Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

Otto was enjoying himself, Shawna found herself smirking. When the server had left, she said: “ ‘I Am So Over This.’ ”
    “C’mon. They have to say it. It’s part of the gig.”
    Shawna heaved a sigh. “What am I gonna do, Otto?”
    He didn’t have to ask what she meant. “You’ll go back, is my guess.”
    “Then what?”
    He shrugged. “You’ll be with her.”
    “They say she’s dying. With or without the amputation.”
    “Want me to go with you?”
    “Would you? You don’t have to see her. I just need you there.”
    “Should I bring Sammy?”
    Her first instinct was to roll her eyes, but Otto had such a goofy, hopeful look on his face. “I don’t think that’s her kinda thing, honey.”
    He cocked his big head of lion hair. “Really?”
    “Yeah … really. Let’s don’t do that.”
    Otto shrugged, looking a little hurt.
    A N HOUR LATER, WHILE O TTO lost himself in a curling paperback of Infinite Jest , Shawna spoke to the nurse on duty, a gaunt white guy with a blurry tat on his neck.
    “We gave her something,” he said. “I think she’d like the company.”
    “Promise?”
    He smiled. “She’s feeling pretty good now.”
    She headed straight for the cubicle, fearful of losing her nerve. Leia’s bed was tilted a little higher this time, but her eyes were closed.
    “It’s me again,” said Shawna.
    “Who’s me?”
    “The pesky cunt.”
    Leia’s eyes fluttered open. “What do you want?”
    “Just to talk for a while. If you like.”
    “Oh, shit. You’re a priest.”
    Shawna shook her head, smiling. “Nowhere close. Just another fan of your sign.” This was incredibly lame, she realized, but it was the easiest way in.
    “My sign ? That horseshit about mamas?”
    “Yeah. ‘Your mama would give a damn.’ I thought that was clever.”
    “Because everybody loves their mama.”
    This was neither a question nor a statement, just something vaguely, sorrowfully, in between. Shawna didn’t know where to go with it, and she was already feeling stupid and cowardly. “I was having dreams about you,” she confessed. “About the two of us.”
    Leia scowled.
    “Not like that. We were hanging out. Talking about ordinary things. Like old friends. People who’d known each other for years.”
    Leia absorbed this for a moment, fiddling with her IV line as if it were a string of pearls languishing on her chest. “Did I look good?”
    Shawna laughed. “Yeah. You did. We both did.”
    A long silence while Leia’s eyes stayed glued on Shawna’s. “You’re one of those spooky people, huh?”
    Shawna felt strangely sheepish. “I am. A little. Hope that’s okay.”
    Leia shrugged. “Maurice was spooky. He felt shit all the time … shit that hadn’t happened yet. It would wake him up. Like a dog before an earthquake.”
    “Maurice was—?”
    “Just this guy on the island. He made that mama sign you love so much. I inherited it when he died. He had the same nasty shit I got.” She gazed down grimly at the tented atrocity, then, just as quickly, looked up again. “You always been that way?”
    “What? Spooky?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Not always … but it started fairly early, yeah.”
    “How’d you know you weren’t crazy?”
    Shawna smiled at the memory. “I had a grown-up who recognized it in me. She was that way herself sometimes, so she taught me to go with it and not make a big deal of it.” She was picturing herself at ten or eleven in Mrs. Madrigal’s kitchen at 28 Barbary Lane. You’ll be tempted to talk about it, dear, but don’t. Just let it be your secret friend.
    “I don’t really believe in it,” said Shawna. “I just notice it sometimes.”
    “Maurice was just flat-out crazy.”
    Shawna chuckled. “Maybe I am, too. Or maybe you and I just met somewhere. Once upon a time.”
    “Ever shop at the Foot Locker in West Portal?”
    “No.”
    “The Fabric Barn in El Cerrito?”
    Shawna shook her head. “You worked in those places?”
    “Long time ago. Before I started chasing the dragon. I got one of those faces, I guess. People always say I look familiar.”
    “Maybe that’s it.”
    “What’s your name, honey? You never told me.”
    Shawna had introduced herself to Leia in the ambulance, but wasn’t surprised that she had forgotten. “Sorry … I’m Shawna Hawkins.”
    “Alexandra Lemke.”
    Such a noble-sounding name was extremely hard to attach to this ruin of a woman. “I knew Leia was just a nickname, but … that’s lovely.”
    “What