“Oh, yeah, sure, yeah.”
Val settled onto the couch next to his calves, perched on the edge, facing Danny. She was statuesque in the true definition of the word, her body’s muscles so perfectly and beautifully defined that they could have been an artist’s model for a sculpture. He gazed upon her, taking in the smooth ripples of her sculpted shoulders, her firm chest muscles finally giving way to the soft pillows of her breasts. She was quite a girl. And yet—and yet what?
“So, we’re off to Ubud tomorrow,” she said.
“Yeah,” Danny said. The truth of that statement had been circling in his head since the accident, and every time it surfaced, he felt overwhelmed by the implications it brought and pushed it back down. “Crazy the way this is ending for you guys, I bet.”
“Yeah,” Val said, laughing a bit. “Definitely not the way he planned it.”
“Ajuni?”
“Yeah, sorry, Ajuni.” She paused, looking at Danny inquiringly for a moment, searching for something in his face, then quickly looking away. “He ran off like a dog with its tail between its legs. Not exactly the superhuman transcendent guru man he’s been trying to project.”
She laughed bitterly, and Danny could tell that she was just speaking ill of Ajuni for his sake, which made him bristle inside once again.
“Well, he did get pretty injured, right?” He said, as surprised as anyone to hear words of defense for Ajuni coming out of his mouth.
“Whiplash,” Val said. She shrugged slightly, but the zeal with which she’d put down Ajuni a moment before was gone. She seemed to sense that Danny wasn’t interested in that line of conversation. “I’m not sure how bad, or even really what whiplash is, but it was probably wise of him to take a break, at least for a bit.”
Danny felt himself involuntarily grimace at that seemingly innocuous yet loaded word: wise.
“I’ll lead the classes up in Ubud until he’s ready to rejoin us. Hopefully it’ll only be a few days—I’m definitely not qualified to fill his shoes long-term,” she continued, furrowing her brow, an anxious expression coming over her face for a moment. She gave a small shake of her head, as if to dislodge any negative thoughts, and conjured up her big smile once more. “So what’s next for you?” She asked, her voice bright and chipper once again.
Danny gave a vague shrug and made a face that he hoped indicated I have no idea but I’m fine and please don’t ask anything else. After a moment, he realized that unfortunately he’d need to volunteer more, and spoke.
“I’ll probably head back to my apartment in Seminyak in a few days, try to find some sports medicine specialist who can help me do PT. Just build my strength back up, get back on the board as soon as possible.” It was the first time he’d vocalized—or even really consciously had—these thoughts. He wasn’t sure he believed the words as they left his mouth.
“A sports medicine specialist?”
“Yeah.”
“In Bali?”
“There’s gotta be someone. All those surfer tourists down on the southern tip. I’m sure things like this happen all the time.”
Val nodded.
“How long do you think you’ll need to stay off the board?”
“Probably not that long,” he said. “I can already walk pretty fine.” Now he was just flat out lying. “Though I should probably rest up for now, since I think I overdid it this morning,” he added quickly, lest she suggest a stroll down the beach—or even a walk across the room.
“Oh,” Val said, eyebrows raised. “That’s great.”
The air in the room felt impossibly thick. More humid than ever, despite the cleanness in the atmosphere the wave and storm had brought.
“Well, I’ll let you rest,” she said, standing. “I just wanted to make sure I had a chance to say goodbye.”
Danny felt a profound relief at these words. “Well I’m glad you did,” he said. “It’s really nice of you to come visit.”
She walked toward the end of the couch where his head lay, propped up with pillows, and leaned down, her cleavage spilling out from the top of the sarong. She kissed him on the cheek, her lips sticky with some sort of gloss, her hair smelling like coconut.
“Be well,” she said, the coconut smell fading as she stood back up. She turned and walked toward the door and was gone.
“You too,” Danny murmured belatedly, staring at the now empty door, which she’d left ajar.
He sat like that for some time, turning over and over the question that Val had asked him, trying to figure out what the answer was. The real answer, not the pleasant answer, the polite answer, the answer he wanted to be true.
His knee was very messed up. Bali had doctors, sure, but probably not the type or caliber of specialists he’d want—hypocritically, he knew—for himself. Then there was all the other stuff, the stuff he didn’t have the energy to think about right now.
What was next for him?
After her failed visit to Danny, Adele walked for a long time. She walked the same path she’d taken that evening she got caught in the rainstorm, when Danny had taken her in and dried her off. She walked beyond the place where she’d turned back before, now more comfortable with the lay of the land and confident that she could make her way back, even in the semi-dark. The rhythm of her steps, echoing the waves gently falling on the sand, kept her mind clear. She wondered if this could be considered noble, some kind of meditation, or if she was just numb. Then she stopped wondering and just walked.
On her way back, she stopped by a roadside warung for dinner. She hadn’t eaten for a long time and was starving, and didn’t want to eat at the hotel restaurant. The thought of making conversation drained her. She ate slowly by herself, silent except to order her food from the petite older woman who ran the eatery and to muster a “Terimah kasih”—thank you—as she left.
Walking through the dew-damp grass of the resort, long blades tickling her flip-flopped feet, she harbored a vague hope that she’d run into Danny, or that he’d see her and call out, but she knew that was absurd for any number of reasons. Glancing toward his door, she saw that the door was ajar but the lights were off.
When she returned to her cabin, she stayed on the porch for a long time and stared out at the water. The numbness began to wear off, but tiredness had not yet taken hold, and she felt a surge of panic in her stomach. She didn’t want to—honestly didn’t know if she could—deal with the thoughts that would come.
The thoughts about what she’d done to Danny. About how she’d completely squandered this entire opportunity, not only sacrificing her self-enlightenment but also destroying a relationship, arguably becoming a worse person and not a better one. About how she hadn’t gained any clarity on what she wanted to do professionally, had barely even thought about it at all, though that had been the ostensible reason she’d shelled out many thousands of dollars for this trip. Sure, she’d become better at yoga, but that was about it. And did that matter, on any more meaningful level? Maybe.
Thinking about her professional trajectory reminded her of something, though it took her fuzzy brain some time to articulate just what it was. Writing. Not that she should be a writer—she’d given up that fantasy years ago, when she’d gone to law school—but writing as a skill she had, a power to make a difference, both at work and in life. And, perhaps more importantly, to process her emotions in a manageable way, as well as gain clarity into what she was feeling and why.
She needed to write. Right that moment.
On the small table on the side porch of her cabin, she found her computer and pressed the power button. While she waited for it to boot up, she puttered around inside, absently collecting her items into various piles. They would be leaving the next day, the yoga retreat over, and she hadn’t begun to pack. This was extremely unlike her. Yet, in this moment, the familiar feelings of anxiety and panic seemed so distant as to be almost incomprehensible.
When she retuned to her laptop a few minutes later, the screen was still black. She tapped the sp
acebar a few times and nothing happened. Moved her fingers over the mouse touchpad. Nothing. She frantically clicked keys on the keyboard, pressed and held the power button again, banged her entire flat palm over all the keys on the keyboard at once—the screen remained black.
Leaning close to investigate the laptop closer, she saw a bit of brownish-red discoloration on the side. Upon closer examination, she saw that it had spread along most of one side of the computer, all the way inside the USB port and headphone plug-in. She tried to think of alternate explanations for what the discoloration could be, but there was really only one explanation: rust.
Suddenly, she became aware of something that she somehow hadn’t seen before—that the entire table had a sheen of wetness, with small puddles collected along its irregular wooden surface. She plucked her laptop up and found, to her deep dismay, a shallow pool of water beneath it. A salty smell hit her nose. Seawater.
“Shit,” she whispered.
Beyond the railing of the side porch, was a small inlet, a usually gentle and small body of water where locals liked to hang out with fishing poles and a large bottle of Bintang and wile away the afternoons. During the rogue wave fiasco, sea and rainwater must have caused the inlet to surge, sending it flowing up over the banks, across her small lawn, and up onto the porch. Her computer was waterlogged. Ruined.
She stood still for a moment, as if afraid to move until she’d catalogued the damage. Mentally, she ticked over all the reasons this new development was horrible: money, for one thing; inconvenience; all the photos and music she hadn’t backed up; her documents—her documents.
“Shit,” she said again, the realization dawning on her in all its terrible clarity. This had been her work laptop at GreenGrub, and it held all the files related to her work there. The business plan, internal memos, goals, the company manual, plus everything related to her failed attempt to fight Organify: legal documents, half-started appeals, email drafts that she’d never sent.
And now it was all gone.
On some level, perhaps it didn’t matter, and yet those documents allowed her to believe that maybe someday GreenGrub could be resurrected, or that she would find a legal loophole that would destroy Organify; at the very least, they were memories, and visible evidence of the good work that she’d once done.
She closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose, then let out a long, deep breath. Now was not the time to think about this. She shook her head wildly, as if to fling out any lingering thoughts about her electronic loss, placed the computer back on the table, and went back inside. Fumbling through her things, she found a pad of paper and a pen, and sat down to write the old-fashioned way.
By the time she got up from the table and crawled into bed, the first pulses of orange dawn had begun to warm the night sky toward the horizon.
Chapter 23
Though he’d slept with his door ajar—open, even—almost every one of the many nights that he’d stayed at the resort, Danny was annoyed that Val hadn’t closed it that night. He didn’t feel the things that an open door implied: happy, open, welcoming. He felt like lying on his couch and covering his face with a throw pillow and waking up many hours, maybe even a few days, later.
As it were, the door was ajar, and the idea of struggling off the couch and hobbling across the room to shut it seemed too exhausting for Danny to contemplate, so ajar it remained. The same outside noises that had been his lullaby for weeks now caused him great irritation, even a hint of panic. Lying awake on the couch, he willed the birds to fly to some other island, the cicadas to shut up, the waves—at the thought of waves his stomach clenched—to stop forever. However, he must have fallen asleep at some point, because when he next opened his eyes, the pale blue of early morning was visible in the sliver of sky the door revealed.
Today was the day they all left.
Danny figured he would stare at his ceiling for a while and wait for some other, more productive thought to enter his mind. Or for him to get hungry or need to use the bathroom. Until one of those three things happened, he was staying put.
At some point later, he thought he heard a light patter on his front porch, followed by the whisper of something soft brushing against the wood grain. He lifted his head slightly to hear better, but all was silent.
“Hello?” His voice was hoarse from so many hours of not speaking. He cleared his throat. “Someone there?”
But he was met with complete silence. He must have imagining it.
The reality that Adele left today suddenly hit him with its full, uncompromising force. He must have been hoping that she would come knock on his door before she left, that somehow she would have come up with words that made everything okay. What he understood now was that this wouldn’t happen, that she would leave the resort without saying goodbye—or anything—to him, and shortly after that would be on a bus to Ubud and, later, a plane to a destination 8,000 miles away. He let his head fall back onto the pillow.
“Good luck, Adele” he said, almost involuntarily, and was surprised to feel that he really meant it. “And goodbye.”
He jerked his head up again as the sound of light patter returned. His entire body tense, he lay completely still, neck straining, ears listening for any sound of movement, barely breathing.
Some five minutes later, he relaxed back down onto the cushion. It had been nothing.
Chapter 24
When she’d arrived at the dingy Balinese airport, Adele had a profoundly different reaction to it than she had upon first seeing it some six weeks before. That first time, the island had been new, the adventure about to unfold, her body coursing with anticipation and nervous energy. It had been exciting and “exotic.” Today, the corrupt guards and swindling taxi drivers and gray towers of exhaust fumes and hot, rotting garbage and folding chairs by the gates did not seem new or exciting. It all depressed her.
It was the only thing she had to focus on, unfortunately. She’d already said goodbye to her peers—most of the group had later flights and so were still up in the mountain town of Ubud, where they’d passed the second (comparatively uneventful) half of their yoga training, and the two women who had accompanied her in Yande’s van, Liesse and Karli, were flying to Europe out of a different terminal. She’d already forced a breakfast down her throat. She couldn’t focus enough to read. And the other things to think about—the real things—she didn’t feel up to yet.
When they left the beachside resort in the early morning hours, two days after the day that had changed everything, Adele had sat in the very back seat and looked out the window at Danny’s hut until it was a speck that she couldn’t differentiate from any other specks. It had felt melodramatic, maybe, but necessary. As soon as it was gone from site, she’d turned forward, taken a deep breath, and committed her full mental and physical energy to her personal yoga practice and inner journey for the remainder of her time in Bali. As tended to happen when Adele set a goal for herself, she achieved it, and Danny had stayed on the periphery of her thoughts for three weeks.
But now there were no headstands or crow pose or eight limbs of yoga to fill her mind. Now there were only folding chairs and rotting garbage and the thoughts she’d held at bay so successfully for all this time.
Mercifully, and miraculously, her flight was not delayed, and soon she found herself settled into her window seat, the warm roar of the plane’s engine calming her mind and soothing her muscles. She closed her eyes and blankness filled her mind again. It was beautiful.
As the plane began to lift from the runway, she opened her eyes. The ground below fell away—the industrial chaos of the airport, the squalor of the surrounding shanties, the thick and vast morass of the green jungle enveloping everything beyond a certain radius, and then the perimeter of white sand and turquoise blue water. It was so beautiful and so flawed, so unique and yet so understandable, so Bali, that she felt a lump in her throat as she watched the small, strange, messy, beautiful, simple, nonsensical island grow smaller and smaller below her.
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br /> After the plane breached a layer of clouds and the land was no longer visible, she turned from the window and closed her eyes again. This time, however, she was not met with a blank mind.
That last night at the beach resort, when she’d begun writing, she’d had no clear notion of what she would put on the paper. She just sat and let her fingers move the pen, and soon half a page was full of thoughts, feelings, phrases, and images. Once the entire page had been filled up with a sort of stream-of-consciousness brain dump, her writing began to take on a more directed form. Soon, she knew exactly what she wanted—needed—to write. She’d ripped the filled-up pages out and began anew on a fresh sheet.
There was something she’d been circling around in her mind the entire time she’d been on the island, something that had to do with the relationship between yoga and Danny. She’d never formulated it that clearly before, but that’s what it was: they both had such similar effects on her, both seemed foreign and inaccessible at first, and then quickly became the most natural thing in the world. Both brought her a kind of clarity and simplicity that she’d not experienced since childhood. How could this one man, a privileged white American who works a morally bankrupt but lucrative job, share so many commonalities with an ancient spiritual practice meant to help humans achieve enlightenment, transcendence? Adele didn’t think she could answer that question, but she knew she needed to write about it.
Yoga is often defined as a practice meant to transform the body and the mind. Literally, the Sanskrit word yoga means “to unite”. Think about that. Transformation of body and mind through union. Sounds kind of like a description of love, doesn’t it?
But I don’t think that’s most people’s experience of love. Sure hasn’t been mine. It’s always more of a struggle to fit together than a “union”, and the only transformations were things like me wearing my hair down more frequently to please my boyfriend of the moment.
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