Moondance (20 page)

Perfectly, Althea thought. Jesus
. Her chest tightened, thinking of Tori and Kevin. Of Daniel.
Far from fucking perfect
.

“Okay, but what do you say to people who have been betrayed? Or what about the evil in the world? The people that abuse? The people who kill? Torture? How can you excuse that?” Ivana’s voice was thoughtful.

“It’s not about excusing it. For those that have been hurt — they have an opportunity to forgive because it’s within their power to do so. If they do — and I’m not saying this is easy — they not only heal themselves, they put an end to the cycle.” Althea chewed heavily on a piece of bruschetta, her impatience mounting.
If what Ivana said was true
—

“The cycle?”

“The karmic cycle that began in previous lifetimes. Before we come to earth, we make karmic contracts or agreements with others in order to have certain experiences together.”

Althea struggled to sit still.
Ivana was implying that she had betrayed Tori and Kevin in her last life. Not only that, but that she agreed to have them betray her in this life as some sort of sick payback
. She would never betray someone. They had betrayed her. Both of them.
This was such bullshit
. She tried to remain calm.

“But isn’t that like letting people get away with it?”

“Well, we always have choice. And let’s say someone hurt us terribly. If we can’t change the past, isn’t it a more empowering way to look at one’s life, rather than through the eyes of a victim?”

Althea was angry now. She could feel the rage and beneath that, the resentment.
Why did you create a best friend
... The waiter served their appetizers. She stabbed a piece of cool, crisp fennel. Ivana continued, patient.

“You might be confusing forgiveness with condoning harmful actions. That isn’t the case. The idea is to forgive because it’s good for
us
. Forgiveness is the only way to heal on a personality level, and to evolve on a soul level.”

“I’m sorry, but that sounds like a woo-woo cop-out to me.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Althea regretted them. The shame inside her was winding, insidious, and completely out of proportion, like molten iron dissolving her insides. She wanted to curl up with it, and she fought the feeling with everything she had, pinching the inside of her arm under the table until she winced.
Why was this woman rattling her?

“Well, it may sound trite, but the way the universe works is trite. What’s the alternative?”
Be careful
, Althea thought.
This is Vince’s star author
.

“Revenge? Stay angry?” Althea felt a bit stronger now.

“Revenge and anger may feel good short-term. Long-term, I believe, they are literally hazardous to our health. Have you seen a movie called
What the Bleep?
Or
The Secret?
“

“Vince says they’ve been good for business.”

“I bet they have.
What the Bleep
gets into how our thoughts and emotions affect our bodies and create our physical reality.
The Secret
is related — it talks about the power of attraction, or how our thoughts and emotions act like a magnet to attract our experiences.”

“Vince says
The Secret
is an ancient con
cept packaged for the modern masses.” Althea coughed to clear her throat and relieve the tension inside her. “Like new age fast food. Instant manifestation, for an instant gratification culture.”

“I can hear Vince saying that.” Ivana laughed easily. “There are many ways to get at the same information.
The Secret
and
What the Bleep
are both important pieces of a very big puzzle. But they aren’t the only game in town. And they don’t tell the whole story.”

The shrimps and veal arrived.

“Fresh ground pepper? Parmesan?”

“Yes, please. So does a chart represent someone’s fate?” Althea asked. Ivana shook her head, sipping her wine.

“No. The chart can provide us with information about our tendencies,
but we always have a choice.”

“How would someone know they needed to see a karmic astrolo-ger?” Althea tried a shrimp and it was spicy and delicious.

“Put it this way. When our lives aren’t aligned with our purpose, we feel unsettled, like something’s missing. Eventually, we tend to create crises in our lives. I call these karmic two-by-fours.”

Like getting fired from your job. Like betrayal in love, again and again. Like escalating pain, guilt and shame so great, that there’s no logical explanation for it
. Ivana was still talking. Althea was suspended, frozen inside. The fork she held in her hand grew, its cool surface changing shape, becoming heavier. Beneath her, a gaping maw opened and a metallic finger reached out, curling an invitation. Green eyes glistened:
Are you ready?
Her stomach clenched, and she began to salivate. Her voice sounded tinny to her, far away.

“Excuse me for a minute?” She stumbled to the ladies room. Inside, she leaned against the mirror to balance herself, the sweet smell of potpourri cloying.
Inside the mirror, a circle of red, growing
. Stifling a scream, she turned away, her heart racing. Her face felt clammy. She couldn’t stop shaking.

Leaning over, she threw up in the sink.

chapter 31

“DO YOU NEED ANYTHING else?” Violet asked, leaning into Michael’s office. Michael jumped, startled from his train of thought. He shook his head.

“No thanks.”

“Are you okay? You look spooked.”

“I have some stuff on my mind,” he admitted. “But I’ll be fine. When’s Stefan coming back?”

“He’s booked on a noon flight, but be warned. Sometimes he comes back early.”

“Yeah, I know.” Stefan, Exeter’s new chief executive officer, was odd. He was controlling and unpredictable, alternately indifferent to Michael’s work and intensely interested, wanting Michael to justify every move.

Violet nodded. “He’s such an asshole.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve found my way around him. Ralph and I have teamed
up.” Michael smiled. “And if you tell anyone that, I’ll have to kill you.”

“Just try. You forget who you’re dealing with.” Michael leaned back in his chair and stretched, smiling. “I’m worried about you, you know, not standing up for yourself, not speaking your mind ...”

“You should be worried.” Violet disappeared.

• • •

LARA WAS UP WHEN Michael got in that night, The Economist resting open on her lap. She looked up and blinked when he walked toward her. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

When they weren’t making love, their formality was exaggerated now. An observer would never guess they had known each other for over fifteen years. “How was your day?” she asked.

“Long,” he said. He sat down opposite her, his heart pounding.

“I was thinking about going to see the doctor,” he started.

“Is everything okay?” For a moment, her old concern, the crease between her eyes.

“I feel okay, I just don’t know whether, since we ... since you have and we haven’t, then maybe it’s me. That’s something we never considered.” His words barely scratched the surface. They had been trying for months and Lara had not become pregnant. Lara had been
pregnant before so it made sense that it might be him.
Because Elizabeth may not have been his
.

After he asked the question, he didn’t know what to expect from his wife, this brilliant, respected, pragmatic woman who was grieving, just like him, and had such a different way of handling it. But he didn’t expect her silence. He started again.

“What do you think?”

A small shrug. She looked past his eyes, almost into them and nodded.

“Okay.”

At Lara’s agreement, Michael felt a rush of emotion. He wanted to say that he loved Elizabeth and missed her so much, and that it didn’t matter to him that she may not have been his, she was a gift, and that he wished they could have what they had before, their love and their friendship, the lightness, something, because he felt like he was living alone, so much so that he had been trying to identify with people on the internet for fuck’s sake, that he had never felt so empty in his life, and though a new child was something he wanted, it couldn’t replace Elizabeth, or what they had lost. He wanted to tell her that he still loved her.

“Okay,” he said.

chapter 32

THE MORNING AFTER SHE had dinner with Ivana was appropriately one of the strangest mornings of Althea’s life. First, a lightening storm knocked the power out, creating commuter gridlock, with hoards of impatient commuters huddled together on train platforms like cattle. When Althea’s train finally came, the crowd pushed Althea forward and she struggled to keep from falling. Inside, Althea tried to relax. The night before, she had nightmares. All she remembered was that she had been leaning over, the sickening smell of iron and rotting meat in her nostrils. A woman’s voice:
Why?
She woke curled up on her side, a scream lodged in her throat, with a sense of remorse so profound, she didn’t have words for it. Her entire body was a bottomless ache, heavy in her throat, in her head and in her limbs, and all she wanted to do was disappear into nothingness. Two hours later, she hadn’t shaken it: every nerve ending in her heart and her body was alive.

Her train slowed as it got closer to downtown. The woman across from her sat up straight, her chin bobbing in time with a downbeat
Althea could hear. As the woman’s chin bobbed, Althea had an irrational
thought: she wanted to call Ivana and apologize to her, do anything to make it okay. Then she was angry, angry at herself, and then the thought of talking to Ivana again was unthinkable.

Shame seeped into her cells like poison. Then the dread: magnetic.

Downtown, the rain had stopped. Instead of taking the streetcar, she walked toward the lake. Despite the weather, the city was alive.

She focused on that, the air in her lungs, the cool on her face, the sound of the street, her feet on the wet pavement, pigeons in a small patch of grass, a black squirrel without a paw running toward a young man, anonymous behind a middle-eastern style beard, a sleeping bag and a handful of peanuts. As she crossed Queens Quay, she fixed on the lake’s puckered surface. Two kids, soaked by the earlier rain, sat on the water’s edge, throwing pieces of bread. Ducks bobbed playfully after them, then swam underwater.

“Hey look, penguin ducks!” one of them said. She was next to the water now, relaxed, and as the sun shone through black clouds, it started to rain again. Sitting on a bench by the water was a long-legged man in baggy pants and black boots with the hood of his rain jacket pulled snugly over his head. His long, dark hair lay lustrous on his shoulders. He was still. Her chest fluttered. The rain came down harder and she groped for her umbrella.

He remained still as she approached and calm settled over her
he’s praying
, she thought, sitting by the water and praying.
Waiting for her
. She walked closer, the cool rain on her cheeks.
I’m ready this time
. Closer now, she stared at his hands which were tapered and beautiful and she prepared herself to look into his green eyes, welcoming him, unafraid.
Step one, step two, slowly now, I’m here
, and still he remained seated, the folds of his jacket gently cupping small pools of water, his hands like stone.

Ten feet away from him, she stopped.

The man’s body was flopped over forward. He was clearly in an unnatural position. His hands, which had appeared tapered, were actually thin and gnarled. His pants were filthy. The dread she felt earlier was back. She took a step toward him, then another, and as she moved past him
Are you ready?
the wind rose, whipping over her face and turning her umbrella inside out.

• • •

AT WHITE LIGHT, THE elevator doors opened with a painful whine. Shaken and disoriented, Althea walked quickly toward her desk. She put on a CD: Brian Eno, Music for Airports. Kevin used to call it floaty music. Daniel. George. Kevin. Albert. Her father. Loneliness washed over her. The familiar despondency pulled at her and urged her to sleep.

She turned to her phone. Her voice mail was flashing. Vince, no doubt. He wasn’t a clock watcher but he was an early riser, sometimes getting in at six in the morning. She should have called him first thing. Her guilt settled in comfortably. She checked her voice mail.

“Hey, early bird, I know you’re not in the office yet but my new client’s a telecom company so this call’s free. Call me when you get in.” Celia sounded chipper. Althea called her back immediately.

Instead of describing her experience that morning, the GO Train, the walk, the man (she had used her cell phone to call 911, leaving details of where he was, but declining to leave her name), Althea talked about Ivana.

“She doesn’t do readings, she does life purpose. She can get into past lives, unresolved karma and compare charts to see if there are past life issues.”