Karma for Beginners (23 page)

The room's so quiet you can hear fluorescents buzz.

“There are rules, you know. These transgressions have to be addressed,” Ninyassa goes on. She turns to me. “Tessa,” she says.

I face my mom, try one more time.
Please have my back. Don't make me talk to her alone
. But she keeps her hands in her lap and her eyes on the wall.

“Tessa,” Ninyassa goes on, “it's come to my attention you've been carrying on an illicit—
relationship
with a young man who is not only not a part of our community, but who is an adult, thereby making that relationship not only immoral, but illegal. You've been dishonest with Devanand for several months, abandoning your
seva
and your responsibilities to the community, and you've abetted trespassing by encouraging this young man to sneak into your room at night.” My mother shoots a look at me. “This is not to even begin the discussion of the robbery of the statue, or your use of drugs on ashram premises. As I'm sure you know, these actions of yours carry serious consequences.” My cheeks burn. I want to say,
Quit rubbing it in
, but that would be a bad idea. My mouth stays shut. Ninyassa turns to my mom.

“Now, I believe you share responsibility for this, Guhahita,” she says. “As you know, we have a firm policy that ashram guests are responsible for the actions of their children. On both the literal and metaphorical levels. And I believe Tessa's actions would not have gone unaddressed for so long were you not engaging in unethical, dishonest behavior of your own.”

“Ninyassa, I just have to say—”

“I'm not finished.” Ninyassa stares her down. “Despite all that, this ashram exists as a place of service to the Guru. We follow his infinite wisdom here, even when it seems mysterious to our own more limited minds. And he has been consulted, and he has come to the conclusion that under no circumstances are you to be disciplined, Guhahita, for your personal breach of ethics, unless you choose to compound that breach of ethics by discussing it publicly.” She pauses. “Do you understand what I'm saying?”

“Look, Ninyassa, I'm not sure—”

“Do you understand what I'm saying
.
”
It's a statement, not a question.

“I—think so,” my mom says, trying to read her eyes.

“Not only are you asked to stay, but you may maintain your”—pause—“
position
, with the understanding that you will exercise immaculate discretion, advising your fellow devotees that to believe in rumors of illicit activities on the part of our beloved Guru is to strengthen the illusions of the mind.”

My mom looks like she swallowed something rotten. Ninyassa turns to me.

“Now, Tessa. About the robbery, and other crimes.”

Jesus Christ. Does she have to keep saying
crimes
?

“Assuming your mother abides by the agreement I've just mentioned, and you as well, the Guru will refrain from pressing charges. However, you'll have to tell us where the statue is.”

I'm confused. “What does that m—”

“That means you won't have to deal with the police.”

Oh. Wow. No jail. And all I have to do is tell her where it is? A ten-ton weight lifts off my shoulders. “It's at Dee's Cottages,” I blurt out. “In the yard.” Secretly I hope that Clint and Bennett are still there, and that the cops will find them too.

“Good,” Ninyassa says, clipped. “The police are currently holding the—
young man
. Since we're agreed on all the other issues, the ashram won't be pressing charges against him for the robbery. You can discuss among yourselves whether you will choose to press charges in the areas of corrupting a minor and statutory rape. That choice is, of course, ultimately up to you,

Guhahita, as you are the parent here, and thus, the legal guardian.” Ninyassa stares her down for a second, like she doesn't think my mom deserves to be my legal guardian. At this point, I kind of agree.

My mom doesn't say anything. Ninyassa points at her, like giving an order. “But if you do decide on pressing charges, remember:
ultimate discretion
.”

And then she turns and leaves.

My mom looks at the ground. Not at me. Even after all of this, she still won't look at me. She seems so miserable, like the night before we came here when she sobbed into her Lemon Zinger tea and said how men would always let you down. Except now she looks way worse.

I don't know why she feels so bad; she just got everything she wants. We got out of trouble. She gets to stay here with her precious fucking soul mate, be obedient and keep it all a secret, and everything will be just exactly how it was for her, and I'll be stuck here all alone with everybody watching me and judging me and knowing everything I've done.

I'm glad I don't have to go to jail, but I'm not sure if this is that much different.

I don't have anything to lose. She's already gone. It doesn't matter if she's mad at me. I take a breath.

“Mom, you remember when we were on the way here, how you promised you would stay with me? Well, you didn't. You didn't stay with me. And you never do. You're always leaving every place we ever are.”

“Tessa, come on, that's not fair,” she says. “We've just been looking for where we finally fit in. And now we've found it.” She tries to make her voice soothing, like those guys in the cafeteria with Jayita, trying to calm her down. “We can stay here, Tessa. I'm not going anywhere.”

What's left of the acid makes it so everything is clear, so I can see the things she's doing even when she doesn't say them. She's just trying to get me to say okay and go along with what she wants. She's trying to comfort me without actually giving anything up herself.

“
We
haven't found anything, Mom.
You
found it. You never asked me if I wanted to come here. You never ask me if I want to go anywhere. You just do what you want and drag me along, and I'm just invisible, so fuck it, I don't matter.” The force of it surprises me. “Do you know you haven't asked me what I want since I was, like, six years old? You only talk to me about yourself, and you only do it when there's no one else to talk to, and I don't care if you want to spend the night with Rick or Dan or the fucking weirdo beard guy, I'm your
kid
, and you're not supposed to leave me alone. And I don't care that you never got to go on the road and be a hippie. It's not my fault. I wasn't even born yet. So quit fucking making me feel guilty about it.”

She looks like she's been hit by a truck. I don't care that I'm crying; it feels good to make her finally shut up about herself.

“And you know what, Mom? I know you hate my dad for leaving you, and I know he doesn't want me bugging him, and maybe I
do
think he's an asshole, but he's my
dad
. You don't get to decide how I'm supposed to feel about him. You don't get to make me think the things you think. Okay? So fuck you. Just
fuck you
.”

Suddenly the words stop: that's all there is. And it's just silence. She isn't saying anything. And it's like the ground dissolves beneath my feet, like there's this open space that's bigger than anything I've ever felt or seen, the world broken apart like an earthquake, and I don't know what will fall into it before it closes up again. It could be everything.

Her eyes fill up with something I don't recognize, and I can see her think. Hard, like she's working an equation in her head. After a long, long time she nods to herself. She found the answer.

I brace myself for a proclamation, an announcement, a new statement about her journey. For the earth to close back up and seal itself like nothing happened. I brace myself to say,
Okay
, even if it's not at all, because I know there's never any other option.

She turns to me.

“What do you want to do, Tess?”

The wind goes out of me.

She's never asked me that question before.

She says it again. “What do you want to do?”

“You mean—what? You mean about pressing charges?”

“Well, yeah, that, but I mean . . . do you want to stay here?”

I can't believe it. “We don't have to?”

Her eyes fill up with tears. She shakes her head. It's hard for her to say.

“No, Tess. We don't have to.”

If I trust this, and then it goes away, it will be me that drops into that chasm, falling and falling till everything breaks apart. “Where—where would we go?”

“I don't know, Tess. I don't know.” There's a long pause.

Then her voice goes soft. “Maybe you could tell me what you want.”

It's weird: this is what I've wanted more than almost anything forever, what I've been asking for from some god I don't even know if I believe in. And now that it's here, I'm terrified. More afraid than coming here, or being left, or sneaking off with Colin; more afraid than getting caught or facing cops or staring down the Guru. More afraid than being alone. But then it pops back into my mind:
Your challenge is to overcome your fear
, and suddenly I can tell the difference between when you're supposed to listen to your fear and when you're not. This time I know for once that pushing past it is what I really am supposed to do.

“Okay,” I say. “Let's go.”

She wants to go right up to our room and pack, but I tell her I don't want to. And she says, “Okay, Tess, you do what you want,” and I can tell she actually means it.

I take some paper and an envelope from the room we're in, and I go to my table by the window at the Amrit, and I start another letter. The last one.

Dear Colin
.

It's weird to write to somebody besides my dad.

I just wanted you to know that I'm not mad at you. And I'm not going to get you in any trouble. And that my mom and I are going, because I finally told her what I want, and she finally listened. Thank you for showing me how not to be afraid. I love you too
.

I fold the letter into thirds and seal the envelope up. I drop it in the mailbox on the way back to our room. And for the first time it's okay if I don't get an answer back.

We drive straight into the sunrise. It burns our eyes, bright orange, but we don't turn around. Cardboard boxes fill the car to overflowing and I help her see out the rear window, change lanes, keep moving forward. Neil Young is on the stereo; I picked the tape.
Old man, take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you; I need someone to love me the whole day through
. We don't know where we're going yet, but it doesn't matter. We'll decide. Rearview Buddhas clink in open-window air and I hold my mom's hand on the gearshift, our hair whipping in our faces as we speed down empty open highway, two gypsies finally about to land.

Jessica Blank, an actor and writer, has appeared in several films, including
The Namesake, On the Road with Judas,
and
Undermind
; and several TV shows. She is coauthor (with her husband, Erik Jensen) of the award-winning play
The Exonerated
, based on interviews they conducted with more than forty exonerated death row inmates across America; and
Living Justice
, a book about the making of the
The Exonerated
. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel
Almost Home
. Jessica lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and their dogs, Zooey and Yoda.