<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/8/89/Onnecamug1.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Onneca de Goni<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Unknown<br/><strong>Date:</strong>June 2, 1875<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Morning<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Bodega de Goni<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Agatha<br/><hr/><br/>Her breath left her when Aggy held tight. For one self-conscious moment, she wondered if she were allowed to return that embrace. Had they been this close? Hadn't some of it only been in Onneca's mind, a flight of fantasy reinvented after so many years apart from Aggy? Those first crushes were oft recorded in the mind with the same naivete and innocence as a child's drawing, enduring forever. But the Rose of Ireland's joy was too infectuous, and she was pulled into it. A giggle escaped her as she returned the touch, and in squeezing, she illustrated what the loose cloth of her blouse did not: just how nicely she had filled out. Exactly like her mother, who had been a humble laundry woman all those years ago.<br/><br/>"Si, it is me, it is Onny." As her hand exchanged caresses with Agatha's, she could find no ring. Her palm curled against Aggy's touch to lead her along the exact same path, to show her that she had remained unwed. It was subconscious, like a young woman stretching in front of a man.<em>Look at me, </em>it said,<em>I am a fertile and unclaimed field. </em>"What are you doing in California?" she asked, every word of the question dripping with curiosity. Course, it was impolite to inquire about a person's history in the West. There were men here who'd left their families in Pennsylvania to strike it rich and decided never to go back. There were convicts on the run under new identities. And there were the immigrants, like she and Agatha, who could expect to be spit upon by the True Americans for their heritage. This was a place of the now, and a boom town like Gomorra more than any other.<br/><br/>She could tell by the corset laces her fingers strummed that Aggy could benefit from some new clothes. That was the least she could do for her old friend. True, giving away clothes was a tremendous loss- it took months of hard work to harvest each spool of linen, and careful artistry to populate those racks, but the honeys could make up for those kind of losses. She was leaning to one side, about to offer Agatha something to wear, when the bell over the door rung a second time.<br/><br/>A sweet older lady in a fabric boater hat came in from the heat, and cooled off in the entryway where the juicy red tomatoes and beauty products were arranged to tantalize. They were partly successful, but still the woman's eyes were drawn to Aggy and Onny, and the Irishwoman's bright hair.<em>"Good morning, child," </em>she said generally, to one or both of them.<br/>"Buenos dias, Mrs. Howell," Onneca answered sweetly. She kept on smiling for Aggy, but her arms retreated, and she stepped back into her own personal space. Her hands went behind her back with a little perk up onto her toes.<br/><em>"Oh, are you going to introduce me to your pretty friend?" </em>Mrs. Howell was a sly old woman. Maybe she could tell that the two of them had been in tears, but was too kind to let on. Maybe her sun-bleached blue eyes could only see vague shapes en route to the sewing materials she always came for.<br/>"She is Agatha Dunwich," Onneca was happy to say. "We, ah, grew up together. Like sisters. We would go looking for pretty stones along the tracks together." She met Agatha's eyes to see if she might remember that. Onneca remembered. If only she had kept something, anything, from those little adventures together. A quartz or a piece of amber or fool's gold. "We did everything together. She was my best friend. It is the first time I see her in...ten years or more."<br/><em>"Isn't that marvelous," </em>Mrs. Howell said in her usual way.<br/>The toe of Onneca's shoe swiveled shyly, and she inspected the wood grain of the floor rather than answer: Yes. Yes, it was marvelous.