Ought To & Can (A San Francisco Fable)

Part II: Can--Chapter 18

"We saw her."

When Neil explained the seder situation to his parents, he showed them a picture of Sabrina. They recognized her immediately from his mission farewell.

"We just assumed she was a friend of yours from school who wasn't LDS."

"Well," Neil said to his mom, "She was, basically, but it was a lot more than that."

"Cute girl," said Annie, sounding impressed.

"I had a guy come up to at the barbecue and say he saw you and a girl go outside for a minutes after sacrament meeting," Leo reminisced. "I didn't see it when it happened and he asked me who she was, and I just told him I didn't know. So, yeah, a lot of people saw her."

"Will they allow you to take pictures?" Annie said.

"I don't see why not."

"Make sure you get a whole bunch. I want to see what that house looks like."

"We'll leave some bagels out for you when you get home," his father told him.

Neil was so preoccupied with his anticipation, the excitement and nerves, that he when he first saw the Golden Gate Bridge driving out of the tunnel, he realized that he couldn't remember a single thing about how he got to that point of the highway. The north end of the bay, the hills of Marin, the Frank Lloyd Wright building: he literally could not recall any of that. He'd even forgotten that it was raining. Between thinking about things and listening to the few Passover-related classical pieces he could find (by 20th century Jewish composers like Yehudi Wyner and Sholom Secunda), his attention wandered elsewhere.

After finding some on-street parking, he walked up the steps to the apartment. May answered. "You still have red cheeks," she observed.

"What?"

"You were the Sonoma Valley guy with red cheeks, that was your main trait."

Neil patted his cheeks a little, now self-conscious about them. Sabrina was busy putting some papers into an art portfolio when Neil walked into the living room. He stopped for second, stunned by how heavenly she looked in a black formal dress with a long skirt and a jacket.

"You're not wearing that, are you?" she asked, referring to the faded jeans and 49ers shirt he was wearing, before she answered her own question by seeing the suit bag he was carrying over his shoulder.

"I just wanted a day where I could drive 50 miles without having to wear a damn suit for once. Besides, you've never really seen me in my civilian clothes. I've always been wearing a suit or a uniform or something."

"Times we hung out together, you were dressed casually," she reminded him.

"Nope, I was wearing a uniform. The uniform of the kind of person I figured you'd be impressed with."

He borrowed their bathroom and changed into his suit, minus the tie, of course. His usual church suit that he hadn't worn in a few months. As Sabrina tied the double Windsor, May walked up to them. "You two make a cute couple."

"We try," was Sabrina's response, after the initial shock.

When she was done she gave Neil the kippah he'd be wearing on his head. He put on but couldn't quite get it positioned on the back of his head properly, so she adjusted it for him. "It's just one of those things people check once to make sure you're wearing it, then they just don't care after that," she reassured him. "I have a couple other things for you." She rushed into the kitchen and returned with the Basque Boulangerie card in one hand and her Egg City Holiday Scrimmage first place trophy in the other.