Ugly, slow, annoying with their unwanted opinions. It seemed impossible that I’d ever be one. The first proof that the universe has a sense of humor? I’m half of one. Since the stroke that wiped out my livelihood, I’d taken to tooling my electric scooter along the Venice boardwalk, or out to the Santa Monica pier. I was on the pier that day when the second proof happened. My goal was to work at training my left hand to mix colors, but when too exasperated by juggling paints, paper, and water in the fitful ocean breeze, I sat back and watched the fishers, patient and still, the flirting young couples, and a man with his little boy tossing bits of bread up in the air to the seagulls swooping and diving over the choppy green waters. Then this compelling, melodic female voice spoke intimately, as if right beside my ear. “Excellent. You are what I want.” That couldn’t possibly be me. I turned. Nearby stood two other sixty-plus women. The tall, thin silver-haired one in the elegant clothes, with the wedding ring the size of a Volkswagen, looked quickly away from the sensibly dressed, solid black woman with the salt-and-pepper hair; she, in turn, glanced from Lady Gotrocks to me in my motorized wheelchair, and then away with an air of this has nothing to do with me.
