running naked

"Mom never calls me back," Sako complains. "I call her twice a week and pffft, nothing."

"She calls me."

"Do you call her?"

"Um." I begin thinking of a way to say 'No' without actually saying the word. "Well--"

"Twice a week," she says, saving me the trouble. "I told my friends this and they were, like, what? That's backwards from the way things usually are with mothers."

"Ironic," I say vaguely. I am never quite confident in my use of that word, and yet I like to produce it at random intervals.

"She's getting revenge, is what this is," Sako decides. "This is her way of getting back at me for not calling her while I was in Guatemala. Or Malaysia. Or Europe. Or--"

Sako is back in Yosemite for the rest of the summer, her impending graduation once more relegated to the back of the cupboard, that increasingly dusty stack of 'taxes to be paid' and 'life decisions to be made.' This time she has an actual paying job in Yosemite, one which will provide her with enough money for meals, if not for lodgings. "In my car," she says when asked, in answer to a question to which this should never be the correct answer. "I shower at my friend's place."

Well, thank God for that, anyway. Knowing her, bathing is never a certainty.

"Heard you were coming to San Francisco," I say.

"What? No."

"That's what I heard. Mom said you were coming up."

"When did she--?"

"I guess you told her at some point. She told me to take care of you."

"Heh." Me taking care of Sako is a concept that would boggle any mind but my mother's.

"You're not coming up?"

"Oh. Well, I'll be there, but--"

"You'll be in San Francisco without coming up? Will I see you?"

Encounters with my sister are increasingly rare, treasured things, like glimpses of exotic and endangered wildlife passing unexpectedly through Better Homes and Gardens tours. "And behind the begonias, you can see -- my. Look at that. It's a Monkey-Eating Eagle, one of only three hundred that still exist in the wild."

"I'm going up for Bay-to-Breakers next weekend," Sako explains.

"You're running it this year? Cool."

"Naked," she says, brightly. "A bunch of us. You can run too if you want."

Normally, I'm slow on the uptake. I am having a good day. "Naked?"

"Well, not completely," she temporizes.

"Well, good."

"We'll be wearing shoes."

"Of course."

"And we'll be painted."

There does not seem to be a great deal to say in response to that. "...oh."

"I have to decide what color to be."

"Wait. Why are you painting yourselves?" To me, this seems somehow more bizarre than deciding to run a race through the streets of San Francisco in the nude.

"It traps in body heat," she says. "It's cold in San Francisco."

She has a point. "Try yellow," I suggest.

"Maybe blue." There is a pause on the phone while she gives this serious consideration. "Anyway, I have to make up my mind before this weekend."

"That's nice," I say, lacking inspiration for anything better. Polka dots? Stripes? Plaid? "Can I take pictures?"

"You have to come up and be naked with us," Sako announces.

"...oh." Well, then. Never mind. "Take pictures for me, then."

When I finally hang up the phone, the Guy is seated on the sofa playing a video game. "Sako's going to run the Bay-to-Breakers naked," I announce tragically.

He cocks his head, eyes still fixated on the TV, and after a moment asks with interest, "Is she going to shave first?"