Authors: Clara Ward
“I wish you’d come by. I would have liked to meet you, maybe convinced you to babysit, but I thought it would be odd to go down to your house and ask. You didn’t seem to have many visitors. Your mother was a very private person.”
Sarah met Mei Mei’s eyes, trying to guess what she was really saying. What had this woman seen looking down into their lives? They’d mostly kept the curtains closed, but on summer nights Sarah’s room and the family room must have been lit like a stage. Their performances were probably disappointing. It was true that they never had visitors. Her mother didn’t date or socialize, and Sarah had usually been too embarrassed to bring friends home to a house overrun with clutter and cats. Mostly Sarah had read or done homework, and her mother had watched TV and drank. This woman couldn’t have seen Sarah do anything inexplicable. She’d always been careful about that, hadn’t she? The other thing . . . well, how could anyone have known? Still, there was something about this meeting with Mei Mei. Sarah wanted to stay and learn everything, but she closed down that feeling, also knowing that she wanted to flee.
“Anyway, I shouldn’t take your whole morning. Let me give you this picture of the cat. It has my name and phone number on it. Someone’s coming to adopt him at noon; so if you see him, please call me.”
“Are you moving away? I thought you’d just come back.”
“You know my mother died?”
“I’m sorry. She was so young. What happened?”
“Liver failure.” Sarah had learned to say it without caring whether people heard it as alcoholism. No, she did still care, but truth was truth. “Anyway, I can’t take care of the cats or the house. So I’m just trying to get everything settled.”
“That must be hard. Let me know if you need anything.”
Sarah started back toward the door, feeling tense and rude. Her feet, while taking her where she wanted to go, seemed to be in a jubilant mood all their own, enjoying the layers of rug and carpet and finally the smooth marble. What would it have been like to grow up in a grand house like this?
A few days later came the start of spring, and Sarah went straight from her car to the mailbox. She planned to begin the season by removing wallpaper, but she was curious if card-sending minions marked this occasion, too. Her bottle of eco-enzyme wallpaper remover was impatient and split the bottom of its paper bag, sliding into the juniper bush by the mailbox. Sarah had never liked that bush, and now it was in league with the crowd at the hardware store and the meeting about shift changes at the group home. Figured.
The mailbox held a flier from “Pets 4 Less” and a card from MeiMei Chen, probably condolences. The top envelope was from the police, and Sarah opened it on the spot. Inside there was a small piece of paper folded in half. Curious paper, not at all like something official. Its texture was more like cloth, crisp, but heavy as linen. She unfolded it.
March 18, 2025
Dear Sarah Duncan,
I’m sorry I did not have a chance to speak with you and thank you in person. I fully appreciate what you did for me. Few people would have helped me so, and I am lucky you were there. I am doing quite well now.
I thought you would like to know that I have a new car. A friend gave me his 2004 Saturn. (He’s purchased an alternative fuel Toyota.) It runs beautifully, which is such a waste. I don’t anticipate needing it much.
I am more indebted to you than you can know. Please call on me if you ever have need.
Sincerely,
Daniel O’Reeley
333 3rd St.
Berkeley, CA
PS - The police officer says he can’t give me your address, but he assures me he will send this on to you today.
Sarah felt touched and suddenly knew where the phrase came from. The thanks from the letter seemed to reach out and touch her gently on the shoulder. It was a pretty note. Mr. O’Reeley had loopy handwriting that looked antique on his choice of paper. She especially liked the four threes in “333 3rd St.” It occurred to her she even knew where that was; she’d biked through that area with her cousins several times. Maybe she should visit. No, it would be awkward. She laughed at the part about the car, another old clunker with no GPS or warning systems. But at least he didn’t intend to drive it much.
Sarah pushed the letter back into the envelope and fished the wallpaper remover out of the annoying bush.
Something about the letter still fluttered around Sarah’s mind as she placed her hand to the palm lock by her mom’s, now her, front door. It didn’t click. What could be wrong? The palm lock had been one of those wild ideas teenaged Sarah had talked her mom into trying. It wasn’t like anyone would ever bother to rob their house. But Sarah had wanted to see if she could trick the thing without a physical touch. It turned out to be pretty easy, and now the lock just reminded Sarah of herself as a teenager.
She finally realized it wasn’t clicking because the door was unlocked. Strange that; Sarah always kept it on automatic. She opened the door and heard classical music traipsing playfully down the hall. Reggie.
She dropped her stuff on the kitchen counter and hurried toward the music. Reggie was artistically stretched across the floor on his stomach reading a book, knees bent and heels kicked up behind him. He was in some old-style tan and cream outfit. The pleated trousers had cuffs, as did the tailored, long-sleeved shirt. Beneath and beside him lay a picnic blanket spread with scones, tea, and tea sandwiches. It lay intentionally askew and off-center in the empty room, protecting the recently sanded hardwood floor.
As he stood to say, “Welcome, my dear,” she saw the book was poetry by Byron.
“I look more like Frankenstein’s creature,” she said, gesturing at her gray all-weather ensemble, what passed for office drag at the group home. At work the clothes seemed like comfortable camouflage, but beside Reggie she felt boxed in plain white with the word “generic” stamped in bold letters.
Reggie kissed her. “Good to know one of us has been doing honest work. I was getting nothing done, so I decided to pick up lunch.”
“Where did you park?”
“Around the corner.”
“Then why did you leave the door unlocked?”
“It was the first hint of my presence. You’ve said you don’t like surprises.”
“And why did you choose my mom’s old room for your picnic?”
“It has the best light.”
He was right. The room had a large corner window with a foot wide ledge for flowerpots. There was no flora on it at present, but the light streaming in on the white walls and unfinished wood floor was picturesque. And there was Reggie, dressed to the nines.
“Should I change?” Sarah asked.
“Only if you want to. Or we could eat first, then bathe. Then I could ravish you.”
“I coach gymnastics at three.”
“I have a meeting then myself. But if we eat quickly, there should be enough time for ravishing.”
March 23, 2025 – Sacramento, USA
Reggie triaged 116 emails on his phone by 12:15, while waiting for his parents at Fat City. Each time the door swung open, sunlight glared off his display. He looked up; he looked down.
The hostess, an older woman in a black skirt and jade green jacket, greeted diners in English or Chinese. The bustling restaurant was an authentic piece of Sacramento history in a way the kitchy old-town surrounding it could only imitate. A framed article on the wall proudly chronicled, “In 1939, Fat City was a well-known politico hangout, backdrop for the capitol’s deal-making and intrigues.” The place felt authentically old. Red carpet covered the floor and looked more than well trodden. Oriental rugs adorned high traffic areas, probably hiding threadbare sections. But the heavy beams of the ceiling were old-growth lumber, and the wall hangings of lions and dragons showed meticulous embroidery if not original themes.
His parents were late, as usual. Two sets of tourists had come through and been seated. Government workers, in off-the-rack suits and sensible shoes, trickled in by ones and twos, directed to the banquet room for someone’s retirement feast. Reggie wondered if the retiree had ever aspired to be a “well-known politico.”
Reggie waited, straight-backed in the reception area. He imagined himself as Lord Macartney, the British emissary to China in the 1790’s. He came here to greet representatives of an old and honored culture, to try to accommodate their ways, for the future good of both peoples. Hopefully his diplomacy toward his parents would outshine its historical precedent.
Allowing a fresh incursion of sunlight, father opened the door like nature’s own doorman, with even a slight tilt of the head. His far arm swung with several shopping bags and his rumpled suit coat.
Mother breezed in as if she were thirty-nine, with a practiced repertoire for displaying youthful confidence. Regular salon visits and botox eased all the wrinkles except by her eyelids and lips. Her deep blue dress was wound with a glaring silk sash, probably the latest thing, somewhere. She dangled one tiny shopping bag from her loosely curled fingers. Reggie stood to be kissed and was handed the bag.
“This is for you, darling.”
Reggie caught the gift with one arm, gave his father a brief hug with the other, and nodded to the hostess to seat them. His cell phone vibrated, and a quick glance identified the caller as Phil. Reggie let him leave a message.
Once at their table he opened the bag. The tie looked fine, soft gray and emerald, but the label said “Enhancement Wear”; so Reggie knew there was a catch.
“It’s an appointment book,” his mother said. “And if you say the key words, ‘I think I’m available’ it records the next sixty seconds, extracting date and time information for the appointment. The lower end vibrates if you have a scheduling conflict, so you can revise.”
A vibrating tie? Even the marketers must have bit their tongues. Acting as a diplomat he turned restraint into sincerity and said, “Thank you, it is lovely.”
As they scanned their menus, Reggie listened to Phil’s message. The Greater Bay Area Scout Council wanted a speaker on “entrepreneurial community service after high school,” and Phil wanted to promote their umbrella program and states-based mini-grants. Reggie remembered the week he wore a Girl Scout uniform to high school, when scouts were edgy, not nuevo-geek cool. Transgender clothes were in already, but Reggie usually dressed beyond trendy, so he’d never worn a skirt. Then he met these Girl Scouts who wanted to overthrow the old paradigm. If the Unitarian and gay rights activists couldn’t reform the Boy Scouts, why not offer a better option? These girls with gold and silver award, leadership torches, and service bars challenged their own organization to change its bylaws and let boys form troops. In not too many years, Girl Scouts had boy troops, and the upper levels of Boy Scouts were scrambling to reorganize.
“How’s that company you started with what’s-his-name?” Dad asked.
“Pronoia,” his Mother whispered.
“Phil and I are both keeping busy. The international division has gone all telecom. Any requests for other help, schools, farming, etc. are referred to a local micro-bank network.”
“Who’s idea was that?”
Reggie paused to pour himself tea. Could his father sense that Phil had pushed him to give up some of those projects? “The most honest way to help people is to let them steer themselves. We’d give up our part in the telecom projects if there were enough donations locally.”
“If that’s how you want it.”
Reggie thought of the Girl Scouts. How could he explain the compromises of community service? He looked at his father, shoulders set, neck wrinkling down like a tortoise. Perhaps the Scouts could explain it to father.