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nice to meet you, Erin.” Alodia grabs my right cheek and pinches it affectionately. “Now go on out to that boy.”
    Without realizing it, I wrap my arms around her for a tight hug. “I’ll come back again to help.”
    “I hope so, dear,” Alodia says.
    * * *
    I HELP REED AND two other volunteers, Cesar and Vivi, serve the people who have come to the shelter for a warm meal. Wade manages to load the plates and the trays fast enough so the rest of us can take them out to the tables.
    When every poor soul has received their warm Mexican food, we all take a break in the kitchen. Wade hunches over a counter exhausted. There are six more plates waiting on the counter. I notice the portions are smaller than what we have just served the packed dining room.
    “This is the best part,” Vivi says grabbing a plate. “The leftovers.”
    Reed grabs two plates and hands one to me. “I challenge you to find a better Chimichanga anywhere in Los Angeles.”
    “Home boy laces it with some uptown narcotics,” Cesar says before he bites a hole in the side of his Chimichanga covered with a drizzle of thin, green sauce.
    Alodia walks up behind Wade and touches the back of his hair with such familiar affection that it makes me suddenly feel alone in the universe. I don’t have that with anyone, that unspoken physical comfort and casual tenderness. He slides a plate over to a spot next to him and then helps her sit down on one of the rickety stools.
    A moment later I realize everyone is waiting for me to have a taste. Cesar might be right. It’s as if they are all in some drug-fueled nirvana and they want me to join them.
    Vivi hands me a fork and I use it with purpose. I scoop up some of Wade’s mass-produced homeless shelter, Cinco de Mayo slop and I immediately feel a new sensation. Never a fan of Mexican food my mouth suddenly infuses with a lime-tinged, liquefied avocado sauce of some kind that collides divinely with the lightly-spiced and crisply- textured beef.
    “Holy shit!” I say as I chew without regard to manners.
    “Yeah,” Alodia says, “she likes it.”
    The next ten minutes sitting around this metal table with this odd assortment of people overwhelms me with belly laughter and honest communication. It feels like my first day out of a prison. We talk with our mouths full and no one cares. Fucking liberating.
    The dream is broken when Reed’s phone vibrates. His bends his lips. “Damn,” he says. “It’s a patient. She must have scratched through one of her fresh sutures.”
    Disappointment circles the table. Perhaps I am not alone in feeling the magic of this place and these minutes slipping through our fingers.
    “If Alodia will drive you and Erin,” Wade suggests, “I can stay behind to clean up after the dining room empties.”
    “Always my hero,” Alodia responds. “Take Doc and the little doll and let me run my kitchen.”
    I can see there’s about to be some kind of showdown of kindness and so I decide to get in on it. “The little doll’s staying too,” I say with playful disapproval of my new nickname. “Alodia, we all have years of dishwashing ahead of us if we are ever to catch you.”
    She stares at me a long time with what I hope is approval. “All right, Miss Cassidy, Doc’s been trying to get me alone for a long time anyway.”
    Cesar punches Reed’s shoulder. “You old pervert, Doc.”
    Vivi rolls her eyes happily. Alodia smiles so deeply she looks like a gleeful little girl. Reed lifts his eyebrow seductively and reaches across the table to take Alodia’s hand.
    “Shall we, my little minx?” he says to her.

-7-
    Driving home with Wade that afternoon, the sky seems to have disappeared. Clouds obscure the sun. The world is now ominous and surprisingly dark. The unexpected dreariness surprises my senses to the point of disorientation and leaves me excited. The air smells like rain and then the rain comes as quick as the thought.
    A few heavy drops land on us before his