A Single Eye (20 page)

Amber hissed, “I'm tired of standing in the mud here when I could be—”

I grabbed her arm.

“The Big Buddha Bakery?”

“Look, I told you what I know. I don't remember anything else, except that peanuts grossed me out after that and I must have told my boyfriend and he must have told his friends because all the boys kept throwing peanuts at me in the halls and—”

“Amber!”

“Hey, stop bugging me. We're supposed to be quiet here,” she said with such a tone of righteousness that I couldn't keep myself from laughing. She started to giggle.

“Amber, you must remember something.”

She shook her head.

“What about Justin? Or somebody. Somebody must know something.”

“Ask Barry. He's from San Francisco. He'll know.”

It was so obvious, I felt stupid for having missed it. Of course, Barry would know what happened, ingredient by ingredient. Dessert cooking was a small world, and word of whatever happened would spread fast. The bakery might well have no connection with Buddhism but its name. But friends of Barry, a Buddhist, would have made sure he was kept current on the affairs of the Big Buddha Bakery, particularly if they were silly or scandalous.

But
poison
! I did not want to associate poison with Barry, even the idea of him knowing about another cook who had something to do with poison years ago.

The clappers clacked on their third and final roll-down now. I ran to the zendo, crowded up onto the porch, and, like everyone else, balanced on one foot while pulling off the other boot and scanning the shoe rack for an empty space to store the pair.

Inside the zendo, the sweet smoky smell of incense welcomed me. I bowed to the altar and walked to my seat, bowed to it, and to the room. Across from me, Gabe's cushion was empty. This was the afternoon I'd given him permission to sleep, and even angry as he'd been in the shed, he'd probably be snoring by now. I glanced at the altar where the Buddha sat serenely, as if he had never been stolen. But it was Gabe's use of the zendo that taunted me: He sat in here thinking about his story. I was sitting in the zendo thinking about Aeneas, about Barry, and the Big Buddha Bakery poison. I was no more sitting zazen here than he was. The zendo was a bit warmer now from the body heat. By tomorrow the bite of the cold would dissipate and only the early morning sittings would be icy.

The tea servers walked smartly to the front of the zendo. One bowed to the sesshin director and held out a tray from which he could choose a cup. Other servers bowed to pairs of us, extending their trays to one and then the other. We chose among the small handleless mugs, and bowed with the server as she left to move on. She returned with the teapot, and finally, a tray of cookies, of which we were allotted one each. The cookies were warm, rich with chocolate chips. Here, in the silence, I nibbled, letting the warm chocolate coat my tongue with its lush sweetness. The batter I rubbed between tongue and roof of mouth, savoring the coarseness, the salt of the butter. Even the tea—green—I sloshed in near silence around my teeth. On my left, Marcus, a curly-haired guy in brown wool, sighed. Outside, leaves scraped against leaves, something tapped on the roof. For that moment I didn't think about Aeneas or Mom or the Big Buddha Bakery or Leo or me. For that moment I was just aware of the taste and sounds, the air on my skin, the smell of damp wool. It was an unimportant interlude, but I did think of mentioning its clarity to Roshi as I went out to check on him in the walking meditation period that followed. But he was still asleep and I merely stoked the fire and headed back to the zendo, skirting a couple of guys coming out of the bath house.

“Psst!”

A ladder was leaning against the zendo. Hissing down at me from halfway up the ladder was Rob, black robe billowing out behind him like a pirate flag fluttering in the gray sky. Rob was pointing to the zendo roof.

“Branches caught under the shingles. Flapping. Heard it in zendo. Can't have it banging all afternoon and night. Use the broom. Stand on the third rung so you can reach the top.” An odd smile flickered on his mouth. “Be careful and you won't fall. It's only twelve feet up. It'll only take a few minutes.”

If it's so easy, why don't you do it yourself? Why the smile before “you won't fall?”
I wanted to ask. But in sesshin we do what we're asked to. So I flashed Rob a smile, trotted up the ladder, and onto the roof.

“Don't—”

His wary tone jarred, and it reminded me who he thought I was—the terrified woman he'd pulled out of the cab yesterday. I took a step down the curve of the dome and I glanced down to savor his surprise.

Rob was almost to the top of the ladder. He was wide-eyed, but not from shock; he was terrified. It was the same look that had passed across Kelly Rustin's face when she'd first seen the depth of the canyon she'd be sailing across in the wire gag, before she knew the wire would snap. It must be the same rigid expression I had when I looked down at her from above the trees, the look I had every time I saw the woods. Before I had time to think, I had braced my feet, thrust out a hand and yanked Rob up onto the zendo roof with me. Too taken aback to resist, he lunged and landed on all fours, quite safe. He sunk to his knees, shaking. I could only wonder what people doing walking meditation in the zendo below imagined.

Wedging the sides of my feet, I walked to the top of the dome. Rain sprayed. Wind blew it against my face. Leaves swirled up from the branches stuck in the roof; branches snapped at my legs. Rob cowered just beyond the top of the ladder. Everything was inside out. A week ago, when I was hanging onto the canyon wall staring down at the trees, my skin had gone clammy; sweat had coated my face, my neck, my back, I couldn't breath, could hear only the deafening drumbeat of my heart. Now I was dead calm, but the panic swirled outside me, in the rushing wind, in the desperate thump of the trapped branches, in Rob's blue-white face. I felt it, but it wasn't mine. Here, on this curved roof, I was on my turf. I reached a hand to Rob.

“Hey,” I said in a voice that sounded foreign to me, “we've both got rubber-soled shoes. If the branches stick, so will we. Shift your feet like this. Come on, up to the dome where it's flat.”

He didn't move, looked like he couldn't, like the twelve-foot drop was a hundred. The wind snapped his robe; in his mind it had to be on the verge of carrying him away. His taut face was sepulchral; in the afternoon light the sweat on his skin glowed. There was nothing I could say. I had no answer for him or for me. And yet I had to say something. This whole situation was mine to deal with.

I said the first thing that occurred to me. “The photos of the opening, six years ago?”

His head jerked in what I took to be the smallest of nods.

“I recognized you, of course”—I was trying to keep my tone conversational, despite the snapping of the branches against the roof, the hiss of the wind. “You haven't changed. But Aeneas looked so much like the Japanese roshis, it was like he was already in Japan.”

“He was . . . in his mind.”

“Really?”

Sweat dripped off Rob's nose and chin; the wind carried it off. His legs twitched spasmodically. The ladder was right behind him, but in his mind it could have been on the far side of Roshi's cabin. Thoughts swirled in my mind. If I could show him how to walk down the ladder he would be free,
I
would be free. He knew about Aeneas; facts that could help me save Leo. Needs knotted my stomach: him, me, Leo, Aeneas. How ludicrous it was that we were standing on top of the zendo, right over the Buddha.

Words left my mouth as if by their own accord. “Rob, about the opening? The Buddha? Who took it?”

“Aeneas.”

“Aeneas stole it?”

“No, he didn't
steal
it. He just assumed it was his.”

“How could he—?”

“Because—” Rob lifted himself like an arthritic cat, fear compressing each move, the straightening of a knee an inch by inch process, the moving of a foot requiring virtually an Environmental Impact Report, “—Aeneas figured he
was
the Sixth Patriarch.” He stood, leaning so far forward toward the curve of the roof he had to bend only a few inches to pick up one of the brooms. “But you knew that all along.”

Knew that?
“Rob, what makes you so sure Aeneas took the Buddha?”

“I found it in his luggage, where I knew it would be.”

“Wha—”

He had the broom; he was standing, swinging it like a cudgel.

“Watch out!” I yelled.

Too late. My feet flew out from under me and I went flying off the roof. I grabbed for the ladder and held on; my momentum sent it sailing away from the zendo into the open grounds. Below, someone screamed. I shot a look down; the ground sloped away sharply. If the ladder flipped, it would fling me like a pea in a shooter.

“Help her!” someone yelled. I twisted, pulling back. The ladder jerked. My other hand was on it now and I shifted forward. People were running toward me.

“Get away!” I yelled.

If I let go, the ladder would fly up into my stomach. In one last burst, I flung myself backwards. The ladder jolted; I slid down, landing hard on the ground, barely keeping the ladder from banging on top of me. Suddenly people were all around me, grabbing the ladder, asking if I was all right. The splatter of words resounded after the day of quiet, and for a minute the sense of aloneness that pervades sesshin transformed into a mesh of concern.

It was another minute before I stood up, turned around, and noticed Rob, still standing on the zendo roof, still holding the handle of the broom. I couldn't tell if he was shocked, sorry, or just too terrified to move. His expression revealed nothing. And when someone propped the ladder back up and held it for him, he clambered down so fast he jumped the last steps. He hurried over to me.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure.”

His hands were on my shoulders, he was looking me in the eye. I expected him to say how sorry he was, that he had lost his balance, grabbed the broom, and in his panic flailed. He said not a thing, merely clapped my shoulders, turned, and strode off.

I started to walk, like I do after a stunt, heading to the second unit director to see if it was a take or not, focusing totally on the mechanics of the shoot. But now, suddenly, reality doused me. Without my stunt training I'd have broken my neck, or landed on my head, or broken enough bones in arms or legs to leave me laid up for weeks.

Like Roshi! Like Roshi, I could be not dead but conveniently out of the way. So much more acceptable to those who take vows not to kill.

“Are you okay?” Maureen asked from behind me, just about jolting me off my feet.

“Fine,” I snapped, shifted the ladder free of the zendo and headed to the shed, making a show of balancing the ladder in the middle lest anyone else intrude with their help. I must have been curt enough to make my point. Maureen backed away and no one else came near me.

I tried to replay the seconds before the broom hit me. Had Rob really swung at me, or had he panicked on the roof, grabbed the handle for balance, and swung wildly? Had he meant to apologize and couldn't handle that either? Or were things exactly as they looked?

My stomach went queasy; I was shaking. The ladder rattled. I shifted my hands so its weight would settle them. What kind of place was this where a senior student throws a woman off the roof? What kind of lunatic was Rob?

The ladder smacked into something and slapped me backward. I staggered along, intent on avoiding hitting people as I maneuvered the ladder toward the shed, trying to calm myself with the pretense that I was on a movie set, after a gag, merely moving a prop. If this had been a movie, the shove off the roof would have been a diversion; the important focus would have been the revelation right before: that Aeneas took the Buddha and Rob retrieved it from Aeneas's luggage where he knew it would be.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

S
uddenly, the ladder went light at the back. Gabe had come out of nowhere; he was shifting it for two-person carry. I was still shaking from the roof, but I was so relieved to see Gabe, the one person I could trust, the only one who hadn't been here when Leo was poisoned, I could have hugged him. The rain was heavier; the afternoon wind water-picked my face. Talk from opposite ends of the ladder was impossible, but Gabe called out directions. He was moving at a half run, pushing me from his end of the ladder. I was happy just to move.