The Beginner's Guide to Living

by Lia Hills

“WILL YOU TEACH ME TO MEDITATE?”

  “Sure,” says Samara, looking at Taryn over the top of her glass of mint tea. “I’ve never taught anyone before, but if you’re interested, Will, then you need to know about it.”

  With all this chaos, what I need is something to calm my mind. “When?”

  “How about tomorrow afternoon? I’m not working till six.”

  Taryn pivots on my leg. Her bony butt is digging into my thigh. “But Wednesday I’ve got my dance class.”

  “Exactly. He can’t learn with you around.”

  Taryn has her back to me so I can’t see her face, but I feel her body shift. She turns and whispers in my ear, “Am I distracting you from your spiritual journey?”

  Not a serious bone in her body.

  “Around 4:30 tomorrow, then?” asks Samara.

  I go to answer but Taryn’s mouth is pressed against mine, her lashes against my cheek. Right now leaving my body behind is the furthest thing from my thoughts.

  * * *

  Samara’s wearing tight tracksuit pants and a tank top when she opens the door. “Come in.”

  “Thanks,” I say, but it feels wrong to be here without Taryn.

  “I was thinking we should go out onto the back veranda. There’s more space.”

  “I thought you closed your eyes to meditate.”

  “You do, but it’ll help you settle yourself before we start.”

  There are two cushions on the deck, some incense burning, and I’m beginning to wonder why I came.

  “It’s nag champa,” she says, “the best stuff for meditating. Take your shoes and socks off, you’ll be more relaxed.”

  So I do, then sit on a cushion cross-legged like her. It’s warm on the veranda, the smell of the garden mixing with the incense. I wait for my hay fever to kick in.

  “So, first you put your hands like this.” Samara balances a hand on each knee, palm up. “Then you touch the thumb and the index finger together. It’s supposed to help with your breathing.” Her voice has lowered. “Breathing’s really important to meditation.”

  I put my hands like her on my knees and try to keep a straight face, like I’m a five-year-old, or something. As I remember, I was the one who asked her to do this.

  “Okay, so now you close your eyes, and you focus your mind on the end of your nose, as if it’s stroking the side of it, down to the tip.”

  I try to imagine it, my mind doing what she says. There’s a warm, tingling sensation along my nose. I open my eyes; Samara’s eyes are closed.

  “Now, I want you to feel your breath as it enters through your nose, and I want you to take it up to your third eye.”

  She opens her eyes. “Sorry, I should have explained a few things before we started. Your third eye is in the middle of your forehead. It’s the eye of your mind. Imagine that you are taking your breath up here.” She touches her forehead. “Then you take the breath down to the base of your spine. That’s where your life force is. The kundalini.”

  “Okay.” I nod, feeling I should be taking notes. There’s a resistance in me that I can’t quite fathom.

  “So, first you focus on the end of your nose, and then you take your breathing up to the third eye and down to the base of your spine. And, as you breathe, you say to yourself, so hum. That’s a mantra—it helps focus the mind. If you’re really focused, you’ll see the color blue.”

  I do what she says, concentrate on the end of my nose, on the breathing, where it should go, what I’m meant to be saying in my head, as I feel my breath deepen. And then somebody shouts in another backyard. I open my eyes, but Samara hasn’t noticed; her chest is still. I try to start again with the whole sequence, but the noises of the neighborhood keep dropping in on my mind.

  “If you get distracted,” she says, “start at the beginning. It takes practice.”

  I close my eyes again; nose, breath, base of the spine.

  “Try and find that quiet place in your heart.”

  For a moment I do, but in my heart is Taryn, those freckles, the way her hair flirts as she moves. It’s no use. I open my eyes but Samara is in meditation, her body inert, her face like Taryn’s around the mouth, her breasts bigger. She’s not as thin as Taryn—not fat, just more curved. Her eyes are shut and I study her freely—the bow of her hips, her bare feet, the crease between her legs. What the hell am I doing? I’m in love with Taryn and here I am weighing up the shape of Samara’s tits. How can you love someone and lust after someone else? Because I do. I’m imagining Samara naked, right now, on the veranda, in that same position. My girlfriend’s sister. Talk about taming the mind—obviously mine’s a lot more feral than I thought. I’m all body, no control.

  Samara takes a deep breath. “And when you’ve finished, you bring your hands over your head into the prayer position, and you bring them down in front of your body like this.”

  I do what she says. She opens her eyes, and smiles.

  “Don’t worry, the first few times your mind wanders all over the place. It’s normal. Sometimes it can bring up the weirdest thoughts. You have to learn to calm it.”

  Well, that’s the theory. I try to look innocent, she’s being so nice, so like Taryn. I do my best to keep my eyes on her face.

  “You okay, Will? It wasn’t too strange for you, was it? The first time, it can be. If you’re not used to the third eye thing, and all that.”

  “No, it was fine, really. Thanks.”

  Except it wasn’t. All this shit is starting to unhinge me—too much new, too soon. I close my eyes and try to think of one thing that is constant in my life. But all I see is my mother’s face, and the fact of her death.

  14. Can a lifetime of searching bring us closer to the truth?

  THREE

  BREAK ON THROUGH

  OCTOBER 20TH. It’s fifteen days till my first exam, seven weeks since Mom died. Each date is a marker. One step closer equals one step away.

  * * *

  Taryn.

  Party, Friday night, a friend’s house. Wanna come?

  ♥ Will

  * * *

  Sure. Will I know anyone?

  T ♥

  * * *

  You know me.

  * * *

  I have no clean boxers. My T-shirt has a hole under the arm. The jeans I am wearing could walk out the front door on their own. Nobody knows the whereabouts of my socks. Adam lends me a pair. I am wearing corporate socks to a party. The world has gone into a slow decline.

  * * *

  Taryn has on a backless red dress. Her hair is touching her spine. So beautiful. I open the door for her and scramble in behind her onto the backseat.

  “Hey, I’m not your bloody chauffeur,” says Adam, pouting. “Hi, Taryn.”

  She smiles. I look at Adam as I jump on her, cradle her head against the car door.

  “And no sex while I’m driving, it puts me off.”

  I kiss her, kiss her hard, before we sit up and put on our seat belts.

  “So, where is this party anyway?” he asks, pulling out of her driveway.

  “Up on Elders Street. Number 27. And you’re not staying.”

  “Now why would I want to hang around with a bunch of juveniles?” He looks at us in the rearview mirror. “My apologies, Taryn. I was talking about his friends.”

  “Doesn’t sound good,” she says, laughing. “And here I was looking forward to meeting them.”

  “That’s if I still have any after I walk in there wearing pin-striped socks.”

  “Hey, I bought those in Singapore, they’re good socks. So, no vomit on them, all right?”

  “Speaking of which, can you swing past the liquor store?” About time I started acting my age.

  * * *

  Parties give me stage fright but, as Taryn steps out of the car ahead of me, I get a red carpet feeling.

  “I don’t know anybody,” she says, eyeing the people standing on the lawn. I slip my arm around her. In my other hand I have a bottle of vodka in a brown paper bag. Kids
from school nod at me, their eyes on her. On that ruby dress.

  “Hey, Will. Who’s this?” A girl from my Lit class has her hand on my shoulder. “Hi, I’m Emma.”

  “This is Taryn. Is Seb here?”

  “Yeah, he’s in the kitchen. Eating, of course,” says Emma.

  Taryn smiles at Emma as we go into the house. “Is she your ex?”

  “Christ, no.” I laugh. “She hardly ever speaks to me.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.” She presses me against the hallway wall. Her dress is paper-thin.

  “You shouldn’t wear things like this in public.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s hard walking around with one of these. I feel like a dog in heat.”

  I draw her hand down to my jeans. She laughs. “Come on, introduce me to Seb.”

  In the kitchen, Seb’s wrapped around a bowl of chips, his voice struggling above the music. “Good to see you, Will.”

  I remember the last time we spoke, my inglorious escape.

  He wipes a hand on his jeans and offers it to Taryn. “Hi, I’m Seb.”

  “What’s with the handshaking?” I ask, leaning against the counter.

  Taryn nudges me. “Hi, Seb. Finally, we meet.”

  A shout invades from the next room.

  “What’s going on in there?”

  “Oh, that’s Ritchie,” says Seb, checking out Taryn now that she’s distracted. “He took something before everybody got here, and he keeps shouting I am the Lizard King.”

  Ritchie comes writhing through the door, feral hair, sweat oozing from his face. His bare chest has a diagonal scratch across it, and his fly’s undone.

  “Break on through, break on through,” he chants, grabbing himself a beer out of a tub of ice.

  “Thinks he’s Jim Morrison. Loser.”

  “Who? Morrison?” asks Taryn.

  “No, Ritchie,” laughs Seb.

  “My dad’s a big Doors fan,” says Taryn. “Hey, Will, what about a drink?”

  “Mine too,” nods Seb.

  “My dad’s more your elevator music kind of guy,” I say, holding up the vodka. “You want some, Seb?”

  “No, I’m all right.” He points to an almost full bottle of beer on the bench. “Slow drinker.”

  I fill two glasses half with vodka, half with some cranberry juice I find on the counter, and hand one to Taryn. She takes a sip and coughs. “You trying to get me drunk?”

  “Well, I was wondering what you’re like once you’ve got a few drinks in you. Bet there’s a spare room upstairs.”

  Seb returns to his bowl of chips.

  “Slut,” she says, kissing me on the neck, the vodka already seeping into me, the music getting that slick kind of flow, the red of her dress like a lure. My hand …

  “I am the Lizard King!!!”

  “Always thought there was something reptilian about Ritchie,” says Seb, shoving in a handful of chips. Ritchie, jerking in time with the music, makes another tour of the room.

  * * *

  Red angel, that’s what she is, her thigh created for my hand. She brings me a message, her eyelashes feathers. The message is one of love. Of skin. Of reaching out and touching something else. She is an idea, hovering above me, that beyond all this, she is what I make of her. That I am not what I am, but what I choose to be, what my mind, my heart, requires me to become.

  * * *

  Corporate socks are resistant to vomit.

  Vodka doesn’t smell.

  But pizza does.

  * * *

  “Jesus, it’s lucky it’s me picking you up and not Dad,” grunts Adam as he drags my legs into the car. “Did he polish off the whole bottle on his own?”

  “I gave him a bit of a hand,” says Taryn. “And so did the Lizard King.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ask,” she says, flopping down next to me.

  “Idiot.” Adam shoves my feet in and slams the door.

  I can feel a dark pulse. It’s starting in my chest, working up a vein in my throat into my head. It’s the pump of blood, a metallic taste on my tongue. The dilation of nostrils. The forming of fists. As the car starts up, I lean fiercely into the corner of the seat.

  “You okay, Will? Hey, Adam, maybe you’d better stop. I think he’s going to throw up.”

  “Don’t you dare throw up in Dad’s car.”

  The door opens.

  My head drops back. Smashes into something that doesn’t give.

  Adam’s pulling me out, hauling me by the chest, his fingers digging into my ribs. Hurting me. I spin around and hit him, hard in the mouth.

  “What the…?”

  “Will!”

  I go for him, throw him to the ground, my body steel, all my angles thrust into him. There’s screaming, something clutching at my leg, a ruby dress. Red car. A blow to the stomach, my guts emptying violently all over grass.

  Slumped.

  Adam is sitting on his ass, wiping his mouth. “You are one mean bastard when you’re drunk.”

  Taryn glares at me, hands on her hips. The world is already hammering into a small ugly ball at the base of my neck. At both temples.

  I am what I am, and nothing more.

  * * *

  The next morning, there is no next morning, there’s only an afternoon. A pounding on my door. “Will, I hope you’re studying.”

  “Been working on my math, Dad, I’ll be out in a minute.”

  I drop out of bed, smelling of disgust. My body has mutinied, left me on a small raft without water. I have a salt-dried tongue. Well, pickled actually. The vision of a clear empty bottle, red label, liquid pain. I crawl to the bathroom and do my best, then on to the kitchen.

  “You look almost as bad as your brother. Said he got into a fight in a pub last night. Can you imagine? Adam in a fight.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Out. Had somebody he had to meet.”

  I get myself a glass of orange juice. The thought of cereal …

  “Oh, and Taryn rang. I called you but you must have been asleep. Wanted to know if you were going over this afternoon. I said it would depend on how your study was going.”

  “Got it all covered, Dad. Have I ever failed anything?”

  “Well, no, but you seem … changed.”

  It’s a good time to talk but my head won’t allow it, and the orange juice is having an argument with my stomach about whether it should stay. “The only constant is change,” I say, like a hungover incarnation of Samara.

  “Did you learn that for your English exam?”

  “Yeah, Dad. See, nothing to worry about.”

  “Good, good,” he says, taking a swig from a bottle of beer.

  “Since when did you start drinking on Saturday afternoons? If Mom were here…” I want to keep going but my stomach says no.

  “If your mom were here she’d say, Bit early, Michael.”

  I hear her voice in his. Dad pats me on the shoulder, pauses, pats me again. “You’re a lot like her.”

  He’s waiting, like a kid at an ice cream counter, and I want to say, Except I’m here, Dad, but I can’t. First, because my head feels ready to collapse on itself. Second, this is not the way we do things. With us, truth has to fall through the gaps.

  “Better not keep Taryn waiting,” I say, staggering every movement so I don’t lose the juice. “You know how women are.”

  “Yeah. You all right to get yourself over there?”

  “Sure, Dad.”

  “Then I think I’ll get myself another beer.”

  * * *

  When I get to Taryn’s, Ray and Sandy are watching some show about art. No sports in this house. Taryn pilots me into the kitchen, pours a glass of water and drops something in. She hasn’t kissed me yet.

  “Here, drink this. Gastrolyte. It’ll rehydrate that brain of yours. Tastes like sweet aspirin, but as long as you don’t chuck it up you’ll be right.”

  I do as I’m told. It’s fizzy and foul, but a small price t
o pay.

  “So, how was Adam this morning?”

  “Don’t know. He was gone by the time I got up. Was it awful?”

  “Yes. What happened? Are you usually like that when you’re drunk?”

  “God, no.” I reach for her hand, but she’s removed from it. It’s just flesh.

  “Well, how am I supposed to know? I didn’t recognize you last night.”

  She’s thinking, she hardly knows me; she’s thinking, she’s made a mistake. “Things have been a bit messed up lately,” I say.

  She frowns.

  “No, I don’t mean us.”

  “Why did you hit him? Do you know that much?”

  “Not sure. I haven’t hit him for ages, not since we were really little, and that was mostly defending myself. Maybe it’s got something to do with how he’s been since Mom died. I thought he’d be more supportive but he’s been a real prick.”

  Her hand has life in it again. She reaches over and touches my face, strokes my cheek with the back of her hand. God, she’s so gentle, the perfect antidote to life. “You should talk to him about it.”

  “Yeah, maybe I will.”

  “So, do you think that head of yours can handle a little music? Samara and I have been sorting out our favorite music; we’re going to make a CD.”

  “Sure.”

  Taryn leads me to Samara’s room. She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor next to her stereo—I remember the last time I saw her like that, but that’s as far as it goes.

  “Heard you went on a bit of a bender last night.”

  “Yeah, and paying for it.”

  Samara laughs. “Karmic, definitely karmic.”

  “What are you listening to?”

  “Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.”

  “Who?”

  The flash from the flint of the lighter annoys my brain as Samara lights some more incense, the wailing of the music only making it worse. “Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He’s a qawwali singer.”

  “Well, that explains everything.”

  “Sufi music.” She looks at me with a grin. “The mystics of Islam.”

  This is all doing my head in—the part that’s still alive. “Yeah, I know what a sufi is,” I say, even though I don’t.