting, what I had just said. “Your loyalty astounds me, Nan.”

  “I want to help,” I said. “I like doing this stuff with you.”

  “You enjoy the Karma Factory,” she said.

  “I do.”

  “It’s kind of like a secret club, right?”

  “Especially when you wear that blanket over your head. You look like…”

  “Jesus?”

  I laughed. “Maybe.”

  “Or the Unabomber.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I don’t like that one. Too violent.”

  Ana chuckled. “Unabomber.” She tapped the eraser on the pad. “You know who I can’t stop thinking about?”

  “Who?”

  “Peter with the horse. It’s just tugging at me.” She pulled an imaginary string out of her heart. “And I know he lives somewhere up here. I swear I can feel it.” She looked out at the grass, at the jungle surrounding us.

  In the silence my stomach whined like a whimpering dog.

  “Are you hungry, Nan?”

  “I am,” I said, getting up. “I’m going to make some oatmeal. Do you want some?”

  Ana smiled. “You are such a mom, Nan.”

  I don’t know why I said, “No I’m not.”

  “Yes you are. It’s a good thing, it’s cute. And yes, I would love some oatmeal.”

  “Great,” I said, rolling up my mat. “I make it on the stove, the old-fashioned way.”

  “Then what do you do?”

  “I usually look at my blog.”

  “Your blog? You’ve never told me about your blog before, Nan. What other things aren’t you telling me?”

  Of course she didn’t know. She couldn’t.

  Keep it light, Nancy. “No other things.”

  “I want to see your blog. Will you show me?”

  “Of course.”

  Just then the gecko from the overhang—or another one; there were so many—fell to the armrest of Ana’s chair. Quickly she covered it with her hand. “I caught you,” she said in a joke menacing way. Then she said, “Watch this, Nan.” She lifted her hand partway off the gecko. Then a little more and a little more so its head was poking out, and then its middle with the pink and orange spots, and then she took her hand off and quickly pressed just the end of the gecko’s tail into the armrest. The gecko raced away soundlessly. Under Ana’s finger was just the tip of the gecko’s tail, which was still alive and wriggling. She picked it up and pressed it between her palms. Then she lifted her thumbs to her third eye. The blanket was still on her head. When she smiled her glistening teeth were all I could see. “I can feel its heartbeat,” she said. And then she held her cupped palms open for me. The tail was still moving, but less. “Take it, Nan.”

  I didn’t move.

  “Hurry before it fades!”

  I wrapped my right hand around the wrist of my left hand. The braver right hand made the unwilling left hand move toward her. She dropped the tail into my hand. The second I felt it move I shrieked and the tail fell through the wooden beams on the lanai.

  Ana laughed, and then I was laughing, and she said, “You’re scared of death, man!”

  Still laughing, I said, “Don’t call me man! My name is Nan!”

  Then Ana stopped laughing. When she looked up at me, her eyes were blank and her skin was pale, too pale. “It’s okay,” she said, her voice hollow, “we’re all scared of death.”

  •

  Ana drank her oatmeal out of a mug—“This is the path of least resistance”—while I showed her my blog.

  “See? And then she has all of these amazing recipes you can make in under twenty-three minutes,” I said, scrolling.

  Ana read aloud. “To die for times ten.”

  “That’s her rating system,” I said, hoping Ana would find this smart.

  “Whole-wheat flautas with cranberry sauce. To die for times twelve,” she read on. She sounded unconvinced.

  “So that one must be really good,” I said, too enthusiastically.

  “Have you made a lot of these?”

  “Not yet, but I plan to.”

  Ana pointed to my blogger’s face on the screen. “Who is this person?”

  “Here, let’s go to the ‘About Me’ section.” I clicked.

  Ana read: “Hi, I’m Sandita, a health-food nut/lover of life/vegetarian activist living in San Antonio. Blah blah blah.” Ana took the mouse and scrolled down to the bottom, where there was a picture of muscular Sandita about to eat a tortilla chip with a radiant hunk of red salsa on it. “I am so relaxed when I eat this food,” her talk bubble said.

  Ana leaned back in her chair. “Nan, I’m sorry, but no one with a body like that is relaxed. Look at her biceps. She’s not a lover of life. She’s at the gym all day lifting heavy metal objects off the ground.”

  I sprang to Sandita’s defense. Because by this point, I felt like I knew her. “Actually,” I said, “Sandita enjoys Pilates once a week, but other than that, her only form of exerc
ise is the brisk walks she takes with her dog, Jacobo.”

  We both did a double take of Sandita’s biceps then, which did look oddly pronounced for an easygoing pedestrian.

  “I’m sorry, honey, but Sandita might be a fraud. And by ‘might be,’ I mean she is one. I’m good at spotting frauds.” She stretched her arms up. “Because I used to be one.”

  •

  In the shower, Ana was singing. Again, I thought it was “Lean on Me,” but again it was something else. When the water stopped, she called, “Can I wear your clothes?”

  “Sure!” I called back. I was in the kitchen doing dishes and thinking about Sandita in San Antonio and wondering if, right now, she was cooking chicken adobo with organic ingredients only or at the gym flexing her biceps in the mirror.

  Ana appeared in my purple dress, the one I’d worn to Bite Me with Chuck on our date when things were going well. It made me a little sad to remember that night.

  “What do you think?” She twirled. The dress was way too small for Ana, and so tight I was surprised she was forming sentences while wearing it.

  “Is it comfortable?” I asked nicely.

  “Like a glove.” She leaned her head back and ran her hands down her sides.

  “Well, whatever makes you feel good is good right now.”

  “Oh, I need shoes.” She scampered down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” I called.

  “To the doctor!”

  The doctor? I thought Ana was done with doctors. And why did she seem so happy if she was going to the doctor? “I thought you said no more doctors!” I called. It was fun calling to each other across the house. It felt so marital.

  She came down the hall clacking in a high pair of heels. Hers, not mine. I’d never seen them before. She pouted her lips and stuck her butt out. “So?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” I said, toweling off a pot. “How are you feeling? It seems like you have a lot of energy today.”

  “I do.” She looked out the window as though she’d just thought of something. “And I know it’s not going to last,” she said somberly. “So”—she sighed—“I’m going to take advantage of it now, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, Ana, that’s great.” I kept toweling the dry pot. “Do you want me to come to the doctor with you?”

  “That is so sweet of you, Nan, thank you, but I need to do this one on my own.” She looked around. “Have you seen my keys?”