26. Pizza and Movie

Marina and Soli sat in the elevated train staring out the window at the tops of buildings and the lit arches of the bridges.
“Who would have believed Fara lived in a Pentecostal drug program?” Soli closed her eyes, rubbed them, and began to softly cry. “Don’t mind me. I’ve just got to let myself do this.” Marina inched away. She couldn’t get used to watching Soli cry even though she’d done it dozens of times. Soli could cry, just cry, at meetings, at parties, even on the subway, with people she knew and also with strangers, Marina had asked.
“Wish I could cry like you do.”
Soli laughed. “No, you just get migraines instead.” She opened her eyes and turned toward Marina. “Hey, how about pizza and a movie. My treat.”
After Soli left Reading for All to go run the Literacy Unit of the Central Community Board, she had stopped joining Marina’s Friday night pizza and video with Machi. “Since I’m back in my old house we haven’t been doing that much.” Marina couldn’t resist Soli’s disappointment, maybe anybody’s disappointment. “But, why not. Machi would probably be up for it.”
They got to the house and stood at the downstairs stoop door looking up. They could hear Machi and David’s war cries coming from the jungle gym room on the top floor. “Pizza and movie.” Marina’s call was followed by a boy stampede down the stairs. The boys led the way to the video store. They always chose the movie first so the pizza didn’t get cold.
“What happened to the feud?” Soli had no inhibitions about asking questions that Marina would never dare to ask, and didn’t like to answer. She walked ahead. Soli caught up to her. “So, Machi and David together looks different than it did.”
Marina rolled her eyes. “I don’t like to talk about this stuff. It just feels like it feeds into how people like you think people like us live, poor people stuff.”
Soli laughed. “You should see the feuds in my family. Maybe one day I’ll tell you all about them.”
“David’s father came back from up the river and he laid down the law.”
“Thank God for machismo.”
“What’s strange is that now he’s back in prison. He got himself in a shooting at El Patio.”
“I love El Patio.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t go there. What are the odds?”
“That’s not all. Machi and David were with him. But somehow, Julia didn’t reimpose the embargo.”
“Yet. Well this time you were the aggrieved parent. You missed your chance to impose an embargo of your own.”
Marina squared her shoulders and made fists. “Hey lady, your son’s a bad influence on my son.”
They found the boys already looking in the martial arts film section of the store. Machi saw them and waved a familiar box.
“They can watch that same martial arts movie over and over.” Marina let Soli pay. She’d also grabbed a tearjerker and a comedy.
“Must be letting them figure something out.”
At the pizza place Soli asked the boys to choose what they wanted on their half.
Both boys wanted pepperoni.
She looked at Marina. “Mushrooms, right?”
Machi ran to the hall closet, found the vinyl covered brown picnic blanket and spread it over the Karaya woven rug on the living room floor. David turned on the tv and the video player, slid in the cassette and sat on the floor, waiting with the remote in his hand. The boys settled down on their bellies with the pizza box between them. David hit the button and the opening credits came on.
Marina and Soli each took a slice and sat on the couch.
“So we’ve been laid off, taken to drink, and been recruited into a Pentecostal cult.” Soli took a huge bite of her pizza, pulled the strings of cheese into her mouth. “Times like these I’m sorry I quit drinking.”
Machi turned around. “Shut up back there. They’re breaking into the other temple.”
Marina whispered. “I’d give anything for a good tear jerker with a plot.”
Soli pressed her hand. “We’ll have our turn. We’re the ones that can delay gratification, remember?”
After the movie the boys went back upstairs to the jungle gym playroom.
“Laughter or tears?” Soli waved both movies.
“You choose.”
“I know you’d go for tears but I’m going for laughter. This is the funniest movie I ever saw. Of course I saw it when I was still smoking pot and that might have helped.”
Within minutes the movie had the women laughing and crying at once.
“Two for the price of one.”
By the time they watched both the movies, finished the crusts of the boys’ pizza slices, ate most of Machi’s cookies and icecream snacks, it was too late for Soli to go home. “You can sleep in my room. Since Machi saw that shooting he’s been making me sleep in his bed. Sometimes even David sleeps there with us.”
“Can I come?” Soli was joking but just for a second Marina could tell she meant it. Marina smiled. “I bet in the hunting picking and gathering days we all slept together.” She led Soli to the little bedroom and watched while she undressed and put on one of Marina’s tshirts. Soli crawled into the bed and Marina tucked her in. “I bet those hunters gave each other a lot of comfort in the night.” Marina waved goodbye, blew Soli a kiss and turned out the light by the door. “While the tigers were watching them from the treetops.”
She crawled into bed beside Machi and David and fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.