Damn. Even with David’s retreat, we still careened downhill fast, and Naomi hadn’t yet told me if I should be the buffer or the referee. I guess that left the decision up to me. With two fingers between my lips, I whistled. Heads turned throughout the restaurant. I held my hands up in a time-out T.

  Naomi crossed her arms, slumped in her seat, and guzzled her wine. Whoops. Maybe I should have tried to be a buffer instead. Still, she was beautiful like that, flustered and pink with anger. Would I ever get the chance to kiss that color into her cheeks?

  A waiter appeared, and we ordered. He left, and I spied Christina texting under the table. She turned her phone over and leaned closer to Naomi.

  “Before David comes back, I need to say something. When we met, it started as a friendship. We talked all the time, and our conversations got deep quickly. I knew he was married, and when I realized how much I looked forward to seeing him, I felt terrible. Like you, I take those vows seriously, and I didn’t want to cause any problems. I changed my volunteer schedule to avoid him.”

  Naomi had been drinking wine with her arms crossed. In deference to the younger woman’s confession, she set down her glass and let her hands fall to her lap. I was tempted to mimic Christina’s reassuring pat to David’s thigh, but I wasn’t sure it would be welcome.

  “A few weeks later, David showed up on a different day to find me. He’d told Melissa he wanted a divorce, and he hoped to start dating me.”

  Now Naomi was leaning forward. “When was this?”

  “About six months ago. And I said, ‘No.’ I knew they were unhappy, possibly incompatible, if she was so uncompromising.”

  Naomi nodded, agreeing with the description of her sister-in-law.

  “But if a marriage ends, it shouldn’t be over feelings for someone else. That grass is greener stuff is no good.”

  Okay. So this odd girl, trying too hard to be fashionable and fit in, wasn’t so bad after all.

  “David went home. We stopped seeing each other at the shelter, stopped texting each other. They tried to work it out. That’s when they started counseling. They conceived a baby… "

  “Melissa had her IUD removed and didn’t tell me until I came home to a ‘Surprise! It’s-a-Boy!’ party one night.”

  I jerked my head to where David stood. I hadn’t noticed him approach. The circles under his eyes contributed to the impression he was ages older than Christina. But if he weren’t a murder suspect in the early stages of divorce, expecting an unplanned baby with his estranged wife, they actually made a good match.

  Naomi had grabbed the sides of her seat, gripping with white knuckles.

  David sat, and the waiter delivered a round of appetizers, including a plate of crispy, hot papadum on the house.

  For a moment, things felt so mundanely awkward that I forgot David was my number-one suspect in Cindy’s murder. Having successfully refereed the conversation between Naomi and Christina, I buffered with a simple icebreaker.

  “So David, what are your favorite bars in the city?”

  It sounded friendly enough, but I had an agenda. If he wanted to turn The Carlos Club into Blotto's, where people came from across the bridges to slurp down liter-sized martinis, then pee in the streets, I might need to squeeze Naomi’s thigh.

  “Well, I like the Orbit Room. That’s what I want to do with the Fourteenth Street spot—restore the Victorian details, brighten it up. Have you been to Aldgate West, the gin bar in the Tenderloin?”

  “Sure.” Cesar’s friend Simon had painted the interior, and he got us free drinks every so often. Maybe he could introduce David to the owner if he turned out to be innocent.

  “Well I love their menu and their sense of place. I want to create something like that…" He went on, rhapsodizing about his plans. Honestly, it sounded like a great place to live across from.

  While he talked, Christina listened, interjecting little comments, reminding him of ideas. He never seemed annoyed at the interruption, but pleased, like she helped him express himself better. If I were doing premarital counseling, that alone would have gotten them a passing grade.

  “I’m considering calling it Naomi’s.”

  The Naomi in question squeaked. “What? Why?”

  “Well, I didn’t set out to evict the only lesbian bar in the city. Calling it David’s would only pile on the offense.”

  “Naming it after your gay sister doesn’t earn you extra karma.”

  “I don’t know.” I scooted back in my chair to get a better view of her squirming. “It’s a great name—timeless, and anybody who knows the Bible knows she’s brave, loyal, looks out for other women, and engineers her own happy ending. Way better than calling it Tamar’s.”

  David snorted, earning himself a few points in my book. That Biblical heroine's father-in-law treated her atrociously before she took matters into her own hands.

  “Or Bathsheba’s.” Christina took a sip of water.

  Naomi and I turned to her in one synchronized move. A good sign—natural choreography. Once again fulfilling my duty as the referee, I signaled to Naomi that she should speak.

  “You know the Bible?”

  Christina nodded, glancing a wary look at David. He shrugged.

  “I was raised Christian. Very." She mumbled the last word, then shoved a bite of samosa in her mouth.

  Naomi glared at her brother. Apparently my refereeing wasn’t over. I leaned forward, trying to break the line of laser-hot eye contact between the siblings. “Where did you grow up, Christina?"

  “A small town in Idaho.” She pulled a wry smile.

  Okay, so perhaps the wolves who raised her were from the American tundra.

  “And don’t worry about stereotyping. It’s exactly what you’re thinking. Huge family. My parents are total fundies. They live on a compound, think their preacher is a prophet, and forbade me to read books from the library. They cut me off when I came to Cal for college. I paid my way, which is why I chose a career that would compensate me well. I have massive student loans. Sadly, I wound up hating it.”

  Suddenly her bizarre style and her restaurant manners made more sense. She probably hadn’t eaten out much. And once Lily had tried a mail-order fashion styling services where they send you five garments and photos of how to assemble outfits with appropriate shoes and accessories. We’d giggled about the prints-on-prints plus textures galore. Christina looked like she was dressing in the exact outfit she’d seen in a style guide. A Biblical fundamentalist who reads Glamour and doesn’t trust herself to interpret the suggestions for herself.

  I avoid these complicated questions by wearing black, gray and burgundy everything, even underwear. In every combination, they go great with my clerical collar.

  “Actually, Christina’s upbringing wasn’t that different from ours.” David dipped some papadum into a red chutney that looked spicy as hell. As soon as it hit his tongue, he coughed.

  “We have a big family, too.” Naomi completed his thought.

  I turned to Naomi. “How many kids are there?”

  “Five, including me.”

  I waited for her to ask Christina, but she didn’t, so I did. “How about you, Christina?”

  “I’m one of nine. We were super close growing up. Family game nights. Movie nights. Church all day Sunday.”

  Naomi faced her brother, shaking her head. “Mom is going to kill you.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Christina stared at me. “She didn’t tell you? Number one Cohen family rule: must marry a Jew.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Right. Okay. Should have expected that one.

  Warmth bled from my hands. Not like I was dying to get married anytime soon. But I suspected that for Naomi the Cohen family rule probably also meant not making out on my couch, not celebrating each other's religious holidays, not bonding over our hard work pastoring congregations before curling up to eat popcorn and watch Will & Grace.

  I met her pretty gaze. Her luscious red lips pressed thin and flat, and she nodded.

  “But you’re Reconstructionist?” A rabbi in the most progressive branch of Judaism. “Why the rule?”

  “It’s not a rule so much as a family value. Our parents taught us the importance of carrying on our lineage and traditions.”

  “They go to the Conservative synagogue,” David added. “Naomi’s already a traitor for turning Reform.”

  She tilted her head and pouted. “Said the guy leaving his nice Jewish wife for this shiksa.”

  I recoiled from the word, but Christina just blinked. “Is that an insult?” she asked in a level voice.

  “No, honey,” David kissed the top of her head. “It means you’re especially tempting.”

  “Is that what it means about me, too?” I turned to Naomi with a mock-hopeful tone, which probably revealed just how betrayed I felt by Christina’s revelation. Cesar had been right to warn me off her—she was using me, had known before our almost-kiss I was a priest, even if my half-Asian appearance didn’t guarantee my gentile status.

  “You have to understand.” Naomi squared her shoulders toward me. “On both sides, all our ancestors were decimated in the Holocaust. Both Mom’s grandparents were sole, child survivors. They devoted themselves to making a big, joyful, loving family like the ones they’d lost to carry on the traditions. That’s important to me, too.”

  My emotion-goiter swelled up big and fat in my throat, and I wanted to look anywhere other than her apologetic brown eyes. My gaze wandered, landing on David, who wore a pitying expression, then Christina, who’s lower lip jutted in solidarity with me. Maybe they would scoot their chairs closer to make room for me on their side of the table.

  I know, I know. I should have simply respected her values, her commitment to her culture and her faith. And I did.

  Also, I know I must have looked like a complete mess, with my flaking on meetings and my mountain of phone messages—wait, wasn’t there somebody I’d forgotten to call back?—But I defied categorization of humans and of paperwork all for the same reason.

  When Yeye died, I learned the harm that comes of choosing sides, whether you call it tribalism, ethnic conflict, or identity politics. After the shooting, tensions grew in the neighborhood between the Chinese shop owners and the Latino residents. We only averted a crisis by breaking down our barriers.

  I looked between David and Christina, who leaned their shoulders and heads toward each other. Naomi thought he was reckless and irresponsible. But to me they were bold, defying their families’ values to be together.

  It certainly wasn’t easy to imagine this guy, besotted, aspiring bar-owner and animal-lover, bludgeoning Cindy over the head. Even if he had put all his money into opening the bar formerly known as The Carlos Club and felt the strain of his difficult wife taking his daughter and unborn child away.

  But if it wasn’t David, and it wasn’t Phil, who the hell killed Cindy?

  I rose and pushed back my chair in one movement, tossing some cash on the table. “Good luck you two.” Leveling my gaze at Naomi, I tacked on a, “See you around.”

  On the way home, I remembered my grandfather's death. For days after Cesar and I found him, I couldn’t leave my apartment, haunted by the sight of the black bullet hole through his wizened old forehead.

  Cesar came every day. He brought me matcha-flavored soy ice cream, he brought my homework. One day, he told me what was happening outside.

  Gang violence had been escalating in the Mission, the boundary between the Mexican-America Norteño and Sureño gangs contested weekly. The shooting had sparked new tensions. Shop owners, many of whom were Chinese like Dad and Yeye, paid a high price for their strife. Mission High hosted a community meeting. I left the apartment to attend.

  The rhetoric got ugly fast. The shop owners announced they were locked and loaded, a sound byte that ran for weeks on the local news. Of course, the Latinos who came to the meeting were parents worried about their kids, small business owners, and laborers. Gangs did not send emissaries to defend their actions. But those hard-working, law abiding Latino folks felt the Chinese had lumped them in with the thugs causing trouble and sensed the sharp mistrust when they shopped for produce at markets like Lee's Grocery.

  After the meetings, street fights broke out in the neighborhood, and the tensions barged their way into my school.

  People couldn’t tell where I fit by looking at me. Was I Chinese or Latina? Sometimes they assumed I had a lot of Indio blood. But when they learned my name, they often figured it out.

  I played the chameleon, hung with both groups at school. Spoke both my mother tongues. The truth was, I was wholly and completely both, like Jesus is human and divine. I spoke Cantonese and Spanish, could cook both cuisines. I had aunties and tias all over the Mission, two different kinds of brown. So it hurt to see the kids going at each other as if Latinos and Chinese are natural enemies.

  They very fact of my existence and my parents’ happy marriage means that can't be true. When my mom, pregnant at 25, quit City College to marry my dad, who helped his father run Lee’s Grocery on the corner of 19th and Mission, neither set of my grandparents was thrilled. But everyone quickly saw how much they loved each other, how good they were together.

  I took it as a personal affront that my two communities were attacking each other because of the actions of one murderer and a bunch of kids who had fallen astray. I spoke up about it at school, and people listened. In English class, we had heated discussions that spilled onto the lunch yard. Those conversations continued onto the sidewalk, the corner stores and parks, and home with the students. We were fired up, outraged, and then I proposed a walkout. The message spread with text messages and chat apps.

  The second Monday of October, fifteen minutes into first period, every kid at Mission High walked out of class. We’d stashed signs and banners in our lockers. Some teachers had gotten wind of the plan and left with us in support and to keep their eye on things. Our posters read, One Mission, or Stop the Violence, or Peace in all the language spoken by kids in our school.

  When folks passed by me with my Love poster, they high-fived me. “Nice job, Alma.” People gave me credit for the whole thing, and although it had taken many kids and teachers getting on board—they were right—I’d been the one to stir and spark, talk and teach, until it took off. That’s the day I became an activist, by refusing to be one thing, by defying binary categories, by embracing the glorious fluidity of life.

  The gang violence didn’t stop, but the neighborhood united against it, and that was much better than turning on each other.

  These ideals didn’t necessarily have to manifest on my desk as administrative chaos, but that’s the way I approached things—open, always ready to be surprised, to be led, to learn and grow.

  Still, I knew the Bible well enough to sympathize with Naomi’s family values. The Jews had been threatened with annihilation repeatedly throughout their history. I understood wanting to preserve her traditions rather than toss them in a melting pot with all of mine. What I didn’t understand was why she hadn’t told me herself before tonight. Was Cesar right that she’d been stringing me along in case I could help her brother?

  What a fool I’d been. Shame tightened my scalp and my head hurt. Time to let go of the fantasy of helping her finally find her springtime.

  I arrived home with no memory of walking down Valencia Street. Stupid—I should have been paying more attention if I didn’t want to be pedestrian collision number 801.

  After brushing and flossing, I went straight to bed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When my alarm woke me for the sprint to Morning Prayer, I sat up straight, my heart pounding.

  I showered, dressed, and dashed to the church with my tea in hand. With Al sick, we numbered only three.

  After the service ended, Jenny approached me with sympathy in her eyes. “I visited Al yesterday.”

  “That’s great. I thought he wasn’t coming home until today.”

  “He’s not. I went to the hospital.”

  Okay. So apparently the daughter hadn’t warned Jenny about his preference not to be seen in his hospital gown. “How’s he doing?”

  “He says he’s OK, but I'm not convinced. His wife thinks he needs to step down from the bishop’s committee, and I agree.”

  Wait. Had I missed something? “Appendectomies are rough, but healthy people recover from them pretty quickly.”

  “She says he’s not as well as he claims, and I got the feeling they’ve been keeping his health concerns private. I know how busy you’ve been, helping the police investigate Cindy’s murder, and I didn’t want to worry you over it. But I ran into the bishop at the Hillside Supper Club last night, so I brought him up to speed on everything and offered to step in as senior warden.”

  “Oh?” Apparently, becoming a supervisor or a bishop got you invited to one of the most exclusive private clubs in the city. I thought only the likes of Kevin Kearney dined there. Belatedly, I remembered I owed the bishop a phone call. Of all the yellow slips of paper to misplace.

  “I hope you don’t mind us deciding without you, but I know how much you have on your mind.”

  “Sure. If that’s what Al wants.”

  The sympathetic look in her eye hadn’t faded, like she was holding another shoe aloft, waiting for the invitation to drop it.

  “Is there something else?”

  “You should know I’ve spoken to a few other members of the committee. I’m sorry to say, Al isn’t the only one concerned about your focus. You know I’m one hundred percent in your camp, but everyone else has a story or two about your missed appointments, your perpetual absence from the office… There is a general sense you’re failing to prioritize, Alma.”

  Her words hit me hard and quick, right in my Achilles heel, raw from Kayla’s nagging. Had Jenny been spying on me at my newly clean desk? Or did everyone in my church secretly think I was a scatterbrain?

  “It’s this murder. It’s shaken me up. And there’s so much to do—”

 

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