inda lived near me, out by the Sutro bath houses. It was always foggy and when the sun came we would stand on her glass-enclosed porch and look at the light on the grey ocean. Linda quit smoking when she was diagnosed with AIDS, so I took her heavy, smoke-drenched curtains out of her apartment. Once out, her giant floor-to-ceiling plants seemed to take over the room, and she talked to me about her childhood, about Hawaii, being Japanese-American, growing up in Hawaii, and how much she loved her parents, who still lived in Hawaii. I did her laundry, hauling it up and down rusty metal stairs. She was dissappointed in my lack of ability to sort and wash by color and fabric. I learned to be a little more careful. I became more careful about everything with Linda. When her hair began to shed, I would not say anything about what I wiped up from the floor, and between the two of us, we managed to keep her space clean, and pleasant. I was careful not to move things to where they should not go, and careful to get the leaves on the plants clean, so that they could be healthy plants—something that was very important to Linda.   She took me out in her big American car—she was a very small person, and was barely big enough to drive the car. Later, I drove the car and she rested. I don't remember where we went.   I moved to Davis, and Linda went home to Hawaii. She suffered a stroke, and I never heard from her again. I do think about her sometimes sunny porch, and the neighbors dog, and her wicker furniture, and the company of the two of us spending time together, which was of a quiet, unobtrusive nature mixed with true compatibility and trust.   —Sophia Varcados       CONTACT THIS CONTRIBUTOR