Double Take

by Haley Robertson

Andi Horpert was being paged over the San Francisco airport intercom but she did not hear her name because she was listening to her new ipod Touch and her most listened to song was on, by a band far more upbeat than their name suggested. Andi was a writer, she wrote for a progressive magazine, which focused on sustainable design. She wrote a monthly piece on the very last page each month, and though this may not sound like the most demanding job, Andi had a mild case of an obsessive complex, so everything she wrote for the magazine had to be precisely the most top quality in her own eyes; the greatest work she’d ever composed. This past month, she wrote about bands with holistic ideals, who made eco-conscious choices in their touring and management, and more than this, she interviewed as many members of every selected band as possible, investigating what each considered as feasible for art and culture in the times to come.

This is how she met Cahow, who was named after the once-thought-to-be-extinct national bird of Bermuda by his naturalist father. Andi had chosen to interview bands that were regional to her home location so that she could meet in-person instead of on-line or on the telephone. She wanted to source as much imagery and contour for her next article and so arranged to meet each artist in their favorite area of local wilderness. After going to a waterfall, a cooperative farm, a marshland and the San Francisco city beach, she met her last assignment, Cahow, on a rainy day, in the Regional Park in North Berkeley. After taking a wet and muddy walk through the woods they proceeded to sit at a café and drink Chai, and continued to be paired together in conversation throughout the next four days, one not excusing themselves from the other longer than to use the bathroom. Something distinct and different than Andi had ever fathomed in what people called a “personal relationship” was unfolding rapidly between the two. Neither cared to hesitate or withhold themselves from being purely enthralled by the other, and their conversation spanned from martial arts to Martian theory, from music to Mandarin (which both, by coincidence, fluently spoke). Andi went, by the early evening of their first day’s meeting, to Cahow’s farmhouse, at the edge of town, and stayed up until dawn with Cahow, almost unstitching their life stories, talking the past into the present and laughing heartily often. They together realized at the very same moment that they were instantly falling in love.

Love was something that Andi, being more literarily inclined than corporeally oriented, decided was good for writing poetry about spring and flowers, but something that only made life more complex. In fact, the only time she had braved loving in the past, she had lost her opportunity to finish her doctorate in East Asian Language and Civilization, because she foolishly chose to abandon her scholarship and move to the Arctic with her mate, who, within a year of their frigid move, left her for his Norwegian Research Partner. Once Andi made it to San Francisco, months later, she chose to hide her heart somewhere as far away as the Arctic from herself, and so… though she was driven, passionate and obsessed with her work, she spent her time largely alone. She loved being alone, dining alone, going to movies alone, traveling alone; she was an expert at entertaining herself. Perhaps this solitude is what drove her to meet all the people in her upcoming article in person rather than on the computer. She knew that she was truly an adventure-enthusiast, and maybe her spring was coming, and she was ready to emerge out of the long, isolated winter she’d undergone since the days of the Arctic.

She now sat at the San Francisco Airport. Cahow had dropped her at the front of the American Airline terminal. They made a few circles around the airport loop before she could bear to open the door and leave him. They’d been inseparable for weeks, and Andi had broken all of her rules regarding non-attachment and co-dependency. She was pretty confident that the blood in her veins sang deeply wanting Cahow, she was fixated. Envisioning the next ten days without him was less-than exciting for her.
Going on this trip, for Andi, was a non-negotiable duty. She had a “family meeting”, which was an affair that happened once every two years in Key West, Florida. Her entire mother’s side of the family met to discuss the collection of Endowing Trust Funds that her grandfather had set up. The Woolessky Foundation of Southern New Hampshire was a very well known charitable collective that continued to give to entities such as National Public Radio and Public Television as well as The Foundation for The American Museums Of Art and The Bureau of Art Education. The family meeting that took place every two years was more an opportunity for the members of the Woolessky Family to get together and keep their spirits high, to together be informed about the acts of giving the foundation was set to put into place and the status of the establishments that had already received bcontributions. Traditionally, Andi loved being in Key West with her family, particularly to see her mother and siblings, as well as her grandmother and grandfather, but now, something felt apprehensive in her heart; now that it was distinctly fetched from the far Arctic, and was very vibrant and clearly connected to the glorious man that had just let her, reluctantly, go from his car.
Andi looked at her plane ticket… she had seven minutes until the plane would begin to board. She turned the volume of her earphones down so that she could listen for the boarding announcement. The timing was perfect for her to hear the second alert over the intercom.

“Would the following passenger please come to the front call desk, Andi Horpert, please, Andi Horpert, there is an emergency message for you at the front call desk.”

People never expect to be the person who gets an emergency page at the airport, and when hearing one’s name in that situation, one almost is sure that it was not their name but someone else’s. Andi sat upright and fidgeted a moment in her chair. Then she turned to the man who was eating french-fries and who looked pretty lost-in-space next to her.

“Did they just say ‘Andi Horpert’ come to the place…the call desk?” She asked him.
He only turned to her and picked up a fry out of his paper bag and shrugged.

Suddenly, she was sure that her name was called on the intercom and she picked up her bags. She began to walk toward the center of the terminal and meanwhile asked people to the left and the right of her where the front call desk was. Someone in a NorthWest Airlines shirt pointed ahead and gave her brief directions. The gnawing sense of “something’s not right” was growing larger in her chest, like a bubble in a glass jar, pushing into her lungs and stomach.
Andi was a woman who suffered in the past from anxiety. She was usually sure that something life-altering was taking place. She knew she was mature enough to make it on her own, to travel for a mere ten days from her most beloved, but something inside of her, a shadow that laced the mysterious gaiety of infatuation, brooded. Would she see her beautiful Cahow again? Or would he be like the Bermudian near-extinct bird, sighted here and there, but whose nests were almost impossible to cultivate.

The front call desk was in sight. It was obvious because there were large, red letters that read “Front Call Desk.” She almost slammed her ribcage into the desk, inquiring.

“I’m Andi Horpert, there’s a message for me?”

The woman at the desk did not hesitate. “Yes, you have a call, they’ve been on hold for a long time, here.” She handed Andi a red phone.

“Hello?” Andi chirped, nervously.

“Andi?” It was her mother.
“Andi, I am so glad to reach you! I called your cell phone and it went right to your voice mail, like eight times, and so then I called your home phone and a man named Cahow or Cahone or something answered… then I tried you here… and have been holding forever!”

“What’s going on Mom, I’m sorry--- I didn’t even see you called, I guess my ringer is on vibrate and buried somewhere at the bottom of my bag.”

“It’s Jenna and Louise, they were arrested last night in Key West and we just got the lawyer to talk to the district to find out what the heck is going on!”

Jenna and Louise were Andi’s first cousins, twin girls, five years younger than her, who had practically been raised by her mother, who took on being the girls’ guardian when their own parents were killed in a jungle expedition, working for the Gizenga Government in the Congo. Her aunt and uncle met as Peace Corp workers in the seventies and had the girls, it’s rumored, on the back of a docile mother elephant, which was, according to the twin’s (deceased) mother, the only dry and level spot in their entire camp. The girls were only five, and living in the Congo for the first years of their lives, when their parents were killed accidentally by insurgent hunters. The trauma was one that lived deeply on in the immediate family. The family was so known for their integrity and philanthropy, and the tragedy that had befallen Jenna and Louise’s parents was so devastating and unfortunate that it only brought the reality of international activism closer to the heart of every Woolessky, who felt that by donating their large amount of funds to centers for the arts and education they would help to lessen the amount of casualties in the world who died from ignorant violence.
Jenna and Louise were always in trouble, since their first days of arrival to Key West. Andi was ten when the girls moved in, to the modest beach house, clean and delicately decorated by Andi’s mom. Andi’s mother cut hair and threw pots, and cooked them in Raku kilns outside on the beach. Andi grew up the younger child of two; her brother Sven was just fourteen months older than she and always a thoughtful sibling. Andi’s father was “dumped” by her mom early on, when Sven was four and Andi three. He was relatively present and visited on holidays, but Andi didn’t long for his company. She was well-entertained by her mother alone, who did not bring another man into the house for many years and instead lost herself in the passion of the ocean. When Andi was ten, Jenna and Louise came to stay and became her “adopted siblings”, though they were truly her cousins.

They were identical, and utterly beautiful. Everyone who saw them even once never forgot their faces; they were full of charisma and what Andi’s grandmother called “derring-do”. Andi’s grandmother, Grandma Lillian, said that any soul powerful enough to “come to the earth as two intense balls of fire” (she was referencing Jenna and Louise being twins) born on the back of an Elephant were “sure to cause big trouble or, at best, big change”. It seemed that two little girls raised in the Republic of the Congo and used to playing with Baby Cheetahs and Spotted-Neck Otters were going to need more than an occasional fixed swim with a domesticated Manatee to stay content.

From the first day they arrived until they were out of the house, they were what everyone called “high maintenance.” Andi’s uncle, who was one of the three brothers of the Woolessky family, and the brother of the twin’s deceased father, was a sailor. He assessed immediately, upon meeting the wily twins, that they were, in fact “high maintenance” and that “on the boat, his captain always said that ‘all things of beauty require high maintenance’”. So it was settled, the twins were steeped in their most formative years with the colors and sounds of the intense jungle. They had lost everything familiar and had to adjust to somewhere that felt much more foreign and wild to them than their Congo, they would be excused for all misbehavior, all intensity and rebellion. Thus, they grew up, learning quickly how to be manipulative and cunning, though sweet as sunshine when needed.

Neither twin was to be trusted by Andi, though, admittedly, she loved them both and was in awe of their prowess. She remembered distinctly, however, that at the young age of seventeen, each had crooned for the affection of her former boyfriend, who visited Key West with her before they left for the Arctic. Andi played their coquettishness off as sweet and innocent teenage intrigue but when she walked out onto the beach one early evening and saw Jenna standing naked, fresh from a swim, demonstratively flirting with her boyfriend, she felt infringed upon and uncomfortable.
Beyond the simple tales of jealousy and other trite love stories, Andi often questioned the twins’ judgment. She was sure that they were great women, in essence, but did not understand their modes of operation. Aside from the other, neither had many close friends, and when they did, it seemed that the friendships lasted only briefly. Andi’s mother thought that this was because the twins were so strong-willed and beautiful, and that most could not bare to be secondary to the twins’ light. Fortunately, Jenna and Louise were not competitive with one another, but perhaps mostly because neither seemed to have a clear sense of what conjured their inspiration. For this, Andi never felt competition with either twin, for Andi was sure of her passion. She loved to write, and she loved Asian Languages, and she excelled at everything she set herself to and had many friends for whom she was able to offer support and love. Andi mostly had compassion for the twins, and had an amicable sense of care for their lives, feeling almost as though she should, as well as her mother, take on a partial amount of guardianship for the care of these two young women, who were now in their middle-twenties, finished with their college degrees and living together in a Miami beach apartment, modeling for work. Whatever amount of money they made from modeling, neither had to concern about, for no one in the entire Woolessky family had much financial concern, for the first charitable trust that was set up funded the generations upon generations of Woolessky’s to come, and so all Woolessky’s were able to focus their energy on matters other than anxieties over income. For Andi, this meant contributing the most informative and interest-generating writing possible while she lived to create. For the twins, this was, seemingly, fumbling around Miami Beach still attempting to appease their most childish wild, causing various forms of trouble.

When Andi got the airport call from her mother, she was relieved to hear that, though the matters might be steep in their own right, the issue-at-hand involved her rowdy two cousins, and the call was not an emergency regarding her dear Cahow, the man who stood apart from everyone else in her life at current, whose warmth called to her now from the sterile airport carpet and family conflicts destined to ensue.

“What is the problem with the girls?” Andi asked.

“There’s a bit of a mystery at play.” Her mother sounded more concerned than usual.

“It seems like Jenna and Louise took a job with a modeling agency and didn’t tell the agency that they were twins and so were splitting a four week-long assignment back and forth between the two of themselves when they were spotted together by the company’s head.”
“That sounds conniving… and like Jenna and Louise,” Andi surmised.

“Yeah.” Her mom agreed. “So, when the president found out, he was so infuriated that he became violent… and he personally followed the two girls one night from a restaurant near their house and verbally attacked them and attempted to push them against a wall as though he was going to physically hit them when someone from the restaurant came out and called the police.”
“Okay… Mom… I’m going to miss the plane in like one minute, do you want to get to the bottom of this now or when I get to you in a handful of hours?” Andi checked her watch. Five minutes until the flight was to leave.

“What happened is that the head of the company was found murdered the next day and your cousins were both arrested as suspects!”

“Okay, Mom… hold tight, I’ll be with you in a handful of hours, have Uncle Derek pick me up or I’ll take a cab. My flight gets in around 9 p.m. your time. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

Andi practically threw the red phone onto its cradle and turned around to get on her plane just as they were closing the doors. Her next five hours were spent going back and forth from wondering what was going on with her cousines to trying to watch “Memoirs Of A Geisha” which was the movie she downloaded onto her ipod Touch before she left Cahow that morning.

Uncle Derek picked her up in the world’s smallest truck. He lived in St. Augustine but drove down to Key West at least six times a year to spend time with Andi’s mom. He was her favorite uncle and always found a way to make her laugh.

“How did this Woolessky family end up in Key West and Miami anyhow?” He asked.
“Weren’t we north east New Hampshire snobs the last time I checked the books?”
The Woolessky’s did migrate to New Hampshire, through Nova Scotia, from Austria, around two-hundred years ago, but after her grandmother had her children, she moved her entire family down to the Keys because she said the color of the ocean in Southern Florida was a color she needed to see every day for the rest of her life.

Andi reminded Derek of her grandmother’s poetic reasoning and each briefed the other on their life. Uncle Derek confided to Andi that he never missed reading her monthly article; he subscribed to her “bourgeois little eco-mag” so that with each issue he could become literarily informed. Andi wanted to fill Uncle Derek in more about her life but she was vying to know what was happening with the twins.
“Well, it’s pretty insane. We were able to talk to each of them early this morning… then they were bailed out of jail by the family… so they are home, at your Mom’s. Basically, the family lawyer is settling this out of court as soon as possible. It’s obvious that neither twin is responsible for the death of this dude they were working with, it’s all just strange timing.”

Andi was glad that she didn’t write for the newspaper or for mainstream media. All the storylines around murder and corrupt banks and government barely made it to her brain. They all practically went in-one-ear-and-out-the-other. Just thinking of the twins being in jail, being in the modeling industry and dealing with the fast-paced lifestyle of Miami was too much for her bay-area brain, which thrived on daily walks through the forest and smiling at people’s dogs.

Uncle Derek and Andi pulled up to the sprawling, comfortable beach house where her mom and her mother’s boyfriend of a few years came out to greet her. It was so welcoming to see her mother that she almost forgot the “expanding air-bubble” feeling in her heart that had been pushing tighter and tighter inside her chest since she’d left Cahow.

After being welcomed, she went into the house. Sitting around the table were the twins, one rolling a cigarette and one on a cell-phone. Despite all differences and judgment, everyone was excited to suddenly be together. This is the way it often is with family, everyone spends their time apart wondering how it is possible that they could be related and then when they come together it is immediately like they have always been. For a moment, the comfortableness in those familiar roles, before becoming strangling, is almost relieving.
Louise hung up her cell phone and Jenna stopped rolling her cigarette. The three hugged at once, a genuine and long embrace. Andi looked at each girl and thought that she could see the wear that the past evening had on each. They looked older than they had during Andi’s last visit, and Andi could not help but to feel a surfacing concern rise up in her when she laid eyes on her cousins, her sisters.
“What the heck?” Andi asked.

“I don’t know how this happened.” Started Jenna. “It was a bad idea. We shouldn’t be modeling, anyway. I don’t care about modeling. It’s just easy money… and sometimes it’s just nice to make some money and not have to deal with the handlers. (She was referring to the accountants who divvied up the finances to the family each month.) I didn’t really want the job and then Louise insisted that she’d help me, so we took it together. I didn’t think it was a big deal to share it, but we lied on a contract and it was sort of a big job. The guy… who died… was contracted through Versace… so we were modeling for quite a hefty company. Lying to Versace, I guess, was not that cool, according to this guy.”

“So are you guys going to be okay?” Asked Andi.

“Well, we have to go and talk to someone tomorrow in Miami, which sucks because we all meet for the first time tomorrow night, and Grandma does not know about this and we just really want to be back in time so that it’s all kept quiet.” Jenna continued.
Louise hadn’t really said anything. She was squeezing her cell phone and wiggling her jaw back and forth, she looked disturbed.

Andi wondered if Louise knew something more than she’d confessed. How involved in a murder could her cousin be? Was she capable of assisting in something so inane and devious?
“What can I do to help?” Andi asked, half hoping that there was nothing she could do to help, because even though she cared, she was exhausted from her day, and hadn’t really slept the night before, lost in a long night of deep appreciation for her beautiful beloved while packing and brainstorming for her next month’s article, and glowing over the finished perfection of the last, which highlighted The Vampire Year, Cahow’s band, as well as other local-ish west coast bands.

“You can drive us to Miami tomorrow to meet with the Lawyer,” Jenna suggested. Uncle Derek is busy getting all the details of the family meeting settled and mom is not the best candidate, Sven doesn’t get in until late noon…. how do you feel about taking us?”

Andi was so tired but knew that sleeping with her windows open, next to her rolling colorful beach and a great morning breakfast would rekindle all of her strength and more. She’d commit to helping the twins, what else was family for?

“I’m in. What time do we leave?”
“Nine a.m., our appointment is at noon.” Said Jenna.

The next morning Andi did awake feeling rested and loved by the ocean air that had slipped sweetly through her window all night. She checked her phone messages and Cahow (who was staying part-time at her house while she was gone and taking care of the garden they both had just started and bringing in her mail and anything else) called to just say Hello and hope that everything was okay. She texted him briefly to say that she’d call later and Thanks and that, yes, basically everything was, so far, Okay.

The twins had to be in Miami at Noon to meet with Don Pietre, the family “emergency” lawyer (there was the family “funds” lawyer, the family “divorce” lawyer, the family “adoption” lawyer, the family “trustfund issue” lawyer, and then Don Pietre, who everyone hoped to not need… he was the “get the family out of legal problems” lawyer.)

In the case of the Woolessky family, issues of the legal system were not as severely put into place as they were for other, more pedestrian, citizens. The Woolessky’s had done so much for so many that when they got involved with small, petty misdemeanors, they were often able to be overlooked for these mishaps and not suffer the penalties.

The three-hour ride went by quickly enough. Both Louise and Jenna were mildly talkative, and Andi felt better about Louise’s disposition. She’d been oddly quiet the night before, but in morning (perhaps aided by coffee) seemed more chipper.

The ride was not so terrible for Andi because she hooked her ipod Touch up to her mom’s stereo and cranked The Vampire Year, listening especially to the bass, which was what Cahow played. Jenna and Louise already knew about The Vampire Year, and actually had a couple of the bands songs from their past album in their music collection. They were really excited to hear that Andi had “fallen in love” with Cahow, and that she would be surrounded by great music as a benefit in the relationship. The three talked quite maturely about love and relationships and Andi was impressed to hear Jenna, particularly, share that she felt that she was ready to take on the responsibility of being a real good friend to someone, and that she thought being a great friend was actually an inherent part of being a great girlfriend or lover. Andi wondered if the girls were growing into the better part of their ethics, and finding a way to let their wildfire impassion their lives without burning all their bridges.

They grabbed some fresh fruit from a stand near the beach and then Andi prepared to drop Jenna and Louise off at their lawyer’s office. She planned to take her novel to the beach, but the girls objected.

“We want you to come with us! Please! We thought you’d come!” Louise demanded more loudly than Jenna, and so Andi agreed.
She pushed her thoughts of Clarissa–the novel–to a later date on the sand and entered the cold office of Don Pietre, which smelled like air-conditioning and closed cans of Coca-Cola, which really is no smell at all.

The three waited for no longer than five minutes when Don Pietre came out from behind his closed office door. He shook hands with a young and golden-blond man who looked like the sort of man that cares regularly to be cleanly shaven, but who is going through a hard time at the office and so who is unshaven, and wearing the same tie from the night before. Don Pietre looked at the twins and Andi and warmly smiled, he enjoyed the Woolessky family, not only for the amount of money he’d made from them in the last twenty-five years, but because he really believed they were genuinely interesting people, and more than benevolence, he regarded eclecticism as a trait that kept him interested in humanity, and loving his work.
“Hey Hey!” He announced to the three. The ladies rose and he offered a handshake-pat-on-the-back-hug to all three.
“Can I get you a Coke or something before we chew on the stick?” He asked.

No one said yes to his offer, they all though Coke was only good for rotting one’s teeth.

The next two-and-one-half hours were saturated in so many cross-firing questions that Andi practically fell asleep. She was so awestruck that she had no capacity to follow meticulous details regarding stories of suspense and crime when she was, herself, a professional (and successful) writer. She stayed awake to gather most of the details, and saw that her sisters were clear of being affiliated with the murder of their past employer, and stood only the possibility of having to deal with the legalities of their signed modeling contract, because both Louise and Jenna were working for the agency but only Jenna’s name was on the contract. This, however, was entirely a separate situation and Don Pietre promised that he would take care of it.

Some large amount of money was negotiated and before long, Jenna, Louise and Andi were back in the car, grabbing first a few gourmet sandwiches for the road, heading to the family meeting in Key West. It felt as though the large, expanding pressure in Andi’s heart had lifted. She rolled all the windows down and let the ocean air move into their vehicle. She really wanted to stop using cars altogether, she was ready to just be on a bicycle, to walk everywhere, to have a simpler life--- with Cahow, with art, with their shared passions. She felt so excited, suddenly, as though all the domestic inclinations her many friends had seemed to have had struck her, as well. Rather, though, than having a child and a house she wanted an efficient bio-fueled scooter and a bunch of Aloe Vera in her backyard. She wanted long dinners with her lover and sunsets. She didn’t want any children; they all came with their distinct colors and intensities–- look at Jenna and Louise, she thought. She’d mothered enough just knowing these two.

The windows came back up halfway and the three shared some silence. The Ipod Touch had been put to sleep. There was nothing but the comfortable rolling sound of the road and the relaxed sense of returning home to the place they all together new as a nest.

“That was intense.” Jenna shared.

“I’m glad for you that it’s over.” Andi said.

She thought of saying more. Saying maybe, “You guys need to be careful about who you choose as your company. It’s easy- especially in Miami- to get involved with the wrong crowd.” But she thought… these girls have been through enough. And really, why rail them for anything more?

Another moment of silence passed and then Louise spoke.

“Andi… Will you promise, as our sister, to not say anything?”

Andi did not like making promises before getting the whole story, but she agreed.

“Well, I know the guy who did it; the murderer. He told me he was going to do it, because he didn’t like him already. Then he heard that he tried to hurt us.”
“What exactly do you mean, Louise?” Andi felt the return of the brick bubble that was pushing out her heart, suddenly more furiously and with great velocity.

“Do you mean that he told you before he killed the guy?” Andi pushed the words out of her mouth; she was scared for the answer.

“Well, yeah. I mean he told ME, not Jenna. He told me before, but I thought he was not serious. I mean, I don’t really know him that well… but he’d been hanging around our loft the last while and he was the one who told us about the job because he works in the industry, too… or he did… before he got messed up.” Louise paused.

“Ohhh Geeez.” Andi sighed heavily. Her hands clenched the steering wheel, but her palms felt slippery, her car swerved because her sweaty palms suddenly lost grip and struggled to steer. The day had, in the last fifteen minutes, turned dark and the beginning of rain hit the windshield. Andi could not separate the twins’ dilemma from her own; their struggles were hers. She realized suddenly, without thinking, that she’d always had a very easy, charmed life but that the twins massive dramas always had felt like hers, she grieved for them where they could not. They were like battery-operated toys while she had these massive, organic emotions, second-handedly. She thought this, but then she immediately moved on… she attempted to sort out what, precisely, Louise was saying.

Jenna interrupted.

“So, Louise heard this guy say that he was going to ‘frickin murder’ the other guy and she said something like ‘go for it’.”

“Go for it?” Andi was bewildered. “What kind of idiots are you hanging out with? And you casually say ‘go for it’?”

“Look,” said Louise. “It wasn’t like that. This guy is not all that bad. He’s probably just a little messed up, and I had no clue that he was serious in the least bit—and I’d just been harassed and was feeling a bit angry, myself. So when he said he was going to ‘take care of” the guy, I was all there with him, I was ready, emotionally, to kick the guy in the shins myself.”

They kept hashing out the story. Andi kept infusing her sense of ethics into Louise’s version until it didn’t seem criminal, until Louise could not possibly appear a conspirator. And Louise and Jenna talked it out until they turned the circumstance into a “how can we grow from this” life lesson. The ball in Andi’s chest was turning from a rocket into limestone, heavy but past active, no longer volcanic. The girls would, in no way, be indicted for the crime, neither would be convicted as accomplices, for truly—neither was.

The best Andi could hope for Louise and Jenna was that both would make better choices for themselves; maybe they should move to San Francisco, near to her? Andi’s attention turned to how to make her life more altruistic, less stained with wrongdoing, the ramifications of living in such fast-times. They returned back to their mother’s, unresolved and perplexed.