How Perfect is That Read online

  Needing to clear my head, I try a visualization exercise that Lakshmi often had us practice. Closing my eyes, I inhale several cleansing breaths that send positive prana in warm, sunny yellow waves rushing through me. It washes my mind of all worry and anxiety as I focus on the God within. I breathe out cool blue negative moon energy through the soles of my feet. Warm yellow waves lap against cool blue ones. Yellow. Blue. Yellow. Blue. The polarized energies strobe through my brain.

  “Blythe? Blythe, is that you?”

  I wake to find a puddle of drool spotting the Zac Posen and someone who seems to know my name tapping on the window. I search the stranger’s hands for a subpoena. They are making feverish cranking gestures.

  “Roll down the window!”

  I pretend I am on a New York subway and stare straight ahead.

  “Blythe, don’t you remember me?”

  I glance over at the face but can’t place it even if it is a very sweet face in the unlifted, un-Botoxed, un-Restylaned way one hardly sees anymore. Sort of a Gibson Girl with the complexion of someone who’s grown up in a moist and misty place that turns faces pink and cream instead of into the oxblood wallets that the Texas sun produces. But remember her? No, I am certain I’ve never seen this person before in my life. In any event, all the dewy innocence is making my head hurt. Code Warrior to the rescue.

  Glug-glug.

  “Blythe, it’s me, Millie! Millie Ott?”

  I roll down the window. “Jesus, you’re a toothpick. What happened?”

  “I lost seventy-three pounds.”

  “Seventy-three pounds! Good Lord. How did you do it? Sonoma? South Beach? Atkins? Zone? Weight Watchers? Sugar Busters? Scarsdale? Stillman? Caveman? Cabbage soup? Beverly Hills? U.S. Air Force? Drinking Man’s? High carb? Low carb? No carb? Fen-phen? Redux? Stomach stapling? Jaw wiring?” I stop, remembering that Millie is not a client and I only speak Fat Talk when I am being paid.

  “I wasn’t really on any program. It was just a long, gradual process. You’re the one who got me started.”

  “Me?”

  “Of course you.”

  I helped her? I look for signs that Millie might be joking, strain to hear the snap of sarcasm in her words. There is none. She is serious. I want to hear more about this Blythe Young who lent someone a helping hand, but the Blythe Young who needs a hideout takes precedence. “I heard you still lived here.” Actually saw the house’s phone number on caller ID when I ducked your calls is a bit closer to the truth.

  “I never left. I worked out an arrangement with the house and the alum association. I guess you could say I’m sort of a housemother.”

  Housemother? That sounds promising.

  “Does that mean you assign rooms? Find space for unexpected visitors? Things of that nature?”

  “Well, not exactly. I’m more of a…I guess you could say a spiritual counselor. Blythe, do you need a place to stay?”

  “Would it be too much of a bother? Do any of the single rooms come with private bath?”

  “Well, you know, it is the end of the semester and all. The house is full. You’re more than welcome to stay in my room, though. I never took out your old bed. Left it there for unexpected guests. Like you!”

  I glance up at the second-story room wondering if I even have enough energy to climb the stairs.

  “Blythe, are you all right? You seem different. Are you getting enough sleep?”

  “A bit. Generally between the hours of one and three.”

  “You’re so thin.”

  I hoist the cup. “Liquid diet.”

  Millie’s soft voice grows even softer as she says, “Why don’t you come in for a bit?”

  Millie’s kindness, her very presence, makes a lump rise in my throat. I could start crying and never stop. I drag myself out of the van, weary as a castaway who’s finally made it to shore. One last detail, though.

  “Uh, Millie, I’m a bit particular about my little minivan. I don’t want to leave it out here where it can get scratched.”

  Or spotted by marauding IRS agents.

  Millie eyes the mud-daubed van, side doors now lumpy from their hammering by the meat slicer. “Oh sure, not a problem. Just pull it around the back.”

  “Actually, I’m out of gas. So, maybe, if you could…”

  Millie recruits a couple of well-fed frat boys, and together we shove the van out of sight into the backyard. Then, with my trail covered, I take a giant step back in time and follow Millie into Seneca House.

  SENECA HOUSE

  Time Stops

  EVEN THOUGH the last time I set foot in Seneca House was a decade ago, I would have known the place blindfolded. All the signature hippie flophouse scents are here: The dank mildew smell from the leaks in various bathrooms combines with an equatorial humidity that AC units dangling from various rust-dribbled windows do little to dissipate. Cooking aromas heavy on whole grains, tamari, sesame, recompositions of soybeans, Third World staples so beloved of kids who grow up on Pop-Tarts, then go boho the instant they move away from the automatic sprinkler systems of their youth. Having grown up on hamburger that needed to be helped and with a sprinkler system that consisted of me and a watering can, I never understood the impulse.

  The tang of pesticide used to thin the ranks of the cockroach armies that permanently occupy the ancient edifice adds to the bouquet. Top notes of cat pee are supplied by the strays adopted by the PETAesque residents. Patchouli incense, cigarettes (clove, marijuana, and regular), and a piña colada of overripe bananas and lowend coconut conditioner round out the olfactory ambience.

  A hulking tube of lard waddles past, and I note, “Wow, that cat looks just like Big Lou.”

  The animal is an exact replica of the world’s fattest, nastiest cat, Big Lou, that lived at the house more than a decade ago. But since Big Lou was both ancient and headed for a well-deserved grave even back then, I know it can’t be her. Still, just like Big Lou, this cat has tattered stumps where fight-chewed ears once were. And just like Big Lou, she is missing her left eye. The impossible resemblance is odd enough that I move in to investigate.

  “Blythe, no!”

  The cat turns from a lumbering blob into a heat-seeking streak of orange fur. Claws outstretched, she launches herself directly at my bare legs.

  “Blythe, don’t move,” Millie orders me. “That is Big Lou.”

  I stop dead and Big Lou, her one good eye only good enough to detect motion, plummets to the earth, landing with a wet squish as flab hits floor.

  Big Lou once sank her claws into someone’s date so deeply that he ended up at the hospital on IV antibiotics. After a Big Lou incident requiring medical attention, the house would always stop feeding the cat and she’d disappear long enough for the anti–Big Lou faction to graduate and move on and a new crew of suckers to move in and start the cycle again. It was inevitable: Seneca House drew the type of resident—bookish and repressed or alienated and attitudinal—that adopted Big Lou as a warts-and-all tribute to either female or outsider power.

  Once the shock of Big Lou’s attack subsides, the smells hit me anew. Only now, underneath them all, I detect a whiff of something entirely new. An unsettling bass note that wasn’t here before. The odor is musky and combines elements of beer, sebum, and flatus.

  “Are there men in the house?”

  My question is answered by the appearance of a slender fellow with skin the color of tea that has steeped too long. I would have pegged him as someone’s computer science or Spanish tutor, a repairman, maybe. However, since this individual is wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, a pair of flip-flops, and a shower cap, I am not certain he fits any of those categories.

  Millie, soul of charity that she is, greets him with a blinding smile. “Sanjeev, hello. You’ll never believe this! This is the old friend I was telling you about.”

  “Not Blythe Young?” he asks. “The famous roommate?”

  “The very same.”

  Millie’s answer causes this Sanje
ev person to grin and say to Millie, “And so now you are Hindu!”

  The comment is so random that I can’t process it.

  Millie flaps her hand for him to hush up and I assume he is one of the strays and dead-enders she always used to adopt. Probably suffers from a neurological disorder. Regaining control, he bolts forward, one hand extended to shake mine, the other gripping the towel at his waist. “Blythe Young! I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.” His voice has the melodious oscillations of Calcutta combined with the crispness of the cricket-playing colonial’s British accent.

  The hand appears clean enough and I shake it, but Sanjeev notices my hesitation.

  “Sanjeev is doing graduate work in biomedical engineering. Right now he’s working on a fascinating project using lapsed patents on prostheses.”

  Sanjeev beams as Millie describes his work.

  “Did you know that prosthetic technology is still based on 1912 engineering?”

  “Uh, no, I was not aware of that.”

  “Yes,” Sanjeev adds, his accent a ball bouncing over each word. “It may be made of titanium, but the design is almost a century old.”

  “Mmm. Fascinating.”

  “Sanjeev and his group,” Millie explains, “are gathering up all these lapsed patents and putting them online so if someone in India needs a hook, voilà! They can just download the plans and have their local lab make it up. It’s revolutionary, really.”

  Sanjeev bows his head. “Thank you, Millie. You are very kind.”

  “Sanjeev also has the most important job in the house. He’s our labor czar.”

  My hand itches for a remote control so I can fast-forward through this résumé Millie seems compelled to present.

  “When you were here we called the labor czar the house manager. Remember?”

  I nod vaguely. I have scrubbed all memory of the house from the bank, including that bothersome detail about this place that I still can’t remember.

  “See?” Millie points to a dry-erase board titled HOUSE LOVE and sectioned off into chores: RECYCLING, CLEAN FRIDGE, FOOD RUNS, COMPOST. The kitchen schedule is also posted along with menus highlighting such delectables as LENTIL CURRY and FALAFEL PIE. Yum. It is all starting to sound gruesomely familiar.

  “Sanjeev is brilliant at scheduling everyone for the work they have to do around the house. This place would grind to a halt without Sanjeev. He’s the brain that makes it all work.”

  “If I am the brain, you are the heart.”

  Besides noticing that attention from a guy in a shower cap makes Millie blush like a milkmaid, I observe something vastly more unsettling. Through the glass panes of the front door I spy a contingent of the last people on earth that I want to see. Actually, second to last, right behind IRS agents. All my little mutineers are out there: Juniper, Olga, Doug, Sergio.

  Crap!

  Too late, I recollect Seneca House’s fatal flaw: My four most disgruntled employees live here. Through the glass front door, I watch them come up the steps.

  I cannot face this crew. Not before I am safely dug in. “I’m not feeling very well.” I point toward the only open avenue of escape, the kitchen. “Water. I really must have a glass of water. Now.”

  I duck into the kitchen just as Juniper, Olga, Doug, and Sergio enter. Millie fills a glass from a jug in the refrigerator. The kitchen is exactly as I remember it: a restaurant-size stove with burner rings the size of hubcaps and cast-iron frying pans big as manhole covers. Bins of seeds and grains, oats and groats.

  I hear the little mutineers drawing closer and grab Millie’s arm, causing her to spill most of the water. “I need to lie down.” I make for the back door.

  “Uh, sure, but remember, our room is that way.” Millie points toward the front of the house, where the posse waits.

  “I’d really like to see the backyard.”

  “You would? Now?”

  “Yeah, you know, check on the van.” I bang out the screen door.

  Outside, I slap the hood, open the passenger door, and grab my precious cup of Code Warrior. “Seems to be all right.”

  “Okay. Then let’s…” Millie starts toward the back door.

  “How about if we go around?”

  “Around?” Millie repeats softly, sounding like a clerk at a convenience store talking to a customer wearing a ski mask.

  “Yeah, to the front.”

  We circle around and end up on the porch. After I make sure the coast is clear, I drag a very perplexed Millie inside and we head for the stairs. The shock of almost being trapped by my former employees combined with general physical atrophy leaves me breathless. When I pause halfway up the stairs for a revitalizing nip of Code, Millie studies me with concern.

  On the second floor, Millie opens the door and I step into our old room. It is the same cheaply converted porch, complete with gaps in the floorboards and windows that rattle when shuttle buses drive past. But there is a very secure-looking lock on the door and the room’s vantage point on the second floor will allow me to keep the street under surveillance. No surprise attacks. So, in all respects, except the pack of vigilantes on the first floor dying to string me up, it is the ideal place to lie low. I celebrate by cracking the Code again. Its pick-me-up effects manage to overcome extreme exhaustion. Millie sits on the edge of the bed and watches me pace and hyperventilate. Being tracked by those velvety brown spaniel eyes makes me aware that my own pupils are ping-ponging back and forth from Millie to the street and that, even when I request them to stop, they go right on ricocheting.

  “Blythe, what’s in that cup?”

  “Chai. Green tea chai. Very tasty. Wanna try some?” Knowing she will refuse, I hold the Code Warrior cup out.

  “No, thanks, I just finished some hibiscus mint.”

  “Why is your collar on backward?”

  “I’m a minister.”

  I blink several times. Words enter my head, rattle around, but fail to cohere into units of thought. “Did you say you’re a minotaur?”

  “Minister. I’m a minister.”

  “Oh, you mean you’re an ad minister. At the university. We call that an administrator.”

  “Blythe, I’m a minister.”

  “Like a preacher? You’re a preacher?”

  “Not exactly. I finished seminary but was never actually officially ordained. My ‘rhetorical skills’ were lacking. So, I just sort of decided that this, Seneca House, would be my ministry.”

  “Do they pay you for that?”

  “Not exactly. I have an arrangement with…various funding entities.” She trails off. “It’s too complicated to go into right now. Blythe, come here. Have a seat.”

  I sit down next to her on the bed. Millie takes my hand. Millie’s hand is as soft and warm as rising bread dough. “Blybees…”

  Blybees? Was there really a time when I had a nickname? Other than Coke-Addled Cunt?

  “What’s going on?”

  Millie’s agendaless concern makes my chest constrict with the need to cry. “Are you licensed to hear confession? Grant absolution?”

  “No, that’s Catholic.”

  “Do you take some similar oath giving you immunity from grand jury summons and the like?”

  “Blythe, what’s up?”

  The jig? My marriage? My career? Any shred of hope I ever had of not ending up pushing a shopping cart with socks on my hands, nibbling on Meow Mix?

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  From the Chinatown of wrong turns that is my life, I distill the essence of its dereliction and blurt out, “I haven’t had a Pap smear in ten years.”

  Millie gives me a look that has been professionally trained not to judge.

  “Millie, you want to know what the bottom looks like? This is it. You’re staring at it.”

  “Blybees, tell me about it.”

  “Yes, yes. I need to unburden myself. To hash this all out. Come up with a game plan…” My voice echoes back to me from some spot that grows more distant with each word.
My last words, “review my options,” sound to me as if they were spoken by a robot in the hall.

  Millie puts her arm over my shoulder. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll be safe here. Whatever it is, it’s going to be all right. Why don’t I just take this…chai?”

  I observe Millie prying the Code Warrior cup from fingers that only feel cold and dead. I can do nothing to resist.

  “Lie down.”

  Horizontality is such a delicious sensation that I wonder idly why I don’t enjoy it more often.

  “Whatever it is, sweetie, we’ll figure it out. Together.”

  Sweetie. Together. How long has it been?

  Millie’s voice is unbelievably soothing. Each word is a lullaby. I try to think of a question just so I can keep hearing it. “Why did that guy in the shower cap ask if you’re Hindu now?”

  “Oh, you mean Sanjeev. That’s kind of funny. We were discussing the whole concept of dharma and Sanjeev explained how the root of the word means ‘that which holds.’ I really liked the idea of a religion based on being held and imagined myself floating in a giant crystal bowl of water that contained everyone I have ever known. This explained to me why I get these odd tingly feelings when anyone in my bowl is in trouble.”

  “Tingly feelings?” Her voice, lulling me to sleep, is giving me tingly feelings.

  “Sounds bizarre, I know. Sanjeev thinks it is. But it’s like, no matter how far away someone is, I feel them splashing when they need my help.”

  Splashing? I can’t follow what Millie is talking about. The point she occupies is receding into a small, shimmering nimbus of light.

  I don’t know if I dream or hear Millie say, “I felt you splashing. I told Sanjeev that I knew you needed help. I’d been getting the odd tingles. And he told me, ‘Tingles are dharma.’ That’s when I said that if my friend Blythe turned up, I should probably become a Hindu. If not, I guessed I’d just go on being a crazy Christian.”