She got out of her bed and navigated a path to the bathroom without tripping over any of the obstacles that would have felled a less intuitive sort. I heard the water running. What was she doing? Brushing her teeth?
She was free, wasn’t she? No explanation, no preamble. In the middle of a conversation, she could get up and walk away and tend to personal hygiene. She could say anything. Do anything. No thought given to how she was coming across, how irretrievably goofy she sounded.
She climbed back into bed and sat cross-legged in front of me. “While we were in the ladies’ room, I held on to Phyllis’s hand, you know, the Technocrat, and asked her if she would try something with me.” With this, Erica grabbed my hand, and this time I flinched.
“I asked her, just for a few fleeting moments, to suspend her belief system. To consider the possibility that there was another way to address her condition. To change her condition.”
I got up and walked to the bathroom. “Where are you going?” she snapped. “I’m right in the middle of something.” I hesitated briefly but forced myself to keep walking and to assert this small protest to what I feared was becoming an evangelical bludgeoning.
“I have to use the bathroom,” I said, and I closed the bathroom door behind me. Judge me if you will, but I opened the medicine cabinet very quietly and scrutinized the contents. Nothing, really. Though the bathroom wasn’t filthy, there was a disarray of contents and organization. Towels draped but not in alignment. Toothbrushes dangling off the side of her sink. Scraps of dental floss everywhere. Soap resting in watery containers. “She’s a slob,” I said quietly.
I washed my hands and came back out to the bed. She hadn’t moved an inch.
I grabbed her hand and sat very close to her. “I’m sorry. Continue.”
I held her hand, just firmly enough so that any attempt to extricate herself would have been noticeable. I wanted some kind of control, because, honestly, I was losing myself in a weird stew of attraction and absurdity. But if I held on strongly enough, I reasoned, I could weather the nonsense that apparently could not be halted.
She began to look less perturbed, then continued. “At some deep level, there was no separation between myself, the energy I was harnessing, and Phyllis. It was all one continuous activation of energy, of particles, of building blocks of creation, and intention. And everything was focused on healing this growth on Phyllis’ arm.” She stopped and caught her breath. “But I was not healing Phyllis. I was facilitating the transmission of energy, and that would heal her. There is a difference. One more thing. I am not a nut, so stop looking at me like I am.”
“I am not looking at you like you’re a nut,” I said. How preposterous this was becoming—all the more so because the more absurd I found her pronouncements, the more aroused I became. But was I really excited, or was my body just looking for a way to shut her up?
She seemed satisfied with my answer, for the moment. “So we sat there in the bathroom. And I felt something flowing through me, or around me. I accessed her, accessed her condition.”
“Please don’t tell me it vanished right before your very eyes,” I said.
“Not quite. But a few days later, it was gone. Gone.”
“It could have just run its course,” I said. “Just some kind of allergic reaction. Some weird and random skin condition that resolved itself on its own. I once had this terrible rash on my . . .”
“No,” she interrupted. “This was terrible and long standing. She hadn’t been able to get rid of it.”
“But you told me she was embarrassed and hadn’t seen a doctor about it. Maybe some simple ointment or cream could have taken care of it.” I stopped and regrouped, because, well, what were we talking about anyway? That she had healed the Technocrat through telepathy or voodoo?
I also paused because I realized I had an opportunity. Right there and then. Get out. Get out now. Make an excuse. Get away. Break up by text. Would it even be a breakup? We had just met. Send a message via Facebook. Was she even on Facebook? Be awful, be inconsiderate, do what you have to do. But get out now.
But I was excited. Not by the notion that I was becoming involved with someone possessed of special abilities. I did not believe that for a moment. At that point in our relationship, if that’s not too strong a word, I liked the environment of an exotic creature, a troubled and uncontrollable force that I could guide and respond to. I had this wildly comforting thought that we would never lack for conversation. No terrible pauses revealing that we had run out of things to say, that we had run our course. Oh no, this dynamic was rich with the prospect of time consumption, of interaction. And I was smart enough, educated enough, to parry all of her insights. What a time we would have.
“The growth went away. That, by the way, was why I was at Mikonos. I was with her, having dinner. You met her. Then, two days later, I got a call from her, telling me the whole thing vanished. Not even a scar or rash. Then I called you.”
Presumably she had her friends, her parents, and any number of other acquaintances that she could have called first. But she called me.
“You were there,” she said. “At Mikonos, and I saw the colors surrounding you.”
“I keep forgetting about the colors.”
“You helped,” she said. “Or maybe you were responsible for everything. Or maybe no one person is responsible. Maybe these energies follow an erratic pattern, and it’s left to us not to understand but to recognize. Just accept, be open, don’t question. Maybe that’s my mission. To recognize. To facilitate the conduction.”
Her voice cracked, and she reached over to drink some water, all the while staring at me.
“Also I’m seeing her at an event next month, and I want you to come with me.”
“What?” I asked. “What event?”
“A fundraiser for the Wildlife Preservation Society.” She paused. “Yes, I like birds. And nature. I’m a hippie, displaced in time.”
“Why do you want me to come? Am I on your . . . radar screen? Are we an item?” I asked her. “Can we plan an entire month ahead? Have we graduated to the point where I can just show up with you at a fundraiser to meet a friend? I just met you.”
“You’re obsessed with me, remember? You’re strategizing with me. You’ll do anything. For me,” she said.
She smiled, threw her head back, and laughed, somehow a familiar sequence, even though I couldn’t help but calculate that our relationship was in its first week of existence.
6
The Levitation of Debris
We spent that day in bed. We watched TV, listened to music, conversed about inconsequential topics. At some point around midafternoon, she fell asleep, and I began to clean up. The disarray in Erica’s apartment could be divided into three categories: clothes, papers, and food-related items. The clothes were strewn across the apartment in random clusters, much like the result of throwing a hundred pennies in the air. I was not entirely sure which clothes were clean and which were not, and I had no intention of embarking on further investigation. Without congregating the clothes, I decided to simply fold and stack them at their designated clusters.
The papers presented a far more delicate challenge. Although I was neat with paperwork, I knew enough about the work habits of professionals—that there was often method and organization to what might appear to the untrained eye as sloppiness. But the papers and documents in Erica’s apartment abounded. No random clusters here. Instead, the papers splayed out in various directions. At times, the trails connected for yards, and then suddenly, a break would appear. There would be no attachment, but then, the trail would pick up three feet later. Was this a new trail or the unintended severance of a continuous trail caused by a sleepy scuffling on an early morning dash to the bathroom? I couldn’t chance the disruption in what might in fact be some odd form of organization. So, I limited myself to cautiously pushing the papers together into neat piles, without changing their order or relocating them.
The easiest task was throwing
out all of Erica’s food-related items, which included food itself, as well as containers and bags and empty pizza boxes. While I tidied, I noticed that the windows and floors and cabinet doors were strangely clean. It seemed that Erica had somehow levitated all the debris off the floor, swept and mopped, and then lowered the mess back to its original position. As I pondered these issues, Erica woke up. She was not oblivious to the change to her apartment, and I think that she quickly recognized that any expression of irritability would have been pointless. But she was irked. I suspected that she resented not so much the intrusion but the resulting tidiness. I had thought it would be an intimate and kindly gesture to straighten out her apartment, but seeing her expression then, I suddenly panicked, wondering whether she thought I had patronized her, as if I had lent a hand to some enfeebled slob.
“Is this something you do a lot?” she asked. “Cleaning up after others?” She stared at me without warmth.
“I’m on a learning curve,” I said. “But I can fix things.” I picked up a few papers I had piled and gently threw them at her. As the sheets drifted down to her feet, I saw the tension in her lips as she forced herself not to smile. She then picked up the thrown sheets and placed them neatly back on the pile.
“So can I,” she said.
The next few weeks were wonderful, although I found it increasingly difficult to focus on work. I spent most of my free time with Erica, mostly at her apartment, occasionally at mine. I lived in a prewar brownstone walk-up on the Upper West Side, but Erica was unhappy there, less likely to have spontaneous bursts of laughter to break up what appeared to be a passionate but dour disposition.
Our conversation was conventional during this time. Intelligent, insightful, covering the standard topics of politics, arts, family, friends. I liked these exchanges a great deal. Erica was smart, inventive with language, unpredictable in her viewpoints. And she listened well. I was beginning to feel more comfortable with the thought of her meeting my parents. Maybe I was wrong in my initial assessment. She would pass my father’s 80/20 test easily, a test which posited that in any group setting, at least 80 percent of one’s time should be devoted to listening, not speaking. She had a gift for “tuning in,” for considering and responding to comments, with only occasional forays into alternative commentary.
We remained cocooned during these initial weeks, and why not? I had no desire to rush the introduction of Erica to my friends and family. We could remain private, showcased anonymously in our outings in the Village or in Flatiron District restaurants but with Erica’s views shielded from scrutiny.
Her talk of magical healing receded. Perhaps her attachment to spirituality substituted for the absence of a close connection to another person. I would be her savior.
7
On a Path
Erica did not forget about inviting me to the Leadership Circle luncheon for the New York chapter of the Wildlife Preservation Society. For the occasion, I donned a crisp Burberry pin-striped suit, offset by a light purple dress shirt and Hermes tie. And Erica wore a knit Armani dress with a flared skirt, close fitting and pitch black. Erica had two gears in clothing: “slob” and “decked out.” No iconoclastic protest here; when an event so demanded, Erica could answer the call. But I also noticed her lack of interest in dressing up, as if her high-end wardrobe was a matter of function, not enjoyment.
The event was held at Cipriani’s Grand Central, once a cavernous bank lobby and now retrofit in a spare, trendy style and rented out primarily for opulent fundraisers. I had been to events like these before, usually as a guest of clients, and I always felt uncomfortable.
I suppose I’d have to categorize myself as falling within the orbit of the 1 percent crowd. I worked at a large firm. I was a few years from partnership consideration. But rigorous distinctions separated the comfortable from the filthy rich, and I felt these distinctions keenly. With some notable exceptions, lawyers constituted The Help. We tidied up after the excesses of our masters, and we were reasonably well compensated for our efforts. But we were janitors all the same. We knew it. And our employers knew it.
When Erica and I walked into Cipriani’s, I blended in for a while, with a calm gaze and bold comportment. But this pose weakened as we maneuvered from one group to another. Cluster by cluster, the participants’ status in these roaming conversations were revealed or exposed. No one announced their professions, but we intuited our stations in life quickly, based on a hundred cues, facial tics, or word choices that acted like bouncing particles scatter-shot into a circular boundary. We knew who we were.
Erica seemed oblivious to the slights of status. Of course, she had the advantage of playing by different rules. She helped people who actually needed help. But at least in this setting, she didn’t berate the gathering for morally questionable life choices. Instead, she was engaging and lively, fluid in the social art of navigating short-lived exchanges.
We made our way through the crowd, and as we pushed toward the center of the room, people starting taking their seats even though no announcement had yet been made. Our table was toward the rear, and as we pivoted from one cluster to the next, I suddenly felt Erica’s fingers dig deeply into my arm. “Look,” she said. “There she is.”
Without more, this was a difficult directive to follow. Even using Erica’s gaze as a guide, nothing commanded my attention. “What . . . who are we talking about?”
“Phyllis.” She breathed this out heavily. I continued to look confused, and she cast a swift glance at me. “The Technocrat,” she said. I then felt myself yanked forward, and I was bewildered, trying to fathom what force compelled my movement. I almost looked behind me until I realized that the explanation was in front of me. Erica was unceremoniously dragging me toward Phyllis. No coy circling, no . . . preamble. Just an approach, ludicrously bordering on confrontation. We sped toward Phyllis, and I had this unpleasant sensation that we were in a vehicle moving too fast, that we had to slow down to avoid a collision.
I expected the social hesitation of a greeting, anything to place into context the unnatural speed with which we approached Phyllis’s table. Instead, Erica, dragging me with her left hand, roughly grasped Phyllis’s elbow with her right hand and lifted the elbow upward. She looked like a referee at a prizefight, holding up the arm of the victor.
Then, she turned, not to Phyllis but to me, and said, “See? There’s nothing. It’s clean. It’s smooth. It’s healed.” Phyllis recovered from the shock of being roughly manhandled and jerked her arm out of Erica’s grip, causing Erica to lurch sideways, and with me in tow, as she had not released her grip on my arm. As I fell comically to the ground, tripping over my feet, I felt a momentary envy that Phyllis was strong enough, angry enough, focused enough to gain release from Erica’s grasp. And Erica was agile enough not to fall.
I banged my head into the leg of Phyllis’s chair and donned a rakish smile as I stood up, the kind of grin that offered no excuses for the embarrassment but rather sought to assure the gathering that I had the self-confidence to withstand the spectacle. Anyway, I was not the main attraction, right? Phyllis had commanded center stage. And sure enough, there was a subtle but identifiable pocket of silence, not quite as dramatic as that which follows a waiter dropping a tray filled with plates in a crowded restaurant, but close enough. And I felt some anxiety for Erica, as I wasn’t sure how she would handle the group scrutiny sure to follow.
Except everyone was staring at me. Even Erica.
“What’s wrong with you?” she hissed. At me. Everyone followed her gaze, and everyone, it seemed, had the same question. But this was unimaginable. I had just gone along for the ride. I prepared to assert my conspicuous innocence, but then, somehow, the universe corrected itself, and the scrutiny reverted to its rightful place, to Erica, to this assault on Phyllis.
Erica wheeled toward Phyllis with an open gaze, ready to receive an appropriate gesture of appreciation, understandably not effusive given the setting but pronounced and discernable. Phyllis interpret
ed the attention as the precursor to another approach and backed away. “Stay away from me,” she said in a hoarse voice. Her eyes darted about, as if she was hoping that no one was noticing the entire spectacle. But in our cluster within clusters, Phyllis and Erica were the main attractions.
Erica became calm and asked quietly, “Can I see your arm again?” Phyllis sat down and, for a moment, attempted to cover her arms. But the gesture was futile, as she was wearing a sleeveless dress.
“Just go away,” she said, and this time she looked at Erica directly, pleading more than venting. “Please.”
Erica shot me a furious look and marched away into the crowd, disappearing almost immediately. I noticed how expertly she dodged traffic, not having to push anyone aside but instead bolting through gaps in crowds at the precise and short-lived moment they were created. I stared at where she had entered the crowd, until I wasn’t staring at anything at all.
I started to follow Erica, but I lacked the talent and the will to slide through the shifting cracks in the crowd, and I was lost in a sea of people. I then felt a powerful clasp on my wrist, and I knew that Erica had circled back and found me. Except it wasn’t Erica. It was Phyllis. The Technocrat. She pulled me forward and leaned up to my ear, whispering words I couldn’t quite decipher. Something like, “She did it.” She then pulled back and looked at me, searchingly, to make sure I understood. I gazed at her blankly. She pulled me forward again and said, more clearly this time, “I think she did it. You need to stay away from me.”
I felt demeaned, like a stalker caught in the act, and my shame was all the more pronounced because I hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve this censure. I knew she used “you” in the collective sense, focusing far more on Erica than me. But why was I included at all? I was about to express these sentiments, but then, Phyllis retreated to her table. I stood there a moment, then pushed and fought my way to the bar, where I gulped down an awful glass of red wine and closed my eyes.
The Reluctant Healer Page 4