“Psst, Maharishi. You have to take this.”
I wonder what life-and-death emergency has gotten him to break his vow of silence.
“Your agent in L.A.,” Mr. Clean says excitedly. I should have known. Hollywood trumps holiness. “Your prayers have been answered. She has interest in a talk show from that new cable channel—the Cosmic Consciousness Network.”
I’m not sure CCN is as important as CNN, but thank goodness for digital cable or we’d all be stuck with only five thousand choices.
Barry slips off to take the call. I stand outside for about five minutes until he’s done, and then he opens the door and invites me into the cottage. I can’t wait to see how a maharishi lives. I expect it to be stark and austere—white walls and maybe a couple of hard-backed chairs. But instead Barry seems to have spent a lot of time at Crate & Barrel. Two green Ultrasuede couches crammed with cushy throw pillows face each other across a glass coffee table. The coordinated area rug is decidedly plush, and a comfy leather club chair is positioned near an elaborate Bose entertainment center.
“Can I offer you some soy milk?” Barry asks.
After twenty years, it’s not exactly what I expected him to say to me, but it’s a start.
“Sure,” I say.
“Chocolate or vanilla?” he asks.
I didn’t know it comes in flavors. “Strawberry?” I request, just to see how far I can push the envelope.
He slips into the kitchen and comes back with two glasses on a bamboo tray. He hands one to me, and sure enough it’s pink. He’s a Maharishi; he’s supposed to have the answer to people’s prayers. But as I take a sip of the yucky concoction, I remember the old adage—be careful what you wish for.
“So, Hallie, what brings you on this spiritual journey?” my maharishi asks as we sit down on the couch.
I don’t know how long we have to talk, and I learned from the last session that I’d better be direct.
“I wanted to find you,” I say. “Even after all these years, I have such happy memories of our time together.”
“I do too,” he says, clasping his hands over mine.
I gulp. “I couldn’t figure out what happened when I didn’t hear from you in India. I thought maybe you’d met someone else. Or you’d died.”
“The person you knew did die,” he says calmly. “And then I was reborn. I went to see the great teacher Advaita Ramana Maharaj and he taught me what it means to be free.”
“But why did you have to be free of me?” I ask, the insecurities I felt at twenty flooding back.
Barry looks soulfully into my eyes and intertwines his soft, smooth fingers with mine.
“Because he found me,” says Mr. Clean, coming over and territorially wrapping an arm around Barry’s waist. “We found the light together.”
Ahh. Now I’m seeing the light, too.
Mr. Clean tenderly strokes Barry’s arm. This is going to make it a little more awkward to talk about our great romance. Even the Pope gives private audiences.
But Barry is unfazed.
“Hallie, I did love you, but in a different kind of way. Perhaps you wondered why we never had sex.”
“Not really,” I admit. “I thought you were being a gentleman. Or you wanted our wedding night to be special.”
In fact, I’d been kind of relieved when Barry didn’t make any advances while we were traveling together. We snuggled a lot, which was lovely, and coming off my intense relationship with Eric, that was all I wanted.
“Did you ever have a wedding night?” Barry asks carefully.
“A really good one,” I say happily. “Breakfast at the Nevis Four Seasons is excellent.” And as far as I can remember, our honeymoon was the only time Bill was ever willing to spring for room service.
“You picked a good husband?” asks Barry.
Did I? Who knows. I realize that’s part of why I’m here and what I’m trying to figure out. Lately, I’ve been thinking I made a mistake in marrying Bill in the first place. But looking at Barry—and Mr. Clean, who’s now nibbling his ear—I see that a matchup between us never would have worked out. I don’t think I was destined for a life of soy milk and silence. Not to mention the other obvious problem.
“For a long time, I thought my husband was pretty decent,” I say honestly. “Unfortunately, he’s moved out.”
“People move, people change,” says Maharishi, practically chanting. “What happens in the present is temporal. Never let an incident of the moment make you regret the joys of the past.”
Bill’s being on Ninety-third Street seems more like a major crime than a minor incident, but I hear what Barry’s saying. Just because something ends doesn’t mean it wasn’t worthwhile. My marriage is over, but for a long time it made me happy. I can’t regret twenty good years, two terrific children, and a mortgage that’s almost paid off.
But I can regret that Mr. Clean is pointing to the clock and spiritual silence is obviously about to descend again. An otherworldly glow returns to Barry’s countenance. I may still be in the cottage, but I have a feeling he’s back on the mountaintop.
“Will I see you at satsang?” Barry asks softly, ushering me toward the door.
“No, I have to get back home. Anyway, thank you. I think I got what I came for.”
I put a hand on his shoulder and give him a light kiss on the cheek. And what the heck. I give one to Mr. Clean, too.
Chapter SEVEN
YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO get personal with your clients, but something about Charles Tyler makes me want to hand him a Zoloft. For the last fifteen minutes, he’s been squirming in his chair, chewing the side of his lip, and tapping the toe of his expensive Church’s shoes against my highly polished desk. If he wears away the varnish, I’m going to tack a refinishing charge onto his bill. The more we talk, the more anxious Mr. Tyler seems to get. Since I’m not licensed to dispense drugs, I reach into my top drawer for the next best thing.
“Some Gummi bears?” I ask, holding out a half-eaten bag of the squishy candies. I used to carry them around to give the kids when they were little and I got hooked. I swear they’re as addictive as nicotine. Maybe I should bring a class action suit against the candy maker.
“Thanks,” says Mr. Tyler, reaching to take one. Then he changes his mind and sits back again. “Actually, no.” A brief pause and he rocks forward and grabs a handful after all. “Well, yeah, thanks.”
Instead of putting the candies in his mouth—which would mean he’d have to give up chewing his lip—he plops them on my desk. And a moment later he starts sorting them by color. There seem to be an unusual number of greens in this batch. I resist the urge to grab the sole red one.
“So, Mr. Tyler,” I say, trying to regain some professional demeanor, “we haven’t made a lot of progress. Let’s go back to square one. You told Arthur that the plaintiff, Beth Lewis, is incorrect in claiming that you gave the promotion to Melina Marks”—I gesture toward the naked woman in the pictures—“because of your personal association. You told him you were innocent.”
“I am innocent.”
I sigh. As lawyers always say, if I had a quarter for every time a guilty client said he was blameless, I could buy myself a new Maserati. And take lessons to learn how to drive a stick shift.
“But the pictures would suggest that you are indeed personally involved with Melina Marks,” I say, understating the case. Actually, the pictures would suggest that he and Melina have a future on the Playboy Channel—which might be a good thing, since if I can’t figure out a defense, he’s not going to have a future at Alladin Films.
“My involvement with Ms. Marks has no relevance.”
I stare at him in disbelief.
“Your involvement with Ms. Marks is exactly what this case is about.” I glance down at the glossy evidence. “And I’m going to jump to the conclusion that you do indeed have more than a professional relationship with her.”
He looks sideways at the offending photos. “Perhaps I do.”
“But you didn’t disclose that important information to Arthur.”
“He never asked. He asked if I’m innocent and I
am
innocent.”
That’s Arthur. Too polite to bring up the word “sex” in a sex discrimination suit. But I’m not.
“Let me be blunt. The plaintiff has charged that you’re having sex with this woman. And you are having sex with this woman.” I look up at him hopefully. “Unless there’s another explanation for these photos.”
For an answer he nervously uses his thumb to grind the lone red Gummi bear indelibly into my pristine mahogany desk. That refinishing charge is starting to look pretty reasonable.
“I’m unhappy to have you prying into my personal life,” he says, finally.
In total frustration, I fling a paper clip across the room. “Mr. Tyler, help me out here. Everything Beth Lewis has charged in her lawsuit seems to be true.”
“Not at all. Ms. Marks was promoted for perfectly legitimate reasons. I gave Arthur all the records that show she’s done amazing publicity for some of our biggest clients. For example, Melina has handled Reese Witherspoon, while Beth never got above the Tilda Swinton level.”
“Tilda who?” I ask.
“My point exactly. If Beth were a better publicist, you might know. Melina, however, is an exceptional employee.”
“An exceptional employee who’s having sex with her boss. How do you think that looks?”
I know exactly how it looks, down to the mole.
Mr. Tyler stands up. “Please, you’ve just got to get me off.” He looks at me desperately, and I soften.
“Anything you can tell me that might support your case?” I ask. “Anything at all?”
He hesitates and reaches down to the carpet to pick up the paper clip I threw. He anxiously tugs at it, breaking it into pieces which he then plants like flagpoles in the gummy candy.
“I really can’t say more about it.”
I have a sneaking suspicion that if he wanted, he could make this whole problem go away. But right now only Mr. Tyler is going away. He shakily reaches for his briefcase and edges out of my office without so much as a backward glance.
After another two meetings, I start to scroll through fifty new e-mails. Could the deposed Nigerian prince who’s offering to deposit ten million dollars into my checking account (if only I’ll give him the number) be legit? Is it worth a free weekend at a new resort in Altoona if I have to sit through a two-hour presentation on buying a time-share? Good thing I’m such an important lawyer or I’d never be getting all this high-class spam. I’m just opening an e-mail that actually needs a response when Bellini calls.
“I’m around the corner from your office. Come meet me at Starbucks,” she says.
“I thought you had a lunch date,” I say. “Some new guy.” Bellini recently signed up with a dating service to get fixed up for lunch at least twice a week. But so far the manicotti hasn’t led to anything meaningful. She’s been on three midday dates and only the restaurants have gotten rave reviews. There hasn’t even been any sex
après
sandwich.
“I didn’t like the guy I was matched with,” Bellini says briskly. “I left before I even got a chance to eat.”
Wow. I can only imagine what a disaster he was if Bellini, the patron saint of “he has potential,” couldn’t find a reason to stay long enough to wolf down a tuna salad.
Five minutes later, I find Bellini in Starbucks, sitting at a small round table with a greasy white bag in front of her from the pizza place across the street. She’s busy pulling the mushrooms off the top of a slice and popping them into her mouth.
“I didn’t know they sold pizza at Starbucks,” I say.
“They don’t. But nobody eats the lunch food they sell here. Seven dollars for the smallest salad you’ve ever seen.”
I look around, and sure enough, everybody in the café seems to be digging around in her own personal deli bag. This Starbucks location is doing a landslide business—for the Korean grocer across the street. But I’m not going to worry about Starbucks’ quarterly earnings reports because there’s a long line of businessmen waiting for their four-dollar cups of take-out cappuccino. And from the number of people who are ensconced at tables typing away furiously at their laptops, maybe Starbucks is renting out office space.
“So what was wrong with this blind date? Hunchback? Cross-eyed? Two left feet?” I ask Bellini, running through the dating disabilities list. “Drinks Merlot instead of Pinot?”
“Stood straight, eyes were fine, and I didn’t dance with him,” she mutters. Then she looks up at me. “But if you must know, he didn’t even order wine; he ordered seltzer. No lime.”
I wait.
“And?” I ask.
“And nothing,” she says. “That’s the problem. He was boring.”
Ah, now I understand. He probably wore a suit, has a job, and is nice to his mother. Not the right man for Bellini.
“I can’t decide if your standards are too high or too low,” I say.
Bellini laughs. “I’ll go either way. I just can’t stand guys in the middle.” She wipes her fingers on a napkin. “But how about you? How was your weekend?”
“Quiet,” I tell her.
I fill her in quickly on the Heavenly Spirit Retreat Center, and the details of my encounter with Rav Jon Yoma Maharishi. I’ve actually started to think of him that way because “Barry” is certainly long gone.
“So right after dating you, the guy turned gay,” Bellini says, summarizing my story. “Nice work.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly what happened,” I say defensively.
“You should be proud,” says Bellini. “It’s easy to get dumped by a guy. It’s harder to get him to dump the entire gender.”
“I’m talented. Four weeks with me and a man’s life is changed forever,” I say.
I reach over and take a bite from Bellini’s pizza. “Actually, it was good to see Barry. I always liked his openness and eagerness to explore the world, and I felt some of the same sense of discovery I did twenty years ago. He’s the kind who introduces you to new experiences—Gaudi and Botticelli when we were young, silence and sat-sang now. But I think somewhere deep down I always knew he wasn’t the man to marry.”
“So the lesson for me is to rely on my instincts when it comes to guys,” Bellini says.
“The lesson for you is to rely on
my
instincts,” I tell her, remembering the night I had to drag her away from the art thief at the opera.
In fact, my instincts were on target with Barry. I didn’t expect he’d become a maharishi, but given his wandering, ethereal spirit, I knew he’d never be the solid husband type, either. Not the man you’d turn to in the middle of the night to ask if he thought the bright red bumps on the baby were Magic Marker or measles. And, ultimately, I needed a husband who understood that having a family is the very best adventure.
Bellini reaches for a grape and peels the skin off before eating it. Talk about high maintenance. “So your old boyfriends now include one billionaire and one guru. I guess I’m not the only one who likes extremes. Who’s next on your hit list?”
I think about the two other names I doodled on the napkin. One of them I can’t call. I can never, ever possibly call, no matter what. But there’s still the other one, and thinking about him makes me smile. Kevin, the first boy I ever kissed.
“Oh, there’s someone,” I say vaguely. “A guy I haven’t seen since high school. But I had the biggest crush on him.”
Just then a Starbucks barista comes by with a tray of samples. “Would you like to try our new Green Tea Wild Raspberry Mocha Frappuccino?” he asks, holding out a shot-glass-size plastic cup. “Or maybe a lemon poppy seed ginger low-fat scone?”
I like this place. You just sit here and they give you free food. I’m not thirsty, but I do accept his complimentary pastry.
Bellini reaches a manicured hand for the cup, and as she takes a sip from the tiny straw, she winks flirtatiously at the barista who—in Bellini’s defense—at least has a name tag that says “Assistant Manager.”
“Mmm, yummy,” she says to him. “Did you make this yourself?”
He smiles. “Yes, with my very own hands.”
“Nice hands,” she says, batting her eyes.
He puts down the tray and pulls up a chair. “Mind if I sit down?” he asks.
I stand up abruptly. I’m getting out of here, but I’ve got to admire Bellini. The blind date might not have panned out, but the lunch-date concept was on target. Damned if she didn’t meet someone over a muffin.
Since Adam had the good sense to have his birthday fall on a Saturday this year, I can spend the whole day with him. Well, until five o’clock, anyway. He has someplace he needs to go tonight. He hedged when I asked him the details, but I’m sure it’s a date with that girl he’s been telling me about.
I drove up early, and now as we walk across the Dartmouth campus, I try to figure out which of the perky, adorable friends who call out “Hi, Adam!” could be his current crush, Mandy. It’s chilly in New Hampshire, and even though I keep tugging my oversize wool cardigan tighter around me, the hot-blooded college girls all seem to be prancing around in cutoffs and midriff tops. To get into this Ivy League school, you obviously need an A average and goose bump–proof skin.
So far the day’s been perfect. We’ve hung out at Adam’s dorm, had lunch, and opened his birthday presents. Adam liked the new digital camera I bought him, but he laughed when he saw the Swiss Army watch. I guess he’ll put it in the drawer with the Timex and the fake Rolex, not to mention the Seiko, the Skagen and the Swatch I bought him in previous years. Eventually I’ll have to accept that the new sundial is a cell phone. Time marches on, but without Bulova.
Adam eagerly takes me to the physics building and leads me to the lab where he’s doing a research project with an esteemed professor. He tells me their work involves searching for neutrinos.
“You might find those in the breakfast aisle in the supermarket,” I say.
“Is that a joke, Mom?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course, honey.” Though the truth is I could be chatting with a neutrino right now and not know the difference.
Adam gives me a little smile and launches into a detailed explanation of neutrinos, ghostly particles which can pass through metal as easily as we walk through air. Apparently, they’re quite different from Cheerios after all.
“I’m so proud of you,” I tell him, as we stroll outside again. And I am. It’s nice when your children are young and the only things they know are what you’ve taught them. But it’s even better when they grow up and can teach you.
Adam drapes his arm around my shoulder, and I’m pleased to realize that my grown-up son isn’t embarrassed to be seen with his mother. We walk through a grassy courtyard where students are enjoying the sunshine. Blankets are spread everywhere, and some of the kids lying on them are reading and others are studying. Then I notice one young couple sitting close, gazing into each other’s eyes. The boy’s hands gently glide across his girlfriend’s arms, he kisses her sweetly, and she melts into him. For a moment, I imagine how deliciously enraptured she feels. I sigh a little too loudly.
“What’s wrong, mom?” Adam asks.
“Oh, nothing,” I say, keeping my voice light. “Just all this young love on campus.”
Adam kicks a stone that just barely misses the kissing couple. “Young love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” he says.
“Having a problem with Mandy?” I ask, daring to go where mothers never should.
“Not a problem, really. I broke up with her two days ago.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”