frowned at the pot, turned down the stove, lifted off the thin membrane that had formed across the surface of the milk. “Get used to the idea, honey. In a few months you’re going to be working a lot more Saturdays than me.”
“Don’t remind me. So what were you doing?”
“Some stuff for Manny. He’s giving a report next month on immigration statistics, and on health and education benefits for legal immigrants. He’s trying to prove that people who were granted amnesty in ’88 are doing better financially since they’ve been eligible for services. Anyway, he’s kind of obsessed with this, which means I have no choice but to be obsessed with him.”
Jackie nodded. Manny was Manny Jimenez, the City Councilman from the 4th District. Although he was a lawyer and wealthy entrepreneur, he still lived in one of the seedier parts of Hollywood, the same neighborhood where he had grown up. He’d been elected by an uneasy coalition of mostly poor Latinos from Hollywood and liberal Jews from the Westside, and now, in his second term, many people considered him a potential candidate for mayor. Jackie was suspicious of the man, as she was of all politicians, but she also respected what he’d done; either way, she was impressed by Laura’s proximity to him.
“What do you have to do?” Jackie asked.
Laura poured the steaming milk into two green mugs and stirred. “Oh, you know. Research, statistics. Some services are going to be cut, too, and I have to figure out what’s practical to fight for.”
They went, mugs in hand, into the living room. There they settled onto the couch, with Laura’s blanket thrown over them and Rodney’s cat, Cedric, curled up somehow on both of their laps. They watched an old movie and then Saturday Night Live, getting up between programs to eat leftover pasta, and Laura was asleep by “Weekend Update.” Jackie kept watching, though, glad to have something she could laugh at. The stress of the day was finally receding. Her grandfather was dead and accounted for, and she had one final errand to do, after which she could get on with her life. When the show was over, Jackie extracted Rodney’s cat, who emitted a sleepy mew in protest, and then half-dragged both herself and Laura to bed. She was so tired that, for the first time in several weeks, she wasn’t worried that an aftershock would jolt her out of her sleep; she was unconscious as soon as her head hit the pillow.
At nine a.m., Jackie opened her eyes and listened for the TV music from Rodney’s room that normally ushered them into the morning. She felt Laura stir, and they looked at each other.
“Silence,” Laura said. “Can you believe it?”
Jackie had noticed this too, but her first thought had been, thank God, no wake today, no funeral, no family obligations. “No,” she said. “Maybe we’re still asleep.”
“We can’t be. I have to take my morning pee.”
“You’re right. They’re really gone. For, like, the first time ever.”
“So what should we do?”
“Let’s celebrate.”
They jumped in the shower together, giggling as they soaped each other up, and then made their way back to Laura’s bed, not worrying about the noise they made, the roommates. Afterwards, they lay naked on top of the covers, letting the sun and fresh breeze play over their bodies. They were both spent and relaxed now. No matter how heavily their problems weighed on them, Sunday mornings were still inviolate. In the mornings, they hadn’t argued yet, they began with an empty slate, and if they spent a few satisfying hours together—in bed, over brunch—it could set the tone for the rest of the day.
Like today. They had brunch at the Farmer’s Market and then drove out to Venice Beach, which, on this unusually warm day, was crammed with roller skaters, street performers, barely clad sunbathers, hemp activists, tourists, and dealers. They walked up and down the strip several times, and when the sky began to darken at five, they sat on the beach and watched the sunset. When the last bits of orange and pink cloud had faded back to gray, they headed to Laura’s place, picked up her work clothes, then drove over to Jackie’s apartment. That night, they ate a light dinner and read on opposite ends of the couch. Jackie settled down with her Tax Law reading, crossing her feet on Laura’s lap.
But she couldn’t concentrate. She was thinking about calling Loda Thomas in the morning. And she was thinking about all the days she’d spent with Frank when she was little, how she’d been closer to him, once, than to anyone else. And she was thinking about Lois again, how lost she’d seemed lately; how after the funeral she’d sat on the hood of the car and had not known what to do. Ted had wanted to go out to dinner. Lois wanted to go home. Jackie didn’t care, but thought they should do something, something to celebrate the fact that they were still alive and to put a cap on the miserable day. When her grandmother died, what to do had been obvious—after the funeral, they all drove down to Gardena, where Mary’s parents had run a yakitori restaurant. The place was under different management then, but most of the employees still remembered the Takayas, their children Mary, Ben, and Grace, and Mary’s husband Frank. That night, Frank consumed more sake and beer than Jackie had ever seen him drink, and had fallen asleep, mumbling, on the car ride home. He’d taken such good care of Mary, stopping work altogether the last few months of her illness so he could always be at her side, and that night, after Mary’s funeral, he had been totally overwhelmed; it was the only time Jackie ever saw him cry. And she’d felt guilty with that death, too; she’d gradually grown accustomed to Mary’s withered half-self, so that death, when it came, seemed more like a subtle change than a catastrophe. She’d been young, and her sadness was short-lived and shallow. The night of that funeral, as the rest of her family cried, she’d wondered what was wrong with her.
But this was all too much to contemplate, so she looked across the couch at Laura. And suddenly she found herself distracted by Laura’s hair, the shape of her fingers, the three creases that formed between her eyebrows when she read something that displeased her. Finally, with a sigh, she put her textbook down, then reached over and ran her hand along Laura’s leg. Laura smiled without looking at her, but she put her hand on top of Jackie’s and squeezed. Jackie moved over and touched her face. They kissed, long and slow, and made love again. And afterward, when Jackie drifted off toward sleep, Laura already breathing slowly in her arms, she felt better than she had since her grandfather died; she knew that, at least for this one day, she and Laura had almost been happy.
INVISIBLE HANDS. That’s what Mary Takaya felt like; that was her meaning to the family. She cut the chicken and vegetables into pieces small enough to skewer; she cleaned the tables; she made sure there was always fresh rice. Her parents were the ones that everyone saw, her father talkative and loud behind the grill where he cooked the yakitori, her mother friendly and solicitous with the customers. Even her little brother Ben was more visible than her—he’d swoop in and out of the tiny restaurant between school and baseball practice, endure their father’s gruff teasing and the questions and affectionate head rubs of the tired clientele. And her older sister Grace was gone now, working as a bookkeeper in Chicago, though both her parents dropped everything for one of her infrequent calls, even shut the restaurant down for a couple of days on her annual trips home to Los Angeles.
But Mary was invisible hands. She did all the back-up work, the thankless work, the someone’s-gotta-take-care-of-it work, and she was only noticed when she didn’t do something, or when her hands were too slow, or inexact.
She
