Beth and I load heavy frozen turkeys into the back of her car. I look at the cold dead animal in my arms. Does Beth feel like a turkey in a world of chickens? How do I tell her I’m the biggest chicken of all?
“I don’t even eat turkey,” Beth says, loading another frozen dead animal into her trunk. “I’m a vegetarian.”
Beth is wearing another doozy of a T-shirt today that says #HASHTAGSSUCK. Beth is cool enough for hashtags. She can hashtag all day long.
#imgayandproud
#andmyparentsarecoolwithit
#idontlielikeestherdoes
#becauseimmeandfreakingrad
I want to slink into the ground and cover myself with dirt and slimy worms. Beth reveals who she is like it’s as easy as pulling back a curtain and showing the world your insides. She’s cracked her chest open and shown me her heart that’s so beautiful I can barely stand it. And she doesn’t eat meat. She’s like the best person in the world, maybe next to Color. I’m such a coward. I’m still grasping at my curtain, squeezing it closed. And now, I need her to help me if I’m ever going to see Dharma today, but I can’t stop stalling. At no point will this get easier, and yet I delay. Beth wouldn’t do that. She’s a freaking buffalo. Buffalos walk straight into a storm, whereas cows run from the impending cloud.
Moo.
The other kicker in this equation of doom is that I like Beth. She isn’t who I thought she is. She’s better. She’s way better. And now, she might not like me, after I avoided her for over a month.
Beth slams her trunk closed and smacks her hands together like she’s dusting dirt off them. “All set.”
I look at the back seat. A few of the turkeys wouldn’t fit in the trunk, so now Beth and I have dead passengers taking up the rear. With so much frozen stuff, the inside of the car is cold and smells like a freezer. I start to shake in the passenger seat, pretending it’s just because of the turkeys.
I point at Beth’s shirt, my bottom lip quivering a bit. “I like your T-shirt.”
Beth rolls down her window to let warm air into the car.
“Thanks for telling me you’re gay, too.”
“No biggie,” she says.
Ummmmm . . . Yes, biggie.
I rub my arms and give myself a small hug, all while taking a deep breath, but my body still shakes.
“Are you OK, Esther?”
I swallow a gulp of air as I look at Beth and her shirt. I could never pull off that irony. I bet Beth thinks hashtags are ridiculous. I bet she’s one of those people who writes texts in perfect English. I bet she doesn’t shorten words like “u” and “thx” and “LMK.” I bet she writes out “Let me know” because it would be cheating the words to cut them short. That’s the kind of person Beth is. She doesn’t want to cheat anything. She’s a vegetarian delivering frozen turkeys, because if a turkey is dead, it needs to be eaten by somebody. Beth sits in the front seat so unabashedly herself. Unashamed.
And me—I’m held together by strings. My pieces would fall apart if someone cut me in the right place.
“What’s going on?” Beth sounds concerned, and I don’t want her to be concerned. I want her to be my friend.
“Hashtag!” I say it like she just won the showcase showdown on The Price Is Right. “I had a baby!” I wave my hands out at my side, all flaring jazz fingers, my face lit up.
Beth doesn’t move. I swear I can feel the weight of every cumulous cloud circling the planet at one thousand miles an hour.
Then she says, “Hashtag—holy shit.”
“Have you ever done this before?” Amit asked, eyes wide as he sat on my bed. Mom was at Zumba. Hannah was at ballet. I was at a turning point.
“No,” I said. “You?”
“No,” Amit said with a slight chuckle. He rubbed the spot on his head where his hair refused to lie flat. “You were the first girl I ever even kissed.”
“Should I close my eyes?”
“Why?”
“People on TV always close their eyes. Maybe it makes it easier.”
“No,” he said, his hand moving from his hair to my cheek. He was shaking. It only made me more certain that what I was about to do was right. When people stand on the edge of change, ready to jump, they should be nervous. But we were standing together. “I need to look at you, Esther. Eyes open.”
“OK,” I said, cupping Amit’s hand with mine. “Eyes open.”
“Open your eyes, Esther . . . Open your eyes.”
I know I should follow the command, but I’m too scared to look at the present right now; I’d rather drift warmly off into the cozy past for just a moment longer.
“Seriously, open your eyes.” Beth’s demand is forceful, but her voice carries kindness even through the cold filling the car.
I peek at her with one eye.
“Whoa,” Beth says.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s why I need to go see Dharma.” I tell her everything, spilling my guts, and then I apologize for the mess. I am a messy person. No matter where I go, I spill.
“Whoa,” Beth says again. She’s staring straight ahead, like she’s driving, but we’re still sitting in the church parking lot.
I look out the window at Touchdown Jesus and say to him silently, If Hannah is right and you’re all about love, you better not take Beth away from me. And then I feel guilty because it’s not Jesus’s fault. He gets blamed for enough. This is my fault.
“You gave up the baby for adoption?” Beth asks.
I nod.
“But you never got to see her or hold her?”
I shake my head, my arms feeling weighted and empty at the same time. My words are failing me.
“And you’re worried you made the wrong decision?”
Beth’s question gives me pause, like all her other questions. I shouldn’t be surprised, but this one has me slightly stunned. The wrong decision? I’m not sure I made the wrong decision so much as I made no decision. I didn’t have a hand in the answer. It was just given to me. I want to come to my own conclusion. I want to solve the problem for myself. That’s what I feel I was robbed of. That’s what I feel I need to find. I tell Beth exactly that.
“Whoa.”
Beth’s eyes get big, and then small, as she mumbles to herself. The longer she stays quiet, the more fear starts to take over any hope that Beth would understand. The air in the vehicle that weighs one hundred pounds is now also filled with my baggage. And all Beth has to do is open the door to let it spill all over the church parking lot, and it’s all over for me.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” I say.
Beth looks at me with bulging eyes. “Why would I do that?”
“Because I didn’t tell you sooner. Because I’m a liar and a former pregnant teen whose family made her move across the country to get away from the shame of it all. I should probably have my own MTV show. And because you’re so you, and I’m confused as to who I am. Because you can pull off a hashtag shirt even though I know you hate hashtags.”
Beth grins. “You get the irony.”
“That’s another thing. I’m not one hundred percent sure how to use irony. People seem to mess that up a lot. I’d probably use it all wrong.”
Then Beth laughs and leans across the seat, wrapping her arms around my neck.
“Going to see a psychic is so much better than delivering turkeys,” Beth says. She pulls back, and because things like this are effortless for Beth, I see the truth all over her face. Beth smiles and the sun shines.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I say, “but we have a few more turkeys we need to pick up first.”
20
It turns that out Beth is in a lot of the same classes as Jesús, even though she’s a junior and he’s a senior. She’s just that smart. And she’s seen him at HuggaMug. Beth drinks coffee, too. I should have known. Color is just so excited that the universe is constantly putting pieces of the puzzle together, and we all fit so well. And I have to admit, I get a little jealous that they all go to school together, while t
he only person in my class is Hannah.
Jesús looks into the back of Beth’s car at all the frozen turkeys and says, “That’s a lot of turkeys.”
“We need to deliver them at some point,” Beth says. “Or we’ll get busted.”
We decide to unload the frozen turkeys into the garage, to be dropped off after we get back from Albuquerque.
Halfway through the process, Moss comes outside and says, “What’s going on?”
“We’re going to Albuquerque to find the truth,” Color says.
Jesús holds up his notebook. “I’m prepared to document the findings.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Moss says. “I want to come.”
And I almost faint. He never wants to do anything with us.
We’re on the road headed north out of Truth or Consequences so soon after that it almost feels surreal. Beth drives, and Color sits next to her. I’m sandwiched in the back between Jesús and Moss, and every few minutes, Moss’s leg touches my leg and he pulls away. Like I’m untouchable. Moss is like irony. I’m not really sure how he works.
I tell them about the “Would You Rather” game Hannah and I played on car trips, and Jesús totally geeks out.
“Would you rather swim through shit or dead bodies?” he asks.
“Neither,” Moss says. “I choose death.”
“That’s cheating.” Jesús leans over and slaps Moss’s leg with the red licorice he’s eating. “Esther, tell Fungus he’s cheating. You have to pick.”
“You have to pick,” I say. “That’s how the game is played.”
Jesús offers me some licorice, but I’m too nervous to eat. He leans across me to hand some to Moss and inadvertently forces my leg into Moss’s. Moss can’t pull away this time because we’re squashed.
“Fine,” Moss says, snapping a piece of licorice in his mouth. “Shit. I pick the shit.”
“Me, too,” Jesús says. He sits back in his seat, rolls down the window, and sticks his head out so his brown hair blows in the wind.
And this time Moss doesn’t move his leg.
“Me, three,” Color says.
“Me, four,” I add.
“Me, five,” Beth says from the front seat.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. How did this happen? I’m not sure I want to know the answer. I just want to feel good right now. I just want to feel like I’m not alone. I don’t want to worry how it all occurred or how it might all fall apart. The lies I’m feeding my family seem to be stacking up like the turkeys in Color’s garage, but if they stay hidden and stacked, I can keep them.
Beth’s necklace dangles on the outside of her shirt, and I take a risk, deciding to talk to the Big Guy again, since she seems to get along with him.
God, please don’t take my friends away. Also, why do people always assume you’re a man? Are you really a woman, like Beth is really gay, but you haven’t said anything because people are idiots? If that’s the case, it’s a smart move. Nice going, God. Now, I know why you and Beth get along so well.
“My turn.” Color turns around in her seat. “Would you rather eat shit that tastes like chocolate or eat chocolate that tastes like shit?”
Moss argues that even if you eat chocolate that tastes like shit, you’re still eating chocolate, so you can at least feel good about that. But Jesús counters with the fact that if the shit tastes like chocolate, you’d forget that it’s shit. Beth says she’s with Moss. She’d take the chocolate flat out, and I like her even more.
When we pull into Albuquerque, the car goes quiet for a while. The only person talking is the woman telling us directions from Beth’s phone. She speaks in an English accent.
“Turn right in five hundred feet,” she says properly.
Jesús rests his head back on the seat. “Everything sounds better in a British accent.”
“Totally.” Color perfectly mimics the voice coming from the phone.
We all smile.
But as the buildings become denser and we’re surrounded by more cars, it hits me that we really aren’t in Truth or Consequences anymore. A sense of utter fear makes my whole body tingle.
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” I say. I have a carload of people who I’ve dragged on this trip, and what if Dharma doesn’t give me any answers? Or worse, what if I don’t like what I hear? “Let’s turn around. I’ve changed my mind.”
But Color looks back at me. “You can’t turn around, love. That’s not how time works.” She’s doing the British accent again. “Your only choice is to move forward.”
Color really is a genius. Jesús puts his hand on my thigh. Moss’s leg still touches mine, and there’s no way he doesn’t know it. Beth looks at me hopefully in the rearview mirror, and I think British accents really do make everything better.
“You’re here for answers,” Dharma says.
“Oh my God, it’s already working.” Jesús gawks.
“Color told me over the phone when we talked.” Dharma looks at Color. “Please tell your mom I say hello. She and I have traveled through many lives. Some even together.”
“I will,” Color says, and then adds under her breath, “next time I see her. Whenever that is.”
From the outside of Dharma’s house, you’d never know a psychic lives here. It’s a traditional adobe home, all sand and more sand, except for the windows, doors, and roof fixtures that are painted a baby blue.
Inside it smells like rich incense. Colorful curtains decorate the windows, where multiple crystals are lined up on the sill. New Age chiming music plays in the background. Tom would kill me if he knew I was here. Like complete murder in the first. He wouldn’t even bother burying the body. I glance at Beth to make sure she’s not absolutely freaking out her Science-Christian mind, but she looks totally enthralled.
She points at a pink crystal. “Rose quartz?” she asks Dharma.
“Heals the negative energy in the heart,” Dharma says.
Jesús picks up the crystal and holds it to Moss’s chest. “Tell me when it starts working.”
Moss pushes his hand away, his cheeks getting red. “Shut up.”
Jesús hands the rose quartz to Dharma. “This thing is clearly broken.”
Dharma laughs and touches Moss with compassion. “Just like your dad.”
“You know my dad?” he asks, with more enthusiasm in his voice than I’ve ever heard.
Dharma takes his hand. “I know a lot of things. That doesn’t mean I understand them.”
This is getting weird.
She gestures toward the large couch in her living room. We move in a pack, Dharma following behind us. When we all sit down on the couch, it sighs under our weight.
Dharma settles in an oversized leather chair that’s worn to her body and fits her perfectly. I wish I had a chair like that.
“You’re here for answers, which must mean you have some questions.”
That’s an understatement, I think. Dharma smiles in a way that tells me she just heard me talking to myself. Holy crap.
“Yes,” Color says. “Esther needs answers.”
“She’s not the only one.” Dharma looks at my friends with a knowing eye.
“So far you are earning your money,” Jesús says. He folds his hands over his knees.
“I have to warn you—answers can be overrated. Some people don’t want to hear what I have to say. Are you sure you want to do this?”
My friends look at me. Want? Need? I’m drowning in an empty pool that Tom refuses to fill with water. Am I sure I want to do this? No. But am I sure I’ve made the right decisions? No. From where I’m sitting, I don’t have a choice. With a nod, I tell Dharma to continue.
She sits forward in her seat, closing the space between us. “I must inform you that I can only tell you what I see. I can’t tell you how to interpret it.”
“OK,” I say.
Dharma says, “Now, give me your hand.”
That I can do. I place my hand in hers. Her skin is kind of cold, but against my hot hand
, it feels nice. Dharma traces the lines of my palm with her finger. She touches the calluses from my handlebars.
Then she looks at me. “Wow. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Seriously, you’re amazing,” Jesús says.
Color nudges him and whispers, “Shhh.”
Dharma’s eyes don’t shift from mine. “And it’s not over.”
“It’s not?” I say.
“No.” Dharma shakes her head. “The journey is never over, my dear.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do? Which way am I supposed to go?” I ask more ardently.
Dharma shakes her head. “I told you—I can’t tell you that.” Her eyes focus down at my palm again. “But I can tell you that souls have mates. That we do not travel into this life alone. We are connected to people by something that is beyond our human knowing. But the ever-present Soul knows.” Dharma places my hand and her hand on top of my heart. “The Soul feels beyond this world.”
“That’s what my mom says!” Color pipes up.
Now it’s Jesús’s turn to say, “Shhhh!” He leans forward in his seat.
“That’s what this journey is about,” Dharma adds.
I shake my head and feel tears sting my eyes. “But what do I do?”
There’s a long, gut-wrenching pause as Dharma stares at the wall behind us, like she’s checked out of the session. She’s gone vacant. This is truly horrible timing. I need her to focus. The moment I’m about to snap my fingers in front of her face, anger pulsing low in my belly, she takes both our hands away from my heart, her hand falling limp to her lap. I don’t know what to do. Is that it? Did we come all the way to Albuquerque for her to give me the same answer I already know? That I’m missing a piece. That answers just lead to more questions. She hasn’t solved anything.
“Where do I go from here?” I beg.
The Infinite Pieces of Us Page 10