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“But now she can’t stop moving. The thought of resting makes her restless. She literally must walk herself silly, before she even has a chance at getting an hour’s worth of sleep. Fast is the only the pace she knows.” A silence settled in between us for a few minutes, but I quickly sent it packing.
“Why did you pick me? I mean… I’m not exactly a foster favorite,” I asked, drawing circles in the sand. Before she answered, she quickly jumped to her feet and reached for me.
“Because you look like you needed a hand. Now…Opere Roma!”
Over the next few months, Esperanza became a permanent fixture at the Psychic and New Age Health Continuum. Char insisted on treating her and saw it as a way to personally challenge the entire field of pulmonary oncology.
“Don’t worry, honey, I’ve shocked the shit out a few doctors,” she laughed, while rolling Esperanza up into a seaweed wrap burrito. On Esperanza’s birthday we all went to a drag queen festival in Wilton Manors, where Char’s friends gave her twenty-one wig salute. Esperanza even took off hers and plopped it down on my head.
“Long live the queen,” she laughed. That night Esperanza and I saw two sisters really kiss each other for the first time in public. Esperanza winked and let her eyes spell out a softer silence warning. I remember smiling and thinking how messed up it was that some heroes still needed secret identities. However, even at that age I understood their fear of bureaucratic brain slugs. Years later, they confessed to me how sorry they were for getting Esperanza involved. I laughed because I knew damn well that she had really involved them.
In beginning of January, Esperanza’s twenty-one year affair with a certain camel came to an end. Char brought all the girls from the drag festival and Raven even wore black feathers for the occasion. When they began to lower Esperanza’s coffin into the earth, Valeska dashed up and flicked one of her cards into the hole.
“Was it the lady with the cup?” I asked. She nodded and quickly gathered Marija’s little fingers into her shaky paws. When it started to drizzle, everyone ran into a nearby tent, except Valeska and me. We just stood there staring down at the fresh earth, as it mingled and mixed with the sky boogers. Eventually, I broke down and added in a few of my own. Then, Valeska started to curse, and I turned to see her cheek splattered with bird poop. The prankster chirped back at her from its position on a nearby lamp post.
“I heard that’s good luck,” I laughed. She smiled and gently wiped the shit from her face and the tears from my eyes.
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About Christina Ginfrida
