The Goddesses

by Swan Huntley

  Out on the street, I said, “I can’t believe I just flicked off that hostess!”

  “How do you feel?” Ana swung our one locked fist higher up in the sky and then swung it all the way back.

  “I don’t know!”

  “Why are we screaming?!?” Ana screamed.

  “I don’t know!”

  Ana laughed hard. She was folded over herself, howling in the street. This was the happiest she’d been since the diagnosis, and I was glad for that. When she finally caught her breath, she said, “That was fun.”

  “That was fun,” I said. And then I felt guilty. “But do you think they hate us? We broke a plate.”

  “What? No. We didn’t break it. She broke it.”

  Right, that was true. Why was I assuming guilt for something I didn’t even do?

  “And it’s okay, Nan,” Ana said, her face alive and pink from laughing so hard. “Everyone who works in a restaurant hates people anyway. The point is that we made the world a little more right today. We just shifted the molecules on this earth one degree toward justice.”

  She held up her hand for a high five and I slapped it. “Let’s get some cookies!” she yelled, loving how it felt to yell.

  “Cookies!” I yelled, loving it, too.

  People on the street were looking at us like they were jealous of our fun. It was such a relief not to be nervous anymore, and I understood something new about the Karma Factory in that moment. Delivering the karma could be hard sometimes, but afterwards you really did feel like a goddess.

  We ordered our cookies hot and sat on the curb in the shade eating them with our sticky glue fingers. Warm white chocolate mac nut cookies and they were delicious. As we watched the people amble by—the tourists with their pasty calves and the locals with their dirty feet and everyone else—I didn’t think: I want to be you. I don’t want to be you. I want to be you. Which was what I normally would have been thinking at a time like this. Not today. Today with Ana on this curb, I didn’t want to be anyone but us.

  22

  I got there first. I sat in the fifth row. I placed my bottled water next to me on the bleachers, a halfhearted seat saver for Chuck. But when he arrived, sullen and disheveled, with his Walmart Hawaiian shirt buttoned one button off and asymmetrically hanging, I grabbed the water bottle and pretended not to see him. He pretended not to see me too, although I knew he had because he sat in the first row to be as far away from me as possible. Chuck hated the first row.

  I concentrated on the pool. There was pale Tom and there was—ugh—Liko and there was coach Iona bent over the water with his hands on his knees, explaining a play. And then there he was clapping his hands, shaking his fist in the air, riling his players up.

  A man next to me said to his wife, “We’re missing church for this. Why would they have the game on a Sunday?” The wife said, “I don’t know, but it’s Sundays all month,” to which the husband responded, “I don’t like it.” The wife put her hand on the nape of her husband’s neck, massaging it. “God is everywhere, honey. Plus, we can start going Saturday nights.” The husband laughed. “To the Spanish service?” The wife shrugged. “Sí.” She kissed his cheek. “You won’t even notice the difference.”

  The ref blew the whistle and the teams sprinted toward each other. Jed just missed getting the ball first. I looked at Chuck’s sweaty neck and realized something was missing. I had forgotten to bring the GO MURPHY BOYS! sign. Which wasn’t surprising. It had been a tense morning.

  Chuck had slept in the ohana again. He’d gotten home at 1:00 a.m. Or 1:04, but who was counting. The sound of his car woke me up. Then at 11:00 a.m., he’d strolled into the kitchen like a hungover college student to make coffee, strolled right by me stretching on the lanai. We looked at each other for a second—he looked paunchy and irritable; I looked healthy and radiant—and neither of us said anything. I heard Cam say, “Hi, Dad,” but Chuck didn’t answer. He hadn’t had his coffee yet.

  Part of me wanted to run after him and throttle him and say: You need help and we can find help and let me help you. But I had done this before and it hadn’t worked. Chuck needed to come to his own conclusions. And my main focus right now wasn’t Chuck. It was Ana. For the next three to six to maybe nine months, helping Ana was my main focus. If Chuck thought I was spending all my time with her, then he was right. I still hadn’t told him she was dying.

  Cam made an amazing pass and I clapped and said, “Woo!” I looked at Chuck, and, good, he had noticed and he was clapping, too. I watched him scratch his sweaty neck. The front row was in the sun and he was boiling. I could pass him my water bottle. But I would not. Chuck could come to his own conclusions. If he was thirsty, he could get his own water.

  What happened next: I saw it happen before it did. The KFC family was sitting next to Chuck today, passing the humongous bucket of chicken parts between them, and Chuck kept glancing over. Kept glancing and kept glancing and then he said something to the barefoot mother, probably, “Hey, that smells good.” And then she patted her barefoot toddler on the back and pointed to the sweaty man, and the toddler made his way on wobbly legs to Chuck with the tub, and then it got even more embarrassing.

  Instead of just picking whichever piece was on top, Chuck spent real time fishing in the tub for a thigh. Of course he had to have his thigh. After some digging, he found it and held it up with a smile and said something else, probably “Hope you don’t mind I took a thigh!” and the wobbly toddler, who’d been waiting, somehow made it back to home base without falling into the bleachers.

  I watched the back of his neck working as he gnawed. When he was done, he got up to throw the bone in the trash can. He made his way there slowly, his eyes on the game, not aware that he was blocking people, who were shifting to see around him. Then he wiped the grease from his hands onto his bare legs and rubbed it in like it was sunscreen. No one told him to move because these people were too nice, but I knew everyone was happy when he sat back down. Oh, Chuck. I almost felt sorry for him.

  In the third quarter, Jed dunked an opponent—really dunked him, pressed his shoulders down into the water full force, not even trying to hide it from the ref—and he was given a red card and taken out of the game. No one booed because we all agreed with the ref’s call, except for Chuck, who stood up and shuffled around like a mad ape.

  On the side of the pool, Coach Iona with his hands on his knees said something to Jed, and Jed untied his cap and smacked it on the concrete. Great, anger is inherited. Or learned. Either way, it was Chuck’s fault.

  Meanwhile, on the other side of the pool, Cam and Tom were having what appeared to be a lighthearted conversation—both of them smiling—so at least one son had been spared from the anger complex.

  Then Liko—ugh—gave Jed a high five, and Jed got out of the pool and paced around the players’ bench with his hands on his waist, stopping to kick the gear on the ground. Eventually he sat down to watch the rest of the game with his torso hanging over his legs in a defeated posture.

  All of Cam’s throws were bad after that. He wasn’t paying attention. Or his brother being kicked out of the game had drained the energy from both of them. It was like that with twins. One felt what the other was feeling. Sometimes this made them more powerful, and other times, like now, it sucked them both dry.

  I sent Ana a text: How are you feeling?

  •

  Chuck and I stood on the farthest sides of the blue Honda in the parking lot. The Waveriders had lost the game, and the boys were taking longer than usual. Coach Iona waved at us, and we waved back. He didn’t tell us that he loved our boys today.

  Chuck kept looking over at me, and I kept looking at the gate, waiting for the boys to appear. Then Chuck let out a long sigh, fluttering his lips at the end of it. “Nance?” He sounded exhausted. And then he looked at my water bottle longingly, so I took a nice long sip before responding.

  “Chuck?”

  “Never mind.” He took off his hat, smoothed his thinning hair back,
returned the hat to his head, and leaned back on the trunk of the Honda.

  I tried to compose myself. “Chuck, I’m upset you’re drinking again.”

  “It’s under control,” he said, defiant.

  I wanted to scream: You’ve said this before! We’ve done this before! Hello! So I said nothing instead.

  Chuck let his arms fall by his sides. “I feel like you’re pushing me away.”

  Pushing him away? He was pushing—“I feel like you’re pushing me away, Chuck. You’re the one who’s down at the bar shooting pool every night!” Nancy, don’t yell. People can hear you.

  In a cool, measured voice, which pissed me off because it made him the calmer one, Chuck asked, “Aren’t you the one who told me I should join the Tide Poolers?”

  And then I decided to tell him. We needed to remember what was important. “Ana is dying, Chuck. She has terminal cancer.”

  “Oh,” Chuck said. I couldn’t see his face under his hat, but I hoped he looked sorry. “Has she had terminal cancer this whole time?”

  “Chuck. That is so the wrong question to be asking. How about ‘How is she feeling, Nance?’ or ‘I’m so sorry you’re about to lose your best friend in the world, Nance.’ ”

  “See? But that’s what I mean, Nance. I thought I was your best friend in the world.”

  I rolled my eyes, but all I said was “Chuck,” because he did have a point.

  And then there were the boys walking toward us. Tom with Cam and Jed with—ugh—Liko, just like the last time.

  “Boys!” Chuck called. He sounded so excited. Even in his worst moments, he really was a good dad.

  Before anyone could say hi, Cam made a whiny request to go to Denny’s. “Pleeease.”

  Chuck scrunched his face. “Aren’t you still grounded, young man?”

  “Aw, come on, Mr. Murphy.” Liko hit Chuck’s arm in a manly way. “Everybody gotta eat!” Then he looked at me, and said, “Hey, Mrs. Murphy,” in that lascivious tone, and this time I knew I hadn’t imagined it.

  Chuck, unable to resist being Cool Dad, caved immediately. “Fine, but I want you home by four o’clock. You have a shed to build.”

  Tom looked at Cam as if to say: A shed? And Cam looked back at him like: I’ll explain later.

  “Fi-ya,” Liko said in a spooky voice, and twinkled his fingers.

  Chuck looked at his feet, thinking of what to say next. “I know! Tom and Liko, you boys should come over for dinner some night. I’ll show you the ball Tony Azevedo signed for me.”

  I hadn’t seen that ball in years and I knew Chuck hadn’t either. Had we even brought it to Hawaii?

  “You got a Tony ball?” Liko put his hands on his hips. “Naaah,” he said, pulling his head back.

  “Oh yes,” Chuck said, “I do. How about you all come see it next week? You pick the day.”

  “Hump daaaaay,” Liko said. Of course he would say that.

  Chuck tried to understand.

  “He means Wednesday, Dad,” Cam said.

  “Wednesday, hump day,” Chuck said. And then, “Oh, I get it!”

  So passive-aggressively and also like the lamest housewife on earth—why?—I put my hand on my hip and asked, “Am I cooking?”

  “Sloppy joes,” Jed confirmed.

  “Sloppay,” Liko said.

  “Pleeease, Mom?” Cam whined.

  “Fine,” I said, “fine.” And then because I was such a good person—how much good karma would I receive for this?—I added, “We would love to have you for dinner.”

  After we’d waved the boys good-bye—“No fires!” I yelled; “See you at four o’clock!” Chuck reminded them—I turned to Chuck and said, “Alcoholism is a disease, Chuck. Until you get help, I can’t help you.”

  Chuck’s face. He looked so stressed-out. “I’m not asking for help,” he said quietly.

  “You think it’s under control, but it’s not, Chuck. It never is.”

  “This time it is,” he said. The way he seemed to really believe this was astounding.

  “I have to go.”

  “Do you want to go to lunch and at least talk about it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I worried that if I said yes, he’d convince me it really was under control, and I couldn’t go through all that again.

  “We can go back to Bite Me, if you want. And have some poke. And just talk.”

  I sighed. Without even realizing it, I’d taken my phone out of my purse and was checking the screen for new red bubbles.

  Ana had written back. Come over?

  “Chuck,” I said, “I don’t think lunch is a good idea right now. Plus I have to go see Ana. She needs me.”

  Chuck took his keys out of his pocket. “She needs you,” he repeated.

  “She does,” I said, trying to sound sure.

  “Well,” Chuck said, “I guess I’ll go play some pool then.”

  He turned and walked away before I could say anything. Maybe that was better right now. It felt like there was nothing else to say.

  •

  The door was open.

  “Ana?”

  Half-empty glasses on the low tables in the living room and Portico on the low chair, still as a hose and possibly asleep. The flowers I’d brought her were on the counter next to the fruit. The mangoes were rotting.

  “Ana?”

  The sliding glass doors to the lanai were open all the way, which they never were. The thick salt smell and the breeze ruffling the pages of her yellow legal pad.

  I poked my head outside. “Ana?”

  There she was, on the far side of the lanai, splayed on a rainbow afghan. No wig and wearing her black silk kimono. She was on the phone, speaking in a British accent. “Yes, three o’clock would be grand.” She winked at me. “Thank you, kind sir.” She hung up.

  “Nan!”

  “Ana!”

  “Come come.” She patted the afghan and scooted over to make room for me.

  “All your doors are open,” I said, lying down next to her and looking up at the sky. It was blue and blue and blue and completely clear.

  “I want the birds to go inside.”

  I smiled. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” She touched my hair. “Haven’t you always wanted a house full of wild birds?”

  This was the type of thing only Ana would say. I would miss her saying things like this. I tried to look at her, but the sun was too bright. “I guess I’ve never thought about it.”

  “Well,” she said, and then, “Ow,” and she jerked her body suddenly and her knees pressed into my legs.

  I sat up. “What’s wrong?”

  Her hand to her stomach. “No,” she whispered, “I’m fine.” She closed her eyes, breathed with intention. I breathed with her, louder than her, leading by example like she did for us in class.

  “Do you want me to call your doctor?” I reached halfway for her phone.

  “No,” she said louder. She winced. “No doctors.”

  “But they can prescribe you something for the pain,” I said. Flashback to the orange bottles that filled the shelves behind my mother’s mirror. Why was I remembering that now?

  She shook her head. She was in too much pain to speak.

  I made myself touch her bald head. We were best friends, and she was dying, and if there was a time for intimacy, it was now. “I don’t think anyone deserves to be in pain, Ana.”

  “I do,” she whispered. After one more deep breath she rolled over. She pressed a button on her phone and then—just like that—she seemed fine again. “Guess what I’m doing?” Her lips curled into a smile.

  “What?”

  “Making fake appointments with my ex-hairdresser, Laurel. Because she told everyone I was a witch.”

  “A witch?” I felt defensive. “That wasn’t very nice of her.”

  “I know! And I tipped her so well.” She picked up the phone. “I’m calling again.” And then it was ringing and then she was saying in broken English (maybe pretending to be Indi
an this time?), “Yes, Laurel, is the Friday at five p.m., yes yes. Devandra. My phone number is”—she said some random numbers. “Thank you.” She hung up and started laughing hysterically. “Oh, Nan, you do one, you do one. I’m running out of voices.”

  I don’t know why I said “Okay” so easily. Maybe to please her. “I’ll do my Southern accent.”

  “Yes!” Ana pressed the button and put the phone to my ear. It was ringing.

  A man picked up. “Hair Would Go, how can I help you?”

  I laid it on thick. “Yes, I’d like an appointment with that there Laurel tomorrow at noon.” Same feeling as at the restaurant: anxiety and excitement and my armpits prickling and my ears burning off my head, and this was exhilarating.

  I imagined the man flipping the pages of his calendar. Maybe I heard them. Hard to tell over the noise of the crashing waves. “The earliest I have is next Friday at eleven thirty.”

  “That would be dandy,” I drawled.

  “Name and phone number please?”

  I looked at Ana for an answer, but she was laughing too hard to give me one. “Oh, um, Dolores Greeeeeel,” I said. And then I made up some numbers. I almost thought the man would say, It sounds like that’s a fake name, but he said, “Thank you, see you soon,” instead, and hung up.

  “Dolores what?” Ana managed to say through her laughter.

  “Greel?”

  “This is fun!” Ana exclaimed. “Let’s do it again.”

  “Okay.”

  “But wait!” She rolled onto her back. She blinked at the sky. “It should be bigger.”

  For a second, I thought she was talking about the sky. “I know,” she said. “We should order soil. And get it sent to someone’s house. And dumped in their front yard. So they’ll just have all this soil in their front yard.”

  “But then won’t they have to pay for it? Soil is expensive.” I had learned that at Lowe’s.

  “We’ll get the cheapest kind,” she said. “I think you should do it in your Southern accent again. I love listening to that.”

  I was flattered.

  “Pleeease, Nan,” she begged.