Treasure Island!!!

to wear gold chains.
    I could not hide a sense of awe. “When Patty first said she had a roommate, I assumed she meant some boring person we both knew in high school.”
    “I barely attended high school,” she said cheerfully.
    They lives rough, and they risk swinging, but they eat and drink like fighting-cocks . . . I seen a thing or two at sea, I have.
    “What do you do now?” I asked Sabrina. “Odd jobs?”
    “Bad jobs, odd jobs, shit jobs. Dishwasher, house painter, deckhand.”
    “Deckhand,” I murmured and mentally gave Sabrina a tarry pigtail.
    “Riverboat casino. The people suck, but those jobs are easy to get, if you’re looking.”
    “I haven’t been on a boat since I was seven, at Disneyworld. It’s A Small World After All.”
    “That’s a
flume
ride, not a boat.”
    “Well, technically, but I didn’t take to it. The colored lights, the dark tunnel, the dolls that sing; even if you close your eyes, their teeny tiny voices bore into your ears. I hurled on the fiberglass deck and had to be evacuated at an emergency exit platform. I never stepped in a boat again.”
    Sabrina took a slug of beer.
    “But people change,” I added.
    “Not that much,” Sabrina said.
    “No, that’s what’s so inspiring about people. People
change
.”
    She looked skeptical, but we didn’t get into it, because just then a snow-flecked Patty walked through the door in a long wool coat. She pulled off her wet boots and gazed at us, almost in disbelief.
    “You came?”
    “She came and she brought stuff,” Sabrina told Patty.
    “To new beginnings,” I said as I presented them a double-handled shopping bag, which they rifled through with enthusiasm. Pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes, five-pound bags of Jolly Ranchers. “There’s always more where that came from.” I ignored the vision of my mother in the empty pantry, steeling herself for another Costco run.
    When two women live together they create a world of gestures—flicking of hair, twitching of lips—which make their approval of you seem to hang in the balance. As Sabrina and Patty rummaged through the herbal selection in the mahogany tea chest, I watched them closely. I assumed a relaxed posture on the floor (my hosts having occupied the futon) and tried not to look at Richard, who, pupils further dilated, had started to daven. Sabrina put some throaty folk music on the stereo, and Richard screamed, “It’s big, it’s hot, it’s back!”
    “Wow,” Patty said.
    “He
is
a talker!” Sabrina said with elation.
    “So how’d you guys meet?” I said abruptly.
    “Softball team,” said Patty. “Internet,” said Sabrina.
    Since they had overlapped, I pretended not to have heard Sabrina and feigned an interest in softball. The conversation tottered along, with intermittent shrieks from Richard.
    “Bird’s getting lively,” Sabrina said.
    “Shut the fuck up!” said Richard.
    “Sorry. Sorry! I don’t know where he—”
    “It’s big, it’s hot, it’s back!” shrieked Richard.
    “So the extra room?” I put in hurriedly.
    “Right now we use the space—I mean it’s kind of convenient for storage and TV watching—”
    “Can’t you watch TV in the living room? Because you’d hardly notice me. I’m very considerate, I’m independent . . . ”
    “How much can you pay?” Sabrina interrupted.
    The free gifts from Costco, the peanut butter pretzels that they had already ripped open and were snacking on, for godsakes, how much of me did they want?
    “I can contribute, obviously. Are you open to a barter economy?”
    “Not really,” Sabrina said, her mouth full of pretzels. “‘What does a lesbian bring to a second date?’” She gave Patty a private, almost misty look.
    “‘A U-Haul,’” Patty replied.
    “Old joke,” Sabrina explained, looking over at me.
    “She
knows
you’re not a lesbian,” Patty clarified.
    “
Are
you a lesbian?” Sabrina asked.
    “I’m very homosocial,” I said, dredging up a word from college.
    “Steer the boat, girlfriend!” screamed Richard.
    “Go, bird, go!” Sabrina said.
    “I’m celibate,” I added.
    “It’s weird,” Patty replied sharply. “You always talk a big game about your ex-boyfriend, but you seem kind of—”
    “Book-centered?”
    “No.” She frowned. “I don’t know. Intense.”
    “Shut up!” Richard said.
    “This one’s a hoot!” Sabrina said. “Can we feed him?”
    Richard edged over to the bars and took a pretzel out of Sabrina’s hand, but