The Smaller Evil (4 page)

His
everything.

Then the cook was making him move—pulling his jeans off, pulling him to the floor, pulling her own dress up over her head so that Arman could see what was beneath. Skin and softness and patches of downy hair. He finally ventured to reach between her legs, a timid approach, because it seemed like what she wanted him to do, but the slippery heat he felt there was almost too much. Somehow the cook knew this. Maybe it was the way his legs trembled. Or the new noise he was making. She pushed his hand away. Got on top of him.

Realizing what she was going to do, what they were
already
doing and what would soon be over, Arman couldn't help himself. This was the second time in one day that someone was giving him something. A gift he hadn't earned. That had never happened before, and he had to know.

“Why?” he gasped. “Why are you doing this?”

The cook leaned down, her body devouring his with little to no temperance at all, and she whispered three words.

Words Arman never thought he'd hear.

She said to him:

I need you
.

ARMAN WONDERED IF THEY COULD
smell it on him. Or if they saw something different in the way he walked or the way he talked or the way he just
was
. But if Kira and Dale happened to notice anything at all about him, they kept it to themselves, simply walking side by side and going on about the meeting he'd missed. Arman trailed behind, trying to listen. But he felt dazed.

He felt distant.

To the west, the sun faded quickly, dipping below trees, and slipping behind hill after hill after hill toward the ocean beyond. Apparently Kira and Dale were heading toward the cabin where they'd be rooming for the duration of the retreat. Only they knew the way. Arman had run into them as he left the kitchen, slinking out through the sliding glass door, and walking . . . well, more like
stumbling
back through the garden, past the drooping vines of honeysuckle and the apple orchard and the beehives, drained, jelly-legged, and no longer innocent.

Wasn't that something?

“Come on,” they'd called to him, pausing and waving from the main path. “You're staying with us.”

Staying where?
Arman had wanted to ask, hating how clueless he
was, but instead he'd said nothing. He was still too stunned by what had transpired between him and the bare-legged cook, the young woman in the yellow dress who'd fed him and then—

Arman's whole body shuddered at the memory.

In a good way.

Mostly.

• • •

“We're sleeping in
here
? Together?” Kira frowned. They stood huddled in the screened doorway of the tiny single-room cabin. Three cots with crisp white sheets were pushed together against the back wall. Three glasses, a flashlight, and a pitcher of water sat on a small round table. A bare-bulb light swung from the center beam, giving the place a stark, haunted feel.

Dale walked in first, his shoes kicking up dust. Then he shrugged. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Kira still balked. “Why aren't I bunking with the girls? Isn't there some sort of, I don't know,
protocol
?”

Dale let out a low chuff of laughter. He sank onto the closest cot. The springs squeaked loudly beneath his weight. As if they, too, were unpleasantly surprised by the sleeping arrangements. “Protocol,” he echoed. “Yeah, right. Everything they said in that meeting was so vague, who knows what we're meant to be doing? We're here to change, because change is needed. We'll find answers when we stop asking questions. So maybe the protocol is no protocol. Maybe we're supposed to spend our nights having some sort of freaky threesome with Arman here while all the old shits get off by watching us. Maybe that's the damn protocol.”

Arman felt flush. The mere mention of sex so soon after what he'd just done, it was almost more than he could handle.

“I don't think that's what we're supposed to do,” Kira told Dale.

He shrugged. “Did you see anyone else in that room you're dying to sleep next to? Anyone within two decades of your age?”

Kira grinned and shook her head. Then she bounded across the room on those long legs of hers, leaping and soaring to land on top of Dale with a laugh.

“No,” she said, staring down at him. “I didn't see anyone else I'd want to sleep next to. Those people, they were all . . . all . . .”

“All what?” Arman asked from where he still stood in the doorway, digging at his arm with his finger.

Kira lifted her head. “I don't know. I guess they were nothing special. That's what they were. They were ordinary. A bunch of ordinary old folks.”

“Well, what else happened at the meeting?”

“We already told you what happened,” Kira said. “Where were you anyway?”

Arman dug harder. “I needed to take care of something.”

“Hmph.” She didn't look convinced.

“I'll tell you what we did. We had to take an oath of secrecy.” Dale held up three fingers like a Boy Scout. “And we had to promise to do every single thing our trainers tell us to do. Or else.”

“Or else what?” Arman asked.

“You get kicked out, I guess. Or maybe worse. They have security guards, you know. Armed ones. Maybe you'll end up in an unmarked grave.”

Arman gaped. “Armed guards?”

“They did
not
have guns,” Kira said.

“Yes, they did,” Dale scoffed. “Of course they did. They need guns to keep us here, because this place is about
Freedom
and
Discovery
and embarking on your
Personal Journey.
As if there isn't enough horseshit in this world already.”

Kira winked at Arman. “He's just pissed because he can't smoke weed.”

“We'll see about that.” Dale slapped her ass then. Kira giggled, returned the favor, slapping even harder, and Arman looked away. Sure, he'd known they were dating or hooking up or whatever. Or at least he'd guessed that might be the case. It hadn't been anything he'd cared much about. Only now, having to live with them, well, that made him a third wheel, didn't it? Arman crossed the room and threw his bag down with a huff. Then he dragged one of the cots as far away from the other two as possible.

Kira watched him keenly, her eyes bright. “You're blocking the door,” she pointed out.

“I know,” Arman said. He sat on his cot and kept his back to the other two. The windows to the cabin were open and he stared out at the vast California sky that was just beginning to purple. A heaviness settled in his chest and the warm glow memory of those brief gasping moments with the bare-legged cook was already starting to fade into something less magical and far more profane. More
ordinary
. It was the kind of heaviness Arman was used to, this steamrolling weight that knew how to press the joy out of him, inch by inch.

Reaching to pick his forearm again, he tried telling himself to appreciate what he had and the chance he'd been given. That his time here wouldn't be anything like the lonely month he'd spent at that Gold Rush–themed sleepaway camp his father's parents paid to send him to back in seventh grade. His first night there, a nervous stomach kept him in the infirmary and by the time he rejoined his cabin, it was too late; everybody already had their friends and understood the rules. He was nothing but a burden. An understudy. Something to resent for daring to exist. Not that
he
was any better, of course. Arman was rotten that same summer to a girl who liked him because she had hairs on her
chin and talked too much about Jesus. But maybe that was just how the world was, he thought.

Maybe everything was rotten.

• • •

When he turned around again, Kira and Dale weren't fucking or anything. What they were doing was lying face-to-face and gazing into each other's eyes. And not talking. Somehow that was infinitely worse than fucking. Arman tried to avoid looking at them while he scanned the rest of the cabin—he wanted to find one of those brochures Dale had talked about—but he couldn't take it. He got up and left. The screen door swung shut behind him with a bang.

Arman went in search of a bathroom. There had to be one, he figured, since there was electricity and plumbing and the compound clearly wasn't lacking in amenities, except things like privacy and general social norms. He was right, too, because after hiking a little ways up the hillside, and passing another small cluster of cabins, along with a long, institutional-looking two-story building that had dark windows and no signs of life, he found the washroom. It was an A-frame structure, nestled tight in a ring of pine trees.

Arman walked right in, daring to hope against hope that there might be a good supply of hot water for the showers. That was what was needed to clear his head. Steam. Heat. A thorough cleansing.

What he found, however, was far less pleasing—an open space lit by skylights, where a half-naked woman sat on a wooden bench, one leg hitched over the other, clipping her toenails. A towel was wrapped around her waist, but not her top half, and she had to be at least his grandmother's age, if not older. Her thick gray hair dripped water everywhere, like an over-soaked sponge.

Arman was so mortified he thought he might die right there on the
spot. “I'm so sorry,” he sputtered, squeezing his eyes shut and backpedaling himself into a wall with a bang. But it was too late. The woman was balanced perfectly on the bench so that the late-day sun poured down on her like a spotlight, and he'd already seen more than he should have.
Way
more. Wrinkled skin, sagging tits, age spots. The whole damn mess.

Even worse, the old woman roared with laughter at his reaction. “Don't be sorry,” she said. “This is your bathroom, too.”

“It is?” he asked, partially opening his eyes, but keeping them glued to the sealed cement floor.

“It is.”

“I don't understand.”

The woman stood, a move that took both time and effort on her part, and which didn't involve her covering up. Then she came toward him. Watching her wet, bare, bunioned feet approach, Arman's stomach lurched. For a panicked instant he thought she was going to do what the cook had done to him in the kitchen. Pull him to her. Rub her hips against his. Undo the button on his jeans and grab on to him with an eagerness he'd be helpless to resist.

But she didn't. Instead, the old woman reached out and patted his arm. Her skin was very soft. Arman lifted his head to look at her, still abashed, still blushing, but wanting so badly to be brave.

She smiled. “Maybe you can understand living a life where what other people think doesn't rule your actions.”

Arman tried smiling back, returning some of her warmth, but he couldn't help blurting out, “I don't, though. That's just it. I don't understand anything about that.”

“You will,” she told him gently. “
Soon.
”

SOMEDAY.

You see the girl again and nothing's changed. Sure, she doesn't smile as much. And this time she's the one asking the questions. She's determined to be assertive now, to take charge, and you like that. She doesn't know that this is the way it always goes. She doesn't know that you need her doubt before her conviction.

You meet at a park this time. The nice one off Soquel that's not far from the beach. Lots of students lie in the well-kept grass, reading quietly, soaking up sun. You can tell the most studious types by the paleness of their skin and the way they roll their pant cuffs. They're also the ones smoking cigarettes, not joints, and women with children throw dirty looks their way.

She wants to know what you think about religion. She was raised Jewish, but she doesn't believe. Or she doesn't want to. This is causing friction with her family. What she wants is the freedom to make her own choices. To find her own path toward spirituality. You smile at this and say the things you always say. That she's having the right kinds of thoughts, but that she's looking for the wrong kinds of answers. That religion isn't a matter of right or wrong. It's a matter of now and then.

Faith is an investment, you tell her, when you see she doesn't understand. You bargain now for what you hope matters then.

The girl laughs, not because you're right, but because she thinks you're clever. You don't push it more than that. Instead, you switch gears, asking about her friends at school. If there are other people on campus as smart as she is. Not
as
smart, she says, and this time you both laugh. Then you enjoy the sunshine for a bit, which feels good. She doesn't smoke, like the other students. You comment on this, in a positive sort of way. Seems like an easy enough thing to do, but at your words she frowns and looks elsewhere. You're intrigued by this. More than intrigued. You've hit on something. A tenderness. You'll be sure to remember that.

It will be useful to you someday.

“SO WHERE ARE YOU FROM?”
a voice asked.

“Huh?” Arman lifted his head and looked around. It was nighttime now, almost nine o'clock, and he was seated at a dinner table, surrounded by three strangers, in a room lit by candle glow. He wasn't eating, because there wasn't any food. What he
was
doing, however, was surreptitiously shaking two pills around in his hand, while weighing the pros and cons of taking them. One was his pink oval-shaped Paxil, which had to be taken with meals. The other was one of his short-acting Adderalls.

“I asked where you were from,” the voice said again, and it was Mari speaking to him, the old woman he'd met in the bathroom just hours earlier. Now fully dressed, she sat across from him, with her hair neatly braided, her soft face shadowy in the jumpy light.

Arman decided that he liked Mari. He really did. The whole naked thing wasn't that big a deal, and whatever kind of deal it was, well, that was on him. Not only had she been gracious this afternoon, she'd helped him out again when he'd shown up in the dining room alone after not being able to find Kira and Dale back in the cabin. In fact, Arman would've missed the meal altogether if he hadn't seen the
stream of people walking past his open window and decided to join them, following along in silence until he reached the dining hall, this cavernous room so completely different from the bright and sunny kitchen he'd eaten in earlier. No, this space, filled with heavy drapes and low-hanging candelabras, was grim and foreboding—full of secrets and dark wood, hushed tones and the rich scent of burning incense.

Arman had been lost in the swell of strangers—there had to be at least a hundred people here, some dressed in those light gauzy clothes, others not—and he'd stood frozen by the entryway, like a sweaty-palmed zombie. In fact, he stood there so long, he'd started to imagine the aging, blond bodyguard-looking guy who was staring at him from across the room was plotting to drag him out back and put him out of his misery. The guy could've definitely been one of the guards Dale had mentioned, only Arman had no clue how to tell if someone was armed. He had no clue about anything, a fact made blatantly obvious when Mari had come up to him, taken his arm, and guided him to her table. There, she'd poured him a glass of red wine and shushed him when he said he wasn't old enough to drink.

“You know, you're not supposed to ask him that,” the woman next to Mari scolded. She was younger than Mari, but still old. Maybe the same age as Arman's mom. Forty something? He couldn't tell. She had long black hair and brown skin and an accent he couldn't place.

Arman closed his fist around his pills. “Why aren't you supposed to ask me where I come from?”

“Drink your wine,” Mari instructed. “You're too tense.”

Obedient as always, Arman picked up the glass and drank his wine. It tasted funny. Not sweet like how it smelled, but acidy and thick. Almost gritty. He drank more, gulped it really, wondering if he would get drunk from one glass. Being drunk wasn't something he had a lot of
experience with, although that wasn't innocence born from any moral compass, but rather a lack of opportunity.

A short man on Arman's left leaned in. “You're new here, right? Just came in today?”

“Yes.”

“Well see, then that's why you don't know.”

“Know what?”

“That we're not supposed to talk about our lives from before. Not at first. This is a place for rebirth. For rejuvenation. We make our own stories here. They don't make us.”

“Oh,” Arman said.

“Quarantine's not until tonight,” Mari called from across the table. “He's still whoever he is until then. There's nothing wrong with asking.”

The man shrugged, and Arman wanted to be the one to ask more questions, like what happened at Quarantine and who would make his story and how could he possibly be anyone but who he already was? But the food came then, hot and steamy and aromatic, and the time for asking disappeared into the vapor.

A table to their left got up to serve, six figures slipping into the kitchen through an open doorway and returning with various dishes. Arman got to his feet to help, too, in part because he wanted to go into the kitchen and see if things were how he remembered them, but Mari gave a shake of her head, her lips forming a frown, and he quickly sat again.

Heaping bowls of wild rice and hot platters of roast chicken with buttery potatoes appeared on the table, along with warm rolls wrapped in towels and savory oven-roasted vegetables and green salad and peach chutney. A feast, practically. Arman's eyes grew wider and wider. He'd never seen a meal this big, except maybe that dinner he'd had the year he'd spent a disastrous Thanksgiving with his father's family up in Marin.

The last thing to be served, a bowl of sweet corn sprinkled with mint, was set directly in front of Arman. At this he glanced up to see the cook standing there, right beside him, very close. Still in her yellow dress.

Still with her bare legs and soft hair pulled off her neck.

She nodded, giving Arman a quick tip of her head before moving her gaze downward, toward his hand. The one holding the pills. He shoved it under the table.

“Hey,” he said.

The cook didn't answer. Instead she brushed against him, like a cat to a corner or an uncrossed knee, and whether that was by accident or design, he didn't know. After that, she simply floated away, disappearing into the depths of the room. Arman watched her go with a deep sense of both longing and loss. It wasn't until she'd vanished beyond the reach of candlelight that he shifted his attention back to the table. Realized everyone was staring at him.

Arman cleared his throat. Turned to the short man beside him.

“So, uh, what happens tonight?” he asked. “The Quarantine thing? Can you tell me more about that?”

“Weren't you at the meeting earlier?” The man handed him the platter of chicken. “It was explained there.”

“Well, yes,” Arman lied. “Of course I was there.”

The dark-haired woman sniffed. “You don't seem to know very much.”

“Sorry. I sort of space out a lot.” Arman resisted the urge to pick at his arm. He set about searching for a piece of dark meat. Found the smallest one.

“You have to be engaged at all times,” Mari told him. “Once sessions begin, we'll expect you to retain everything you've been taught. You can't evolve without awareness. It's not possible.”

“We don't suffer fools here,” the short man said with a grunt.

“Or tolerate ignorance,” finished the dark-haired woman.

“Sessions,” Arman said slowly, realizing these three must be the trainers Dale had talked about. “Sessions that you all help teach.”

“That's right.” Mari gave him a warm smile. She was holding the basket of rolls. Arman watched her take two.

“What about Beau?” he asked.

“What about him?”

“I thought this was his program. His, you know, community.”

Mari's smile grew broader. “A community doesn't belong to any one person. It belongs to all of us.”

“So it's not his?”

“You know, I think what would serve you best right now,” she said, “is to focus on your own experience. Growth can happen when and where you least expect it.”

Arman nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Okay. I can do that.”

She practically glowed. “Wonderful. Now would you please pass the butter?”

“So who's on your list?” the dark-haired woman asked the short man, who was busy fingering his wispy comb-over while draining a second glass of wine.

“There's a couple that came in today,” he said with a smack. “Retired. No children. Nice house in Malibu.”

“Anyone else?”

“Don't know yet. The rest are Beau's, so I doubt it.”

“What are you talking about?” Arman couldn't help but interrupt. But it wasn't like their conversation was private. He could hear everything.

The dark-haired woman glanced over at him. “Oh, we're just making our predictions,” she said.

“Predictions about what?”

But the woman didn't answer. Instead she leaned forward, edging her chair closer to the short man and laughing before whispering something into his ear. And this time, when she spoke, Arman couldn't hear a word she said.

• • •

After the meal came dessert—some sort of spice cake—followed by hot tea with milk and nutmeg. Feeling like he was being judged and undoubtedly failing, Arman made sure to eat everything and drink everything, despite the fact he was starting to feel uncomfortably full. Drowsy, too, his neck turning laggy under the descending weight of sleep pressure. He was exhausted. More than exhausted, having spent the previous night tossing in bed, worrying about leaving home, worrying about getting the money from his stepfather's safe, worrying about what would happen to his mother when his stepfather found out, worrying about
everything
. At the memory, a surge of anxiety threatened to bubble into his consciousness, but Arman shut his eyes. Strained to push it all away.

You're safe now. You're free.

Then Mari was standing behind him, shaking him gently.

“It's time to go,” she whispered, and Arman blinked, confused. When had she gotten up? When had everybody? He looked around. The dining hall was practically empty, people quietly streaming out, their chairs pushed back, piles of dishes and glassware left in their wake. What was going on?
God.
Had he been
sleeping
?

“Go where?” he asked Mari.

“The meeting hall,” she said. “It's time.”

• • •

Arman swallowed his pills before he left. Mari went on ahead, and he did it when no one was looking, deftly slipping the Paxil and Adderall into his napkin, pressing the whole thing to his lips, and downing a mouthful of water while he got to his feet.

He didn't look back as he walked toward the door. He felt guilty about taking the pills and he hated that. The guilt made him feel like he was trying to get away with something rather than keeping himself from falling apart. It wasn't just the rule-breaking that made him feel this way, either. It was the way he always felt, thanks to countless lectures from teachers fretting over his “wasted potential” and years of living with a father who believed ADHD and nerves and stomachaches were all signs of weakness, true failures in character. Like
he
was one to talk. Mikhail Dukoff's current reality was the type of failure Arman was doing his damnedest never to experience.

Of course, Arman also understood medication couldn't
fix
his problems. Not the things that truly haunted him, like why he couldn't connect to others and why he hated himself for that. But the pills helped. They were all he had. They cleared his head and calmed his nerves, and they held him together the way a plastic bag might hold the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that had long since lost their box.