store.
Heading back outside, we search two full square blocks encompassing the Bread and Butter Market, querying everyone we see on the street as we go, including the line of homeless men and women waiting in line for a meal and a bed for the night at Glide Memorial Church. Our search is fruitless.
We trudge back to the Bread and Butter.
“We need to call the police,” I say.
Rob squeezes his eyes shut and then washes his face with his hands. “Yeah,” he replies.
We ask to use the market’s phone and after waiting fifteen minutes, we figure it’s going to be a while, Rob says, “I gotta eat something. You want a sandwich?”
The burn in my stomach has begun to flare higher, up into my throat. Though I have a couple of Rolaids left, I know a bit of food would calm the fire heaving in my gut.
“Sure,” I say, “whatever.” I wave him off as he retreats back to the deli.
The disheveled man, still whispering his mantra, at last stands up, seizes his roast beef sandwich and tosses it into the garbage before plodding outside.
I sit on the stool he just vacated and my thoughts turn to Chevy. In my mind’s eye her soft brown doe eyes appear. She smiles at me, and I wonder: did she make contact with Robyn? Did Chevy convince Robyn to call home? This whole ordeal simply cannot be a coincidence. I make a mental note to ask Chevy the next time I see her; if I ever do. I’m bounced out of my reverie by Rob tapping me on the shoulder.
“My card was denied,” he growls, thrusting the Visa into my face.
I dig through my wallet and hand him a ten dollar bill. Rob wanders back to the deli. I peer at my watch; nearly two-thirty. We’ve been waiting for the police now for nearly half an hour.
Rob returns, plopping a turkey sandwich with all the trimmings down in front of me. Though it looks and smells delicious, fingers of nausea begin to coil around my stomach.
Rob angles his sandwich around left and then right, finding a suitable spot and chomps down, talking as he chews.
“So, what’s the deal with the Visa?”
“I told you,” I say defensively. “I took an advance out and gave it to Sister Margaret, remember?”
“You said you were going to help her hand out food to the hookers,” he says.
“Well, the nuns have to have money to buy the food,” I counter. “Besides, you should see these girls. Any one of them could be Robyn.”
“Well, they’re not Robyn. Criminy, Margot, we barely make enough between the both of us to cover the rent and utilities. We can’t afford to feed half of friggin’ San Francisco.”
“I don’t want to feed half of ‘friggin San Francisco’,” I reply, quoting the air with my fingers. “And I told you, we’re doing fine. We can make minimum payments on the cash advance as long as we need to. If we can make the Corsica last one more year, that’ll help. And we’re saving lots of money now that I’m packing your lunches.”
Rob rolls his eyes as he pops the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth. “Yeah? Well a man likes to eat more than just baloney all the time.” He swabs the corner of his mouth with his thumb.
“You really need to meet this Sister Margaret person,” I say, changing the subject. “You know what she asked me?”
Rob gives me a shrug as he shakes the last remnants of the potato chips from the bag into his opened mouth. I have a sudden image of an open-mouthed blue whale pulling plankton through its baleen. I shake the picture from my head.
“What did Sister Margaret ask you?” he says in a flippant tone as he crunches the chips.
“She asked me if I had any faith.”
Rob grunts, and then grabs his soda, taking a long pull on the straw. I watch my husband carefully for any reaction about the subject, but he declines to offer me anything. I have thought a lot about that question posed to me by the nun with the bright gray eyes. As if faith were the kind of thing you could just go out and buy, like laundry detergent and then be done with it all.
“Do you?” I ask.
“Do I what?”
“Have any faith?”
Rob shoves the air towards me with his palms.
“Hey. Don’t go there with me. You know how I feel about all that stuff.”
I nod. From Rob’s strict Catholic