Karma for Beginners (21 page)

He means feed him. I guess it's only fair. I peel off a piece and hold it out, stopping a few inches from his mouth. He darts forward and bites it from my fingers like an animal.

“Mmm,” he says, chewing, staring at me. I squirm a little. He swallows.

“Another,” he says.

This time his lips brush my fingers as he takes it from me. A shiver goes through my skin. I've never touched another guy besides Colin, unless you count Randy Wishnick. It surprises me how much touching Clint is the same as touching Colin. Except then he looks at me with those beady weasel eyes and it's not.

“Why'd you put that flannel on?” he says.

What does he mean? “I was shivering.”

“Too bad,” he says.

Too bad I was shivering, or too bad I put the flannel on? “I guess.” Suddenly I wish I could close my eyes and go back to glimmering jewels in space. My heart starts to thud. I'm not hungry anymore.

The door creaks open, interrupting Clint's stare, and Bennett walks in, pulling off his sweater. He's got a tie-dye T-shirt underneath, and the swirls of color undulate across his pudgy belly. I stare.

“What, the tie-dye?”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “Totally,” because suddenly I understand tie-dye. Acid makes you suddenly understand a lot of things you've seen a million times before.

“Where's Colin?” I ask Bennett.
“He went down by the creek,” he says. “Grabbed a flashlight, went exploring.”

I wish he would've taken me. “Oh.”

“He always does that when he trips. Vision quest. He'll be back eventually,” Bennett says. “He knows the woods around here super well.”

“Okay.”

“Tessa and I were just having an orange,” Clint tells Bennett, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah?” Bennett says.

“Yeah,” Clint says. “She was feeding me.” I blush. “Maybe if you ask nice she'll feed you too.”

I want to say,
No way,
but I don't want to seem paranoid.
What's wrong with sharing an orange?
Clint would say, and I wouldn't have an answer.

Bennett turns to me. “Tessa, would you please feed me some orange?”

My stomach burns. “Okay.”

I peel a piece off, put it in his mouth. They both just watch me.

They're not doing anything wrong. They're being nice, and smiling, sharing food. But the acid gives me X-ray vision, tunneling through the layers, and there is something underneath that's unfamiliar, thick and sticky and a little frightening. I'm starting to get that feeling that I had before, black oil creeping in the corners of my mind. I start to remember last night again. I feel like I don't have any parents. I feel like I'm still too young to not have parents. I want Colin to come back.

“It's hot,” Clint says, and turns to Bennett. “Don't you think it's hot?”

“Totally,” Bennett says. I don't think it's hot.

Clint stands up and takes his shirt off. He's skinny: you can see the outline of each muscle, his chest concave, stomach a perfect six-pack. His body is bright white, moles and freckles standing out in stark relief. He strides over to the sink to get a glass of water, easy in his skin. He gulps it down and puts “Led Zeppelin III” on the stereo.
Immigrant Song
. He turns it way, way loud. Robert Plant's voice screams out echoey:
Aaaah-ah!
It sounds like Halloween.

Valhalla, I am coming
. Bennett smokes from the bong. I can't imagine being stoned right now.

Clint says, “Aren't you hot, Tessa?”

“Not really,” I tell him.

“Yeah, but sometimes acid messes up your sense of temperature,” he says. “Remember before when you didn't realize you were cold?”

It's true; I didn't. “Yeah.”

“I think it's the same thing now. It's super hot in here. You should be careful not to overheat.”

“Really?” I can't tell if he's messing with me or not. Everything's a collage of contradictions; I can't tell what's real, if everything or nothing is, or somewhere in between. My gut says he's messing with me. But what's “my gut”? Maybe it's just fear. Maybe I need to overcome it. Maybe that's my challenge from the universe.

“Totally,” he says. “You shouldn't be wearing all that heavy flannel.”

I have to be brave in order to know the truth. I start unbuttoning.

“You're gonna be way safer,” Clint tells me. I let the shirt fall to the floor. Cool air feels good against my skin. I'm just in my bra and jeans. Bennett is staring at me over the edge of the bong.

Clint cracks a grin. “See, isn't that so much better?”

I wish there was a word for
yes
and
no
at once.

Clint sits down by me on the bed. Led Zeppelin wails. It's pitch-black out the windows. He reaches out his hand, puts it on my leg, and suddenly it's like a vortex opens up, one I could just spin into, no bottom, no floor, no one to catch me or pull me back; just endless empty space. I peek over the edge, teetering.

Then the door cracks open again.

It's Colin. My heart leaps in my chest: thank god. My body fills with love and I understand the phrase
sweet relief
. “Colin!” I stand up, pulling away from the black hole of Clint. “You're back!” I go to throw my arms around his neck, kiss him like before, minds melding in infinity signs, but he hangs back.

“What's up?” I ask him, eyes wide open.

He looks down at my bra and stomach, then across the room to Clint.

“Nothing,” he says, but he doesn't mean it.

He eyes the orange peels on the floor, then walks to the refrigerator and opens it, staring at the empty inside. I follow him.

“Are you mad at me?” I can read him better than I can read Clint and Bennett.

“Nope,” he says, staring at the mustard.

Reality is shaped like nerves or branches, and he's gone down a fork where I can't follow him. I remember this morning, how all I wanted was to talk to him. How I stayed up all night waiting for it, imagining how I would finally tell him everything and he would hold it, hold me, keep me from spilling. He was so nearby. Now he's down a whole road I don't recognize. I want to reach through the crowded air between us, past the skin of thoughts that wraps his mind. I want to pull him back. “Hey,” I say, and run my fingers down his cheek.

“Hey.” He turns to me and wraps me in his arms, slides a hand onto my hip and grabs, but it's rough, not pure like energy and babies' eyes. Then he kisses me, too hard to feel the figure eight between us. I squirm. It doesn't make me stop spilling. Clint and Bennett are watching from the couch. Out the corner of my eyes I spot the alarm clock on the floor from where I threw it a long time ago. It's four in the morning. I can't imagine ever sleeping.

“Let's go for a walk,” I say.

“Tess, I just got back from a walk. A really long one,” he says. “Besides, don't you want to be in here with everyone?” He eyes my chest again, then looks to Clint, his shirt off too. “It kind of seems like it.”

I shake my head.

“Kind of seems like you want to hang out with Clint.”

“Not really,” I say.

“Really? Hmm,” he says. He sounds hard, and far away. It scares me: I can't find him, even though he's standing right here. “Well, I still don't feel like going out again. You can if you want.”

It's pitch-black; I'd get lost out there in the woods by myself. I need to find something to hang on to.

“No, it's okay. Let's listen to some music.”

Colin puts on the Doors. “Break on Through.” I've heard them before and I know all about Jim Morrison, but they are different on acid. Especially closed up in a little cabin, especially in the middle of the night.
Tried to run, tried to hide, break on through to the other side
. The Doors were made for taking acid. I start dancing. I'm the only one but I don't care, I shut my eyes and shake every-thing as hard as I can, trying to get it all out, cross over, push through. I tell myself:
Just spill. Disintegrate. Give up your attachment to holding things together
. I remind myself:
Your challenge from the universe is to overcome your fear
.

I dance till my muscles are wobbly and I'm covered with sweat. Now I'm glad I'm only in my bra. I flop down on the bed; the room spins around me, tilty, orbiting, like Saturn's rings. The world of my mom and my dad and the ashram and even Colin dissolves and my universe becomes the circus world of the Doors, carnivals and lizards, snakes and deep dark corners. Clint sits next to me, leaning in and singing along:
You know that it would be untrue; you know that I would be a liar.
. . . He holds out the bong and I take it, inhale deep.

The next song comes on and Clint keeps singing right to me:
The men don't know, but the little girls understand
. I just watch his lips move, till I can't see them anymore because they're pressing into mine.

I go with it for a second, just a second, before my brain says,
Stop
. Then I realize what's happening. The last thing I want to do is kiss Clint. His breath is hot and he looks like a rodent or a fox and he is scary like Jim Morrison. And he is my boyfriend's best friend, and what the hell is he doing kissing me? My mind swirls. Shit. I have to get away. I pull back, press my hand against his chest. “Stop.”

“What's the matter, little lady? You scared?” He leans in again. “No. Yes. I don't know. Just stop it.” He doesn't stop. He's crowding me with his breath, and I look over his shoulder, search for Colin with my eyes. I know he'll get me out of this, say something that's just the right mixture of funny and firm, pick me up and hold me, make it so I can breathe again. I plead with my eyes:
Come get me
.

But he doesn't. He takes a swig of water from his glass and looks me straight in the eye like he's accusing me of something. And he leaves me there.

Clint leans back in and I say, “Stop,” again, and he says, “C'mon, Tess, break on through.” I put my elbows in front of my chest, try to make a space between us, but he pushes them away, pins my arms on the bed. My mind is a zoom lens; the room is spinning out and everything is way too intense, his hands and face and the confusion;
this is the end, my only friend
and Colin by the refrigerator, not moving, just leaving me there, Bennett saying, “All
right
,” and Clint's hard body on top of me all bones and angles. I'm trying to push through my fear, push past it, go where the universe takes me, but the harder I push the harder it pushes back, and the push grows and the fear grows and the push grows and the fear grows until there's an epic battle inside and on top of me, every fight that's ever existed replicating its essence in my body and my mind, threatening to explode my skin from the inside.

“Jesus Christ,” Colin says and slams his water down. “I'm going for a walk.”

I decide I will kiss Clint. I can't fight it, so I'll do it as an experiment. To see what an unfamiliar human being feels like. Or something. The universe wants me to be brave, so I'll let myself kiss him. But that's it.

It goes on for what seems like forever, and the whole time I feel like I'm on the edge of a razor. It could cut me anytime and I would bleed and bleed and nothing here would stop it. I could bleed till I'm empty, till there's nothing left but the painting of me. “C'mon, gimme a little love,” Clint says, and I know he wants me to act how I do with Colin, the squirming and the sounds, and I can't. I can't do it. It's fake. All that power I think I have with Colin, it's all fake. He still leaves the room and Clint's on top of me, and no matter what noises I make it won't change that, and I'm starting to wonder what is on the other side of my fear, and if I'll ever get there.

Bennett comes over and sits on the bed. He just watches us. Clint looks up at him and grins. “Awesome, huh?”

“Awesome,” Bennett says.

I ram Clint in the ribs with my elbow and run outside.

I can't find Colin. I run and run, breathless, freezing in my bra, wind washing my lungs like water. My heart pounds hard, harder than it ever has, till I start wondering what a heart attack feels like. I could die. I could die out here and nobody would stop it; I could die at any second, anytime. Fear bears down on me like a tidal wave and I'm running to outrace it, find some hiding place where it can't reach. Everything turns primal;
this is the most basic thing
, I think; terror runs through my veins and I'm alone. Totally, completely, essentially alone.

Branches scrape my shoulders, leaving welts; my skin looks too alive, grotesque in the predawn light. I run through the woods.
“Colin!”
I yell on the edge of my breath. “Colin!”

Finally I find him, down at the creek, on the other side from me. His jeans are rolled up, his shoes off. He's staring at the water; it floods between us like a boundary on a map. We're two separate countries, him and me, and I don't know what war we had to get that way.

“Colin!” I call across the creek. He looks up. His face is angry.

“What do you want?” he yells back over the rush of the water.

I want you
, I think. But I'm too scared to say it. And in some way, for some reason, it partly isn't true.

I roll up my jeans, lose my shoes, and wade in.

I was cold before, but this is a whole new level. The water's glass through my skin; the current's hard enough to knock me over and I feel like I'm a pioneer crossing some huge and ancient river, my entire survival hinging on getting to the other side.

“What're you
doing
?” Colin shouts, and I can't answer, too focused on the mossy rocks beneath me, struggling not to slip. Halfway through my ankle catches in two sharp-edged stones, wrenches hard and I fall, twisted backward with the current, soaked. A hot arrow of pain shoots up my leg.