“It’s not like the sex is any good, or he’s the father of your kids, or anything,” Mal said.

“Malcolm!” Winnie made like she was going to toss her water at him.

“No, Winnie. He’s right.” Angie used her hands on the wooden chair arms to scoot herself back, and she crossed her right leg over her left at the knee. She shook her auburn-dyed curls back and realized that she was the only one of the three who crossed her legs closed and open. Mal had crossed his legs the square way when they met him, but over the years he gave that posture up for the legs-together position. Winnie had gone the other way, from a knee-on-knee woman to Fred, who usually sat legs splayed, but who when she decided to cross always opted to rest her right ankle on her knee and hold it there with her left hand.

“The sex never has been spectacular,” Angie continued, referring to Claude’s unwillingness to experiment. “And you know he got himself sterilized at twenty-three.” Claude’s mother, grandfather, and two of his aunts had been alcoholic suicides. His father’s brother had MS. Claude was convinced his genes were defective, and he took steps to avoid reproduction. Later on, after his commitment to Catholicism, he had the vasectomy reversed, but by then his dad had been through so many recovery programs that Angie didn’t want to take the genetic chance; she used birth control pills till her hysterectomy.

“It’s all so surprising,” Winnie blurted. Mal and Angie turned toward her simultaneously. “Life, I mean,” she added, and blushed. “I know it sounds corny, but I really thought it would be more, more… momentous, I guess. One day follows another, mostly the same, and they add up to years and before you know it decades…”

“Sometimes there’s a spike of surprise, though,” Mal added. “Like when you came out. Or the Jordan River… Remember how amazed we were at its tininess? Fuckin’ culvert…”

“Or how about Mt. Sinai? About as ‘mountainous’ as Tamalpais.” Angie leaned back and grinned. “Funny you should mention it. I’ve been reading the Bible lately and remembering that trip. I’m still in the Old Testament and the book seems small to me. So obviously written by these nomadic types who thought their little plot of grazing land as big as the universe.”

“Why are you reading the Bible?” Mal’s tone was suspicious.

“Oh just because I haven’t. I figured it was time. I mean, it seems to be some source of contention between Claude and me, and I never have read it… Actually, I’m starting to think almost no one has read it all. Especially when I got to 1 Samuel.”

“What’s it about?”

“Nothing less than God smiting the Philistines with hemorrhoids! Tell me that’s not funny!”

“More evidence that Jehovah is homophobic if you ask me.”

“Oh lighten up, Mal. You’re almost as obsessed with anti-religion as Claude is with his church.”

Winnie stopped rocking and held both hands up for attention. Like she was signaling a touchdown. It was a habit she developed in the beginning with her forceful friends; she had to, or she never would have been heard. “Back to surprises: isn’t it weird that none of us had any kids? That surprise kind of crept up on us. Isn’t it surprising that no one managed a decent long-term relationship? Even you,” she added, with a meaningful look at Angie.

“And another crept-up surprise is that you and I didn’t come back to the Bay Area,” said Mal. “But a spike surprise was your success at business.” Winnie had always thought she was going to be a ceramicist. She did throw pots when she was married and continued part-time while working to support Kim, but after Kim left, all the debt propelled her into opening a co-op gallery in Atlanta, which grew to a franchise-type operation nationwide. Winnie was set for life. Mal did okay as a periodontist but he was bored with it. Angie wanted to write but had a career in San Francisco office administration; between that and Claude rarely working, they could never get ahead of the Bay Area cost-of-living.
“The biggest surprise is Claude’s disability,” said Angie. She looked sad, and Winnie rocked forward to pat her knee. “Who’d a thought it?”

“He was always weird.”

“Sure, Mal, but you never warned us how weird.”

“Hey I’ve been as blown away as anyone.”