San Diego Noir

“Can’t do what?”

And that’s when she told me she was leaving.

I tried to convince Sheila to stay but she’d already made up her mind by the time I pleaded my case. I blamed the dogs. The dogs had made me crazy and therefore impossible to live with. But Sheila just shook her head. “You really don’t get it, do you?” she asked me. It took her a few weeks to gather and pack her things. I let her take whatever she wanted in the end. Not that there was much. The funny thing about those weeks was that I hardly noticed the dogs barking. I’m sure they kept up as always, but for once I had more pressing things on my mind.

I saw New Girl only once more in the flesh; in late August, the very hottest part of the summer. She was standing alone in the driveway looking up at Vida’s condo, her hands hanging down at her sides. She was wearing a shiny green bikini top and a very short black skirt. She was leaning on one crutch, its terry duck smashed into her armpit, and I could see both of her legs. She’d been fitted with a prosthesis, I noticed. From my kitchen-window perspective, it appeared quite lifelike. I couldn’t understand why she looked so sad.

Sometime after that (days or weeks, I can’t remember now), they all left—Vida, New Girl, and the dogs. My ears were ringing from the silence. It was so bad I even went to the doctor, thinking I might have developed tinnitus. I wondered if they’d gone on vacation or if the move was permanent. I wondered how long the condo would stay empty before it could be considered abandoned. And I wondered why they’d taken the dogs. It just didn’t seem in character.

I got a partial answer at least a few days later when I took my trash out to the dumpster in the alley I share with my neighbors. There, propped against the side, were New Girl’s wooden crutches, yellow ducks still attached. Next to those was a large canvas with a life-size portrait of New Girl—as nude as I had seen her and leaning on those very same crutches. The painting was surprisingly sophisticated and beautiful. The colors were bold and bright—blues, reds, and pinks—and contained a great deal of life and light. I was unprepared for how emotional it made me feel. I hadn’t liked New Girl at all, it was true, but it made me sad to see her abandoned this way.

Without even thinking about it, I picked up the painting and carried it home. I left it near the front door at first, as if I was going to take it out again, but then after a few hours I brought it into the living room. The next day I hung it up next to the TV so that I could see it all the time, even when I was watching a show. I’m not sure and I’ll never know because there were no witnesses, but I think I may have, from time to time, conversed with it—with her—when I was feeling particularly lonely.

Vida came back alone right after Labor Day, and for a few weeks that was how she stayed. But just last week she brought another girl home. This one looks like a thicker, coarser version of New Girl, but she’s also blond. And she’s also missing the bottom half of her left leg. I saw them getting out of the car—Vida in jeans and a sweatshirt proclaiming Hecho en Mexico (the summer of muumuus is over, I guess) and the new New Girl draped in one of those woven blankets you can get for ten bucks in Tijuana. I saw the crutches—the beaten-up ones—and the bandages and the awkward journey up the driveway. The girl said something to Vida as they got close to the door but her words were drowned in the howl of a passing airplane.

Yes, I suppose all of us have trouble with our neighbors from time to time. And, yes, there is something very strange going on next door. But I am now convinced that New Girl was right—I should mind my own business.

After all, the dogs are gone and Sheila is never coming back.

INSTANT KARMA

BY TAFFY CANNON

Rancho Santa Fe

So okay, it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. We’re all clear on that one. But what about a vulture?

Laverne Patterson probably doesn’t consider herself a bird of prey whose specialty is hanging around waiting for something to die before ripping into the carcass. And in fact the analogy is imperfect; there’s no creature in nature quite like this woman. At least I hope there isn’t.

But it’s close enough. And time is short.

A lot’s been written and sung about what it’s like to have nothing to lose, much of it poignant and evocative. Most of those authors and songwriters still had plenty to lose, however, hadn’t even come close to hitting that sweet spot yet.

I have.

Bull’s-eye.

My name is Tina and I am going to die very shortly. I know, that’s a little too Twelve-Step cute for the announcement, but it happens to be true and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. As these things go, I’m fortunate that I’m not going the way some other people I knew already have. I’m still pretty lucid, retain control of my bodily functions, and have the bittersweet satisfaction of knowing that I did everything right and so did my medical team.

It just happens that mine is one of those rare and relentless orphan diseases for which there isn’t yet the whisper of a cure.

I am single, childless, and without siblings. My parents were killed in a plane crash while I was in college, leaving me a settlement that seemed sufficient to last a lifetime if I were careful, to allow me choices I might not otherwise have had. No need to conserve now, and not too many choices, either. I’m just glad I took some really cool trips in my early twenties, because I don’t have the energy for that kind of bucket list now, though I did buy a hot black Porsche after the diagnosis.

I hated the endless unctuous sympathy when my parents died so I made an early decision not to share my diagnosis with coworkers, or with folks I thought of as friends who were actually acquaintances. My symptoms were never obvious and I telecommuted a lot anyway, so it was easy to hide all the medical appointments. I’ve gradually circled the wagons till there’s nobody inside but me and my cat, and I have arranged for her perpetual care when I go. Some charities will also be very happily surprised.

Nobody’s going to miss me all that much, however, which is sad if you think about it, so I choose not to.

Once you make the acknowledgment that you’re about to die, a form of letting go occurs that is far more grand and terrifying than skydiving or bull riding or walking a tightrope over burning coals. After that, an equally grand and terrifying window opens that most folks don’t ever have the blessing or misfortune to see.