person we pass gets the same look on his or her face, a bloom of shame. They’re remembering some hurt they caused—the time they ignored their grandma’s birthday, how they talked trash behind a good friend’s back, the way they sneaked cash out of their parents’ spare-change jar. What a flurry of regret and guilt! Everyone’s desperate to apologize and get rid of the awful feelings.
FRIDAY
You know that mom who seems to be in every supermarket, the one who yells at her kid, tells him to shut his mouth or she’ll give him something to wail about? And then she gives him a big smack across the butt, and the little kid doesn’t know which is worse, the sting of the slap or the public embarrassment.
You know that mom? You know how you always want to do something to make her stop picking on her own kid?
We did something. She will never, ever hurt or humiliate anyone again.
SATURDAY
This is Stephanie’s day to be in charge, and she’s very deliberate in her choice of target. It turns out to be so rewarding that she writes a blog post about the incident. Of course she eliminates any mention of our role in the course of events. Raymond and I read over her shoulder as she types her newest post.
Green from Tenth Grade to Death:
One Student’s Struggle to Save Mother Earth
There are many places that make this blogger infuriated: standing in a new housing development that sits on top of former wetlands; venturing into a redwood grove that’s been logged into oblivion; standing by a cliff that’s crumbling from man-caused erosion.
But above all, there’s one place that instantly throws me into a state of despair and hopelessness: Surfside Mall on a Saturday afternoon.
Today I ventured into this fortress of shameless capitalism and soullessness. My heart sank as I watched my fellow humans suckered into buying useless stupid crap. But hope showed its bright shining face.
I was standing outside of Britches Boutique, a chain known for its complete disregard of fair labor practices and its overpriced schlocky jeans. Two twins of my acquaintance passed by, their arms loaded with bags from The Clothing Goddess.
Suddenly their arms dropped their packages. If shame has a color, I saw it as the blood drained from their cheeks. Their faces went white with a tinge of blue, like the anemic shade of no-fat milk.
In that moment, on the outskirts of the food court, in the artificially recycled air, standing by the fake fountain, two new activists were born.
In impassioned, pleading voices, they recanted their ignorant consuming ways.
“I’ve been blind to avarice!” one declared, using a word not formerly in her vocabulary. “My shopping is killing Mother Earth.”
“Take it all away!” the other begged. “I don’t want these bloodstained goods. I can’t live with the guilt.”
Their friends pleaded with them to stop being so weird and embarrassing.
But they wouldn’t. As one of them explained to this blogger: “I’m so sorry that we ever made fun of you. You’ve been right all along! We need to do something to save Mother Earth. Tell us what to do and we’ll do it!”
It was when the twins started to take off their clothing and give it away that the heavy hand of the law got involved and put an end to their brave demonstration. It took two security guards to quiet these half-naked speakers of truth.
“You did get a little carried away with the nudie part,” Raymond says, but he’s grinning at the memory. He shows us some photos of the Double Ds that he took with his cell phone. They are priceless.
“Should I put those on the blog?” Stephanie asks.
Raymond wags a disapproving finger. “That would definitely be over the top.”
“I’m so glad to be living in a world that works this way,” I say.
Raymond deletes the incriminating photos from his phone. “What do you mean?”
“This is a world with order to it. It makes sense. There’s right and wrong, good and bad, and the line is clear.”
I nod my approval of the post. Stephanie clicks Publish.
SUNDAY
The Furies rest.
16
I am nothing like my birth parents. I never even met them and I can tell you that we have nothing in common. Nothing! If by chance I ever do meet them, for example if they decide to track me down because suddenly after all these years they get curious, I’ll try to be polite but I’m not going to hug them. Maybe they’ll start sending birthday cards, but we will still have