EPILOGUE
Six months later...
White curtains flutter in the breeze. It’s early morning but the city already burns with the last hot breath of Indian Summer. Books crowd our windowsills. One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Alchemist and Like Water for Chocolate sit beside old GED study guides and social work textbooks. White walls reflect the sunlight.
I roll over and rub my eyes. “Is that coffee I smell?”
“Definitely.” Dan yawns and rounds the corner of the kitchenette with two mugs.
I cross my legs and blow on my coffee. When his Misfits t-shirt slips off my shoulder, his lips land on bare skin. I lose interest in caffeine and climb onto his lap.
“Wait.” He pulls away from the kiss and checks the clock. “Farmer’s market.”
“Oh yeah,” I gasp. “Samosas.”
It’s almost eight, and nothing vegetarian ever remains after eight.
“Come on, we gotta hurry.”
I drain my coffee and tug on a pair of shorts while he stuffs a few canvas totes into his messenger bag. After locking the deadbolt behind us, he catches up to me in the stairwell and our rapid footfalls beat a rhythm against the steps. The relative gloom of the lobby makes us blink once we push out the front doors onto Larkin Street. Dan slings an arm over my shoulders and we stride briskly down the hill. Behind us, a bicycle bell dings.
“Yo! Dan! Sophia!”
We turn around, not breaking pace, and wave as one of Dan’s fellow bike messengers skids past. In the distance, the dome of City Hall rises. We take the last few blocks at a jog.
Multi-colored canopies stretch the length of UN Plaza and we weave through the crowd toward our favorite vendor. Only a handful of tinfoil-wrapped samosas remain, all nestled in the basket marked “Lamb”.
“No!” I cry, crashing into Dan’s chest.
When I look up, Rajpal’s eyes are twinkling. He holds out a lumpy brown paper bag and smiles.
“I knew you would be coming.” He winks and waves a finger at us. “Two veggie samosas.”
I clap my hands and fish my wallet from my pocket. “You know you’re my favorite person in the world, right?”
“Yes, yes, I know.” He laughs, dropping a peppermint into my bag.
Dan tugs out an extra dollar for the tip jar.
We munch samosas and pick out produce until our canvas bags hang heavy. One violently purple head bobs through a gaggle of yuppies and I stand on tiptoes.
“Haru!” I wave my hand in the air.
A grin splits his face and he cuts a bee-line toward us.
“Hey, girl.” He kisses my cheek before hugging Dan. “How are the waifs?”
By “waifs” he means the runaways at the drop-in youth shelter down the street from our apartment. The youth center also happens to be the only reason we have an apartment.
“Hungry.” Dan laughs.
“Just like we were.” I smile and nestle into the crook of Dan’s arm.
We’d arrived in San Francisco in the pouring rain. The drive from Michigan took three days. With exactly zero credit cards between us, we soon realized that motels weren’t an option. We slept in parking lots in Lincoln, Nebraska and Ogden, Utah and bought fresh clothes at a Salvation Army outside Reno. Once we got to the city, we looked exactly like what we were—lost, scared, and wet.
The bruises had still been healing on Dan’s face while we sat at a Formica table in an all-night diner downtown, looking up rooms for rent on prepaid phones. Stale coffee turned in my stomach as I scrolled through the prices and requirements. The stash of money hidden away in his guitar suddenly didn’t seem like very much at all. We had maybe enough for a few months rent and a deposit, but no proof of income, no co-signers, no references.
After we spent three hopeless hours at the diner, the waitress guessed what we were and told us about the runaway youth shelter a few blocks away. They offered us food and beds for the night. When Dan tried to force a thousand dollars into their hands, they taught us how to fill in the paperwork to apply for a low-income housing unit and find temporary employment.
After only six months and a new cello, very little of his guitar cash stash remains. But we now have bank accounts padded with paychecks from his bike messenger job and my work-study assignment.
We still cook meals at the center a few nights a week and Dan does volunteer case management there until he gets his certification. The kids like him a lot. I think it has something to do with his tattoos.
Haru slaps my shoulder. “Didn’t you declare your major officially?”
“Comp Lit.” I curtsy. “It’s kicking my ass already.”
“Dude, don’t even get me started.” He swipes under his dark-circled eyes. “The Bar exam is the single most horrible thing that has ever happened to me. I don’t remember what sleep feels like. Anyway.” He slips a flier out of his pocket and hands it to me. “Joaquin’s show is tonight if you two manage to crawl out of your study holes.”
“Oh definitely.” Dan folds the flier and pushes it into his bag. “We’ll be there.”
“Well I need to go drink a gallon of coffee. Bye bye, Stanford.” Haru pecks my cheek again before blowing Dan a kiss. “Bye bye, City College.”
“Bye bye, Law School.” We wave back at him.
Dan drapes his arm over my shoulder again and we climb up the hill home. Buses sigh down the street and our reflection flickers in the windows of government buildings, liquor stores and Chinese buffets. Here, there’s no strangeness to us. Just a young couple, hauling groceries back to their studio apartment. A few of our new friends know our full story, but it’s only the “runaways, yet also Stanford” bit that interests them. Indeed, my university had replied to news of my St. Anthony’s suspension with what amounted to a resounding, “So what?”
I’d been cc’d on Stanford’s reply, and the word “provincial” had come up more than once. As far as the university was concerned, I had been the victim of “cyber sexual harassment”. In one particularly venomous sentence, they criticized the St. A’s suspension as “misdirected and inappropriate”.
The email might be one of my all-time favorite pieces of nonfiction. And that includes the exquisite mastery of Jorge Luis Borges.
Stanford is a very good school.
Back in our building, I jiggle the key in our mailbox and yank out a thick handful of envelopes. Bills, bills—ooh, the newest Wuthering Heights movie is playing at The Castro.
I slip out a cute, handmade card dotted with smiley-faces and hearts. “Hannah’s flying in at the end of December,” I say. “You still cool if she stays on the couch until she can move into student housing at State?”
“‘Course.” Dan pushes open the door and sets down his grocery bag. “We need to get a couch first though.”
“Eh.” I shrug, crunching the last of my mint between my teeth. “Craigslist.”
In San Francisco, panel truck ownership equals free furniture. Parking was a problem at first, but our friend Joaquin has a garage a few blocks away in SoMa that had only ever been used as a practice space. The keys live in the Chevy’s ignition now and he stores it in exchange for turns behind the wheel. Honestly, I have no idea how they got all those amps to gigs before we showed up.
Another postcard from San Juan waits at the bottom of the stack of mail. I rearrange the magnets on the fridge to find a place for it. We’ve received so many over the last few months, our kitchen best resembles a Puerto Rican Pride parade.
“When are we going?” Dan slips an arm around my waist.
“As soon as this is paid.” I flash a bill from Stanford. “Spring Break?”
“Ooh, yeah.” He grins. “There’re a lot of beaches there, right?”
“Puerto Rico is definitely a tiny island, so I’m gonna say, yes.”
He throws back his head. “Yes.”
The rose tattoo along the side of his neck stretches long. Standing on tiptoes, I kiss the coiled petals at its center. Standing together in this little kitchen, over bills and groceries and postcards from the extended Ramos clan, we’re starting to look like the thing everyone always accused us of being: family.
His arms slip up my back, under my shirt and—
“No!” I squeal, tearing out of the kitchen, away from his tickling fingers.
He just grins and chases me to the bed. The pillow hits him once, twice and I’m laughing so hard I’m out of breath. The mattress crashes into my back. His hands close around my wrists.
“Got you.” He smirks.
“I think you’ll find that I got you.” I part his smile with my kiss, drawing him down toward me.
When his hands migrate to my hair, to my chest, I slide up his t-shirt to feel his skin on mine. A new tattoo heals over his heart. The many long, curving petals of a spider flower sprawl, edged with pink where the skin is still sore. In the language of flowers, spider blossoms mean “run away with me”.