Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

ignored the question. “You know, dear, I know exactly how that feels.”
    “How what feels?”
    “To know who you are inside when other people don’t.”
    Of course he knew that she knew that, but he didn’t feel like a pep talk right now, even from his tran mother. He didn’t feel like anything. He felt dead inside, a total nonbeing whose feelings didn’t matter one way or another.
    “The thing is,” Anna went on, “you can’t stay open to love if you’re always afraid of being hurt.”
    “I wasn’t looking for love. He’s not even gay. I thought we could be friends.”
    “Then how can you know if that’s possible if you don’t—”
    “What? Come out to a Mormon? A guy who came here to stop gay marriage? He even calls himself a missionary!”
    “Then you should be one, too.”
    “That’s not me, Anna. I’m a private person.”
    Anna rearranged her long, pale fingers in her lap. “I used to think the same thing about myself. But I was only postponing the chance to be loved as myself.”
    “C’mon. He would freak out.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Maybe?”
    “Probably, then. But this is about you , dear. You would be claiming who you are, whatever happens. There’s something to be said for that. Believe me.”
    The rain was coming down harder now, clattering like a handful of gravel against the roof of the gazebo. Rather than argue with Anna, Jake made a dash for the kitchen, where he microwaved two mugs of tea and shook half a dozen ginger snaps into a wooden salad bowl. When he returned, he discovered that Notch had taken refuge in Anna’s lap.
    “Poor old girl,” said Anna, stroking the little cat’s raggedy black fur. “The rain caught her off guard.”
    “I wondered where she was,” said Jake. He set the bowl down on Anna’s flat-topped ceramic elephant, then handed her a mug of tea. She sipped it wordlessly, solemnly, gazing into the distance, letting the silence speak for itself.
    “I get what you’re saying,” Jake said at last.
    “But?”
    He shrugged. “It’ll be easier to do when I’m finished.”
    She nodded slowly. “The surgery.”
    “Yeah.”
    “You still want it, then?”
    “Oh, yeah.” The issue, of course, was not whether Jake wanted the surgery but whether he could ever afford it. The nest egg he’d brought with him from Tulsa had been spent on his double mastectomy, and he’d been scrambling ever since just to keep his head above water financially. Michael paid him as well as he could, but—almost overnight, it seemed—the recession had turned gardeners into a disposable luxury.
    “You know,” said Anna, “there have been people who regret having the change. Whatever direction they’re heading. I’m sure they told you that at your meetings.”
    “Did you regret it?”
    “No.” She shook her head. “Not for a minute.”
    “Okay, then.”
    “I’m not you, dear.”
    Jake shrugged. “Close enough.”
    Anna smiled, taking Jake’s hand in hers and nestling it in her lap where he could feel the warmth of Notch’s percolating body. “I had a daughter once,” she told him. “It agreed with me tremendously. I think I could use a son.”
    Jake retracted his hand. “You might have to wait a little.”
    She shook her head. “No time for that, dear.”
    “Maybe not but—”
    “I’m paying for it, Jake, and that’s that. I don’t want an argument. I’ve spoken to Selina and Marguerite and they’re making all the arrangements.”
    Jake’s face reddened with embarrassment. “It’s a lot more expensive than you think. I don’t even have health insurance.”
    “Hush,” she said. “I’m about to shuffle off this mortal coil. The money might as well do somebody some good.”
    Jake didn’t get the “mortal coil” part, but he caught her drift just the same.

Chapter 16
Like a Dog Before an Earthquake
    N ecrotizing fasciitis.
    Shawna had heard the paramedics use that term the night the ambulance rushed Leia to San Francisco General. A day later, on Shawna’s second visit to the hospital, she heard it again as she passed the nurses’ station. It stalked her all the way down the hall to Leia’s ward, droning in her head like some creepy, demonic incantation.
    Necrotizing fasciitis , necrotizing fasciitis , necrotizing fasciitis …
    The common term for it was “the flesh-eating disease.” It was extremely rare in the general population, but not so much among street people who used heroin. Leia had an advanced case. The doctors in the