Sativa Strain

by Alexi Venice

  Kristin’s curls bobbed and swung, as she whirled her head around to watch Amanda flip up the security panel.

  “Okay, babe, the security pad requires a four-digit code, followed by the pound sign. I used the first four digits of Kristin’s birthdate.” Amanda punched them into the keypad and pressed the pound sign. “Voilà!” They heard the system beep. “Got it?”

  “Yep. Thanks for showing me. I guess that makes it official now. We’re moving in together—again,” Jen said.

  “We are,” Amanda said, going on her tiptoes for a kiss. “I can’t wait till you’re my wife.”

  “I thought you were going to be my wife,” Jen said, pulling her chin back before Amanda could kiss her.

  “Right. Because you’re my sugar mama.” Amanda hooked a finger under Jen’s chin and guided her lips in for a quick kiss.

  “Too much. You’re smothering me.” Jen held her hands in front of her face.

  Amanda smirked, kissing Jen on the nose instead. “Did you bring your workout stuff?”

  “Yeah,” Jen said. “You smell good. Are you wearing perfume?”

  Excellent. She didn’t smell the cigarette smoke from this morning. “Uh-huh. I bought a bottle of Black Opium. Do you like it?”

  “Love it. When did you start wearing perfume?”

  “I get the urge once in a while,” Amanda said. To smoke…then cover it up, so my physician-lover won’t know.

  “Down!” Kristin proclaimed, so Amanda lowered her feet to the floor. Kristin took off running on the construction paper that was still taped to the floor. She went straight to the sliding glass doors in the dining area, planted her hands on the glass, and peered out at the ocean. “I see the beach!”

  Jen and Amanda laughed. “Yes. That’s the beach!” Jen said.

  They watched as Kristin turned and took in her surroundings, then wandered into the kitchen. She went to the stainless fridge and grabbed the door handle, attempting to open it, but from her low angle, there was no way she had the leverage. Jen and Amanda laughed.

  “Just like a teenager,” Jen said. “Straight for the fridge.”

  “Do you want to see what’s in the fridge?” Amanda asked, going to Kristin.

  Kristin nodded, so Amanda opened it. The interior light came on, but there was still manufacturer’s tape on the drawers and various plastic pieces that needed to be attached.

  “There isn’t any food in here yet,” Amanda said to Kristin.

  “I’m hungry!” Kristin said.

  “We just had a snack!” Jen said with the eternal confusion of a mother of a two-year-old. “Don’t worry, honey. I brought some food in case you got hungry while we work out.” She set her bag on the newly-placed countertop and removed a plastic container of cheese and meat, followed by a sippy cup full of water.

  “You go ahead and start working out,” Jen said to Amanda. “I can stay with Kristin up here.”

  “No worries,” Amanda said. “Mom and dad brought over some kid toys for the basement. It’s all set up for her—right next to the workout area.”

  “Really?” Jen asked. “We have to see this, don’t we, sweetie?”

  Amanda grabbed Jen’s bag, and Jen held out her hand for Kristin as they walked down to the basement. Kristin went straight to the kid’s corner where Grandpa Jack and Grandma Chloe had set up a play area, complete with a pink kitchenette, a little table with chairs, a bookshelf packed with the classics and other toys.

  “This is ridiculously generous,” Jen said, lifting Kristin over the gate so she could explore. Kristin quickly forgot about her snack, going directly to the play stove.

  “You know Jack and Chloe,” Amanda sighed. “They think of everything. I have to admire their taste though.”

  “This is perfect. It’s right next to us, so we’ll be able to keep an eye on her,” Jen said.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Amanda said. “I’ll put on some music.”

  Amanda walked across the space to the stereo system. She synced it with her iPhone, so she could use her playlist of children’s songs that included Caspar Babypants and the Barenaked Ladies. Her favorite was Snacktime, which was appropriate for the current situation. It wasn’t really “yoga music,” but she’d do anything to make Kristin comfortable. If Kristin was happy, Jen would be happy, and Amanda’s world would be complete.

  She grabbed her yoga mat and a few foam blocks from a stand in the corner, keeping her eye on Jen and Kristin. She lay on her mat and inserted one block under her shoulder blades and the other under her head for the “heart opener,” which helped her feel more open across the front of her body, allowing her to take deep breaths and center herself. Despite the silly music, she settled her mind and released the tension from viewing Jared Carlisle’s murder scene that morning. In her mind, she ran through the restorative yoga sequence she planned to do for the next 40 minutes.

  After getting Kristin settled, Jen grabbed a barbell and slid the rubber black plates on each side, then began deadlifts. Each time she let go of the bar, it thundered onto the black mats, sending vibrations over to Amanda. Between the kid music and Jen dropping heavy weights on the floor with a boom, Amanda had to focus extra hard on getting in touch with her mind and body. She tried to coordinate her breathing with movement as she flowed from one pose to the next, recalling her instructor saying, “Fill your lungs with each breath—bigger, wider and taller.”

  Amanda preferred the practice of moving from pose to pose, unlike her previous yoga instructor, who had insisted that Amanda perfect each pose before she could move onto the next. That instructor’s nickname had been “Feisty,” however, which should have been Amanda’s first clue of a woman with unrealistic expectations. Nowadays, Amanda had an instructor nicknamed “Tranquility,” so the vibe was completely different. Tranquility not only was an expert at poses but also had the fluid currency of yoga-speak, which soothed Amanda’s soul.

  Tranquility worked with Amanda—especially during recovery—to find clarity within herself and open her mind to forgiveness and new beginnings. She coached Amanda to shed the judgment of her abuse of painkillers and the stress that accompanied being a prosecutor. The irony was that the more clarity Amanda found, the better she was at analyzing legal matters and assembling facts into a pattern, eliminating any unconscious bias that might cloud her perspective.

  Moving through her Vinyasa, Amanda repositioned the yoga block from her shoulder blades to her sacrum, her knees bent, and her feet planted on the floor. Her shoulders stayed square to the floor and the back of her head rested on her mat. She lay her arms out by her sides, palms up, and took four calming, restorative deep breaths.

  “Boom,” went the barbell when Jen dropped it. “Pollywog in a bog,” sang the Barenaked Ladies.

  Amanda repositioned again, now lying flat on the mat. Focusing on release, she alternately stretched her legs toward the ceiling, extending her heel and bringing her leg toward her face to stretch her hamstrings and lower back.

  After extending both legs, she rolled into a sitting position, legs crisscrossed, and rotated her torso in a circle to stretch her spine and find space in her body.

  With the clash of weights in the background, Amanda transitioned to table-top, doing some cat-cow stretches by moving from a rounded position, flexing her back, to an arched one, extending her back and lifting her chin. She gracefully rested her buttocks on her heels and opened her knees on the mat. She bowed forward—as if in prayer—draping her torso between her thighs. She rested her forehead on the mat, stretching her hands out in front of her. She breathed freely, allowing the third eye in her forehead to rest on the mat in front of her, connecting her center of wisdom to her inner self. She practiced her biggest inhale and deepest exhale.

  Boom! crashed the barbell while the Barenaked Ladies sang “Raisins,” which reminded Amanda of how a cigarette smelled before it was lighted. Mmm. A cigarette would taste good now.

  She pushed the thought of a nicotine rush from her mind and
remembered what Tranquility had said during their last class, a quote from the fifteenth-century yoga manual known as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika: “Life is the period between one breath and the next. The person who only half breathes only half lives. He who breathes correctly acquires control of the whole being.”

  After 40 minutes of poses, breathing, and refocusing her mind, concluding with gratitude for Jen and Kristin in her life, Amanda rolled up her mat and replaced it on the shelf with her yoga blocks. Her session was mostly successful despite the crashing weights and silly children’s music.

  Jen had been attending to Kristin while moving through several CrossFit exercises, but Kristin started fussing, jumping up and down against the gate.

  “I think our little girl is telling us she wants dinner,” Jen said. “I have some soup in the slow cooker at my place.”

  “Are you serious? When did you get time to fix that?” Amanda asked, as she went to Kristin and stepped over the gate to join her.

  “I made it last weekend and froze it. I thawed some today and transferred it to the slow cooker before we came over.”

  “What kind?”

  “Pork barley.”

  “My new favorite,” Amanda said, sitting on the floor next to the pink stove. “Why don’t you finish your exercises, and Kristin and I will watch?”

  “Would you?” Jen asked.

  “We’d love to. If she gets antsy, we’ll go back to your place.” Kristin sat on Amanda’s lap, and Amanda hugged her while they watched Jen do a variety of exercises in quick succession: the rowing machine, kettle bell swings, box jumps and slam balls. No wonder she’s so ripped, Amanda thought, admiring the way Jen’s muscles popped around her racerback bra while she rowed. Amanda wanted to trace her finger along those ripples while kissing Jen’s neck. Her eyes inevitably travelled to Jen’s ass, where there was a tiny triangle of sweat above her cheeks. A quiet, lustful moan escaped her.

  When Jen finished, they walked back to her apartment, pushing Kristin in the stroller. Jen made quick work of serving dinner, ladling soup into each of their bowls, paying close attention to Kristin’s, so she didn’t grab it and spill. Jen added a small ice cube to Kristin’s bowl and stirred it in while Kristin kicked her legs and pounded her tiny fists on the table.

  “Are you training for any upcoming triathlons?” Amanda patiently waited for Kristin’s soup to cool before taking a bite of her own.

  Before answering, Jen tested Kristin’s soup. Perfect. She fed Kristin a bite and her little face lit up. Kristin then insisted on holding the spoon and feeding herself.

  “I’d like to, but I’m having trouble getting my swimming in. That idiot still has his trimaran anchored in Aquatic Park and is now dumping sewage into the water, so none of us can swim there.”

  “God, that’s so gross. I can’t believe how long it’s taking to evict him,” Amanda said.

  “You’re the DA. Why can’t you dispatch SFPD to arrest him and just throw him in jail? Then you could pay a barge to tow away that atrocity.”

  “Not my jurisdiction. Aquatic Park is under the domain of the National Park Service, hence federal jurisdiction. The U.S. Attorney is prosecuting the violations.”

  Jen kept her eye on Kristin, who was getting the hang of keeping the soup on the spoon until it reached her mouth. “Well, someone needs to light a fire under the U.S. Attorney’s bum. The President of the Dolphin Club told me there’s human waste sitting in buckets on the trimaran deck, just waiting to be dumped in the water.”

  “I know,” Amanda said, “I saw the pics on SFGATE.” Despite the conversation, Amanda didn’t slow her pace of eating.

  “Someone in the Dolphin Club wrote ‘Move the Boat’ on the side of its hull,” Jen said, laughing.

  “Yeah. I saw that too. Not a good move. It just gives the guy ammo to say someone vandalized his boat.” Amanda ripped a chunk of sourdough bread from the round Jen had bought at Tartine Bakery, demonstrating to Kristin how to dunk the tip in her soup. Then she gave a bite-sized piece to Kristin and watched Kristin model her behavior, ending with a smile as she chewed.

  “That’s my girl,” Amanda said.

  Kristin smiled and held out her hand for more. “I have an idea,” Amanda said, peeling bread for Kristin, “since you can’t swim in the Bay, maybe we should buy a wave pool for our back yard. Would you like that?”

  “Are you crazy? Those things cost a fortune,” Jen said.

  Amanda moved her hand to Jen’s forearm. “Nothing is too expensive for you. I checked my coffee can for extra change this morning, and I’m pretty sure I can afford it. Besides, I might like it, too. I prefer 80-degree water to 55-degree water.”

  “Touché, but for a lap pool, you don’t want it at 80 degrees. That would be too warm.”

  “I’ll ask daddy to look into it.”

  “Daddy?” Jen quirked an eyebrow.

  “Sorry. Old habits die hard. Jack.” Amanda smiled, recalling how Jack had offended Jen by asking her to sign a prenup, and Jen had called out Amanda for calling him “Daddy.” Fortunately, that nightmare was over.

  “We’ll have to put up a mega-fence around the yard, or everyone in the neighborhood will be sitting in our wave pool,” Jen said.

  “Gross but valid. I have to remind myself that we’re not in Sea Cliff, where the neighbors are respectful of private property. I’ll talk to Jack about a substantial fence. We can do a wall if we need to.”

  “I can’t wait,” Jen said, her eyes lighting up at the possibility.

  Nothing made Amanda happier than pleasing Jen. Just seeing her eyes sparkle and the smile on her face made Amanda want to run out and order the pool tonight. We sooo have to get married soon. No more delaying. She savored a bite of soup and smiled at Kristin. “Doesn’t Mommy Jen make the best soup in the whole world?”

  “More bread!” Kristin said, her red lips accentuated by a ring of soup around them.

  “Let’s dunk more bread!” Amanda ripped small chunks for Kristin and gazed lovingly at Jen.

  Jen’s smile reached the corners of her eyes, finding tiny, nascent crinkles, which made it all the much sweeter for that. Amanda loved her more in that moment than she ever had.

  Chapter 18

  Sunset District

  After they bathed Kristin and put her to sleep, Jen and Amanda showered together and lay in bed, Amanda doing her last check of emails, and Jen tapping out something on her laptop.

  “Oh. I forgot to tell you something,” Amanda said.

  “What’s that?” Jen asked.

  “Chance Greyson called me today. He and Kip Moynihan are official now.”

  “I didn’t picture those two going past one date,” Jen said.

  “I know, right? There’s more. He invited us to his place in Stinson Beach. An overnight with a bunch of other people.”

  “That sounds like crazy fun,” Jen said. “I take it this is for adults only?”

  “Yes. We’d have to ask Tommy to babysit Kristin for a Friday/Saturday.”

  “Is he ‘babysitting’ if he’s her father?” Jen asked.

  “Of course not. I meant, ‘take Kristin.’”

  “When is this party weekend?”

  “In a few weeks. On the twenty-seventh.”

  Jen checked her iPhone calendar. “Looks good for me. I’ll text Tommy right now.” Jen quickly thumbed her text to Tommy.

  Amanda closed her iPad and tossed it on the floor.

  “You startle me every time you do that,” Jen said. “Aren’t you afraid of breaking it?”

  “Not really. What are you working on?” Amanda asked, nodding toward Jen’s laptop then leaning over and snuggling her head on Jen’s shoulder.

  “A poem.”

  “Can I read it?” Amanda asked.

  “Sure.” Jen turned her laptop, so Amanda could see the screen. “Might make you cry a little. It’s about Zane going to heaven and us reuniting with him someday.”

  “I’ll mentally prepare myself. Which reminds me, I
picked up his ashes, but I’m working on an urn right now. Don’t fear. I’ll bring it home as a package as soon as it’s done.”

  “You remembered?” Jen stroked Amanda’s cheek with her knuckles.

  “Yes. I can follow through on some things. Not all, but some. I want the urn to be just right, so give me a few more days, okay?”

  “Thank you for being so thoughtful.” Jen kissed Amanda’s temple.

  You have no idea, babe. No idea. She turned her attention to the poem on the screen in front of her.

  Goodbye/Hello

  Spoken or silently shared,

  Presaging a prompt departing,

  With someone who truly cared.

  Cared enough to say good bye.

  I don’t want to say goodbye.

  I want to say hello.

  Kisses and hugs.

  Words and glances.

  I’ll miss you.

  But what are the chances

  we shall meet again?

  Tomorrow or the end of time.

  Together though apart.

  Our souls connected in a rhyme.

  Goodbye is just the start.

  I don’t want to say goodbye.

  Just let me say hello.

  Please hug me and hold me near.

  Tell those thoughts I yearn to hear.

  How you walked and danced with God.

  With Mercy and without fear.

  Oh, please whisper those secrets

  Into my ear.

  As we hug and say goodbye.

  I silently say Hello.

  Life’s melody,

  sings like a memory.

  Those thoughts we keep or share.

  How will time tell our story,

  As those last days come to bear?

  Passed on from soul to living being,

  An eternity that will not die.

  I hold you close,

  I must be dreaming.

  I don’t want to say goodbye.

  I will say Hello.

  Born from that eternal hope,