Tasha pondered on her words for a while. She stared at the rising sun and narrowed her eyes, then motioned to a drugstore that was near the beach and Shane followed her quietly.

As soon as they got in the drugstore and started walking through the aisles, Tasha spoke again.

“In a diner, once, a blind woman turned to me all of a sudden… and asked me to pass her the mustard”, she looked back at Shane and smirked.

Shane watched her in awe.

“But she was blind”, she objected, feebly.

Tasha nodded.

“Yeah. But she knew I was there”.

Shane clenched her jaw and remained silent for a long time. She looked down at her own feet.

“…The doctor in the operating room…”, she finally murmured, looking up at Tasha, “…she looked right at me”.

Tasha blinked, just once, stroking a jam of biologic peas.

“She didn’t see you, Shane”, she replied, quietly, “She can’t see you”.

Shane bowed her head and sighed.

“No one can see you unless you want them to”, Tasha added.

Shane’s eyes looked up at stared at her.

“And if I want her too?”, she asked, under her breath.

Tasha kept eye-contact.

“Why do you want her to?”.

“To help her”, Shane muttered.

Right then, a robber

– high and sweaty and panicked and armed –

entered the drugstore and aimed his gun directly at the cashier’s head.

“Open it!”, he yelled, the hand holding the gun trembling, “Fuck! Open it now!”.

The cashier – a bald man around fifty, with grand moustaches – showed him the palms of his hands.

The robber turned around and aimed his gun blindly to the customers.

“Everybody down!”, he shouted, and then, turning back to the man, “Come on! Do it, do it!”.

Tasha and Shane walked silently toward the booth, listening distractedly to the millions of words that filled the customers’ minds.

“Shit! Just give him the money”, a young man thought, covering the back of his head with his interweaved hands, his chest flat against the floor.

“Did I leave the lights on? I left the lights on”, another woman thought.

“I should have gone to Ralphs”, a middle-aged matron with an expensive haircut said to herself.

“Do it!”, the robber exclaimed furiously.

“Relax!”, the cashier replied, his voice throaty, “I’m doing it, okay?”.

He opened the cash register with shaking hands.

“I never saw the Grand Canyon…”, he thought, “…I’ll never see my grandkids again”.

Shane reached the cashier and put both of her hands on his shoulders. The man seemed to relax immediately under her invisible touch and exhaled.

“What am I doing?”, he said to himself, “Just be cool. Be cool”.

In front of Shane, Tasha put her hands on the robber’s shoulders and the robber stopped shaking.

The cashier looked at him.

“Be cool, man”, he murmured, softly.

The robber brushed his nose with the back of his hand. He grabbed the paper bag full of bills from the cashier’s hands and ran away, slamming the door shut behind his back.

“Holy shit…”, the cashier whispered, placing his palms on the counter and exhaling a sigh of relief.

Tasha watched Shane.

“You see? They don’t need to see us”, she murmured with a soft smile.

”… Hey If God Will send his angels
And if God will send a sign
And if God will send his angels
Would everything be alright?”*

********

SOUNDTRACK:

* “If God will send his angels” (U2)