Free Sleeping Tigers by Holly Robinson

what I did? You chose the high road, I chose the low. You’ve got your little life, your little job and your steady paycheck. Meanwhile, all I have to worry about is nothing but me, myself, and I.”
    We were in Jon’s driveway now. I bit my lip to keep from lashing out. So Cam wasn’t ambitious. So what? Everyone knew too much ambition caused heart attacks.
    The neighborhood smelled of that cocoa-scented mulch that everyone in Berkeley scattered in their gardens to control the weeds. At least Cam was living in a decent area; this was a suburban neighborhood of professors’ homes and swing sets. A group of men whizzed past on bicycles, hunched low over the handlebars and wearing goggles that made them look like insects.
    Across the street, a scrawny blonde teenager toted a baby in a backpack, striding purposefully to the corner until she saw our car and stopped to stare. Cam was already walking towards the house, so his back was to her, but I smiled at the girl and waved. She didn’t wave back.
    Shepherd Jon’s house was a Victorian, all turrets and porches and odd round windows. It had fanciful gingerbread trim beneath the eaves and the porches sagged.
    “Quite the Gothic abode,” I commented, following Cam up the walk. The door gaped open. Shepherd Jon and the others were already inside; I could smell coffee.
    “Cool, huh?” Cam said. “And cheap.”
    I brushed the sand off my jeans before stepping through the front door. Not that it mattered. There was so much sand in the front hall, it looked like someone had deliberately laid a gritty path to the kitchen. Cam ran his hands through his hair. Now that it was dry, it was the same color as mine, with the same wiry, wavy texture. I’d lost my hair band somewhere on the beach, so both of us had tangled tan manes.
    A chipped mirror hung in the front hall. In its reflection, Cam and I looked like a pair of shaggy lions. Our eyes were the same bright blue in our narrow faces.
    I followed Cam to the kitchen at the back of the house. The floor was black and white checked linoleum, the walls lime green, the trim pomegranate red. Oven mitts shaped like stars hung from hooks near the stove; the salt and pepper shakers were bunches of bananas danging from tropical glass trees. It was like the illustration of a kitchen in a children’s book.
    One of the women from the beach, a bloated looking blonde dressed in a colorful caftan, was seated at the kitchen table. Her hooked nose was accentuated by mirrored sunglasses that reflected the checkerboard floor.
    Cam introduced us, using first names only: “Valerie, Jordan. What’s up, Val?”
    “It’s the flesh, the flesh!” Val moaned, nodding in the direction of the stove, where Shepherd Jon was frying bacon. “I can’t bear the flesh.”
    “Val’s a vegan,” Cam explained, handing me a cup of coffee that smelled like burning tires. “Won’t touch meat, eggs, or anything else that comes from the exploitation of animals.” There was a note of admiration in his voice.
    “Vegan Val? Really?” I lifted my chin in the direction of the other woman’s leather belt and shoes.
    Cam gave me a look that said, Don’t start .
    “I love your necklace,” Val breathed, tipping her head like a bird, so that the reflected floor in her glasses shifted. “What are those black stones?”
    I lifted the beads between my fingers and bent down to show them to her. “Hematite.”
    She nodded. “That’s good for grounding.”
    I had to assume that she wasn’t talking about lightning storms. “It used to be my grandmother’s.” I smiled, imagining what Grammy would have to say about this crew. Grammy had survived on beef jerky, beer, canned hash, and television in her metal trailer for seven decades.
    Cam led me through the kitchen, ignoring the chaos. Jon had several things going on the stove. The dark-haired woman from the beach had thrown on a sarong and faded t-shirt; she was pulling plates from the cupboard while the chubby