Angelica Lost and Found

Chapter 69. Jam Today

This was my regular session day so I went. It was two days after the night of Ossie Przewalski’s opening and everything was fine between Jim and me but I was wondering and worrying about how matters stood with Volatore and me. The last thing I wanted was to have to choose between my two lovers and I was afraid of losing both. The ferry ride to Sausalito this morning felt different from ferry rides on other mornings. The day was hard and bright, the sunlight unyielding, the sun points on the water were like dancing shards of glass. The gulls were laughing at me, ‘Haha, haha-ha! Haha!’

‘Stupid garbage-eaters!’ I said. ‘Who the hell are you to haha at me?’

‘Today, today!’ screamed the gulls.

‘Today what?’

‘Um maybe yes, maybe no,’ thrummed the engines. ‘Um maybe maybe maybe.’

‘Nobody asked you,’ I told them.

When the ferry docked there was nothing to do but get off so I did that. All the way to Dos Arbolitos I was talking to myself. Sometimes people stared at me and I realised that I was speaking out loud. Why so freaked out? I asked myself. This is only the rest of my life we’re talking about here.

Then all of a sudden Dos Arbolitos was in front of me. I went in and Jim came to meet me. With, yes, the smell!

‘Volatore!’ I said. ‘Is that you?’

‘Here is Volatore,’ he said.

He took me in his arms and everything became all right.

Since then I’ve had no complaints. Sometimes Jim is plain Jim and sometimes he’s Volatore Jim. Well, really, every good man is a bit of an animal and every animal has something human about it. Reader, I married them.