Zen and Gone

by Emily France

  Essa didn’t have the energy to explain what she meant.

  “Puck wasn’t supposed to find out about this,” her mom continued. “Neither were you. Not yet.”

  “When were you going to tell us?”

  “Soon,” her mom said. “I was going to get you both together. Talk it through. Puck was spying on us. You know how she is. She was crouched outside the living room when Ronnie and I were talking. Ronnie brought the ad over for the mobile home and—”

  “I got her that bumper sticker as her first Portland keepsake,” Ronnie said, smiling. As if Essa would think he was clever for giving his mother such a great gift. “It’s funny because see,” he continued, “Portland has been changing over the years with all these rich folks moving in. It’s losing its roots. It’s always been a super chill town. One of the chillest. So that’s why people say keep it weird and all because—”

  “Ronnie,” Essa’s mom cut him off. She shook her head and turned back to Essa. “I was going to see what you thought of all this. I really was. I was going to explain how I feel about him, how I think we could have such a fantastic time in Portland. It’s just like Boulder, you’ll see. And we’ll make sure to find the right school for Puck. And for you. And I know that might be rough for you, to spend your senior year away, but I thought you might like it. The adventure and everything. I have a girlfriend there who can get me a great job. That pays more than Pure Buds. I could provide more for you girls.”

  For a moment, Essa softened. Her mom was sounding semithoughtful. Aware. She’d actually considered Puck’s schooling, Essa’s senior year, finances. The sound of a new town and a new start sounded good all of a sudden. More money for Puck. Maybe she could actually take the tap lessons she wanted. Or take real drama classes instead of being a pity case at the Boulder summer drama camp. Maybe—

  As Essa’s shoulders softened, she leaned a little closer to her mom.

  She smelled liquor.

  “Are you—” Essa sniffed. She was sure of it; her mother reeked of booze. The smell reminded Essa of the stairwell that led to the basement bathrooms below the Boulder Cafe. The odor emanated from her mom’s breath, an invisible cloud of dank, sour air.

  “I’ll make this move awesome, I promise.”

  Essa noticed it then, how her mom was blinking too slowly and leaning a little to the left on the bed. Her mom tried to sit up straight but looked too fluid, unmoored like her joints weren’t quite knit together and they might slide apart at any moment. Like she’d literally come apart at the seams. “You’re drunk.”

  “No, I’m not.” Her mother looked shocked, offended. She waved a hand in the air, and three wooden bracelets jiggled down her arm. “We just had a little. To celebrate.” She looked at Ronnie. Smitten. Happy.

  Happy.

  Essa took a long look at her mom. She was overwhelmed with the feeling that something was breaking. Irreparably. That Essa was finally giving up on connecting with her, on knowing her, on having any clue who she really was or how she really felt. Essa looked at her mother’s eyes, at her hair, at her thin frame perched on the side of the bed. She thought about what it must be like to be her, what it was like to think the things she did, to choose what she chose. Essa wanted to say something. Something right. Because she couldn’t shake the feeling that it might be the last honest thing she’d ever say to her mother. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to care enough to ever try it again.

  Essa looked at the floor and thought of the Zendo. She imagined her round cushion in the center of the room. She saw herself on it, legs folded, watching her breath.

  Sitting zazen, noticing her thoughts. Not with any sort of goal, really, and not to control them, but just to notice them. To witness what a storm they were, what a chaotic swirl of likes and dislikes, judgments and approvals, memories and predictions, desires and disappointments. Trying to arrive in reality, in the moment, breath by breath.

  Essa looked at her mom again. She thought she would ask her mother something profound: If her mom ever paid attention to her mind. To its constant chatter. If her mom was in control of her attention, or if it was in control of her. Maybe Essa would say something about how hard it was to be present, to stay in the moment, and that if you were messed up, it must be impossible. Maybe she’d say something snappy, something that would cut.

  I can’t read your mind. But I know when it’s gone. And it’s the loneliest feeling in the world.

  She didn’t say it.

  She considered trying to explain. How Essa and Puck never knew if their mother meant what she said or if she’d even remember it. How they were never sure if their mother was listening, registering, witnessing their lives in any dependable way.

  She didn’t say any of that, either.

  Instead, Essa stood up and headed for the door. She had to say something. But what tumbled out of her mouth wasn’t particularly profound, and it wasn’t an explanation. “Maybe you’re right,” she said.

  Her mother’s face brightened. “Really? Seriously, you might love Portland. It’s wonderful. I mean, I’ve never been there myself, but Ronnie says—”

  “No. Not about Portland.” Essa paused and looked up at Puck’s ceiling. At the kites hanging there. Bright, colorful . . . happiest when high. “About everything else.”

  Her mother raised her eyebrows, confused.

  Essa was always freaked out, too afraid to date, too scared about all the things that could happen to Puck, too obsessed about trying to be the perfect role model, the glue that held the family together. And it was falling apart anyway. Essa tried so hard to be in reality, to face things as they were, to sit on cushions in Zendos and be aware of life, moment by moment.

  Escape doesn’t work. It doesn’t cure duhkha.

  Stay in this moment. Present moment.

  Maybe Zen was wrong.

  Essa looked at her mother again. Engaged. Making plans. Smiling at her new love. Always loose and easy like her life was trouble free. Forgetting what time to be at work. Forgetting to worry. About anything.

  “You always say I’m the oldest teenager you know,” Essa said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s the problem.” Essa looked at the ceiling again, and this time she focused on the owl kite, the one she always thought looked scared, like it had seen something shocking, something that had silenced its hoot.

  Maybe it wasn’t scared at all. Maybe it was just numb, checked out. Free from feeling sad, or worried, or cautious. Free from feeling anything.

  Essa left the room; she didn’t have the energy to explain.

  But it was simple, really.

  Maybe I just need to get high as a kite.

  She tried to shake away the thought, let it drift by like a stormy cloud passing over a mountain, not quite full enough to rain.

  I couldn’t do that to Puck.

  I wouldn’t.

  But the thought felt sticky, stubborn, like the burnt black residue in her mom’s pipe.

  Oliver was at the kitchen window, watching Puck throw rocks at the wide-slatted wooden fence in the backyard. Hard. “I tried to talk to her,” he said. “It didn’t go so well.”

  One of Puck’s rocks missed the fence entirely and sailed over the top into the neighbor’s yard.

  “What did she say?”

  Oliver hesitated. “It’s embarrassing.”

  Essa raised her eyebrows. “Embarrassing? Did she tell you a story about Mom or—”

  “She asked if I was in love with you.”

  Essa kept her eyes on Puck. On one of her sister’s long, skinny arms pulling back just before a throw, arcing like a green branch in the wind.

  And what did you say?

  She didn’t ask the question, hoping Oliver would offer his response.

  He didn’t.

  “You hang out with a guy for one day and everybody assumes . . .” Essa traile
d off, thinking back to their kiss. “People are crazy. I mean . . . stupid. Not crazy.” She instantly felt horrible for using that word.

  “It’s okay,” Oliver said, jamming a hand in his jeans pocket. He looked down at his sneakers.

  Essa wanted to go back in the woods near Gold Hill. She wanted to be sitting next to Oliver, watching the shadow of her rock-and-stick compass slowly sliding across the ground. She wanted him to hold her as the shadow grew long and thin and finally melted into the dusk. She didn’t want to be here, failing. Essa had always been able to take care of Puck, to make things better when their mom screwed up. She watched Puck shove her golden hair away from her sweaty forehead.

  Puck, I don’t know if I can fix this one.

  “She say anything else?”

  Oliver leaned against the sink. “Yeah. She asked me when you were going to the mountains next. She wanted me to ask you if she could come. She’s pretty pissed that we didn’t invite her on the Gold Hill trek.”

  Essa sighed and shook her head. “I’ve explained to her a thousand times that she can’t come on one of the long trips. It’s too dangerous. She probably thinks I’ll bend because of how upset she is. But I can’t let her come. It would be—”

  “So when are you going next?”

  “Next weekend. At least, that was the plan last I talked to Micah. We planned to do a three-day trip . . .”

  “You still going? Or do you want to cancel because of . . . all this stuff?”

  “And by ‘all this stuff,’ you mean my mother’s epic shittiness?”

  Oliver nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “No way,” Essa said. “We’re not canceling the trip. Because if I don’t get out of here, I just might smoke my brains out.”

  Oliver didn’t look shocked, just sad. Sad for Essa, sad for Puck, sad about the whole situation. Essa leaned against the counter next to him. He slid close, and she put her head on his shoulder.

  “Can I come with? On the trip? Keep you company?” Oliver asked.

  Essa didn’t answer. She gently pulled away and turned to look out the window. “Shit,” Essa whispered. “She’s gone.”

  Essa raced out the open kitchen door to the backyard. She looked left and then right. No Puck.

  “Down here.” Puck was sitting on the ground, leaning against the house. Her legs were tucked underneath her.

  Essa studied her face. Had Puck heard what Essa said? About needing to get out of here? About smoking her brains out? Had she seen Essa put her head on Oliver’s shoulder?

  “What are you doing?” Essa sat down beside her, shoulder to shoulder.

  “Throwing rocks,” Puck said. “Hating Mom.”

  Essa half-smiled. “Me, too. I mean, the hating Mom part.” She racked her brain for what to say. She thought of their Zen teacher. What he would say, even though she wasn’t sure she believed any of it anymore. “You holding onto your breath? It’s the wheel, you know. The anchor.”

  “I forgot.”

  Essa smiled again. They looked straight ahead at the backyard with its patchy grass and crooked fence. They looked at the giant elm in the center, the breeze moving its leaves this way and that. Essa lifted her arm to put it around her little sister.

  But Puck popped up and avoided her. “Gonna go ride my bike to the shop,” she said. “I feel like looking at kites.”

  Essa tried to sift through the look in Puck’s eyes, trying to see if she could spot anything hidden there. “Listen, about what I said in the kitchen,” Essa began. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Wasn’t listening,” Puck said, cutting her off. She reached down and picked up a long stick. She swung it at her side like a trusty sword, as if her mother’s plan to move had put Puck in battle mode. Like she wanted to be prepared for attack at any moment, a monster around every corner. She swatted it this way and that, slicing the tops of the overgrown blades of grass. That wasn’t like Puck. She never liked to hurt living things. Even grass.

  She made her away around the house and out of sight.

  Essa shifted on the ground, not sure what Puck had seen or heard when Essa was in the kitchen with Oliver. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do about their mother. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do about Oliver. Essa looked into the sky and thought about meditating, about listening for sounds, about counting her breaths, about being in the moment instead of trapped in the storm of her thoughts. But it sounded hollow somehow. Like it wouldn’t help.

  Five more days until they set off for the mountains.

  Five more days.

  June 19

  21

  OLIVER

  “Why does a kite shop have to open at eight a.m. on a Monday morning in the summer?” Oliver rubbed his eyes and stared at Micah, who seemed to be unbelievably awake at this hour. Which was probably a good thing, considering he was standing on the very top step of a rickety ladder.

  “Early bird gets the worm, my friend.” One earbud was jammed in Micah’s right ear, and the other dangled loosely in front of his T-shirt. He was simultaneously bobbing his head to whatever he was listening to and attempting to hang the latest product arrival: giant kites that looked like paragliders. There were six to be hung, each larger than the last. Each one was a multicolored, double-layered canvas wing that looked like a large slice of a soft down comforter. Oliver decided they were beautiful. He’d seen people attached to real paragliders, swirling above the Flatirons in the early morning hours; these were the smaller kite versions.

  “What’s that one called?” He gestured to the paraglider kite that Micah was currently wrestling with.

  “It’s the Lykos, baby,” Micah said. “Responsive without being touchy. Built for speed. Catalogue says it’s been clocked at a hundred twenty miles per hour. That’s like a cheetah. Not a lykos.”

  “Lykos?”

  Micah tapped his foot on the top step of the ladder. “You ever take a philosophy class?”

  “No. I’m in high school. We don’t have philosophy classes. And you’re going to fall, man,” Oliver warned. He held on to the bottom of the ladder and steadied it. “And I am totally not catching you.”

  “Lykos. It means ‘wolf’ in Greek. And there’s this book—” Micah stopped talking; one of the paraglider’s lines came loose from the ceiling. He leaned perilously to the left and caught it before the whole thing came gliding down on top of him. He successfully attached the last polyester line to the ceiling and let go. The Lykos billowed open and filled out in the cool breeze coming from the air-conditioning vent.

  “Wow,” Oliver said, staring up.

  “What a beaut!” Micah spread his arms wide and beheld the kite. Fully opened, it was over six feet long. “Essa’s gonna love this.” Micah glanced down at Oliver. At the mention of Essa’s name, Micah’s expression changed from one of Kite Awe to worry. “Speaking of Essa . . . you stay long at her house the other night? She told me what her mom did. She’s going to marry this new guy and run off to Portland?”

  Oliver stepped out of the way as Micah climbed down the ladder. “Um, yeah. I stayed a little while.” Oliver looked back up at the lofted cells of the Lykos. “Wait. What does Lykos have to do with taking a philosophy class?”

  Micah looked like he was about to answer the question, but then got distracted as he walked to the counter and picked up the next kite to be hung. It was the largest paraglider in the series. “I don’t get the names of these things,” he said as he pulled the kite out of its large plastic sleeve. “I mean, they name one after the Greek word for wolf, and then the apex of the series is called The Mighty Bug? What gives? Shouldn’t this one be The Plato? Maybe The Professor.”

  Oliver moved the ladder a few feet to the left, readying it for Micah’s next ascent. Micah hoisted The Mighty Bug over his shoulder and mounted the steps. He looked like a hunter returning from a successful hunt with some sort of prima
ry-colored big game hanging limp in his arms. As if he was off to skin his prize and sell its canvas coat for a hefty price.

  “So . . . lykos? Philosophy?” This was the thing with Micah. You had to gently keep him on course.

  “Right. One of the most-read philosophy books of all time . . . Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Character was supposed to be like a wolf, so the author named him Phaedrus thinking that meant ‘wolf’ in Greek. It doesn’t. He should’ve named him Lykos. Classic philosophy trivia. You read it?”

  “No.” Oliver shook his head.

  “Chicks dig philosophy, bro. Better bone up on the topic. The writer is lucky Phaedrus means ‘brilliance.’ What if it had meant ‘cucumber’? Or ‘shoe’? It could’ve changed the entire meaning of the thing.”

  “Move a little to the left,” Oliver instructed as Micah prepared to poke a hanging wire into one of the foam ceiling tiles. “So what’s it about?”

  Micah looked down as he took another hanging wire out of his pocket. His thick black hair was particularly full. Oliver decided it looked a little like one of the puffy kites. “What’s what about?”

  Again. The focus issue.

  “The book. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It’s about Zen?”

  “Oh, right. Well, the author’s note says it has nothing to do with Zen.” Micah huffed. “But that’s such a Zen thing to say.”

  “Is everybody Zen around here?”

  Micah plunged the wire into the ceiling and fastened it tightly. “Hell no! I’m half-Thai. My mom’s Theraveda, man. Zennies sit too much! My ass couldn’t handle it.” Micah let go of the kite, and it unfurled, tugging tight on its polyester hanging lines.

  “Theraveda?”

  “Different school of Buddhism. Ask Puck. She can tell you all about it.” Micah climbed down the ladder, his work finished.

  “Don’t you mean Essa?”

  Micah gathered up the empty kite bags and threw them in the trash. “Nope. Meant Puck. She’s, like, a genius. You know that, right? She’s so into the Buddhism stuff. Knows everything. Gotta love that girl.” Micah eyed Oliver. “How was Puck doing when you left the other night?”