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"Are you out of your effin' mind, Hetta? We can't take a forty-five foot boat all the way from San Francisco to Cabo by ourselves."

"Yacht."

"What?"

"It's a yacht, not a boat, Jan. If it has a bathroom and a place to sleep, it's a yacht."

"Yeah, well Miss Smarty Pants Sailor Girl, it's a head, not a bathroom."

"You are ab-so-loot-a-mente correcto. See how boaty we've become? Last year I didn't even know what a head was, and now I have one. And, as you can hear, I've been studying Spanish."

"Knowing what to call the potty and knowing how to take the damned thing to Mexico, where you only have an inkling of the language, are not one and the same. We can't do it."

"And why not?"

"Well, for starters, we don't know what we're doing."

"When has that ever stopped us? Besides, I do know how to handle this boat. Yacht."

"I'll admit you have the skills necessary to bar hop from waterfront dive to waterfront dive along the estuary, but every time you've ventured out under the Golden Gate Bridge, Jenks has been on board. I know, I know, you do take Raymond Johnson to Treasure Island by yourself, but that's completely different. It's only a few miles away, inside the bay. Cabo San Lucas is at least a thousand miles away. In the Pacific Ocean."

"Fourteen hundred, give or take a mile. And we can do it."

"Hetta, for over twenty years I have let you rope me into mess after mess, but not this time. Remember the skiing trip? And how about those sailing lessons?"

"The ski instructor was cute," I insisted.

"I broke my arm and you got the guy."

"Okay, but you did learn to sail."

"With an all-lesbiancrew."

"Jan, you're the one who signed us up with the Gay Nineties Sailing Club. I think Dilly was a little sweet on you."

We had a good laugh, reminisced about some of our misadventures, but then Jan grew somber. "Oh, how I miss RJ."

"I know. What a dawg he was. Sometimes I forget he's dead. Just the other day, I found myself loading Alpo into my supermarket cart." I felt the sting of tears for my departed dog. "Wouldn't he have just loved a trip to Mexico? And in a boat named for him?"

"We can't go without Lars and Jenks."

"Can too."

"Can not."

I stubborned up. "Then I just might go alone."

"Oh, no you won't."

"How are you gonna stop me?"

"I'm going to tell your mama."