Part 15 (1/2)

”Did you see her?” Lucy hisses, plucking at his sleeve when the waitress has left.

”See who?”

”The waitress!”

Parker stares at his wife.

”Don't you remember? I'm sure it's the same person!”

”Same person as who?”

”On Bora Bora! That blond woman we saw.”

”Are you serious? That was ages ago.”

Lucy leans back in frustrated silence. But she is excited, and she twists around in her chair to catch another glimpse of the waitress. The woman returns to the table with her order pad, and Lucy looks directly into her face. There is no doubt that it is the same woman-the blond hair, the long, perfect limbs.

”Can I take your order?” she asks.

It occurs to Lucy that she has never heard the woman speak.

”Crab salad,” says Parker.

There is a silence. Both the waitress and Parker look at Lucy, waiting. ”For you, ma'am?” the waitress asks.

”Oh, I'll have ...” Lucy fumbles, looking down at the menu. ”The same. Crab salad.”

Lucy sits, watching the sea. She tries to remember Bora Bora. Like all their vacations, that one has faded, blurred with other hotels, other beaches.

”Parker?”

”Mmm?” He is going over some numbers the Santa Barbara clients have given him.

”What ever happened with the Crimean War?”

He looks at her in confusion.

”On Bora Bora. You were so excited ... you wanted to do research, remember?”

”Vaguely.”

She can tell he does not want to be interrupted, but persists. ”What ever happened to that idea?”

Parker shrugs, frowning. ”No time,” he says. ”Got to make a living.”

The waitress returns with the salads. Lucy watches her pour dressing over them and tries to recall the woman she watched on the beach a year before. But already the vision has begun to cloud. No, Lucy thinks, looking down at her plate, no, this cannot be the same woman after all.

When the waitress has gone, Lucy looks at Parker. He is drumming his fingers on the quilted place mat, staring at the bay. Lucy hears his stomach murmur. She watches this man who is her husband, his brown arms with their spa.r.s.e coating of hair, his pale, timid eyes. She feels an urge to say something to him, but can think of nothing worthwhile: A comment on the view? The menu? The night ahead? Their conversation is exhausted.

Instead, she thinks of Josephine. It has been a long time since Lucy recalled her old friend, but suddenly, now, she can see her exactly. Lucy pictures Josephine seated in Parker's chair, leaning forward, resting her chin on one hand. She is poised to listen.

”Wait, wait, back up,” Lucy hears her command. ”So you're having lunch on a pier-describe it to me. Is the sun out?”

It's low, Lucy thinks, it drifts on the water in flakes. There are gulls with gray-tipped wings and a dot of red on their beaks. The ocean shakes like reams of fluttering silk.

Josephine laughs. It is a cackle of wonderment, a whistle of envy and delight.

”I see it,” she says. ”I see it exactly.”

And for a moment the world ignites, it blazes around them with exquisite radiance. Each detail is right.

”Look where you are,” Josephine says. ”Look! You're in the perfect spot.”

For a magnificent instant, Lucy believes it.

SISTERS OF THE MOON.

Silas has a broken head. It happened sometime last night, outside The Limited on Geary and Powell. None of us saw. Silas says the fight was over a woman, and that he won it. ”But you look like all b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+t, my friend,” Irish says, laughing, rolling the words off his accent. Silas says we should've seen the other guy.

He adjusts the bandage on his head and looks up at the palm trees, which make a sound over Union Square like it's raining. Silas has that strong kind of shape, like high school guys who you know could pick you up and carry you like a bag. But his face is old. He wears a worn-out army jacket, the pockets always fat with something. Once, he pulled out a silver thimble and pushed it into my hand, not saying one word. It can't be real silver, but I've kept it.

I think Silas fought in Vietnam. Once he said, ”It's 1974, and I'm still alive,” like he couldn't believe it.

”So where is he?” Irish asks, full of humor. ”Where is this bloke with half his face gone?”

Angel and Liz start laughing, I don't know why. ”Where's this woman you fought for?” is what I want to ask.

Silas shrugs, grinning. ”Scared him away.”

San Francisco is ours, we've signed our name on it a hundred times: SISTERS OF THE MOON. On the s.h.i.+ny tiles inside the Stockton Tunnel, across those buildings like blocks of salt on the empty piers near the Embarcadero. Silver plus another color, usually blue or red. Angel and Liz do the actual painting. I'm the lookout. While they're spraying the paint cans, I get scared to death. To calm down, I'll say to myself, If the cops come, or if someone stops his car to yell at us, I'll just walk away from Angel and Liz, like I never saw them before in my life. Afterward, when the paint is wet and we bounce away on the b.a.l.l.s of our feet, I get so ashamed, thinking, What if they knew? They'd probably ditch me, which would be worse than getting caught-even going to jail. I'd be all alone in the universe.

Most people walk through Union Square on their way someplace else. Secretaries, businessmen. The Park, we call it. But Silas and Irish and the rest are always here. They drift out, then come back. Union Square is their own private estate.

Watching over the square like G.o.d is the St. Francis Hotel, with five gla.s.s elevators sliding up and down its polished face. Stoned, Angel and Liz and I spend hours sitting on benches with our heads back, waiting for the elevators to all line up on top. Down, up, down-even at 5 A.M. they're moving. The St. Francis never sleeps.

Angel and Liz expect to be famous, and I believe it. Angel just turned fifteen. I'm only five months younger, and Liz is younger than me. But I'm the baby of us. Smoking pot in Union Square, I still worry who will see.

We've been talking for a week about dropping acid. I keep stalling. Today we go ahead and buy it, from a boy with a runny nose and dark, anxious eyes. Across the street is I. Magnin, and I get a sick feeling that my stepmother is going to come out the revolving doors with packages under her arms. She's a buyer for the shoe department at Saks, and in the afternoon she likes to walk around and view the compet.i.tion.

Angel leans against a palm tree, asking in her Southern voice if the acid is pure and how much we should take to get off and how long the high will last us. She's got her s.h.i.+rt tied up so her lean stomach shows. Angel came from Louisiana a year ago with her mother's jazz band. I adore her. She goes wherever she wants, and the world just forms itself around her.

”What are you looking at?” Liz asks me. She's got short, curly black hair and narrow blue eyes.

”Nothing.”

”Yes, you are,” she says. ”All the time. Just watching everything.”