As soon as she sees me, she jumps up to help with the plates and bottles.
“I woke up starving,” she says.
“The stores here don’t have crema,” I say. “Hope sour cream is okay.”
She takes a bite and nods her approval. We open our cans: a pop, a hiss. I try to determine what the feeling is between us at the moment, and hope that something has changed, that we could be, for a little while, at ease with each other. We eat in hungry silence, punctuated by a couple comments about the snow.
I wonder if we will become okay again. I hope for it.
Mabel crosses to the darkening window to look at my peperomia.
“There’s pink on the edges of these leaves,” she says. “I didn’t notice before. Let’s see how it looks in your new pot.”
She reaches toward the bag from the pottery studio.
“Don’t look!” I say. “There’s something for you in there.”
“What do you mean? I saw everything you bought!”
“Not everything,” I say, grinning.
She’s happy, impressed with me. She’s looking at me the way she used to.
“I have something for you, too,” she says. “But it’s at home, so you’ll have to come back with me to get it.”
Without meaning to, I break our gaze.
“Marin,” she says. “Is there something I don’t know about? Some recently discovered family members? Some secret society or cult or something? Because as far as I know, you have no one. And I’m offering you something really huge and really good.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I thought that you liked my parents.”
“Of course I like them.”
“Look at this,” she says, picking up her phone. “My mom texted it to me. It was going to be a surprise.”
She turns the screen toward me.
My name, painted in Ana’s whimsical lettering on a door.
“My own room?”
“They redid the whole thing for you.”
I know why she’s angry. It should be so simple to say yes.
And I want to.
The walls of their guest room are vibrant blue, not a paint color but the pigment of the plaster itself. The wood floors are perfectly worn. You never have to worry about scratching them. I can imagine myself there, a permanent guest in my guest room, walking barefoot into the kitchen to pour myself mugs of coffee or glasses of water. I would help them make their delicious feasts, gather handfuls of sage and thyme from their front-porch herb garden.
I can imagine how it would look to live there, and I know the things I would do, but I can’t feel it.
I can’t say yes.
I have only just learned how to be here. Life is paper-thin and fragile. Any sudden change could rip it wide-open.
The swimming pool, certain shops on a certain street, Stop & Shop, this dorm, the buildings that house my classes—all of these are as safe as it gets, which is still not nearly safe enough.
When leaving campus, I never turn right because it would take me too close to the motel. I can’t fathom boarding a plane to San Francisco. It would be flying into ruins. But how could I begin to explain this to her? Even the good places are haunted. The thought of walking up her stairs to her front door, or onto the 31 bus, leaves me heavy with dread. I can’t even think about my old house or Ocean Beach without panic thrumming through me.
“Hey,” she says, voice soft. “Are you okay?”
I nod but I don’t know if it’s true.
The silence of my house. The food left, untouched, on the counter. The sharp panic of knowing I was alone.
“You’re shaking,” she says.
I need to swim. That plunge into water. That quiet. I close my eyes and try to feel it.
“Marin? What’s going on?”
“I’m just trying . . . ,” I say.
“Trying what?”
“Can you tell me something?”
“Sure.”
“Anything. Tell me about one of your classes.”
“Okay. I’m taking Art History? I think I might minor in it. I really love the Mexican art, which makes my mom so happy. Like Frida Kahlo. Her paintings are so . . . strong. There are all the self-portraits, close-ups of her face and shoulders with variations. Like sometimes she has animals with her, monkeys, a weird hairless dog, that kind of thing. And some are more simple. Is this right? Am I helping?”
I nod.
“My current favorite is called The Two Fridas. It’s pretty much the way it sounds. There are two versions of her, sitting next to each other on a bench. One is wearing a long white dress with an elaborate lace bodice and collar, and the other one is dressed in . . . I don’t remember exactly. Something more relaxed. But the thing that I really like about it is you can see their hearts. You can see right into their chests. Or maybe their hearts are outside their chests. It’s kind of gruesome, like most of her paintings, but it’s also really dramatic and beautiful.”
“I’d like to see it.”
“I can pull it up if you want me to. Hold on one second.”
I open my eyes.
We are in my room.
My hands are still.
She’s taking my computer off my desk and entering a search. She sits down next to me and positions the screen between us, resting it on one of my knees and one of hers. The painting is how she described it, but there’s also more. Behind the two Fridas are storm clouds, gray-blue and white.