by Susan Dunlap
Their, not our, lives.
“Maureen?”
“Roshi let her think she could live here forever. He let her plant trees she’ll never see mature.”
I almost said: like the red maple. But, of course, Barry meant much more than that.
“Gabe he lets wander into sesshin whenever he wants to and pretend he’s here for zazen. And this guy, Justin—I’d forgotten about him till you gave him our truck. But, he’s a strange one. Kept eyeing my melangeur—it was the first piece of serious equipment I had. Built at the turn of the century—He kept muttering about antiques. If the melangeur wasn’t the size of a small elephant I would have worried. Strange guy. When he was at the opening he was mesmerized with the romance of Japanese monastic practice. Anyone could see Aeneas wasn’t all there, but Justin didn’t want to. Then when Aeneas went off, Justin just upped and left.”
“With Aeneas?”
“No, no. An hour or two after. Someone asked him to do some menial task, and he got all huffy and stormed off. But, you know I’ve seen these high-strung types cooking; I know them. Justin was just waiting for an excuse so he could storm out of here. He’s one of those guys who does what he wants and then twists things to justify it.”
A shiver shot through me. “Like what?”
“Like taking off with the truck.”
“He did that?” I squeaked out.
He gave a great sigh. “Not back then. But he’s been gone how long now? He could be near San Francisco by now.”
“Do you really think—”
“We’ll know soon enough, won’t we?”
He shoved himself up, the sluggish move of a man almost out of gas. But his fingers snapped against each other as he walked. I followed him down the stairs to the conche where the cocoa, vanilla, lecithin, and white sugar were mixing.
“What about you, Barry? What does Roshi let you think?”
Barry looked up from the brown mixture. “Me? Darcy, if I knew my illusions, they wouldn’t be illusions. But I’ll tell you this, whatever they are they’re in this conche, not in the monastery grounds. I don’t intend to be here next year. Whatever Roshi decides to do with this place is fine with me.”
“So, this contest you’re going to this weekend, it’s the same Cacao Royale?”
“The first time I’ll have been back since . . . the incident. But it’s entirely different now. And all I have to do is to see that it is entirely different. Roshi encouraged me.”
“But what about—”
“You mean the other competitors? Aren’t they worried I’ll stab them with my spatula?” Barry actually laughed. “Chocolate’s a strange world. I was appalled at myself. But the way everyone else looked at it, any judge with a food allergy has a death wish. And to something as common as peanuts! It was a cooking event, after all. It didn’t hurt my case that I had a lot of friends there and the judge was a jerk. But the real thing is that slipping the odd ingredient in a competitor’s dish, well, it’s done more than you’d think. And laughed about afterwards. It’s like . . . well, Maureen said, it’s like cooking class in a boy’s prep school. Except we didn’t actually throw food.”
I could feel a small smile moving my lips. It was easy to imagine Barry in a prep school, living, in fact, just like this.
“How’d the rest of the students here take it?”
“Huh? Oh, no, Maureen didn’t say that here. We were in the city then, right after the contest.”
“You knew each other before you came here?” Why hadn’t that possibility occurred to me?
“Yeah. We’d been together for four or five months then. In fact, I’m the reason Maureen is here. She rode along with me the weekend I drove up to ask Roshi to take me in till I got my head together. That was October. I stayed the weekend, then even after Roshi said I could come back, there was a bunch of stuff I had to take care of and I didn’t get up here proper till the next April. Maureen didn’t even have winter clothes, that’s how little intention she had of staying here. I mean, for her, a weekend here was the same as three days at the Monterey Aquarium, or Hearst Castle. I had to send her clothes.”
“The thing was,” he said over his shoulder, “she’d had a big disappointment professionally—the director of the ballet company was a pig. Much worse than the run-of-the-mill casting couch and starvation bully. He’d betrayed her. She was a wreck when she left. I was glad to get her out of the city then. That’s half the reason I brought her with me that weekend. So, she was surprised she stayed, but I wasn’t. I mean, I knew her. But I never dreamed she’d still be here when I got back in April.”
“Did something happen at the opening that made her stay?”
He grabbed my arms, but this time imploringly. “Don’t make her deal with that again. It was torture for her then.”
“Why? I mean, why more for her than the rest of you?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t talk about it, even to me. But, Darcy, Maureen is fragile. Don’t push her.” He was still holding my arms. “Darcy, promise me you won’t upset Maureen now.”
I kept quiet. There was no way I could ever make that kind of promise.
A bang resounded outside. I ran for the parking lot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The clappers were sounding when I stepped out of the kitchen. Drop what you’re doing. Come to work meeting!
Fat chance! I ran for the parking lot, almost falling over roots and skidding on loose gravel as I raced down the path. My eyes were on the outlet of the parking area into the road, the spot where the yellow of the hood would first be visible as the truck turned in.
The clang I’d heard had not been on the road, but in the parking lot. I didn’t think about that, not until I reached the empty lot, till I had to admit there was no vehicle there except the wheelbarrow still shaking from a crash into a metal storage box. And behind it, Amber, planted, arms crossed, legs apart.
“Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Justin, of course. He’s been gone all morning. I thought maybe he was sick—I know he wouldn’t skip zazen if he could haul himself out of bed. I mean, he did an entire sesshin when he had the worst flu of his life.”
That must have delighted the people sitting next to him.
“I didn’t want to burst into his dorm. I mean there are guys there and all. But when he didn’t even come to lunch, well, I knew something happened. Where is he?”
“Checking out the truck.”
“The truck’s not there!” she snapped. “You knew he was gone! Why didn’t you tell me?”
Without waiting for an answer she started glaring around for her next target. I hoped she was the only one who had noticed Justin’s absence. Lucky for me it was her and not Rob. He would be furious, and rightfully so, and for the third time in two days. If he hadn’t been wound up in his lecture, diverted by the flock of admirers afterward he’d have registered that same zafu empty period after period. I just hoped that Justin’s name wouldn’t come up in work meeting. Today most people would be continuing their jobs; for them a general announcement would do. A few would be called by name for new jobs. If they weren’t there everybody would know.
After work meeting, it would be smooth sailing. Justin would be back by afternoon zazen. The doctor would be here then and he would protect Leo and everything else would fall into place. I looked down and realized I had crossed my fingers. I felt better about Justin, but nowhere near certain.
“Amber,” I said, “do you remember the Jaguar Justin had after the opening ceremony?”
“Oh yeah, it was a great old car. Black, with, like, wood on the dashboard and lots of gauges and stuff. It was way cool. My mother just about had a hissy fit when I wanted to come back here with Justin in it. Damn, it would have been such a cool, cool drive. I mean it was such a pisser, you know, like suddenly I wasn’t responsible enough to drive all that way with him and—”
She would have gone on grumbling with pleasure had I not interrupted. “How did
he happen to get that car? That must have been quite an expensive set of wheels for a seventeen-year-old.”
“Yeah. He really lucked out. He had this uncle, see, his father’s younger brother. The guy was a loser and when he scored like his third DUI his wife told him like either you get rid of that car or I’m walking. So he gave it to Justin.”
“He didn’t sell it? He just gave it to him?”
“Justin figured his uncle hoped his wife would change her mind.”
“Did she?”
“Maybe, but not for a long time. He had it when he went to college.”
The clappers sounded again. Amber started to turn, but stopped and eyed me.
“Darcy?” She paused, a malicious smirk enlivening her face. “What makes you think Justin’s coming back?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Well, why would he? He can sit cross-legged anywhere. You gave him a cool old truck? He’s probably halfway to San Francisco with it.”
I didn’t believe that, couldn’t believe it, even though it was the second time I’d heard it, but still my stomach felt like it had dropped to the ground.
“Amber! Stop!”
“Okay, have it your own way!” She laughed and strode back into the kitchen.
The wind wrapped around my neck and its clammy fist dug into my chest. Why wasn’t Justin back? Leo and I had made it from the highway in an hour. Surely it wouldn’t have taken Justin more than two to get there, even with swampy hollows in the road, even if he’d had to get out and slip the boards under the tires. He’d left here before seven. Now it was one-thirty. Maybe the doctor had appointments? Maybe Justin had had to wait till noon or even later. It was still okay.
Barry hustled past me toward the circle of hunched figures in knit caps, canvas jackets, jeans, and work boots.
Maureen was holding the clappers now. The rest of us formed as much of a circle as we could manage and still stay out of the mud. Maureen clacked; we all bowed.
“Gabe will be leading a wood clearing crew, with, uh, Jim Washburn and Monica Donikki. Those of you assigned to crews report back to your crew leader. If you complete your job before the end of work period, see your crew leader for another assignment. If the leader has no assignment, see me.” She glanced around the ring. “Ah, Darcy. Your job today is . . . newspaper collection. Has Roshi explained that to you?”
I gasped! I’d forgotten that completely. Leo’s newspaper in the meadow a mile through the woods. She expected me to go walking into the woods, walking farther than the point I’d balked at Tuesday. I couldn’t do it when I thought my being jisha depended on it, but that was then, before I had stood on the roof and felt the swirling outside of me. Maybe now things would be different, totally different. Now the woods might not be demons but just trees. My heart was pounding against my ribs, fear and eagerness drumming together.
But I couldn’t leave Leo, not with the doctor on his way. I felt like I’d been yanked back by the collar.
In a minute the meeting was over and only a few people were clustered around Maureen. I said, “About the paper, I can’t go for it. I—”
“I’ll go!” Amber grabbed Maureen’s arm. “I can handle it. It’s no problem. I’ll go.”
Amber was all but dancing at the prospect of getting free of the sesshin for an hour’s unsupervised walk. Her face was flushed with hope. Even her hair was bouncing.
Maureen hesitated. Had Rob been in charge, he would have been reminding Amber that tasks are not assigned for pleasure and shushing her at the same time. But Maureen looked at Amber, and I had the sense she saw her own agitation reflected in Amber and knew the yearning to escape even if it’s escaping to nothing but more of the same. Just the thought of an hour on her own could carry Amber through the day.
An hour on her own, alone, exposed. She was Aeneas’s sister, the one person Roshi expected me to watch over. Whatever led to Roshi’s poisoning, Aeneas was still key to it. I couldn’t let her traipse out into the woods alone. No matter . . . no matter, anything.
“Maureen. It’s my job, I’ll go.”
“But Roshi needs you.” Amber all but pushed me out of the way.
“I can deal with this.”
“No you can’t! You’re terrified of the woods!”
I know I flushed as red as my hair. A couple people let out laughs. Maureen looked from Amber to me, a smile twitching on her thin face. I couldn’t tell whether she was tickled at this little squabble over this little job, or at my wimpy fear of the woods, the fear that maybe I didn’t even have anymore. It’s bad enough to be humiliated but ten times worse being dinged for something you’ve overcome, maybe. And there was not a thing I could say.
“You go, Amber,” Maureen said. “Darcy, check to see if Roshi has things for you to do.”
Maureen had barely finished before Amber was racing away. She had to be called back and given directions. In the end Barry said he’d take her to the path. When they left everyone laughed, but it was a been-there laugh and I wondered if maybe the laughs about me had been kinder than I’d credited. At least with Barry she’d be safe for a while. I followed her as far as the road, and stood watching till she disappeared and Barry walked back. He turned and stared at the empty, silent road.
“That truck’s our lifeline. It’s our only connection to the outside.”
My whole body went cold. I had known it, but hearing Barry say it gave it an ominous reality. I thought of my own cell phone, frustratingly far out of range here. “Why, dammit? This is so stupid. Why didn’t you all run in a phone line at least?”
“Costs a fortune.”
“But surely some kind of cell phone access—?”
“I’m not the likely successor here.”
“You mean Rob doesn’t want a phone?” I asked, sidestepping the big issue. “How come?”
“They didn’t have phones in traditional Japanese monasteries.”
“So?”
Barry just shrugged and stalked away, leaving me to wonder how long and deep the issue of succession had been smoldering. No wonder Barry was planning to be gone in a year. When Leo was gone things would be done Rob’s way. And there’d be no room for Barry.
Barry clumped back to the kitchen. He hadn’t slept more than a couple hours at a time in days, couldn’t think of sleep now. So much to do. Was the chocolate conching fast enough? Had he ground the nibs long enough or should he scoop some back into the melangeur and prolong the conching? The mixture in the conche had to be perfect and ready for tempering tonight. He’d have to use some of the tempered chocolate from the last batch—only half criollos—to speed the process. No way to avoid it! Damn! A small amount . . . but still . . . Damn!
It’d all be wasted if the truck wasn’t here.
Calm down! Years of facing the wall and this is how you react in a crisis? He forced himself to breathe deeply, to focus on his feet hitting the ground with each step. By the time he reached the kitchen he had a patina of control. He poured coffee, the eighth or twenty-seventh cup of the day.
Maureen! He couldn’t let Darcy sideswipe her with questions about that awful weekend of the opening. Maureen was already on the thin edge; they all were. If she had to think about that, even enough to fend off questions . . . he didn’t know how bad it would be.
He flashed on her in their two-room flat in the Mission District after she’d been shoved out of the ballet company. Shoved off the edge of her world, left to wander without goal, rant and babble without censoring. Right before the peanut oil fiasco. The worst months of both their lives.
Grief doesn’t bind people. Grief is a solitary thing. People say you share your grief. Bullshit. Only in the sense that a hostess shares her box of truffles, offering the guest her pick of one. No guest eats the whole box. One is plenty. The bone-deep dull pain of lost acclaim, never again to hear the audience stunned into silence, then thunder their applause for an adagio she had raised to a new level of perfection, that loss he’d understood. But he could only
imagine the prospect of life without dance, and the impotent rage of one who had studied and practiced and lived dance since she could reach the barre. As he’d curled around her sleepless, shivering body, she had tried to explain the longing to move into the transcendent roles reserved for lead dancers, to be dance. Then to—finally—be given the title role in Giselle, and the week before the season opened, to be yanked out for an understudy the maestro was screwing; for that she had barely had words. That he had learned from friends: “Guy’s a pig. The girl’s good; but she’s not Maureen.” “Nothing Maur can do. She bitches; she’s toast. It’s his kingdom.”
“My body is my instrument,” Maureen had said another night. “Without the stage, the company, the orchestra, I can’t play it. Without dance, I’m like a musician using his cello for a crutch.”
He could still see her standing at the living room window, her colorless face framed by the thick San Francisco fog outside. She, walking flatfooted back and forth in the night, growing thinner as purpose drained out of her. He had tried tempting her with his best, the torte of crushed pistachio on a bed of bitter chocolate (65 percent cocoa) and drizzled with a sharp raspberry liqueur that had taken him months to perfect. She had taken one bite. Could not swallow another, she had insisted. And he had had nothing more to offer, nothing to keep her from walking flatfooted in the night, and worse, in the days, talking nonstop, blurting anything, everything, oblivious to its relevance, or to the listener. She’d been so erratic he had taken the knives to the bakery and been relieved they didn’t own a car. Had it been a nervous breakdown? Would she have pulled herself together in another week? He didn’t know. He’d been sucker-punched by the Cacao Royale Tasting debacle and the horror of being called a poisoner.
Bringing her here had been pie in the sky; he’d never imagined she’d stay permanently. A shot of guilt stunned him as he remembered how relieved he’d been when she said she wasn’t going back to the city.