The Retreat

by Jacci Turner

The bartender lifted a rectangular card with ketchup stains from the center of the salt and pepper shakers and laid it on the table between Natalie and Amy. “I’ll get your nachos and come back.”

  “What do you normally drink?” asked Brooke, looking at Amy.

  “Diet Pepsi,” said Amy. Brooke smiled, nodding. “I’ve had wine at weddings, and champagne. I don’t like beer; it’s too bitter. My Opa tried to get me to like it—I mean, what’s a German without beer?—but I just don’t.”

  “Not much experience drinking, then?” summarized Brooke.

  “Nope,” agreed Amy.

  “Hand me that list of yours,” said Brooke, gesturing to Amy’s bag.

  Amy pulled her notebook out and handed it to Brooke, who pulled the pen from the metal spiral spine and tapped it as she regarded the list. “I’m going to write something we can check off tonight,” she said. She scribbled on the page and turned it to Amy and Natalie to read: “Five: get drunk.”

  “What?” Amy said, feeling like her eyes might pop from her head. “You can’t just keep writing on my list. I have to agree.”

  “Well, if not drunk, then at least buzzed,” said Brooke, revising number five. “Come on, Amy. You’re almost thirty years old and when else will you have this safe of a place to experience an alcohol buzz?”

  Amy glanced around at the bar. “Safe?” she asked.

  “You’re living in a monastery, for Christ’s sake. There are no guys here to slip you a mickey.” She pointed toward the two men at the bar. “And if those two try, Natalie and I have your back.”

  Natalie laughed and added, “You need to live a little, girl.”

  Amy finally grinned. Brooke was right—what safer place was there? She was in the middle of Nebraska cornfields. Who would know if she had a bit to drink? She’d always wanted to try it.

  The bartender came back and sat down a huge pile of nachos and Brooke’s beer. “What about you two?”

  “I’ll have the house white,” said Natalie.

  “And my friend here will have a White Russian,” said Brooke without hesitation.

  He left and Amy turned to Brooke, who was taking a huge bite of nachos. “What’s in that?”

  “Vodka, Kahlúa, and cream. It’s tasty. Good for a first timer!” she said around her mouthful of chips.

  Amy started shoveling chips in too. She knew drinking hard alcohol on an empty stomach wasn’t a great idea. “I’d like to hear more about how you lost your job at the church.”

  Brooke leaned back in her chair and took a long sip of her beer, then belched, making both Natalie and Amy giggle. “Well, it’s like this. I was hired on at this big church because the pastor wanted to reach the Millennials, who as we know have been leaving the church in droves. He loved my ideas of starting a ministry in a bar. We called it Faith on Tap.”

  “Wow,” said Natalie. “That sounds fun.”

  “It was,” said Brooke, pausing when the bartender reappeared with Natalie’s wine and Amy’s drink. Amy took a hesitant sip. It tasted pretty good. A warmth spread down her throat to her stomach. The second sip was even better.

  “Like it?” asked Brooke.

  “I do, actually,” said Amy.

  Brooke continued with her story. “I had fun thinking of a name. I thought of Scripture and Suds, Pub Theology … So anyway, the pastor loved the idea and even came a couple of times. It was pretty successful.”

  She shoved a cheesy chip in her mouth and leaned in, excitement lighting her features. “The rules were that you could ask any question, no holds barred. We wrote the questions and put them in an empty mug, then picked one each week to discuss. But, whatever your opinion on the topic, you had to start whatever you were going to say with, ‘Currently I’m thinking …’ Then you had to end whatever you said with, ‘But I may be wrong.’”

  “Now that is awesome!” said Natalie, raising her wine glass in a silent salute.

  “I would love that,” agreed Amy. “It would keep people from being so … argumentative.”

  “Shit yeah,” said Brooke. “It was great.”

  Amy giggled. Was her head feeling lighter already? She grabbed her pen from the table, adding number six to the list.

  “What did you write?” asked Natalie.

  Amy felt heat in her face. Was it the drink or her embarrassment? “I need to learn how to swear.”

  Natalie and Brooke both laughed, and Amy had to laugh a bit too at the things on her list. She was struck by how good it felt to laugh and talk about these things.

  “So what went wrong at the church?” she asked.

  “It was the church ladies,” said Brooke as she drained her beer and made a gesture to the bartender. A warm, pleasant sensation had taken over Amy’s body, like all the stress she’d been feeling had leached away. She quickly ate a few more chips.

  “At least, that’s what it was at first. They never really said anything to me directly, but they would make these comments on my Facebook page that were … disapproving.”

  “Like what?” asked Natalie.

  “Well, they didn’t like anything about me. They didn’t like my swearing, they didn’t like my tattoos, they didn’t like the way I dressed. I was pretty pissed after a while.”

  “How many tattoos do you have?” Amy asked in awe of Brooke.

  “Currently five, but I plan to get more soon.”

  Natalie giggled. “I have five too.”

  Amy was surprised. Some of Brooke’s tattoos were visible on her wrist and ankle, but none of Natalie’s were. Now Natalie was staring at Amy. She took the pen and wrote, “Seven: get a tattoo.”

  Amy smiled, a bit lopsided. “I’ve actually been planning to get one. An edelweiss; it’s a flower. I want it to honor my Opa, my grandfather.”

  “Why that flower?” asked Natalie.

  “It was his favorite. He was in the mountain infantry of Germany, and they had them on their collars and caps. He said it was his good-luck charm.” She sighed. “I miss him. He died in January.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Natalie. “Mine died when I was ten. But I still have my grandma.”

  “Me too,” said Amy. Then she remembered Brooke’s story. “What about the pastor? Did he stand up for you?” The bartender came back and placed three more drinks on the table. Amy gulped. She was pretty sure she was already buzzed. She shoved more chips into her mouth.

  “That’s the thing,” said Brooke. “I think he was jealous. He’d tried to start different things for the Millennials, but they never really took off. When the group started to grow, he tried to control it, saying that anyone who came also had to come to a Sunday service—that sort of thing. But the people who were coming were not people that wanted to go to church. That was the beauty of the whole thing. Some had been hurt in churches. Some had never even been to a church.

  “Finally, I think I just pissed him off in a staff meeting and the next thing I knew I was told that ‘giving was down’ and they’d have to let me go.”

  “What did you say at the staff meeting to make him mad?” asked Natalie.

  “A bunch of old, married white guys and me,” said Brooke, “and them talking about their policy for celibacy for their unmarried volunteers and I said, ‘I’m not sure I believe that anymore.’ And they had a shit fit.”

  “You said that?” asked Natalie, her doe eyes growing even rounder.

  “Mostly I just liked to get a rise out of them, but yeah, seriously, I’m thirty years old. I HAVE NEEDS.” She said the last part so loud the men at the bar turned to look at them, and all three girls started giggling. The giggling turned to laughter, and they laughed so hard it was hard to stop. As soon as one would catch her breath, the giggles would start again, and Amy felt better than she had in a long time. Now she understood why people got addicted to alcohol—it made you feel invincible.

  “But seriously,” said Brooke. “I’ve been rethinking the ‘wait till you’re married’ thing. I mean, it made sense in Bible times when women were ma
rried at thirteen, but I don’t think they’d ever find themselves thirty and a virgin. It was a rule for another time.”

  Amy knew her eyes were huge. She’d never heard a Christian woman say something like that, especially someone she respected. She turned to Natalie. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I was at a gathering with a bunch of young married women from my church and they were saying they wished they hadn’t waited. Some felt like it was telling your body, ‘Sex is bad,’ for years, then getting married and telling yourself, ‘Now it’s okay.’ Like, it’s not that easy to turn off and on.”

  “Exactly,” said Brooke. “I’m sick of middle-aged white men making up rules for me to live by. I’m going to start making my own rules based on my own relationship with God. No purity ring for this girl.”

  “I had a purity ring,” said Amy sheepishly.

  “Where is it?” asked Natalie.

  “Well, you might not believe this, but I’ve never even kissed a guy.”

  “What?” said Brooke and Natalie together. Brooke made a grab for Amy’s list and Amy pulled it away.

  “Wait,” she said. “Let me tell you. My dad took me out when I was twelve, after one of those parties the church has to celebrate celibacy, and he bought me the ring. I didn’t want to disappoint him. I never had a boyfriend until West, and he and I decided that we shouldn’t kiss till we got married, because he said it was too hard for him, so we never did. Then, after he broke up with me, I saw him kissing his new girlfriend in the church parking lot!”

  “No way,” said Natalie.

  “Douche bag,” said Brooke.

  “So I drove right downtown and through the purity ring off the bridge into the river.”

  “The river?” said Natalie, looking confused.

  “We have this bridge in Reno, and back in the day, you could come to Reno for a quickie divorce. The women used to throw their rings right off that bridge. So that’s what I did.”

  “So, you don’t have your ring,” observed Brooke, “but you still have your virginity.”

  “True,” said Amy, her tongue feeling tingly. “But I’m not putting that on the list.”

  “Obviously,” said Brooke.

  “But you could put the kissing on the list,” said Natalie.

  “Yes,” said Amy. “I will put the kissing on the list.” She wrote, “Eight: kiss someone.”

  10

  As they drove back to the monastery at midnight, Amy was feeling no pain. She barely noticed when Natalie drove the car past the entrance to the monastery guesthouse and kept going up the road, the headlights the only illumination on the now dirt road.

  “Where are we going?” she said with words that seemed to come out slowly. Natalie and Brooke giggled. They were definitely plotting something.

  “We wanted to help you take one more thing off your list tonight,” said Natalie.

  “Which one?” asked Amy as the car jerked to a stop and the girls in the front seat tumbled out. Amy opened her door. “I hope it’s romance. Have you hidden a guy up here for me to kiss?” She was standing in the dirt in what looked like an orchard. Way down the hill, she could see the retreat center, lit up from the inside.

  “Come on,” said Brooke. “We’re gonna teach you how to swear.”

  Amy stumbled up the hill into the trees behind her friends. Again her stomach felt the lurch of adventure. The night was cool but not cold and the stars were clustered above them, though a bit fuzzy to Amy’s eyes.

  Brooke stopped between two apple trees and turned to face the guesthouse far below. She put her hands on either side of her mouth like a megaphone and yelled, “FUCK!”

  Amy started laughing. She had a hard time getting her breath she was laughing so hard. Was she really going to do this? She had just never been one to swear. Why had she put it on the list? It just seemed so funny and natural when Brooke did it.

  Natalie stepped up to join Brooke and hollered in her high-pitched voice, “Shit, shit, shit!”

  Amy clutched her sides, laughing again. This seemed so inappropriate. They were at a monastery! They were pretty far away, but what if the monks could hear them?

  “Come on, Amy—it’s your turn,” said Brooke.

  Amy stepped up to stand next to Brooke. She took a deep breath, put her hands to her mouth, and hollered, “Dammit!”

  Now it was Brooke’s and Natalie’s turn to laugh. “You can do better than that,” chided Brooke. “Let it fly. No one can hear you from here. Now’s your chance.”

  Amy giggled, took a breath, and let an f-bomb fly. She had to admit it felt good. Soon all three were shouting expletives like kids at a Tourette’s convention. Colorful words fell around them like rain until they were exhausted, sitting in the dirt and laughing. “I guess we’d better go to bed,” said Brooke. “Breakfast comes early.”

  Amy realized the fresh air had sobered her up a bit. They climbed back into the car and Natalie carefully negotiated a three-point turn and began to slowly crawl down the dirt road.

  “What’s that?” said Natalie, slowing.

  “Oh shit—it’s somebody walking up this road,” said Brooke.

  Amy leaned forward in the seat to peer into the darkness. It didn’t look like a monk. The headlights illuminated a tall guy wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. Then horror filled Amy. It was Stephen, from her triad. Natalie stopped the car and rolled down the window.

  Stephen leaned his head down to see inside the car. “Ladies,” he said in greeting. “Sounds like you’re having a good evening.”

  “Sorry if we were too loud,” said Natalie, giggling.

  “Not a problem,” he said, smiling back at Amy. “But Amy, someday I’d love to hear the story of this night!” He turned and continued his walk up the hill.

  Amy flushed with embarrassment. “Oh my gosh. That guy is in my triad!”

  “He’s hot,” said Natalie.

  “Married,” said Amy.

  “Aren’t they all,” agreed Brooke. Soon they pulled into the retreat center parking lot and headed for the door.

  Amy grabbed her friends’ hands to stop them from going in, because once they were inside, they’d have to be quiet. “Thanks. I really needed a night like tonight. I can’t remember when the last time was I’ve laughed so hard.”

  “Agreed,” said Natalie.

  “And seconded,” said Brooke.

  11

  The next morning Amy awoke to her alarm, and the memories of the night before flooded over her. She was surprised she didn’t feel hungover. When they’d dropped her off at her door, Brooke had whispered that she should take two Tylenol and drink a glass of water before bed. It was a preventative hangover cure. It must have worked.

  She lay in her bed, grinning like a fool. She couldn’t believe she’d stood over the monastery swearing. Her palm flew to her face—and Stephen had heard her. And she’d have to face him tonight in their triad. She was glad there hadn’t been a tattoo parlor open; she’d have probably come back with a giant tattoo on her hip.

  She crawled out of bed and pulled on her exercise clothes. She giggled again at the memories.

  * * *

  The morning had gone well with breakfast, yoga, and more teaching on desert mothers and fathers. Amy felt good today, lighter than she had in a long time. But her butt was numb from sitting and she decided to get a walk in before lunch.

  The day was bright and warming nicely. She started around the lake and was trying to decide where to go next when a voice next to her said, “Can I join you?”

  Amy was surprised to find the lady with the bronze sandals walking next to her. At first she cringed, again feeling that they would have nothing in common. But then she remembered her desire not to judge a person from the outside anymore. “Of course,” she said.

  “I’m Celeste,” said the woman, who today was wearing black capris and a peasant top that could have come right out of a seventies fashion magazine. The same bronze flip-flops with large fake gems prote
cted her pedicured feet.

  “I’m Amy.” As they exchanged pleasantries, Celeste led them off the paved path and stopped as they entered a trail made of mown grass surrounded by taller grasses a foot high.

  “I was going to walk up to the stations of the cross. Is that okay with you?”

  “Sure,” said Amy. She didn’t even know there were stations of the cross up here. In fact, she wasn’t sure she knew what “stations of the cross” were.

  “Well, you have to make friends with the grasshoppers if we go up there.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Amy.

  “There are a lot of them right now, and they’ll bounce off you, but they don’t bite, of course.”

  “Okay,” said Amy, wondering how hard it could be. She’d chased and caught plenty of grasshoppers in her youth. As they got farther up the path, clouds of two-inch-long grasshoppers puffed up with each of their footsteps. They bounced off Amy’s arms and legs, whizzing by her face. “Wow, I’m glad you warned me.”

  “Yes, it’s rather Old Testament, isn’t it? At first I thought they were a swarm of locusts!”

  Amy laughed as they continued to be bombarded by the beasts. They were quiet as they slogged up the hill. Amy liked the way Celeste said things. The phrases “make friends with the grasshoppers” and “it’s rather Old Testament” rolled through her mind.

  Celeste stopped at the crest of the hill and turned to Amy. “How is this retreat for you?” she asked. She had very nice eyes and a beautiful smile. Why hadn’t Amy noticed that before instead of silently mocking the lady’s sandals?

  “Honestly, it’s been pretty hard. That centering prayer was not working for me today, and my friend Natalie says she loves it. I must be doing it wrong.”

  Celeste laughed. It was a kind, musical sound. “I don’t really get it either. It feels like monkeys are having a pillow fight in my head when I try to clear my brain.”

  Amy laughed hard at that. It was exactly how she felt. “Maybe if we keep practicing …”

  “Maybe,” agreed Celeste.

  Celeste led them to the left and stopped at a skinny pole with a square picture on the top. “Here’s the first station,” she said.