That’s how she thought of her now—as her homeless woman—since the poor creature had a way of materializing at the oddest times, though never in the actual flesh. Shawna would flash on her scalded face in the midst of an Almodovar film at the Sundance Kabuki, or down at the Rainbow Grocery when she was scooping rice from the bulk-foods bin. Once, she even dreamed about the woman, dreamed that the two of them were dining at the Cliff House, gossiping like old friends as they admired the sunset, though—as dreams had a way of doing—it wasn’t the sleek new Cliff House but the funky old one with the greasy photographs and flocked wallpaper that Shawna remembered from her childhood. What bothered her most was that she didn’t know the woman’s name. Her image was becoming clearer all the time in Shawna’s promiscuous imagination, but she still lacked identification, that all-important peg on which to hang her humanity. How could you even survive, Shawna wondered, when no one bothered to learn your name?
