TWO

. . .

To know the bliss of universal solitude is to touch the Absolute.

After that she drives two hours without saying anything, just singing along to her tape of the Rolling Stones. When I try to talk to her, she just says, “Shh, Tess, I’m really in the music right now.” I simmer for a while, and then at our second Exxon stop I announce I’m finishing the trip in the way back, stretched out by myself.

“Come on, Tessa, stay up here with me,” she says.

“The wind’s making my eyes hurt.”

“I’ll roll the windows up—”

“Don’t worry about it, okay? Just forget it.”

“C’mon, Tess, we’re on this trip together. It’s for both of us.”

Then she asks what bands I want to listen to, and I definitely do not want to talk to her about that at all. I just say, “God. Would you just let me sit in the goddamn backseat, please?” She gives me a look like she’s annoyed I said goddamn, but in our household there aren’t any words that are inherently bad, so ha ha, she can’t get me in trouble.

I dig into my backpack for my tapes. Most of them are mixed-together songs recorded off the radio, the DJ’s voice coming in on the fade-out after some dumb song like Manic Monday. I never have money to buy much more and I’m also not sure what I’d like: at my last school I tried to figure it out by hanging around the guys that knew about different bands’ histories, but when they started arguing about New Wave versus New Romantics all I could do was stand there mute and then they looked at me weird and I left. But when I heard I Melt With You and Just Like Heaven and If You Leave on the radio, I loved them so much I scrounged ten bucks from my mom’s wallet to go and get the albums, and so now my collection is: The Cure, Modern English, John Cougar Mellencamp, and the “Pretty in Pink” sound-track. Plus one more.

In the middle of eighth grade I saw an ad in Rolling Stone for the most exhaustive catalog of music albums of all time ever. I decided to get the catalog, just to check, and halfway through the G’s I found it. My dad’s band, The Green Tea Experience. I wanted that tape more than anything I’d ever known. I didn’t care about the stories my mom told me. I didn’t care about it being a betrayal. I didn’t care that she said he shoved her. He’s my dad. I got home early to check the mailbox every day until it came, and then I got the record company’s address from the liner notes, and then I wrapped the tape in a secret scarf inside a secret drawer to hide it away forever, as far as humanly possible from my mom.

She finally says fine, I can ride lying down in the back, on the express condition that I keep my feet off the defroster wires on the inside of the back window. They could break. So I put on Green Tea Experience and lie on my side, knees scrunched up to my chest, and strain to hear my dad’s voice in the backup vocals.

Here is what it takes: thirteen hours of freeway, two hours of hills and woods and pine trees, forty-five minutes of deserted bungalow colonies with empty plastic swing sets that my mom says are for Jewish people in the summer. We are in the “Catskills,” my mom says. “You know, historically, this land has been inhabited by Jewish people on vacation and by counterculturalists, like us.”

I wonder what the Jewish people in the summer think of the swamis in their orange robes. I also note the names of the roads—Mount Hope Road, Butrick Way—that lead off toward Levner’s River Cottages, in case I need to escape.

After Levner’s, it’s more trees. And then the gift shop. That’s the first thing you see. The words “Atma Lakshmi” are painted on wood out front, in big white cursive letters against a sloppy swirly blue background that can’t decide whether it’s supposed to look like the sky or the ocean, and so it winds up just looking like paint. On the front is a brilliantly colored transparent decal featuring a dolphin jumping over waves, underneath an arc of rainbow, which matches exactly the decal on my mom’s car’s rear window.

“Look, the universe is trying to tell us something. We’re in the exact right place, Tess. We’ve come home,” my mom says, pointing at the sticker. “It’s a sign.”

I don’t mention that I’ve seen that exact transparent rainbow sticker at every New Age bookstore she’s taken me to for the last three years. I just wiggle my socks up onto the rear window of our car, covering up the decal and the defroster wires around it. “Wow, that’s cool,” I say, so my mom will think I’m listening to her, and won’t turn back and notice I’m touching the window where I’m not supposed to.

The ashram’s driveway, so long it’s more like a road, winds past the gift shop and the groves of pine trees before it spills out into a graveled area in front of the main building. It looks like the front of a motel, the part where you pull around and leave the car running while you find out if they have rooms available. And it’s that big, too. Four floors of rooms lined up with numbers on the door plus a lobby in the front. Except that here the building is made out of wood instead of poured concrete, there’s no fluorescent sign, and when you look through the window you see a spring-water cooler instead of a burned-out coffeepot. We sit in the car, idling by the entrance. I pray to myself that my mom won’t ask me to go in alone and ask where we should park.

“Tess, would you run in and ask where we’re supposed to park?”

I roll my eyes toward the back window so she won’t see. The last thing I need is a conversation about why I’m rolling my eyes. “Yes, ma’am,” I say, knowing she’ll hate that, and slide out the car door, still in my socks.

I’m hoping that the ashram people will be annoyed I came in without my shoes on, but no one seems to care. They just stand there in the fancy lobby, as big as any of our apartments, staring, and then they all sort of smile, in a thin way that I don’t quite believe. I shove my fists into my jeans pockets and glower back.

After a minute, a woman comes up. Her graying black hair is permed into the white-lady equivalent of an Afro, and her sweater is magenta with shoulder pads. Her name tag says “Ninyassa” and has a driver’s license– looking picture on it next to a pink swan. “Welcome,” she says, in this way that makes it sound like she’s known me for a long time, except she hasn’t. For a second I’m afraid she’s going to give me a hug. “I’m Ninyassa.” Behind her, other people are still staring. They’re all old, like forty at least, and they’re all wearing flowy cotton clothes.

“Um, where are we supposed to park?”

“Well, that depends. Are you here for the Weekend Intensive, or for Afternoon Chanting Practice, or for the Heart Awakening Retreat?”

I have never heard of any of those things. “I think we’re just here to—to live here?”

“Well, nobody really lives here. Maybe you’re here for Extended Retreat?”

“I guess.”

“Okay, well, in that case you’re going to want to come over here”—and she leads me to a pink marble desk, with tall lilies in a glass vase, and a zillion tiny framed pictures of this Indian guy with a long beard— “and check in with me. First you’ll have your picture taken for your name tag. Birth name or spiritual name?”

“Huh?”

“Shall I put your birth name or your spiritual name down for your name tag?”

“I don’t really know what—”

“You do have a spiritual name, don’t you? If you’re devoted to your practice, that’s probably what you’re going to want people to call you by. As a reminder.”

“Um—could I get my mom?” She stops then for a second, and it seems like the first moment that she actually looks at me. I think she notices I’m fourteen. “She’s outside, in the car. She doesn’t know where to park.”

“Well, we’re still going to have to decide what name to put down for your name tag. But go ahead. Just make sure she doesn’t park in the Heart Awakening section or the Dharma Lot.”

To me, it just looks like a bunch of cars. But as we drive around in circles, I tell my mom, “You have to watch out for signs that say Heart Awakening section or Dharma Lot, and make sure not to park there.” She looks happy that she’s learning the rules, like when you get a good grade in math class.

The cars sit in haphazard rows: mostly station wagons like ours, a hatchback here and there, and more vans than you’d see normally, lots of them with bumper stickers that say stuff like YOU CAN’T HUG A CHILD WITH NUCLEAR ARMS and U.S. OUT OF EL SALVADOR. There are even a few of the old kind of VW buses, the ones that are yellow or purple or red and have a pop-up roof. I always thought those were the only really cool part of being a hippie, and secretly I wish we had one, but we’ve always just had a station wagon. My mom says the centers of gravity in VW buses are too high and they could tip.

After circling around a bunch of times, my mom says, “Screw it,” and we pull into a random empty space. Gravel crunches and rearview Buddhas jingle as she puts our car in park. She turns to me, grinning. “You ready for the next big chapter, Tess?”

I am not ready for any sort of chapter. Mostly I want to go home, except there isn’t any such thing. My mom puts on grape-flavored lip gloss in the rearview mirror, tosses her hair, slings her striped straw purse over her shoulder, and walks toward the entrance like she’s leaving for a date.

Ninyassa’s already waiting at the door. “Welcome,” she tells my mom, in that same weird warm-but-not-warm way she said it to me, except she doesn’t smile.

“Oh, we’re so relieved to be here. It’s been quite a journey!” my mom says. Ninyassa doesn’t say anything back except she sort of frowns, and suddenly my mom doesn’t look like she’s going on a date anymore, she looks like she’s standing at a party with no one to talk to. Ninyassa’s white-lady Afro wobbles a little.

“You must be here for Extended Retreat.”

“We are,” my mom says. “The universe has been preparing us for quite a while now.” She stands up straighter, nervous. I swear, she’s like me on the first day of school or something. Ninyassa spends a long time looking at my mother’s boobs and lip gloss. Then she glares.

“Okay, well, you’ll need to come over here.” Ninyassa walks over to the check-in counter too fast for us to follow behind. When we catch up she already has two blank rose-colored name tags out. She looks at me. “I don’t believe you had decided which name you were using?” And she smiles.

“Uh, just Tessa.” My mom looks at me like I should’ve answered something else, but what was I going to say? That’s the only name I have.

Ninyassa’s eyes flick over to my mom. “And you?”

“My name is Sarah,” my mom tells her. “I mean, that’s the name I was given by my parents. But it might be changing soon.” She says it like there’s a wink in it somewhere. Ninyassa just blinks. The thick knit ribs of her magenta cotton sweater move up and down with her breath.

“Okay, so Sarah. Come on over here and I’ll take your photos.”

I always loved Polaroids, the way you wave them in the air and gradually a picture is revealed that looks exactly like the room you’re standing in, so you get to be inside the moment that you’re in and look at that moment at the very same time. I don’t so much love this Polaroid, though, because I have a double chin in it.

I don’t normally have a double chin. It’s just the way I was spazzy fake-smiling so my face scrunched into my neck. Normally my chin is fine. My whole face is fine: there’s nothing wrong with it, except that there’s nothing really right with it either. It’s just there. Bluish-gray eyes, pale brown freckles, and dark brown hair, straight down to my shoulders. The hair used to be long, back when my mom got to decide. It got tangled and heavy and fell in my face, but when I’d complain, my mom would just say, “C’mere,” settle in with the brush and start French braiding, tie it up in Princess Leia knots. We matched; she’d shake her hair and laugh and I’d copy her. When I was twelve I cut off my braid. After that I let it grow some, and since then it’s been one length, blunt at my shoulders. My mom still tries to play with it, tie it back with silk and paisley scarves, but I don’t let her. She can be beautiful enough for both of us.

Of course my mom looks gorgeous in her Polaroid, just like in real life—high cheekbones and white teeth that gleam, eyes warm and dark like molasses. Her long silver earrings nestle in her wavy hair. Ninyassa glares again. And then she says, “Wonderful,” in her weird warm voice, and glues the Polaroids to our name tags, right next to the pink swans.

The weight of the milk crates bites down on my fingers; I know they’ll leave nasty red marks when I finally put them down. This is our fifth trip up the stairs. I can’t wait to get inside my room and shut the door and secretly start a letter to my dad.

The last few steps, I’m almost panting and I stink. This is the worst part of moving, when you’ve traveled all the way somewhere and all you want to do is stop, sit down, finally land, and instead you have to carry a thousand pounds of boxes until you’re so tired you can barely even walk. I’ve done it a zillion times; I know. When we get to the top my mom hands me the keys. “Here,” she says. “Just put that stuff inside; I’ll get the last load.” I wait till she turns before I open the door.

I don’t know what I expected the room to look like, exactly. A lot of places we’ve lived have been small;in Big Sur we didn’t even have walls, only tents. But I always had a place where I could close the door. Or the tent flap.

But here it’s just one room for both of us, on one side a queen bed, a twin up against the other corner of the room. The tiny tiled bathroom tucks into a corner; the whole place seems small and old and cheap. Especially when you compare it to the pink marble entranceway, to what this place wants you to think it is.

I can’t believe I’m going to live in a glorified motel room, with my mother, forever.

The latch clicks open behind me and my mom walks in. I hear her drop a suitcase or a box. “Tess?” she says. I don’t turn around. She tries again, louder. “Tessa.” I still don’t turn around.

“This is it, huh? Well, it’s nice enough,” she says, and flops on the queen bed, kicking off her Birkenstocks. “Bed’s good.” I finally look at her then; she grins at me like we’re on some kind of adventure. Except that we are not. We are in an imitation motel room with a gray tiled bathroom and brown scratchy carpet. I guess I scowl or something, because she says, “What’s that look for?”

I just say, “What.”

“That look. Like you swallowed something bad.”

“I didn’t swallow anything.”

“Obviously I know you didn’t swallow anything, I’m speaking metaphorically.”

“Whatever.”

And she says, “Don’t ‘whatever’ me. What was that look for?” sharper and kind of mad-sounding, like she’s actually expecting me to explain to her what I was thinking. “Tessa?” It’s like she’s trying to reach inside my brain or something.

I just walk into the tiny gray bathroom and lock the door.

I turn the water on and I don’t care if it’s environmentally wasteful, I let it run while I sit on the toilet so she won’t hear me crying. After a minute I hear the front door click open, and I think, Thank god maybe she left, but then there’s a knock on the bathroom door heavier and slower than my mom’s.

Ninyassa’s voice says, “Tessa? Time for Lice Check.”

The fact that all kids that come to the ashram have to have a lice check isn’t really comforting. Ninyassa seems to think it will be, because she keeps saying how it’s a required part of admissions as she leads me back behind the main building and into the woods, down a trail made of wood chips to a little tan trailer marked “First Aid.”

A skinny woman sits on the trailer steps, her long stringy blond hair exactly the same color as her skin. Between that and her beige leotard and drawstring pants, she blends completely into herself. “This is Jayita,” Ninyassa says. Jayita motions for me to sit on the trailer steps in front of her, and goes through my hair with her fingers bit by bit. After about three minutes she says, “Oop,” and pulls away. “White speck.”

Ninyassa leans over and inspects it. My scalp doesn’t itch at all, and when I lean over to see Jayita’s finger I can definitely tell it’s dandruff, but Ninyassa says, “Okay, Quarantine.”

Jayita says, “You know, Ninyassa, I don’t really think that’s lice. It just looks like a little flake. We probably can send her back, I think—”

“Jayita, it’s imperative that we take precautions. The last thing we need here is an outbreak. You know, I would think you’d be more thorough in your attention.”

“Ninyassa, I’m plenty thorough. I just think there’s no reason to isolate her when she’s just gotten here, if it’s so clear that it’s not necessary.”

“Yes, well, isolating one child for one single night is much less of a sacrifice than risking the serenity of the entire community.”

Jayita rolls her eyes; Ninyassa scowls. “Ninyassa,” Jayita says. “C’mon, it’s really my call to make. Lice Check’s my seva, right?”

“Right,” Ninyassa snaps, “and my seva is to supervise and make sure everyone abides by the practices set out for us.”

This is making me feel weird. First of all, I’m not a child. Secondly, I don’t know what seva is, although it sounds kind of like a job. And third, the idea of people getting in an argument about who’s in charge of a white speck on my head makes me feel like it’s my fault.

“You guys, I’m pretty sure it’s just dandruff—” I try to say, but Ninyassa interrupts me.

“Yes, well, you know, you’re new to our ashram community, and you’re not familiar with the rules yet. So Jayita and I will have to come to some agreement.” And then she turns to Jayita again. “Respecting the rules is respecting the Guru, you know.”

Jayita looks at Ninyassa like she’s tolerating her, and then says, “Fine. Okay. How long?”

“Oh, I’d say Phase One,” Ninyassa says, and smiles, smug. “Just follow Jayita”—and she looks at my name tag—“Tessa.”

I definitely want to know what Phase One is before I follow anyone anywhere, especially because I am completely positive it’s dandruff. If my mom would’ve bought Head and Shoulders like I asked her instead of Nature’s Gate I wouldn’t even have this problem. But before I can open my mouth, Jayita stands up and says, “Come on.”

“See you tomorrow,” Ninyassa says, and marches off down the wood chip path.

The inside is a combination of a hippie cabin and the school nurse’s office. There are vinyl upholstered benches, glass jars of tongue depressors and cotton gauze, but there are also Indian paisley tapestries and candles. And more photos of that same old bearded guy, who I guess is this “guru” they were talking about. Jayita pulls the curtain back and watches out the window as Ninyassa walks away.

“Ech, she can really be a drag. But we’ll have a good time here, okay?” Then she goes over to a boom box and turns it on. The radio is playing George Michael.

Cause I gotta have a-faith, a-faith, a-faith. She smiles at me, sneaky.

“Sometimes the chanting gets a little old.” She moves her shoulders to the beat, liquid and slouchy, like a dancer or a yoga person.

Then she pulls a stool up by a metal sink. “Okay, come on and have a seat. And change into this.” She pulls out a T-shirt that says NUCLEAR MORATORIUM. I feel weird asking where I’m supposed to change, so I just turn my back to her, hunched over so she can’t see my bra.

She reads some book while I take everything off and ball it all into a wad. “Okay,” she says, and pats the seat of the stool. I try to sit up straight. Jayita laughs. “Lean back,” she says. “I gotta wash your hair.” She takes out a blue plastic bottle that says NIX in thick white letters.

“This should do the trick.” She smiles; she reminds me of Janis from the Muppets, except paler. “Or at least it’ll satisfy Ninyassa. For the moment, anyway.” She rolls her eyes and laughs like nothing ever really satisfies Ninyassa.

I’ve decided that I like Jayita. When she starts rubbing my scalp I get this weird good goose-bumpy feeling and I want to close my eyes. She’s just washing my hair like I do every morning, but somehow the fact that it’s someone else’s hands makes it feel way different and better than when it’s just me.

After she combs my hair she says, “All right,” and puts the comb in a glass jar full of alcohol. “So you’ve gotta stay in here for the night. In the morning we’ll shampoo one more time, and then you’re good.” The digital clock on the counter says 6:23. My stomach rumbles. I wonder 1) how I’m supposed to eat, and 2) what I’m supposed to do in here until 11:30, which is the earliest I can ever fall asleep. I didn’t even bring a book.

There’s a tinny knock on the thin door, and then it opens; all of a sudden, in one second, Jayita stops looking pale. This guy comes in, thirtyish, with a narrow face, kind eyes, and brown hair in tight curls. He’s got a red V-neck T-shirt and peach drawstring pants. He’s tall and skinny just like her; he looks like a yoga person, too.

“Hey,” he says, slinging an arm around Jayita’s waist. She beams at me like: isn’t that the most brilliant thing anyone ever said?

“This is Chakradev,” she says, unsticking from his side, going to clean up the sink. “Dev, we’re just getting Tessa finished up here.”

“Lice Check, huh?” Dev asks me.

“Yeah.”

He nods, sympathetic to the experience of Lice Check.

“So you just got here today, huh? From where?” He asks like I’m a person, not a kid.

“Well, we drove here from Akron.”

He squints at me like he’s trying to see where Akron is.

“It’s in Ohio?” I tell him.

“Right, right, Ohio,” he says. “That where you’re from?”

I’m not sure how to answer that; I’m not really from anywhere. “Well, that’s the last place we lived.” That sounds dumb. “We’ve lived a lot of places.”

A smile cracks over his skinny face. “Aaah. Travelers, huh?”

“I guess.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Suddenly it’s like we’re in a secret club or something: the Association of Wandering Hippies. I don’t tell him it’s really my mom that’s the member.

Jayita finishes with the bottles and jars and comes over, wiping her hands. “We’re heading out, okay?” she says to me. “Do you want anything?” I can’t exactly say Yes, I would like to go back to Akron with my mom, please; or failing that, I’d at least like you guys to stay here and talk to me. I just shake my head.

While they’re gone I go through the cabinets to see if there is anything interesting, but there’s just Q-Tips. And paper towels, and more pictures of that bearded guy. I’m starting to get curious about who this guy is, but I have this feeling that nobody is going to give me a straight answer.

. . . . .

After a while there’s a knock on the door that sounds weirdly familiar, and then my mom comes in. She’s holding a tray of tofu and bean sprouts and carrot salad with tahini dressing, and then she gives me a little travel toothbrush and some Tom’s of Maine toothpaste. “Hey,” she says. “I hear you’re in Quarantine.”

“Apparently,” I say. “Ninyassa said I have to.”

“Sorry.” She frowns sympathetically. “But I guess they have to be careful about all the residents, you know. Lice can spread.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I don’t think I have lice.”

“Well, it’s probably good to just make sure.”

“Right.” I wish my mom took Jayita’s side and not Ninyassa’s, but I guess she’s too excited about learning all the rules.

“Listen,” she says. “Here’s a good meal, at least. And I’ll come back to get you in the morning. You’ll probably fall asleep pretty quick after you eat. Plus you’re almost outside in this trailer, so it’ll be easy to sleep with the dark and rise with the sun.”

“Okay.” I also wish she wouldn’t use words like “rise.” It’s called “getting up.” “Thanks for the food.”

“No prob! Oh, Tess, tomorrow when you can walk around and see it here, you’re gonna be so excited. It’s so great.” And then she breezes out the door.

. . . . .

I try the radio for company. The DJ screams to CALL IN YOUR DEDICATIONS FOR THE TOP EIGHT AT EIGHT COUNTDOWN!!! His voice is obnoxious. He talks and talks, reading out the dedications, Jenny for Bill and Bob for Rachel, and I start feeling like the only person on this earth who doesn’t have someone like that to think about, someone to think about me. I switch it off.

The Guatemalan blanket scratches my thighs, heavy and too stiff to keep me warm. I could close the windows, but without at least the crickets, I think I’ll feel so by myself that I won’t be able to stand it. I hate this feeling. It’s the same feeling I get when my mom stays out at night and leaves me home. She says the extra quiet will help me rest, but it’s just the opposite; the air gets so still that every noise is deafening and I spend the night scared, tracking every creak and crack. I’m more used to it now, at least. When I was six or seven it used to keep me up all night and I would fall asleep in school.

I notice Jayita’s paperback on the counter by the tongue depressors. It’s called The Supreme Journey, and on the back is yet another picture of the bearded guy. I open to a random page. It says:

It is only by renouncing our own desires that we may destroy the illusion of our thoughts. Then we may achieve the true peace of solitude. Not separateness, but the bliss of true connection with all the other solitudes in the universe.

Then it goes on to say a bunch of other stuff in another language that I guess is Indian. I read the paragraph again. “Destroy the illusion of our thoughts?” I don’t think my thoughts are an illusion. How else are you supposed to know anything besides by thinking about it? I like thinking about stuff. Understanding things makes me feel more connected to them, not less. Plus, “destroy” sounds awfully mean.

The solitude part I do get, though. I certainly can feel my universal solitude right now, trapped in this trailer, crickets creaking through the screens. I don’t understand how that feeling would be something that anyone would want. To me it doesn’t feel holy or sacred or peaceful, it just feels lonely. I think about Jayita and Dev, holding hands down the trail in the crickety dark, headed up the stairs to their room. I think about those people on the radio, liking each other enough to dedicate a song. I think about my mom, up late like me, in the huge soft yellow cotton T-shirt she always sleeps in, and I think about my dad, out there somewhere in the big open empty of America, wondering where I am, or maybe not. I fall asleep crying with nothing but the scratchy cot to hold me.