by Amber Foxx
“That’s so strange.” Kenny sounded confused. “I read Sri Rama Kriya on ascendance, and he doesn’t say anything about it misfiring. Did you find his place?”
“No. It’s closed. Or never existed.”
“Are you sure? It has to be open. She goes there.”
Mae doubted the place would turn out to be any more substantial than Muffie’s psychic insights were. “I’ll ask about it when I see her. Is there anything you’d like me to tell her or ask her?”
“Yeah. I’d like to know about that Ascended Muffie web site. It’s so Dada, it could be her, but she’d have to be communicating with someone physical. Or ...” A hint of worry crept in. “That stuff on the site about ascending not being what we think it is makes me wonder if she had to back off from it. Can you ask her what happened?”
“I’ll try.” Mae marveled at what a follower could come up with to explain his mentor abandoning him. She’d been sure Frank and Kenny would think the site was satire and be insulted. “Do you have a guess?”
“I think that quote from Sri Rama Kriya, about incinerating karma stored in chakras so you can eliminate your samskaras, might be saying she hadn’t quite eliminated all of them. She wasn’t illuminated.” The tongue-twister nature of the quote, now that Roseanne had pointed it out, sounded funny to Mae even paraphrased. “So she couldn’t ascend. She had to be reborn right here, and walk back in.”
“What are samskaras?”
“Stuff from this life or a past life that left a mark on you, so you keep reacting to it. It makes you accumulate new karma. Makes you act certain ways. Maybe she still had some left and couldn’t walk out.”
“Thanks. I think I get samskaras.” I think I have some. Codependence. Taking care of messed-up people. “I don’t get walking out and walking in, though.”
“Sri Rama Kriya says there are walk-ins and crawl-ins. This is really esoteric, sort of a secret teaching; it’s not what most of the yoga books or teachers will share with you. He says people who are born in this body are crawl-ins, and people who come and go, who use a body for a while and go in and out of a higher plane, are walk-ins. Muffie’s a walk-in, and she might have been ready to walk out.”
“Wow.” Mae had an image of a soul stepping partway through the skin of a body and stopping, saying, oops, forgot my keys. She was more impressed with Kenny’s gullibility than the strange idea, but she let her wow pass for shared awe. “So, I’ll ask her about the web site. And about her samskaras. Why she didn’t walk out.” Of her body. She’d certainly walked out on her restaurant. “And I guess you hope she’ll come back, since she didn’t ascend.”
“I don’t know. We miss her, but Frank and I were talking about it, and we kind of think she wouldn’t have left if she didn’t believe we were ready to be without her. She cared too much about me to leave if she didn’t think I could handle it. Like Frank said, ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will disappear.’”
“I like that.” Mae’s relief at the young men’s humorous coping lasted only a second, vanishing behind the real problem with Muffie’s absence. “But I don’t see how the business was ready for the owner to disappear.”
During Kenny’s silence, Mae looked around at the crowd in the Plaza. Many were watching a belly dancer in gold spangles who entertained for donations the way Jamie had earlier in the day. Mae’s attention was drawn to a young couple in dusty clothes carrying large backpacks. As they passed her, she caught a whiff of how badly unwashed they were. They weren’t on a hiking trip. They had holes in their canvas shoes, and the woman’s socks below a sagging skirt were so grimy they had no color other than the red dirt of the city.
Homelessness showed up everywhere now that she’d been sensitized to it. She had lost her home suddenly with the end of her marriage, but she’d had friends to turn to, and now her father. Kenny must have had no one, no family, or maybe everyone had cut him off when he’d been on drugs. Muffie couldn’t leave him unemployed, knowing that, could she?
Kenny’s voice came back, full of forced confidence. “We’re trying really hard to trust the universe on that.”
“Forget the universe. I’m gonna make sure you can trust Muffie.”
Chapter Seventeen
On her walk back to Delgado Street, Mae wondered what had made her tell Kenny that she would make Muffie do right by him. The woman had been angry and insulted the last time Mae spoke to her. Samskaras. She had a rut in her karma. It was one thing to agree to find missing people, but something else altogether to think she could fix everything and rescue everyone. Yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
A small shop full of Zuni fetishes caught her attention. After browsing the tiny carvings, many no larger than half her thumb, she bought an inexpensive corn mother carved from deer antler. The salesperson said the image of a woman emerging from an ear of corn was supposed to represent the nurturance of the earth and the sacredness of the life cycle and food. No wonder Mae was drawn to it, being a mothering kind of person.
When she got back to the house, she set the corn mother on the coffee table and did as the Zuni shop employee had suggested, sprinkling the fetish with a little of the blue cornmeal and chips of turquoise that came with it, to feed it and bring its spirit to life. I’m going to be careful and wise with this mama urge I’ve got.
As she finished the ritual with the tiny carving, she noticed Jamie’s flutes on the table. His drum was still here, too. She couldn’t carry his instruments to the Plaza that evening and leave them lying around. She would have to bring him back here after the concert to get them. Had he done this on purpose?
No, it had to be an oversight. Jamie seemed capable of many things, but a coherent plan wasn’t one of them. Leaving his things here said he didn’t have to plan. He trusted her to take care of his valuables, and him.
It was five o’clock in North Carolina and time to call Brook and Stream. Missing them was surely part of why she was taking care of Kenny and Jamie. Talking to the girls wasn’t the same as mothering them, and she missed having children need her.
She called, but Hubert didn’t answer, and the twins weren’t at her in-laws’ place when she called there. Disappointed, Mae reminded herself it was only one day. It wasn’t the end of her relationship with them. Hubert had even made sure she’d know where to reach them when he took that trip with Jen on the weekend. Still, not reaching them today rubbed it in—changes were taking place in the twins’ lives without her.
Her father could help her cope with all of this, help her figure herself out. She called him, taking her phone out to her favorite spot, the bench by the statue.
When she asked how he’d handled having to leave her behind, his mellow voice grew very quiet. “Talked about you a lot. Reckon I drove folks crazy. Even Niall said I had to ease off on it. I think I was trying to feel like I still had you.”
His words touched her, and she wished she could hug him. If she talked to him that much about Brook and Stream, he would listen and understand. It might help.
Marty continued, with a new current of energy and warmth. “The one person who could listen forever was Jamie. Soon as I said I had a girl near his age and showed him your picture, he—I wonder if he remembers this—he fell in love with you.”
“With my picture?” Mae tried to remember her thirteen-year-old self in the pictures Marty would have had back then. “I was gawky. I was taller than all the boys. And I had braces.”
“But you were still pretty. And I may have made my baby girl sound perfect, missing you and running on about you.”
“What was Jamie like then?”
“Kinda chubby, baby-faced. Too much going on in him, like he didn’t have room for himself. Funny. Gifted. All over the place ... Good kid, though. Good heart. So sincere it kind of embarrassed you sometimes.” Marty paused. “Niall said you met him. That he helped you with the house. You two getting on good?”
“I can’t seem to make him go away.”
A low chuckle. “So he
latched onto you.”
“It’s not funny, Daddy. He’s sweet, but I feel like he's always hiding something, holding something back, no matter how much I learn about him.”
“Huh. Sounds like he’s changed some.” A long pause. “But he’s had a rough year. I haven’t talked to him, but we hear the news from his folks. He quit his job end of last school year—he’d been teaching music—to go into performing full time. Then he had a bad rock-climbing accident. And then his fiancée broke up with him. And then he found that homeless kid that died that I told you about. He might have a few things he’s not up for telling you. He could be a little stressed out trying to handle it all.”
“That’s like saying a hurricane is a little breezy.”
“I know. His mama used to call him Typhoon Jamie.” Marty chuckled again. “Speaking of stressed out, how’s Pie? You got her out from under things? Can you pet her yet?”
“Jamie got her to come out. She seems all right now.”
“Good. Why don’t you stick around a few days longer and make sure she’s okay? I’d just as soon she transitioned to the new tenants in good shape. Can you wait ’til they get there Tuesday?”
She was eager to get back to her own house and to look for work. “I’d planned to leave Friday morning. Seeing as the house is done and all. Especially since I can’t unglue Jamie. He could look in on Pie for you, he’s real good with her, but I need to get some space from him.”
“I can think of worse people to have stuck to you. But if you don’t want him around, baby, send him off. Just be kind about it.” Marty had said more than Niall had, but Mae could hear that same protectiveness coming in. “He’s sensitive.”
“I’ll try. I explained about not even being divorced yet, and I think he gets it, he’s just clingy. I’m not giving him any encouragement.”
“You sure?”
“Daddy, that’s ridiculous. No, I’m—” The idea of Jamie as a candidate for a romantic relationship, even if she was interested or available for one, was out in left field. “I’m not into him.”
“All right.” She could swear Marty was disappointed. “Be friends with him if you can, though. His folks would like that, our young’uns getting along. So would I.”
As she walked back downtown to the Plaza at six, Mae thought of the balancing act she had to manage tonight. It could be fun and she and Jamie could be friends like their families wanted if she handled it well, but handling him well was difficult.
Past a cluster of hula-hooping young people in tie-dyed clothing, Mae easily spotted him in his pink shirt, his wild hair flying out from under the straw fedora. Pacing, scanning the crowd, he seemed not to have seen her yet, and she had a moment to watch his anxious eagerness. He reminded her of some delicate yet strong wildcat, like a Florida panther.
When he found her and met her eyes, his face lit up. With a flourish he bowed to reach into a paper bag at his feet, drew out a white cloth which he whipped out like a matador’s cape, then stuffed back into the bag with embarrassed haste. Mae slowed down. God, he looked so excited, with that bright, face-splitting smile. Like he’d never been happier in his life.
The realization hit like a train-crossing signal dropped in front of her. Jamie wasn’t just flirting, or reliving some remnant of his teenage fantasy. Not just being needy, or trying to help her and keep her company. He was in love with her.
Dazed, unsure what to say or how to act, she walked over to join him, and he met her with a light hug, followed by a pause in which she sensed the energy of an intended but held-back impulse to a kiss. As he led her to a spot on the grass near the monument, the discomfort of her realization was like white noise in her head and she only half heard his greeting. Jamie looked hurt by her lack of response.
“I’m sorry. I was ... daydreaming. What’d you say?”
“Said you look beautiful. Nice dancing clothes, pretty.” She was wearing a full skirt with a floral print. A few of its flowers accidentally matched his shirt. “I hope you like the music.” Jamie spread out the white cloth, an old sheet, on the grass. On the bandstand, musicians in bright shirts and dark pants tuned stringed instruments, talked, and played a few notes on horns. “I love Latin night.”
“I’ve never heard much Latin music.” She helped him smooth out the cloth. “But I think I’ll enjoy it.”
He sat too close to her, and began to unpack a picnic, starting with a bottle of sparkling cider and two plastic champagne glasses. When he’d filled their glasses, he signaled a toast. His eyes met hers as their glasses touched. “To a soul as beautiful as her face and body.”
Mae blushed and looked away. How was she going to get through this? His words overwhelmed her with a kind of guilty sweetness. To be so admired, and yet so unready to love him back. She drank and set her glass down carefully on a flat spot, while Jamie slugged his drink down and dropped the glass on the cloth.
“And now I undo all this elegance, and present,” he set out paper plates and sandwiches, “things you can spill on your pretty clothes.”
The toast still bothered her. “I’ll try not to.”
“Yeah, but the tomatoes always fall out. Always.” To the spread he added a plate of cherries and grapes. She could see something else still in the bag—it looked like a chocolate cake in a plastic container. A whole cake? He’d gotten carried away. Too much effort to please her.
“You didn’t bake the bread, did you?” she asked.
“Actually, I do bake bread, but this isn’t mine. I’m fucking domestic, what can I say?” He flashed The Smile. “Green chile hummus and red chile hummus, by yours truly.”
“You didn’t have to do homemade.”
“Sorry. I just like to, y’know?” He fidgeted with the picnic things, adjusting the placement of dishes on the cloth. “Jesus. The first night I moved into my place when I split with Lisa and I saw that crappy little kitchen and no one to cook for, it broke my heart. I felt so useless. I like ...” He looked down, picked up a cherry, and pulled the stem off in a twist. His voice almost vanished. “I like having someone to take care of.”
“You’ll find someone.”
He ate the cherry and spat the pit. “Right. Thanks for the bloody platitude.” His angry tone took her aback. After a moment, he said, with a quick glance at her. “Sorry.”
For once, he’d apologized for his temper right away and not made a scene. “It’s all right.” She unwrapped and tasted a sandwich, catching a slippery tomato that almost landed on her skirt. “Good but messy.”
Jamie put on a small smile and unwrapped a sandwich for himself. “Warned you about that.”
He ate leaning over his plate, dropping tomatoes and recovering them. In the silence the air between them felt dense with expectations and disappointment. Mae steered toward the safest, most productive topic. “Did you get your sound file to Wendy?”
“I did,” he said with his mouth full, and then chewed and swallowed, making impatient gestures that kept time with the process. “Sorry. Manners. You can dress me up, but you can’t take me out.”
She hadn’t complimented him on dressing up, if that’s what today’s outfit was. Did he want her to? She hoped not. Liking his crinkly pink shirt was too much to ask, and she didn’t want to seem to flirt. “Does Wendy have a way to get hold of you?”
“Yeah, I’ve got an e-mail address. Fuck—you know my phone’s off, don’t you?” He looked up at the bandstand. “Guess it was obvious.”
“Kind of. It says no service when you turn it on. Like you just carry it around for the pictures.”
He nodded. “Can’t lose the pictures.” His voice sounded rough, emotional. Mae didn’t want to see him drop off into a mood, but didn’t know how to pull him back. “Makes me look like a regular bloke, too, y’know? Pull out a phone, do something with it. Act like I have a life.”
“Sugar, you have a life.”
“Nah. I’m busy as a cat burying shit, but I don’t have a life. Oh, bloody hell, stop me. Fucking dismal.
Sorry. Just shoot me if I get like that.” He forced a smile. “Sorry.”
Mae wondered what to say or do. Was there any end to his troubles? They ate in an uneasy silence again. As Jamie bit into his sandwich, a blob of hummus fell out along with a tomato, landing on the cloth, just missing his folded legs as well as missing his plate. “Watch me sit in that. Fuck. Don’t let me.”
“Didn’t you bring napkins?”
“No.”
Mae wiggled tomato-messy fingers at him, teasing, but he didn’t seem to take it lightly.
“I forgot.” He bit his thumb knuckle. “Sorry. Lick your fingers. Use the cloth. Jesus, I’m fucking incompetent.”
“You’re not.” To him, a little mistake like forgetting napkins might feel like a failure out of proportion to its significance. “And you’ve had a good day. You got a start on your career again. First step.”
“Yeah. Think I did.” He ate a few cherries, spat the pits off the far edge of the cloth, while twisting the stems into a little rope. “Got a little ... a little ... maybe it’s hope ...” Jamie dropped the rope of cherry stems. “Lot of hoops still to jump through, though.”
“You can do it. One hoop at a time. Wendy will help you. That’s her job.”
Jamie drew into himself, legs pulled up, arms around his shins. “She wants me to travel. Says it’s the only way musicians really make money anymore.” He took a breath, removed his hat and shook his hair out, began turning the hat over in his hands. “Touring. Scares me.”
Which of his fears did it trigger? Being alone? Being rejected? “What about it scares you?”
“Directions ...” He began to roll the brim of his hat tightly. “Getting lost.”
That was silly. One fear too many. Mae took the hat away from him to stop him before he damaged it. “You could get a GPS thing. They don’t cost that much if you get a refurbished one. You have to download maps and learn to use it but ...” She stopped. This was technology and other directions to follow, and she could see it only added another layer of irrational stress for him. She sighed. “You don’t have to worry about that right now.”
