“What is it?” Barbara asked, swirling the contents around. You never knew with Ramani.
Her grandmother picked up her vape pen and inhaled a deep lungful of berry flavor cannabis, letting it exit her mouth in a steamy white cloud. She expertly sucked the vapor back up and let it leak through her nostrils, grinning indulgently at Barbara.
“Sangria,” she said. “I think it's my best batch yet, don't you think, John?” She called out to her husband, who was in the bedroom of their tiny one-bedroom condo.
John emerged, looking slightly distracted. He was shirtless, his chest sagging in soft wrinkles, wearing only boxers and tube socks. “I don't have any bottoms. What have you done with all my pants and shorts?” He caught sight of Barbara and absently waved hello.
“I'm doing a deep clean, sweetie. I've put everything in the wash.” Ramani rubbed absently at her round middle and swiveled her hips to a tune in her head, sucking her pen and expelling another impressive cloud of the candy smelling vapor.
“Well, that's just great,” John said, throwing up his hands. “I have nothing to wear and I'm supposed to meet Richard for lunch in half an hour.
“Oh,” Ramani set down her pen on the kitchen counter. “Let's see. Do you want to wear something of mine?”
Her husband looked at her dubiously. She was double his size. Barbara let out a snort of laughter and then took a sip of the sangria when Ramani and John glanced at her. It was good. Sweet and slightly tangy.
“I've got some sweatpants that might fit you.” Ramani headed for their bedroom.
“When will the wash be done?” John asked, following her.
“Oh, not for over an hour. Everything is in the wash cycle right now.”
There was the sound of a drawer being opened from their room and Barbara guzzled half of her drink down and replenished it from the pitcher Ramani left sitting out.
“These are too big,” John said.
“You have to pull the string. There, like that. Now tie it.”
Barbara wandered into the living room, which was filled with plants. Too many. The room was like a nursery, the faint odor of earthy dampness emanating from the carpet. Most everything was draped with vibrant, colorful sarongs. Sarongs on the windows, sarongs over the furniture, sarongs hanging on the walls and around Ramani's hips. It was all she wore around the house. On the northern wall hung her latest creation of paintings: a series of pastel-colored fairies with giant genitalia, making merry in fields, aflutter with vaginal butterflies and phallic caterpillars inching along tree branches. On the opposite wall, the TV played on mute. CNN. A scene of passengers at an airport in China wearing face masks, waiting in line to have their temperatures taken.
Barbara drank more of the sangria and took a seat on the vibrant red Arabic style floor sofa. Crossing her legs, she flipped through a black and white photography art book of women of all ages in various states of undress.
John reemerged this time in a polo shirt and a pair of eye-catching orange sweatpants two sizes too big on him. The fabric puddled around his ankles, threatening to swallow up his white tennis shoes.
“It's fine,” Ramani said, coming up behind him and waving him on.
“I don't think you have my best intentions in mind,” he said and bent to pick up a bag near the front door. The pants slid half off his butt, and he stood, pulling them up. “You see? They're too big.”
“It's what we've got at the moment. Or you could postpone until the laundry's done.”
“Uh-huh.” John peered at Ramani over his glasses before sighing and placing his bag under his arm. “See you, Barb.”
“Bye.”
He pulled up his slipping pants again before walking out. Ramani went into the kitchen to retrieve her own glass of sangria. When she came back, her eyes wandered toward the TV and she made a sucking noise through her teeth.
“It's only a matter of time.”
“What?” Barbara followed her gaze to the images playing out on the screen, patients in hospital beds and then a cut to the news anchor, Wolf Blitzer.
“That virus out of Wuhan. Have you been following that?”
Barbara shook her head. She'd caught snatches here and there but wasn't necessarily paying attention.
Ramani shrugged. “We won't be prepared.”
Barbara ignored the comment. Her grandmother was always full of conspiracies and generally carried an overly pessimistic outlook on the future.
“What do you think?” Ramani asked, holding up her glass. She sat on a mustard yellow floor sofa opposite Barbara.
“It's delicious.”
Ramani smiled, her thin brown-hennaed curls forming a halo of wispiness around her fleshy dimpled features. She drank heartily from her glass and Barbara watched the ribbons of skin gather at her throat as she gulped down her drink.
“So,” she said, lowering her glass. “Dora. You're here to talk about Dora.”
Barbara nodded and sipped more of her drink. Her muscles started to relax, a feeling of languid wellbeing enveloping her body.
“More sangria?” Ramani was already getting up again.
Barbara held out her glass. “Sure. Why not?”
“Does she want to see me yet?” Ramani called out from the kitchen.
Barbara stiffened. “She's still really confused.”
Ramani returned, her smile gone. She handed Barbara her topped off drink and took her seat back on the yellow sofa.
“Ramani?” Barbara ventured.
Her grandmother's brown eyes snapped with interest. She brought her legs up in a very limber way for a woman in her early seventies. The soles of her feet, toes splayed open, rested on the cushion, her knees hugged up against her chest. Under her sarong she wore spandex shorts.
“What do you know about dissociative identity disorder?” Barbara knew she was wading into murky subject matter and grimaced inwardly, wondering how Ramani would take the question.
Her grandmother brought her glass up
