FIVE

. . .

Our loneliness exists only in the illusions of our limited minds.

Steam fills my lungs and after a few minutes I feel dizzy. I don’t care, though. I want the water all the way up hot. I dig my fingernails into the Ivory, leaving half-moons in the slippery white. My mom is in our room, getting dressed for Evening Program, but with the door shut and the water up I’m safe in the box of the bathroom. I wonder if my knees will get used to wood chips, if me and Devanand are the only ones on Grounds Crew. The last few days, he made me weed all day near the main entrance. I wonder if tomorrow will be the same, or if instead he’ll send me back to that junkyard parking lot where the buses are again. I wonder if that guy is always there.

Finally my head spins so much I’m about to fall over, so I turn off the shower. I wrap myself in a towel and crack the door; cool air floods in like ice water and I gulp it down. Once I steady myself, I close the door again so my mom won’t talk to me. I want privacy; I’m not sure why.

I look in the mirror at my sunburn. It makes my cheeks pink and my freckles come out. I kind of like it. I see T-shirt tan lines on my upper arms and make a note to wear a tank top next time.

Evening Program has a dress code: long skirts for women, buttoned shirts for men. Beyond that, you’re just supposed to look “nice.” I only have one skirt: when I was almost twelve, my mom wanted to talk to this guy selling hippie clothes out of his Venice boardwalk stall, so I got a skirt. It’s paisley with a drawstring and a ton of flowing fabric, so even three years later it still fits. My mom says I look “attractive” in it and I should wear skirts more often. I don’t like them: they make me feel too girly, sort of weirdly naked. She says I can borrow some of hers for Evening Program dress code. She has a lot.

I walk into the bedroom mopping off my face. “Jesus, Tessa, how much hot water did you use?” my mom says at the cloud billowing out behind me. I shrug. I had a long day. After a shift of telemarketing, my mom used to come home and say she needed a drink. I never had a job before now; I figure it’s kind of the same thing.

She’s putting on earrings in the mirror above the altar. Her long ones from Peru, green stones and brass that dangle down. She’s got lipstick on, slicked red across her lips, and a turquoise dress. She looks girly, and also beautiful. I want to ask her what she did today, but I don’t.

I want to ask about a lot of stuff. Like why we moved here in the first place. Like who the hell am I supposed to talk to, since she’s away all day and there isn’t even school. Like what is the beard guy, really, and how come everyone treats him like a different category of person, and some people make weird noises and fall down. Why does everybody have a name that’s not their own? What’s that bracelet of beads she keeps touching? And how come she knows so many new words all of a sudden? There’s a lot of stuff that I don’t understand.

I’ve never seen her this happy before, though, and I don’t want to mess it up. She’s always getting excited and joyful about stuff, workshops and classes and, of course, guys, but she’s never settled into it like this: just come in, sat down in it, and stayed. Before, her eyes would dart around, flickering like butterfly wings, never staying all the way still. Even when she landed, she’d keep fluttering those wings, just enough to have momentum when it was time to pick up and go. There were always a couple cardboard boxes left in the corner. But now, we’ve only been here a few days and already she’s unpacked it all and put it all away.

On the way out of Evening Program my mom and I hold hands. The sweat from hers seeps into the cracks in my palms. We slide our shoes back on and she says, “Let’s go for chai.” Everyone stands around a plastic vat in the big open lobby, talking about meditation experiences and seva schedules and people whose names I don’t know. They talk about Iran-Contra, because everyone hates Reagan, and someone makes a joke about televangelists and Tammy Faye Bakker. Jayita and Dev are there, loose and liquid, arms around each other; I want to say hi but they’re too far away, so I stick to my mom’s side. Or at least I try.

It’s not so easy; all the guys come up to her. Avtar and Bhav from kitchen prep, a blond guy named Rick, this guy with a beard named Gajendra. They cluster around, shouldering each other out. Everyone knows my mom’s name. Nobody asks mine. Rick pushes me aside without even noticing and my mom laughs, sparkles up at him while she sips her chai. She sticks her chest out. Gajendra says something to her about “the sacred feminine,” and I decide that he is gross.

Then a woman I haven’t met, in dangly jewelry and a flowing skirt just like my mom’s, comes up and touches my mom’s shoulder. My mom squeals and they hug, ignoring Rick and Gajendra and Avtar and Bhav. My mom and the woman throw their heads back and laugh together, tinkling. They make all the men invisible: the guys just stand around, suddenly aimless.

I wish I could make that happen.

After a minute my mom remembers I’m there. “Oh! This is my daughter, Tessa.” She points me toward the woman. “This is my friend Vrishti.” Vrishti is a redhead. Almost as pretty as my mom.

We sleep hard, my mom in the queen bed, me in the corner on the twin. She stays in our room all night. I dream about Ohio—Roy Rogers and the grocery store. We go down the cereal aisle and my mom lets me pick out everything I want. I ride on the foot of the cart while she pushes me, fast and faster.

I wake up when her alarm goes off at four; lie still while she gets dressed and leaves for chanting. I watch the sky turn from navy blue to orange; stars fade and trees turn from silhouettes to real. I think: Akron doesn’t have trees like this. I also think:Today I’m going back to Grounds Crew seva, and how can I get Devanand to send me to that back parking lot again.

I tell him I wasn’t happy with the work I did on the flowers; I want to space them out more evenly. “Okay!” he exclaims with a grin, long gross beard jiggling. His T-shirt today says SRI CHINMOY 10K and has a bunch of people running down a mountain. “The work is for the Guru, so it’s important you be happy with it. That’s the essence of seva!”

When I get into the lot, I think maybe I made a mistake. The guy isn’t here—nobody is, just bus parts and junk and my asters, which are spaced pretty evenly, to tell you the truth. I stay anyway, though, and start replanting; what else am I going to do?

Pretty soon I hear a clank behind me. When I turn around, there he is, beneath the bus again. I wonder how you’re supposed to say hi to somebody when they’re under a bus. Do you go up and kick their foot? Or yell at them? Or just stand and wait and hope eventually they’ll notice that you’re there?

I pick the final choice, big surprise. I’ve never known how to talk to someone if they didn’t talk to me first. Not any kid at any school I’ve ever gone to, or grown-ups at parties, or even sometimes my mom. For example: we’ve been in this place a week already and I haven’t even asked her why. It’s like the law of inertia we learned last year in Lab Science. It’s safer just to let things stay still; once you start, you never know when they’ll stop moving.

I put my fingers in the dirt, dig up more flowers. The bus tugs at me like a magnet and my mouth wants to move, but I keep my eyes on the roots, try not to break them. Finally he must feel me thinking, because he comes out from under the bus.

“Hey there! You again!”

“How’s it going,” I say into my shirt.

“Huh?” he squints across the lot.

“How’s it going.” I enunciate a lot and lean forward, like I could cross the ten feet between us with my voice and my neck. It comes out too loud.

“Oh,” he says, like he’s surprised I actually asked. “Um, it’s going pretty good. Almost done with this one, then I’m ready to move on to the VW. Engine needs a rebuild. You know.”

“Yeah.” I actually don’t know. Pause.

“Okay, well, back to work.” He wipes his hands on his jeans and crawls back under. I just stand there staring at the spot he stood in till I catch myself.