By Laurie Kana Olson

Naomi Kojima sat on the toilet and looked up at a flier on the back of the stall door, taking in the photos that were scattered across the scotch-taped page. Four panels each held a photo of a beautiful Asian woman, smiling with perfect teeth as her hair blew in the wind behind her. BECOME AN EGG DONOR, it said.

She went down each item on the bullet-point list of qualifications. 1) 20-29 years old, check, smack in the middle. 2) College educated, check, if an Associate in Philosophy counted. 3) Height/Weight proportionate and physically healthy, check. 4) No drug or alcohol abuse and no smoking, mostly check. 5) No antidepressant use or history of mental illness. Well, we can’t all be perfect.

Naomi’s eyes trailed down the poster and stayed fixed upon the bold tagline at the bottom. COMPENSATION FROM 7-25K! EARN UP TO $110,000 WITH SUCCESSFUL REPEAT DONATIONS! She read those words again and again, sitting so long that her thighs grew clammy and began to stick to the seat. What the clinic didn’t know couldn’t be used against her, right? As other women entered the public bathroom, their happy chatting reverberated off of the tiled walls and made the room feel cavernous. But Naomi sat silently, feeling for the first time powerful—as if, for once in her life, she held within her the power to alter her future

•

Later that day, during her closing shift at Yogurtville, Naomi’s thoughts spun. How does a girl get 25k instead of 7k? Who decides? While customers came in and filled their paper cups with frozen yogurt, Naomi stared off from behind the register with her hair tied up in a messy bun, its dark ends poking up from behind her embroidered Yogurtville visor. She’d recently been promoted to a “shift supervisor,” which had been exciting until she realized it was likely awarded to her because she was 25 while all of her coworkers were in the ballpark of 16, and they needed someone to be “supervising” the premises during all operating hours. Jackie, her boss, had climbed up on a stepladder to reach for a clear plastic bin, half-shouting “What’s your size?” at Naomi before squinting at a tag and saying, “We only have XL.” So, Naomi had traded her quirky t-shirt for the corporately bestowed honor of an extra-large, pale blue polo, and now she spent every shift feeling like an idiot, sure, but an idiot who made an extra dollar twenty-five per hour.

For all of the times she’d fantasized about what she’d do if she won the lottery, she was at a loss when it came to deciding what to do with the actual promise of money looming in her near future. It would be dumb to buy something overly expensive and flashy like a car, even though hers was getting old and had a constellation of mysterious brown spots dotting the upholstery of the interior. But one hundred and ten thousand dollars? She walked over to the chopped fruit in the refrigerated toppings bay and stirred some cubed strawberries around, just to look occupied. That kind of money would be enough to quit this job for a while and never have to dip her hands in the lukewarm-bleach-water-sanitizing bucket again. It would be enough for her to rent her own place for a while, maybe even save up for a rainy day.

“Mind if I grab some?” A customer stood on the other side of the toppings, pointing at the strawberry spoon she still held. She let go immediately, gesturing to it as if to say after you, but the absent smile she’d been wearing all day melted away once she got a good look at his face.

“Alec?” They’d known each other since elementary school—they were part of the “gifted and talented” group that was always herded around to the same summer camps together. He used to be a pen chewer, dorky and short, with an embarrassing high-pitched laugh. He was still short, but now he wore a white button-up and slacks that looked crisp, and he smiled as he looked at her with his inner brows raised in surprise or, she suspected, pity.

“I thought that was you. I didn’t know you were still in the area—almost everyone’s moved away now.” He scooped a ton of berries into his cup and added a squirt of hot fudge from a pump for good measure.

“Well, yeah. Still here. Working on school. You know. But what about you? What do you do now?”

“I’m over at Adobe. I’m leading a team that’s designing a new drawing app.” He walked over to the register and placed his cup on the stainless-steel scale. Naomi dutifully followed, ringing him up and noting his unnecessarily heavy credit card. “Have you heard from Isabelle? She’s still nearby too, at Genentech.”

“Oh, really? That’s awesome,” said Naomi, smiling back. “Well, it was good to see you.”

“Yeah, you too.” He chose a neon green spoon and stuck it in his yogurt, and after he placed a spoonful in his mouth, he looked at her thoughtfully. “You know, I always thought you were going places.”

She gave a little laugh, but as she watched him walk away to his car, her expression fell. She picked up a tiny brush and dustpan to sweep up all of the Oreo crumbs and mini chocolate chips he’d left behind, flung on the counter.

When Naomi stormed into the back room, her coworker asked, “What’s wrong?” with her knife still poised halfway through a ripe mango. Naomi said nothing in return, simply bursting into the dark sanctuary of the blast cooler where the heavy door clicked shut behind her, and she screamed.

•

A few days later, after another closing shift that ended at 11:30, Naomi drove towards the bay, past the last BART station south and over an overpass that hopped some CalTrain tracks. Naomi’s town was one for the temporary, a smudge of suburbia between San Francisco and Silicon Valley that was fueled almost entirely by the hotels that lined its main streets. The nicest ones were right on the water, and sometimes, Naomi would walk the trail along its edge and see all of the tourists and businessmen staring at where the airport’s runways jutted out across the bay like long, outstretched fingers. When the sun was setting just right, she would walk past the park’n’fly lots and behind the fancy bay-view restaurants to see the sunlight hit the silhouette of San Francisco in the distance, tiny, and laugh inwardly at the way the sun’s angle illuminated the reflective shaft of the Salesforce building, making it look like it was streaked with fire. When the sun was gone and the night began to set in, people in suits lounged by their hotel’s outdoor fire-pits, and sometimes, Naomi would sit there too, even when it was low tide and all of the tires and pipes revealed themselves, even when all of the air was stinking of rancid mud.

But not tonight. Tonight, Naomi pulled into the 7-Eleven on Bayshore, which was a different kind of glowing beacon. She drove into the lot with a box of cold cheese pizza in her passenger seat, parked, and looked into the store only to see her friend Ray place a pale hot dog onto the roller grill with his bare hand.

She huffed a laugh and stepped out of her car with the box in hand. When she pushed open the door, before the two bright entry tones even had a chance to finish sounding, she looked Ray in the eye and said, “I need your help.”

“Hello to you too,” he said, flashing a smile that made the beauty mark below his left eye rise. He’d clearly just gotten a fresh cut, though he never went long without a perfect taper, and his tan skin glowed even in the harsh light. He was scanning a miniature tube of toothpaste for a blonde woman in a SAN FRANCISCO sweater, likely a purchase made after getting too chilled while sightseeing.

“Your teeth are so white! What do you use?” she asked him.

“Oh, I don’t brush my teeth,” he said. Her smile faltered involuntarily for a moment as he handed over her receipt. “My teeth clean the brush.” Naomi, who had heard the line a hundred times too many, nearly rolled her eyes and ducked back out to wait out front.

After the woman left, Ray stepped outside where Naomi was already sitting on the curb.

“I brought Round Table,” she said, peeking into the box.

“Nice. What’s the occasion?”

“There’s this pizza delivery boy who has a crush on my coworker. He brought her a whole pizza before we closed, probably a fluke, but she didn’t want it.” Naomi picked up a slice and took a bite, which sent a sprinkling of cornmeal crumbs onto her black pants.

“Just our luck, then,” said Ray, stepping beside her with what looked to be brand new high-top Nikes, blue and black. The night was cool, and after he sat next to her on the pavement of the curb, the sensation of cold seeped up through her jeans. “So, what do you need?” He reached into the box on her lap and grabbed a slice, the cheese pale and stiff but still greasy enough to leave a film on his fingers.

“I need some pictures taken. You’re still doing the whole photography thing, right?”

Ray put a hand to his chest and pretended to look taken aback, but took a bite. “Am I still—? Please.” The clouds in the distance in front of them glowed from the airport’s light. “I did an engagement shoot last week.”

Naomi asked, “The Palace of Fine Arts?”

“Always.” He dug through his pocket to pull out his phone and show off. “ I don’t know why no one ever wants to get more creative with it, but whatever, it pays.” He showed her the small screen and swiped through some photos. Domes, columns, swans. Happy, beautiful people. “So what kind of shoot do you need?”

“I need some pictures of me at Stanford, but I need them to look good. Professional.”

“Stanford?” He’d done plenty of graduation photoshoots, and even acceptance photoshoots. “But Naomi, at Stanford?”

“I saw this flyer for egg donation. Ah—” she said, cutting him off with a raised finger before he had the chance to butt in. “And then I went to this info session for it, because they were giving out a hundred bucks to anyone who was willing to stay for the hour long presentation.”

With a slightly scrunched nose, he waved his half-eaten pizza slice as punctuation. “Jesus, Naomi. You’d better watch yourself. No one gives out anything for free.”

“They’re not trying to sell anything; they’re trying to buy something from me.” Naomi smiled, brushing the crumbs from her lap with her free hand. “It’s egg donation, not a cult. They try to convince you to ‘donate’ and then pay you for your time since it’s technically not legal to sell parts of your body. What do you think they’d do,” she said, “reach over the table and cut me open?”

Ray shook his head but laughed. “Why you gotta be so dark?” He wiped the grease from his mouth with a napkin and then left it balled in his fist. “So what, you’re scamming them then?”

“I just need my application to look good. All of the donors have to make a profile on their website and apply, and if they accept it, then you wait for a family to choose you.” She ran her hand through her dark, wavy hair, her scalp aching from having it up all day. “But the thing is, they pay the most for your eggs if you’re…” she raised that same hand, putting down one finger at a time. “Beautiful, intelligent, educated, talented, and compassionate.” She shot him a look. “If you’re Asian or Jewish, Ivy League, pretty, an artist, and have good genes, you’re basically a walking gold mine.”

“Well,” said Ray, making a show of crossing his arms in thought. “You’re Asian.” She laughed and moved to jab her elbow into his side, but he was too quick. “You think you’re going to fool them with a picture? Stanford’s not even Ivy League, you know.”

“I know, but it’s just down 101. It’s probably the best I’m going to get.”

“You don’t feel weird about this? Like, at all?” By the light of the streetlamps, Ray’s diamond earrings faintly shined. Behind them, moths fluttered and plunked against the glass store window. “Lying to people about yourself? And maybe having your own kid out there, someday?”

“Nah. It’s a good thing, it helps people who can’t have their own kids. And I wouldn’t legally be the mother, anyway. The surrogate would be. I won’t even have to meet the kid if I don’t want to. Besides,” she said, and a smile crept back onto her lips. “I’m a free-range girl. Who’s to say my eggs couldn’t hatch a genius?” She set the pizza box beside her on the pavement and shook out her billowing polo while she laughed. “Wouldn’t you do it for 25 thousand dollars?”

Ray’d been laughing along, but at the mention of the money, he stopped flat. “What?”

“Exactly. And I can do it more than once if it all works out. I can’t pay you for the photoshoot upfront, but once it all goes through, I’ll give you a cut. Deal?” she said, extending a slim hand. She knew that if there was anything that Ray absolutely could not resist, it was the promise of profit, the never-ending revolving door of side hustles. He was always organizing photoshoots, waiting in lines to buy and then resell limited-run sneakers, and he even did ride-sharing for a while before he got upset about passengers spilling their In-N-Out in his car.

“Deal. Today’s your Friday, right? You’re off tomorrow?” A car pulled in to the parking lot in front of them, its headlights shining over their faces before Naomi stood. An elderly man parked, slammed his door shut, and ambled toward the storefront. “I’ll pick you up.”

“Sounds good,” said Naomi, pulling her keys out of her pocket. “Hold on—I never got to ask what was up with that hot dog. Aren’t you supposed to at least use gloves?”

“Oh, that’s not for purchase. It’s an experiment.” Ray went to the door and held it open for the man, sending those two automated notes calling out into the night. “A customer said that he likes hot dogs ‘with some miles on them.’ So I looked it up, and on Reddit, it says that the hot dogs roll about 2 miles a day. I want to see how far that one can go before somebody tosses it.”

“Ten years could go by and that thing wouldn’t move a mile. It’d still be in the same place, just burnt to a crisp.”

Ray just laughed like she wouldn’t understand and slipped back inside.

•

Naomi entered her apartment, kicked off her non-slip Payless shoes, and pulled a shower curtain barrier around her corner of the living room. Even though it was 1:30 a.m., she could hear that one of her roommates was using the shower—maybe Jason, whose EMT shifts were always changing, or possibly Serina, who often stayed up to give online tarot card readings and hold virtual full moon vigils. It was a two bedroom, but each bedroom had a couple in it, which left Naomi with an IKEA pull-out bed in the living room and a couple of plastic bins alongside it, as well as many nights hearing arguments among other noises through the walls. It wasn’t the most glamorous setup, and she always felt at risk of getting kicked out, but she’d moved so many times in the past five years since her family left for Oregon that she was just glad to have a place to stay. She’d discovered an important truth quickly through her trials—that you could only assume someone was your genuine friend until you asked them for a place to stay for the night. Something about that question made people clam up faster than anything, and they’d always say something along the lines of I really wish I could help, but…

Behind the curtain, she changed into more comfortable clothes and lay down, her face illuminated by the glow of her phone screen as she texted Ray what time to head out.

In between Google searches like Does it hurt? and Will it leave a scar?, Naomi’s thoughts scattered like pins on a corkboard until she settled into the sonic space between sleep and wakefulness, imagining how much things could maybe, one day, change. Imagine—she could be the kind of person who had their own espresso machine, the kind of person who didn’t step in their roommate’s cat’s vomit every other day on their way to get a glass of water. She could have her own apartment with doors that locked and maybe one of those tiny balconies where she could set up two chairs and a plant and a set of string lights. She could invite friends over for dinner, and they could fling hot spaghetti noodles at the wall, watching them stick, stay stuck, and then fall as they laughed like there was nothing in this shitty little world to be worried about.

•

For some reason, she’d expected dirty looks from everyone on campus, as if the people of Stanford were an advanced breed that could sniff her out as a fraud. But, as usual, no one cared. Ray’s sneakers of the day were black high-top Nike’s with purple and yellow swooshes, and his Canon hung around his neck by a Louis Vuitton strap. He waited for Naomi outside the campus store until she came out holding a white v-neck with a pine tree and red text in bold letters that asserted: STANFORD.

“I thought you were going to buy a sweater,” said Ray as they walked through the echoing, pillared hallways that surrounded the courtyard.

“I thought so too.” In truth, the number in her checking account was just shy of a sweater’s worth. She pulled off her cardigan as they walked and handed it to Ray, who held it without complaint as she pulled her new shirt on. “How’s it look?” She took a few quick steps to stand in front of him and strike a pose with one hand poised beneath her chin and her other up in the air. According to her current look, these were the secrets to appearing more rich: Sleek, ironed hair. Convincing gold jewelry. Confidence, earned or not. Sometimes sunglasses.

“Good enough,” he said, and as his eyes scanned her, it occurred to Naomi that he only ever really saw her late at night after her yogurt shifts, looking spent. She hoped that all of the time she’d spent cleaning up had made her look like someone new— she’d styled her hair and made the part perfect, combed through her lashes until they were long and painted, made her lips shine and practiced a pursed, closed-mouth smile. The shirt she’d put on was actually her size, and her nails were even painted red (which was normally a forbidden luxury, per Yogurtville’s food-handler policies, of course).

“Let’s get to the tower, I want it in the background.”

She sat on the lawn and smiled, holding her arms up in the air. She stood in an archway and lounged on the lawn by the tower. Emboldened, she even sat on a concrete divider that read, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, her legs dangling by the G and her sleek black hair brushed behind one ear, revealing a small gold earring.

After Ray had snapped nearly two hundred photos, she finally said, “That’s probably enough. How’d they look?” she asked, peering towards the screen of his
camera.

“I still have to edit them,” he said. “But they’re nice. Convincing.” As he clicked from one photo to the next, she stared intently.

“It’s okay, I think these are good as is. You don’t have to make edits.”

“But the lighting in some of them is off. Especially in the dark hallways, you—”

“I only need a couple, and I want to post them ASAP.” With nothing left to do, she returned the shirt to the campus store, and they went on their way to go back where they belonged. It wasn’t until they got to the car that he said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” She clicked her seatbelt in, and he started the engine. Ray met her eyes carefully and then turned away as they backed out.

“Don’t you think they’re just going to do a background check? What if they find out?”

“The worst they would do is reject my application. Some agencies might, but I’ve been looking into it and some seem more legit than others. I can say that I just got accepted if they ask. Anyone can fill out an application online, and not everything can be verified, so it’s worth a try.” She shrugged.

Ray nodded. “What else are you lying about?”

She glanced at him, her brows slightly raised. “On the application?” She wore a little frown and shook her head to one side, then the other. “Besides education, some family history. Smoking every now and then. Didn’t mention the antidepressants ‘cause they disqualify you. I told them I’m outgoing and that I play the piano.” That part wasn’t technically a lie, if early childhood lessons counted, and though she’d smiled when she said it, she turned to Ray and noticed that his silence endured. “I don’t know… I guess it sounds fucked up, but they ask fucked up questions. They want to know everything. They ask your religion and who you’re dating and how many times you’ve been divorced. They want to know what kind of food you eat and what kind of exercise you do, and whether or not it’s ‘intense’ enough. They even ask what your family does for a living and what their talents are. They want to know the eye and complexion colors of all of your grandparents. They want to know your SAT scores and whether or not you were able to ‘overcome’ any learning disabilities. And then,” she said, taking a breath and looking out the window as they pulled onto the freeway ramp. “Then, after non-stop advertising about how you can ‘pay off student loans’ or ‘put a down payment on a house,’ they make you take a psychological test to make sure you’re doing it ‘for the right reasons’ and not just for the cash.” She once again made a stupid voice as she air quoted, but was clearly feeling a bit embarrassed.

“Yeah,” said Ray, still processing. “That’s kind of fucked. But I don’t know.” He glanced at her and saw her leaning against the door, her arms loosely crossed. “You’re not just ‘sticking it to the man,’ here. It’s life we’re talking about. Actual lives.”

“Ray,” she said, her voice betraying part passion, part annoyance. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel like this is the start to the rest of my life. If I can just get this bit of money, do this one dumb thing, everything will change. Maybe I’ll finally sell my soul and go to a coding bootcamp so someone will actually hire me; I don’t know.” Naomi stared out the window for a few minutes, but simmered in the silence. “Nobody really has a say in how their kid will turn out anyway, right? That’s some dystopian sci-fi shit. Maybe I won’t even have to do it more than once.” Still, Ray said nothing, keeping his eyes on the road with a slight frown. “And I might have a few problems, but that doesn’t mean I never deserved to live. What kind of policy is that anyway? Doesn’t every fucking person have depression and anxiety? Don’t we all go through a rough patch or two?”

“I hear you,” he said at last, to quiet her growing passion. “Whatever you say.”

•

While uploading the photos, Naomi read the suggestions and laughed. You have a much better chance of being chosen if a family can see you at your best! Show us your natural hair texture and avoid excessive makeup. It was only a matter of days before Naomi received an email response. Congratulations! Your application has been approved. Please contact us to schedule your appointment to complete your physical exams. Through the website and a simple phone call, she was able to get the soonest appointment, just two days out… though she’d have to figure out a way to get out of work.

Naomi was in the shower when she heard a knock on the door and shouted, “I’ll just be a minute!” hurriedly rinsing the soap out of her hair before she heard a knock again and a muffled voice. Finally, she turned the water off, dripping behind the curtain, and said, “What is it?”

Serina’s husky voice came muffled through the door. “I’ve been meaning to catch you. I ran into Frank in the lot this morning, and he started asking questions about whether or not we had another person staying in the apartment. I don’t know if someone ratted us out, but you might want to hide your stuff for a while—he might be watching. He could drop in any day now to ‘change the batteries in the smoke detectors.’”

Normally, this would have made Naomi’s stomach drop. She’d have to hide everything in her car and put the fold-out bed away, sleep on the couch and put the blankets away every morning. Every time she entered and exited, she would feel imaginary eyes fixed on her, taking notes on the time. But she figured she had at least a week to figure out a new living situation and bigger things to worry about for the next couple of days. While this put a little more pressure on her for time, she said, “Okay, thanks for letting me know. I might be out of here soon, anyway, I have some extra money coming my way.”

“Oh,” said Serina, genuinely surprised. “Did you get a new job? Good for you, dude. See? I told you that you just had to be open to abundance.”

Naomi turned the water back on.

•

“What do you need the day off for?” Jackie didn’t look up as she spoke. Naomi could hear her moving the drawer out of the register and counting change, each coin clattering back into the till until she stopped and scribbled down a number. Naomi had never met a person who could count and speak at the same time, but somehow, Jackie always managed it, squinting down over her sun-freckled nose.

“Just need to sort out some stuff at the apartment,” Naomi said, which was partially true. “The landlord’s coming through, and I have to pack up so everything looks good. There are only really supposed to be four people living there. And I’m getting a doctor’s appointment in too. Haven’t had a physical in years.”

Jackie was silent for a moment as coins continued clattering. “Are you still looking for work?” she asked, and Naomi wrung out the mop and let it hit the floor unceremoniously with a wet slap.

“Yeah. You know how it is. Turns out the Associate’s didn’t really make a difference.” It had taken her five years of working and taking a couple of online classes at a time to get that degree, and on the day she finally graduated from community college, for the first time in her life she’d felt truly proud of herself for not giving up. When you came from shame, pride was like gold, like something precious and hidden, found among muddy rocks at the bottom of a silty stream and worth coveting. Happiness would come and go, but as long as you were a person who could wake up every day feeling proud of yourself, you could make it; you could carve your own way. Naomi had assumed she could at least become a receptionist for a while, land some kind of desk job, and claw her way up, but rejection after rejection made it seem like to be anyone you either needed experience or to know the right people, and apparently, the right people weren’t that keen on frozen yogurt.

“Well, you know we’re lucky to have you. You always work hard, huh?”

Naomi said nothing, just pushed and pulled the mop until the whole floor glistened, and she wished it was one of the nights she was closing alone. Without warning, Jackie approached and placed a hand on Naomi’s shoulder, looking up at her as if the world were on fire. “Don’t you ever feel ashamed for doing this work, huh? We’re all the same, no matter what. We work so we can live. You’re still young. You should feel lucky to have a job in this economy.”

Naomi looked back into Jackie’s eyes, all steeled, and for once didn’t smile. For every rare person who would say you deserve better, there were a hundred more who would remind her, don’t be greedy, be grateful for what you have. And even then, when hearing those words sparked some kind of longing in Naomi, she knew none of it was true. The notion of “deserving” was a privilege, and that had to be left behind if she was ever going to make it in this world.

“I know, Jackie. And I am grateful,” she said. “But I’m tired of feeling sorry for wanting more.”

•

When Naomi finally plopped herself into her car, she made a mental list of all of the things she should get done to prepare for her appointment when she got home. She’d have to research the kind of questions they would ask, choose an outfit, and do some laundry, maybe even paint her nails again. After starting the engine, she dug her phone out of her bag to put some music on and saw a barrage of texts and missed calls.

Since she’d been working with Jackie, Naomi’s phone had been in her bag instead of her pocket, and as it sat there, it had buzzed and buzzed and buzzed unheeded. Phone usage during business hours was strictly against policy, and while Naomi knew all of the secret spaces to avoid the surveillance cameras, Jackie was like a hawk. The messages were mostly from Serina, after three missed calls.

[Serina] Hey, are you at work?

[Serina] Frank actually showed up at the door to change the batteries and shit

[Serina] I tried to tell him it wasn’t a good time because the house was messy but he kinda insisted

[Serina] So he saw the bed and I said I just had a guest over

[Serina] But he said he’s seen you come and go, in your blue polo. He brought up that there’s something in the lease against guests

[Serina] He says you’ve gotta be out, like tonight. I’m sorry dude

She took a deep breath and pulled off her visor. Any momentum she’d been feeding off of came to a screeching halt. So it was time to get out, then. She was stupid, so stupid, assuming she had any time at all. She should’ve packed everything up immediately. Naomi knew she couldn’t count on the egg money for at least a little while longer. After she was approved, a family would have to choose her, and she’d have to inject herself with hormones every day for, what, a few weeks? After they extracted the eggs, and everything turned out well, then she’d get the money, and though she’d slept in her car before, it seemed like it might be too long of a stretch to wait.

[Naomi] You sure I couldn’t convince him to stay a little longer? A week at most?

[Serina] I don’t think so. Apparently the neighbors hate us, probably because Jason and Kate are always fighting.

There was a time in Naomi’s life when the idea of piling all of her belongings into her car would have been unfeasible. There had been too many pieces of furniture, too many framed posters and photographs, too many pairs of shoes and blankets and books. But move after move, these things had become a burden, more trouble than they were worth. She drove home and took her things to the car, a box or two at a time. She already lived out of plastic bins, so the hassle was minimal. Now, though her trunk was full and all of the seats were filled with boxes, she was still able to see out of the rear windshield and recline her seat. As she packed up, all of the roommates stayed to themselves behind their own closed doors. Naomi pet the cat, one last time, before closing the door behind her. She at least thought to do her laundry in the complex’s room before she headed out.

Motion-sensing lights clicked on as she entered the small laundry room, bright white and fluorescent. After dumping her clothes in, she put a quarter into the slot, only for it to roll back out in the coin return. She put it back in. It rolled out. She put it in again, more forcefully. It rolled out. She looked at it—definitely a quarter—and put it in only for it to roll out again, and she took a slow, deep breath before she sat down on the table in the room and pulled out her phone

[Naomi] Hey, do you know anyone who needs a roommate right now?

[Ray] No. What happened?

Sure, she could just tell him. But she hated, hated people feeling sorry for her, and if there was one person who would get weird about it, it was probably Ray. At the same time though, she suspected that he could be staying in a nice spot, maybe with his family. Maybe they’d lived in the area for a long time and had a house passed down to them. Or maybe his family had big money, and he was just the son who never took school seriously. He just always had nice things, and even when he had to wear his 7-Eleven polo with the red stripe down it, he’d make up for it in other ways like fancy belts and shoes and, well, nice teeth. He spent his money on tattoos and modifications to his car. He went to basketball games and liked to buy his family members expensive purses. Ray had to be living alright.

The automatic lights turned off, leaving her sitting there on the table, still, in the dark of the laundry room with six white humming machines for company. She’d spent too long hunched over her phone, thinking. It was already late, and she didn’t want to ruin her friendship with Ray, not yet. One night in her car wouldn’t kill her

[Naomi] Just looking into my options

[Naomi] Might be coming into that money soon

[Ray] Awesome. Invite me over to your mansion

[Naomi] Ha ha. Could you keep an eye out for me?

[Ray] Sure.

After fighting with the washing machine, Naomi stayed sitting on that table and painted her nails a solid, deep blue. She didn’t want to talk to any of the people in the apartment anymore, and she thought of all of the times that Serina had tried to talk to her about purging negativity from her spirit, about manifesting a brighter future.

When it was time to truly go, the only question was where to park her car. After considering a handful of residential streets and empty parking lots, she drove down to Old Bayshore where she pulled in at the start of the trail, where she could at least have a view of the bay and the airport before napping for a few hours. There were always, always other cars there too. One had tinted windows but was clearly being hotboxed, the bass of the music faintly audible. Others held rideshare drivers, lying back with their arms crossed, asleep until the morning that would bring passengers in need of transportation. Naomi hung up shirts and sweaters in her windows for a shred of privacy, lay back, and joined them in dreamless sleep.

•

Naomi slipped into 24 Hour Fitness at 4:30 a.m., which she figured was too late for the night owls and hopefully too early even for the most extreme gym rats. What she found in the locker room was this: one young woman, asleep on her back and miraculously balanced on a slim wooden bench in front of the lockers; two old women, speaking loudly in Cantonese in the echoing showers; and one more old woman, butt naked but wearing flip-flops, emerging from the sauna. She could work with this. Naomi showered, blow-dried, and got dressed, applied some blush and lipstick to look alive, and dropped some frigid eye drops into her eyes. The whole time, she kept a slimy express whitening strip on her teeth that was now beginning to make them ache. After she packed up all of her things from the vanity counter, she caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror beside her, slouching, moving slowly. So she straightened up, met her own eyes in the mirror, and did a power pose: feet just past shoulder width apart, and her hands on her hips like Wonder Woman. Sometimes, she thought, there’s nothing left to do but to stop taking yourself seriously. She tried a smile and laughed. Two women in towels entered the space, looked her up and down like she was crazy, and hit the shining silver buttons on the hand dryers so they could flip their heads upside down and get a blow-dry.

•

At the clinic, Naomi had expected to get her eyes and ears and nose and mouth looked into. She had expected temperature and blood pressure checks. She had expected crinkly wax paper on the table and the slow drawing of her blood. She had expected questions about exercise and smoking and drinking. She had expected questions about her sex life and her reasons for wanting to donate.

She had prepared down to the point of not even wearing her contact lenses so the doctor wouldn’t notice them, and she had prepared responses to various questions so that she seemed as close to perfect as believability would permit. Her confidence skyrocketed. Oh yes, my family supports my decision. What will I do with the money? Well, it’ll help with books for my classes.

What she had not expected was all of the things that came with the fertility exam. She had not expected the ultrasound to be internal, and she had not expected the doctor to stare so long at the screen, wordlessly. She had not expected that she would try to charm and crack a joke, but that the doctor would keep looking, frowning. She had not expected that Dr. Hernandez would seem in a hurry, or that after leaning closer to the screen, she would ask, “Have you been experiencing any unusual symptoms lately?”

“No. Is something wrong?”

“Really? No irregular bleeding or rapid weight gain?” Naomi pressed her lips together until they were pale and just shook her head.

“Yeah, feeling the same as usual. Better, even.”

“Well… you have quite a few cysts on your ovaries, here. Can you see them?” She pointed with her gloved hand to some blurry images on the screen. “They’re likely benign, but it’s also possible that they could burst, which can be very painful. You should talk to your OB-GYN about it.” Naomi searched through that screen, her eyes scanning over and over, understanding nothing.

“But I can still donate, right? There are still some eggs in there?”

Just like that, the ultrasound ended, the gloves came off, and Dr. Hernandez looked Naomi in the eye with her brows slightly raised and placed a tender hand on her shoulder. It was a rehearsed gesture of concern, the concern of someone who wants to appear like they care but is actually eager to get away as quickly as possible. “Unfortunately, this makes you ineligible for donation. It’s really a shame, sweetie, because you wanted to do such a wonderful thing. A lot of women with polycystic ovarian syndrome don’t know they have it until they have trouble getting pregnant, so it’s a good thing we caught it now. Something like this could affect your fertility in the long term, so again, make sure you follow up with your own providers.” Naomi sat and felt that squeeze on her shoulder.

“But I can come back and donate? If I get better?”

“Honey, I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that.”

•

The rest of the day came and went with little action to speak of. Naomi sat in her car at her spot on Bayshore, watching time pass, the small waxed paper water cup from the clinic still crushed in her hand. In the light of day, she remained dry-eyed but changed. As she sat behind the wheel and stared, she thought that even the clouds looked strange, high up and crackled like the top of a roll of Dutch Crunch, as if some god had smeared rice paste across the sky just to let the bitter sun bake it into place and leave everyone below feeling strange and barren. When the tide was high, little waves washed away the birds’ footprints and lapped gently at the boulders that lined the edge of the land. She sat and watched and watched and watched, sometimes dozing off and coming-to, sometimes biting into a sugar-coated peach ring that she had a bag of in the center-console until it was nearly the dawn of the next day.

The sun had not yet risen. Her eyes followed the planes as they sped down the runways across the water, and as they took off either towards the Pacific or inland, she charted their trajectory and imagined the places they were headed towards and the matters of joy and consequence that would urge them to go. As the windows fogged with her breath, instead of wiping it away she fully reclined her seat and stared up at the spotty felted interior of her car roof, and she tried to think: What next?

As the sky lightened, Naomi broke the seal of that car and opened the door to a world where people ran and biked at 5 a.m., where behind the mountains the sun promised to rise, where the tide was low but the wind carried the scent of the mud far, far away. She walked out onto the path and sat on a rock at the edge of the mud, hugging herself as she squinted out over the surface of the bay where little figures ambled, too large to be birds. Raccoons? Two, then three, and then yet another, had all wandered out into the mud. They dug, scooped their tiny hands into it, and pulled out clams that no man would ever dare to stomach. As the birds called out as they flew overhead in the early morning, and as cars sped by on the asphalt behind her, the sun finally delivered on its promise and peeked over the mountains, lighting them and all of the horizon red as if graced by a gentle fire, and Naomi felt the strangest compulsion to wade out into that mud, get on her knees, and dig. Find the good in it. Keep it deep inside.

•

When 7 came around, Naomi’s chest ached with tired and cold. She drove the couple of blocks up the road to the 7-Eleven and waited in the lot until she saw Ray step out of the doors and notice her car, the windows fogged with her breath.

“What are you doing here?” Ray came up to her window and bent forward, resting his palms on his knees, his eyes flickered to the boxes in her car.

“You know I would never ask if I didn’t have to,” she said. Her need was transparent, and it stung. “I don’t have anyone else to ask. Could I crash on your couch? Or—your floor, even. I don’t care. Just for a day or two, I promise, and I could pay you if you want.”

Ray’s face was, for once, unreadable. He didn’t move, still hunched over, and looked at her bloodshot eyes and the mascara flaking down her cheeks. “Look, I really wish I could,” he started.

“Please,” she begged. She knew Ray lived nearby, even though he was always the one to pick her up and never the other way around.

“Hey,” he said, shaking his head a little. “I can’t. I really can’t.” Ray straightened up and squinted out over the bay, sliding his hands into his pockets.

“Why not? You really don’t have a spot of rug to spare? A cushion or two?”

Ray sighed through his nose and took a step away, his frown slight and his voice calm. “I already told you no, Naomi. You’re just going to have to trust me. You’ve gotta figure out this one on your own.”

“But I can really pay you,” she said. “I’ve been living in a living room, off of a couch. I really don’t care what your place is like.”

“It’s not about the money,” he said, raising his voice before reigning it in. “I hate to be your wake-up call, but no one owes you anything, Naomi. You have to hustle for what you want, you can’t just keep asking for handouts and favors. I know you’re in a tough spot, but you still haven’t even paid me for the shoot.”

Something in her clicked. She busted out of the car, left the door ajar, and raised her voice in return. “You think you’re one to talk? You work at a 7-Eleven; you’re not better than me!” Ray stepped back at her outburst, and as words continued tumbling out of her mouth, her throat began to ache with sadness. “The clinic rejected me, okay? And now I have no place to live. I bet you think I had this coming.” By the time she started jabbing a finger at his chest, she was fighting tears. “And I’m all fucked up inside. I probably can’t even have kids if I wanted, either. Does that make you happy? You were judging me, doubting the whole thing.” She sighed and turned away. Coughed into her elbow. “I’m trying,” she said. “But I can’t go back to how I felt before, just waking up every day, going to work, all of it. I needed one thing, just one good thing to look forward to, something good coming my way.”

With her turned away, a moment passed before he softened. “Hey, I’m sorry, okay?” Ray’s face was illuminated by the morning sun, and he dropped his voice, looking stern without his usual smile. “If you can wait an hour, I’ll show you why I can’t help you.”

And so she waited.

•

At 8:30, Naomi drove behind Ray as he drove not to one of the estates nearby, not to an old house, but to Shelter Creek Apartment Complex. He said nothing and didn’t even acknowledge her as he parked on the street and started walking into the complex, leaving her rushing to catch up.

At the top of a stairway, Ray stopped before a brown painted door labeled G. He cleared his throat and unlocked it.

The carpets were brown and matted flat, but they both took their shoes off and placed them by a pile beside the door. Not a single one of his friends had ever been inside.

“Home sweet home,” he said, and in the living room gestured to a twin bed pressed against the wall adorned with little polaroids and a window with its blinds drawn. “This is where my sister Isabella sleeps. She just got accepted to Davis, so she’ll be out of here soon if we can sort it all out.” There was a china cabinet filled with decorative plates beside a small TV, and then on the opposite wall, there was another twin bed, neatly made and draped with a forest green plaid comforter and surrounded by printed photographs of San Francisco. “And this one’s mine.” He was emotionless. He stepped through a door frame that held no door, and Naomi followed behind him wordlessly, her hands folded. Ray gestured to a queen-sized bed, around which was piled with stacks and stacks of loosely folded clothing leaning against the walls. “That’s where my sister Sabrina and my mom sleep. Sabrina’s eight, and my mom works at Sutter,” he said, and before Naomi had the chance to ask which hospital department, he said, “In the cafeteria.”

Naomi glanced around the room and saw the mirrored closet door rolled slightly ajar with brand name purses folded and falling out of it. She simply nodded and stepped back out of the room, noting a kitchen and a bathroom door, and looked at the displayed plates, intricate and gold-rimmed but long un-dusted. When she turned around, Ray was sitting on his bed, his weight creasing the comforter, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Once Isabella’s out of here, we might be able to move somewhere cheaper. We just need to convince Sabrina that she’ll be okay at a new school. Until then, I help with rent.” He lay back, his feet still planted on the floor, and absently unpinned his name tag from his polo. “If I were you, I’d just move. There’s nothing keeping you here anymore. You could probably get a nice apartment in Vegas or something, even with what you’re making now.”

She walked past the stacked shoe boxes at the foot of his bed and sat next to him, also laying back before saying, “Who wants to live in Vegas?” They both laughed a little, just short exhales from their noses, and with a smile in her voice she said, “If I wanted to leave, don’t you think I would have done it already?” She rubbed her eye and looked at the ceiling, bathed in stripes of light
coming in through the blinds. “Why is it too much to ask?” she said, and let that question hang.

Ray folded his hands on his stomach, staring up with her, and let a moment pass before he spoke. “Do you ever think that maybe, it’s just true?”

“What?”

“Maybe—maybe Jeff Bezos really does just work 186 billion times harder than us.” And slowly, their peals of laughter filled the apartment, hard and long, until their smiles glowed and their cheeks ached, and Naomi’s eyes welled and spilled against her will until she was crying and crying and could not stop.

•

The promise of a future and the illusion of the ability to change her circumstances, which had only just buoyed her up, had now become an unshoulderable burden. For one night, Naomi wanted to throw all of it out the window. No, What next? only Right now. She would deal with the consequences tomorrow and every day from then on. But tonight? The best medicine was forgetting, a charade in which she pretended to be anybody else, someone who didn’t have to worry.

So they got shitfaced. She put on a black dress and Ray doused himself with some cologne and they took BART into the city, going from bar to bar, divey or not, enjoying a drink at each: cheap beer, watermelon margaritas, smokey palomas, shots of tequila, licking salt from the backs of their hands and taking turns paying—Naomi covering bills with all of her tips she’d been saving, the creased bills coming out in handfuls from her purse.

But when the bars started closing and it was time to go home, Naomi called Lyft to take them to the Marriott on Bayshore, just two blocks from the 7-Eleven, and they sat in the outdoor lounge in something other than their work uniforms for once. They put their shoes up on the edge of the gas fireplace where flames licked up through a bed of red glass, and they watched as the planes touched down over the bay, their blinking lights reflecting like daggers through the water towards them. Naomi had been quiet for a while, the dangerous kind that crept in after one too many drinks, but she settled into the warmth between them, unbothered by the breeze that sent the loose strands of hair around her face swaying. She looked left and right across the water—just down there was the Benihana where her mother had worked as a hostess, the first place her parents had met. And a little farther, there was a clump of trees that was Coyote Point Park, crumbling cliffs and windswept cypresses that surrounded the museum where she’d spent her childhood learning about bugs and birds and cycles of life. And softly, so much that Ray couldn’t be sure he’d even heard her right, Naomi said, “I hate it here.”

Ray would have said, “Sure you do,” but just when he saw the twisted expression on her face, she turned away and said, “This place has gone to shit.” She looked at the faint silhouette of the city across the bay, its skyscrapers jutting up and twinkling, and imagined that in each window there were people dying to welcome her in. But with a gust of wind, an employee came out who mistook them for guests and offered them a blanket that they shared between them. Resting against Ray, Naomi closed her eyes, remembering who she was, and thought about that stupid old hot dog of his from what felt like a year ago. She could see it as if it were still sitting there below the fluorescent lights, wrinkled and charred, shining, turning, and suddenly felt that all her life she would stay moving and moving, going nowhere.

---

“Bayshore” by Laurie Kana Olson and the artwork titled The Waiting Room by Weadee Mombo & Weajue Mombo appeared in Issue 44 of Berkeley Fiction Review.

Laurie Kana Olson is a half-Japanese writer and educator from the San Francisco Bay Area. She received an MFA in Fiction from San Francisco State University and was a recipient of the Wilner Award in short fiction. Her work has appeared in The Ana, Prometheus Dreaming, Transfer Magazine, and more.

Weadee Mombo and Weajue Mombo are twins hailing from Toronto who love to create together. Whether they’re writing, drawing or simply living, they do it hand in hand. Their work has been featured in Broken Pencil Magazine, Prairie Art Book Fair, DOMINIONATED, and more.