Eight Minutes (25 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

HONEY SWEET

S
ince I’ve had eggplant coming out my ears, I’m baking a gigantic vegetarian casserole. We’ve invited Ian and Mamie, Lakshmi and Nikhil, and Carla and her (surprise!) fiancé, Steve. It’s the first time we’ve met him. This is the same guy she was moaning about at Ian’s party. He used to be her client. He also used to be married. As of last month, he’s neither. They’ve known each other for two years, but they’ve only officially dated for thirty days. Thirty. Three-zero.

“I’m happy,” she tells me. “So be happy with me.”

Maybe there was a time when I’d try to tell her what to do with her life, but I’m waaay past that now.

It’s the first time we’ve tried to integrate our Oasis Verde friends with our old crowd. I know Lakshmi and Nik don’t seem to go out much, so I want to make sure she’s comfortable. I’m not sure anything is going to make Nik comfortable, so I can’t worry about that. At least I know he likes eggplant.

It’s also the first time we’ve entertained since we found out the truth about John Robberson.

“Want me to set out a wine glass for you?”

“Sure,” Eric says. “I’ll fill it with water; nobody will notice. But you go ahead and have a glass so it’s not so conspicuous.”

“I think Steve is the only one who doesn’t know. I’m not sure how much Carla’s told him.”

“Ian and Mamie don’t know,” he says. “Unless you’ve spoken to them.”

“Not about this.”

“About any of it? Shel, I can’t have him even joking about it. Ian knows some of the guys at work.”

“I know. I haven’t said anything,” I say. “Lakshmi and Nik won’t say anything.”

“Think it will be okay to put some music on?” he asks.

“Eric. Of course.” I turn to fold napkins. “You’re doing fine. I don’t think a little background music is going to be enough to give him the upper hand.”

Carla’s early and doesn’t ring the doorbell; she just “yoo-hoo”s to get the party started. Right behind her, Steve shows up with two bottles of wine—in each hand. He’s gracious and almost embarrassingly glad to meet us, but I get the impression he’s a little . . . disappointed, maybe, that we don’t have two wine glasses at each place setting and two more available for backup tastings. I’ve got four red glasses and four whites, total, and every one of them is on the table.

“No way I’m getting away with water tonight,” Eric whispers.

“It’ll be fine,” I assure him.

The sauvignon blanc is divine. Carla and I take ours into the kitchen and finish the salads. She’s planning her wedding even though they’re eloping. They’re getting married on a beach in Cabo San Lucas next weekend.

“You mean eight days from now?”

Eric comes in with one arm around Steve and raises his glass. “Here’s to beach weddings!”

Ian and Mamie show up next, straight from a friend’s gallery showing. When Lakshmi and Nik arrive, Carla and Steve share their news, which kicks off a long discussion about weddings that lasts until well after we’re at the dinner table. Lakshmi’s wedding ceremony lasted three days. I would’ve loved to see it: the henna hands, the opulent saris, the rituals, especially when they put rice on each other’s heads.

“What were your vows?” Carla asks. “We’re debating between writing our own and saying the traditional ‘to have and to hold’ thing to each other.”

Eric and I opted for the traditional vows, mostly because I didn’t have much confidence that I could come up with something more meaningful. I didn’t want to look back and realize my most sacred pact on earth was based on some lame, sappy song lyric.

“They’re based on the Seven Steps,” Lakshmi explains. “Not everyone has the same vows. We stayed pretty close to the Hindu ritual. The steps are: healthy living, spirituality, wealth, trust, fertility, longevity, and lifelong partnership.” She counts them off on her fingers and looks over at Nik. “Am I missing one?”

Nik’s expression breaks into a true, clear smile that I haven’t seen before on his face. He picks up his glass and lifts it to Lakshmi. His voice has just the right measure of Ms. Pushpa’s sing-song accent.

“May the night be honey-sweet for us. May the morning be honey-sweet for us. May the earth be honey-sweet for us and the heavens be honey-sweet for us. May the plants be honey-sweet for us; may the sun be all honey for us; may the cows yield us honey-sweet milk. As the heavens are stable, as the earth is stable, as the mountains are stable, as the whole universe is stable, so may our unions be permanently settled.”

His words hang over the table like fireflies. Mamie grasps Ian’s forearm and squeezes it. The music from the stereo picks up where our voices left off. Bluesy tones from a saxophone fill the air, making Nik’s glass, which remains in the air, seem like an invitation for his wife to join him in his memory. She lowers her eyes and nods before her glass meets his, with a faint clink that feels like a kiss. The rest of us are holding our breath.

“Honey-sweet,” Steve whispers, raising his glass.

“I feel sorry for you, buddy,” Ian says, “because that, my friend, is a freaking hard act to follow.”

“It is,” Lakshmi agrees, when the laughter dies down. “But did you notice what is not included in those vows?”

We shake our heads.

“Love. We never look each other in the eye and promise to love each other unconditionally forever.”

“You’re kidding,” Carla says. “What about the ‘I cannot live without you’ part?”

“Even better, the ‘you will not live without me’ part,” Ian laughs. “Is that the most elegant veiled threat you’ve ever heard?”

“Are you the most cynical person I’ve ever met?” Carla asks, before turning back to Lakshmi. “Why is there no promise to love? Does that bother you?”

“Not really. Don’t you think everyone’s marriage would be a little better if they simply agreed to live cooperatively with each other?” Lakshmi says.

“Of course, but isn’t that implied when you love someone?” Mamie asks. “Isn’t it just a different way to say the same thing?”

“Let me put it this way: if you couldn’t have both, which would you want? Living peacefully together, or being ‘in love’?” She uses air quotes.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you believe in being ‘in love’?” Steve asks, mimicking her air quotes.

“It’s just not enough.”

“Well, I’ll give you that one,” Steve says, “but it’s also not enough to just peacefully coexist. I had that—for eighteen years. But I don’t think we were ever in love with each other. Whatever we had, it fizzled, even before I walked down that aisle. She’s a decent person, a good mom. She had her interests and I had mine. We pulled our weight. But at the end of the day, we built two parallel lives. It was fine. Just fine.” Steve pauses and takes a sip of his wine. “I got so fucking sick of being fine. I was like a hollowed-out tree in the middle of the forest. The only reason I was still vertical was that the branches of the other trees kept me from falling over.”

“Hollow is the right word. You should’ve seen him,” Carla says. “Poor guy. The first time I took him to lunch, he told me he’d rather eat than have sex.”

“Now that’s just sad,” Ian says.

“That’s also no longer true,” Steve answers with one eyebrow raised. “No offense to your eggplant, Shelly.”

Eric hasn’t said a word during this whole conversation. He’s a checked-out, edited-down version of himself. He’s one step away from hollow. Honey-sweet isn’t really an option for us, as long as John Robberson’s hanging on.

“It’s time for phase two,” I tell him as I wipe down the kitchen sink after everyone is gone.

“You make the arrangements. I’ll show up,” he says, tucking me under his arm as he flips off the kitchen light.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

PHASE TWO—JOHN

I
recognize the sign from that handcrafted business card as we enter the coffee shop Wendy recommended. We enjoy our coffee, read the paper, and refuse to speculate about what the next hour holds. It’s going to mean everything—or nothing.

Right on time, a fit middle-aged woman in loose clothing comes to our table, discreetly introduces herself, and invites us to her office. We take our places on a burgundy tweed loveseat across from her floral armchair. She’s got nurse’s hands—short nails, thick palms—hands that look like they could hold you if you fell. She offers me an herbal tea but recommends that Eric refrain until the session is over. Between sips, she begins talking about releasing spirit attachments and allowing them to continue their journey to the light. After all we’ve been through, it shouldn’t seem this silly, but I can’t help smiling. Look at us. We’re in Woo-Woo Central, and Eric doesn’t even wince—maybe because it looks more like a therapist’s office than a séance den. It gets serious when we actually write her a check. She gives us a receipt, takes out a legal pad, and asks us to start at the beginning.

It would take too long to tell her everything we know about John Robberson, so we focus on the unfinished business he has with Kay. She doesn’t interrupt or ask questions. She doesn’t even raise an eyebrow at anything we say, which is oddly validating. When our words stop falling into her lap in a jumble, she says, “I think I have enough to begin.”

I don’t see how she can have enough information, but I’ve never done this before. I can’t shake the impression that her certainty is a cover for her flakiness. I’m going to be really sad if I smell Thud at any point in this process.

We follow her to a second room, which is noticeably warmer. “Hypnosis and shivers don’t go together,” she jokes. Eric and I emit an identical nervous twittery chirpy noise, which makes us laugh—which works out because she thinks we’re laughing at her little joke. He gives me a hug and tucks my shoulder into that space under his arm where we fit together.

There’s a large mocha-colored recliner in the center of the room. He settles in as she dims the lamp nearest him and takes her place in a gray swivel chair, the kind I had in my cubicle at work. She has the legal pad in her lap. I stand on the other side of the chair, holding his hand as long as she’ll allow it. I have a tiny flashback to when Eric’s hip pins were taken out. I stood by his side and felt exactly like this as I watched the anesthesiologist start the IV and ask Eric to count backward from a hundred. Helpless and hopeful at the same time.

Only this time she’s the one counting. Eric’s eyes are closed. I take a seat and place the noise-canceling headset over my ears; it’s a precaution necessary to keep me from being hypnotized as well. As a result, I can’t make out the words, only a monotone hum. Several minutes pass. My dulled auditory function sends my eyes scanning for clues. She’s facing Eric, so I see the back of her head, the curve of her shoulders, the texture of her ribbed cotton knit jacket. I’m directly across the room, so I have an unobstructed view of his lanky body stretched out on the recliner, footrest up, arms extended, head tilted back slightly. He looks a little . . . deliberate, maybe, in his relaxation.

The hum continues at a plodding pace. What’s designed to help him relax seems to have the opposite effect on me. I fidget in my chair as discreetly as possible, watching Eric the whole time. His expression is softer now. Slow. Hum. Breathe. Deep.

His left leg twitches and his chin jerks in response, which reminds me of little Buster, letting out puppy yips while chasing squirrels in his sleep. I nod approvingly. It can’t be much longer until she gives me the signal.

Eric’s eyes flash open and he says . . . something. I rip off the headphones.

“It’s not working,” he says, sitting up. “I’m just pretending to be asleep. I’m fully aware of my surroundings.”

In a soothing monotone that’s not much different from the headphone hum, she reminds him that the hypnotic induction phase is gradual. His awareness of surroundings does not negate the effect. She suggests that he interpret any ambient noises as confirmation that he is safe. She asks him to close his eyes and starts over. At the beginning. I replace my headphones and try to find a comfortable position in the musty upholstered armchair in the corner, a little more helpless and a little less hopeful now.

Finally, his head lags, ever so slightly, and the hypnotist holds a Ping-Pong paddle up past her shoulder, our agreed-upon signal that I can remove my headphones.

She requests permission from Eric’s higher self to scan his body for additional spirits. I suppose he’s hypnotized at this point, but when he agrees, the “yes” sounds like it comes from his regular voice, so I’m not sure. He opens his eyes, then closes them without her direction. I suppose that’s how a person starts scanning for extra spirits. It seems like he knew exactly what to do. We sit in silence and wait. I hold my breath, counting,
one Mississippi, two Mississippi
. I have to breathe before I see any movement or change in his expression. At
thirty-four Mississippi
, he scratches his nose.

I’m not so sure about this.

Finally the hypnotist asks what he finds. He doesn’t open his eyes, but he reports, in his regular voice, a darkness in his solar plexus. She calls forth the spirit and asks it to speak through Eric without harming him, to identify itself.

I’m not supposed to be surprised when John Robberson begins to speak, but I get chills when I hear the familiar change in Eric’s tone. Not that he has some crazy demon voice, but the effect is just as scary—and strangely incongruent with what I see. Eric looks like he’s asleep in the recliner, but the longer he talks, the more I think he should be pacing the room and waving his arms around for emphasis.

That part doesn’t seem to surprise the hypnotist. I wonder if anything surprises her.

She asks in that low monotone, “What happened to your body?”

“Well, I sure as hell didn’t run into a burning meth lab with no backup.”

I jolt upright and stare at him. Eric’s face looks like a cross between a swagger smirk and a chin jut, but his body is still stretched out on the recliner as if he’s lying on a beach.

“What happened to your body?”

“They threw us both in and left us for dead. I didn’t go
in
for the dog. I was trying to get
out
with the damn dog.”

Wait. What?

If I had an air horn, I would honk it right now, just to stop everything. Punctuate the moment. I want time to freeze everybody in the room except me, so I can get up out of this stupid chair in the corner and pace in a circle until I know what the next question should be. I’ve got a whole list: Who is “they?” What about the other bodies? Were they already dead when you got there? Or did you stand by and let them burn? When did “they” show up? Before or after the fire started? Does Kay need to forgive you, or do you just need a chance to set the record straight? Are you even telling the truth right now?

None of these questions are asked. She doesn’t understand enough to know what she should ask. I’m annoyed that I didn’t insist on giving her more details while I had the chance. I hope she doesn’t blow it.

The hypnotist doesn’t miss a beat. She doesn’t even act like she heard him.

“What happened to your body?”

“I woulda been fine if the roof had held.”

“What happened to your body?” she intones once again, annoying me further. I’m not supposed to say anything, so I bite my lip.

“I’m telling you! The roof gave way. The smoke got me. What else do you need to know?”

I want to raise my hand like an overeager kindergartner, but I’m stuck with this woman who clearly wasn’t even listening in our prep session or she’d know what to ask. It matters whether or not John Robberson was an arsonist, like Kay thinks. Or the victim of a crime, the way he’s making it sound now.

“What was the last thing you saw while still in your body?” she asks.

“I don’t know. Everything went dark.”

“What did you do then? Where did you go?”

He’s slower to respond this time. The swagger smirk fades. “I woke up and bumped into this guy who looked like he was going somewhere. I grabbed a hold and followed him.”

No. It can’t be that random. It just can’t.
I can barely stay in my chair.

The hypnotist clarifies the point. “That guy was Eric.”

He shrugs.

The energy in the air changes, almost as if we just walked into a different room. I’m still trying to catch my breath. I want her to slow down. It feels like it took us a long time to get here and she’s just racing around, like a grocery shopper cramming things into her cart so she can run to the checkout counter.
Ask him
, I want to say.
Ask him why. Why Eric?
But no, she’s on to the next thing.

“Are you aware you are attached to Eric now?”

“Sure.”

“Are you aware that you are causing a detriment to Eric and his family?”

“No. I ain’t hurting nobody.”

My eyebrows rise into my hairline, but before I can even formulate the words, she’s on to the next question.

“Are you aware you are holding back your own spiritual development?”

“I don’t know about that.” He’s still sprawled out on the recliner, and his arms haven’t even left the armrest.

“Let me put it another way. If you knew you were causing a detriment to Eric and blocking your own path, how would you feel about that?”

“I don’t see how it matters.”

“What if I told you there is a better place to attach, a place for us to go when our body dies? It is preferable to staying attached to Eric, in every way. In this place you grow and learn and eventually come back in a new body of your own.”

“It idn’t up to me, as far as I can tell.” He snorts. “I tried. She don’t wanna hear it.”

“Who?”

“Kay. She got it wrong but she idn’t gonna listen now.”

“We’re all listening,” the hypnotist volunteers, a bit too eagerly.

Silence. Almost as if the line dropped, she can’t get another word out of Eric. Or John Robberson.

No, no, no
. . .
this can’t be the end of it.
Her back is toward me, so I can’t tell if she’s as concerned as she needs to be. She certainly doesn’t give herself time to contemplate. She asks the wrong questions again and again, with the now-grating monotone, seemingly undeterred by the excruciating silence each time.

“What does she have wrong?”

Silence.

“This is your opportunity to set the record straight. What do you want to express?”

Silence.

“What is the message that’s blocking your path?”

Silence.

I feel a nudge and it’s just enough. I can’t sit here in my corner any longer. I know what to do. I slide off my chair and creep up behind her, until I’m close enough to whisper. “Ask him if he’ll talk to me.”

She ducks her chin and whispers, “That’s not how it’s done.”

I say, loud enough for him to hear, “Tell him I have a message from JJ.”

His eyes flip open and he bolts upright in the recliner, body cocked like a pistol. His gaze, flat and vacant, bores past the hypnotist like she’s a glass windowpane.

“JJ?”

“Yes!”

The hypnotist holds her arm, outstretched, in front of my face, her hand obscuring my view, breaking my eye contact with him.

“What about JJ?” he asks.

I push her arm away and take a wide step in front of her, using my butt to block her access. My sudden movement causes him to flinch backward in his chair. He looks down at his chest and starts to shake his head.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she says, her voice trembling but, amazingly, still maintaining a semblance of that soothing monotone. “You’re going to lose him.”

“Help me, then,” I whisper, under my armpit.

She stands up between us, then reaches out to Eric and places her hands on his eyes to close them, the way people do with a corpse. He lies back against the recliner and she murmurs to him until he’s relaxed again.

She says, “There is a message from JJ. Do you want to hear this message?”

“What do you think?” His eyes are closed, but that energy is back in his voice.

She opens her thick palm and steps back to allow me to speak. She whispers, “Get down to eye level.”

I squat next to the recliner.

“Here.” She gives me the chair and pulls up a footstool for herself. She murmurs in my ear, “Slow voice. Low. Nothing sudden. No sharps. Don’t touch him.”

She says, “I’m inviting Shelly to interact with you now.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

My heart is in my throat, but I’ve never been so certain about what is expected of me. What he needs from me. What could happen now.

“I’ll tell you what JJ said. It’s important. But first, you have to listen to what I have to say.”

That snarky smirk is back on his face. “Fine,” he says, and turns his gaze toward me, opening Eric’s eyes, not seeing me at all.

It’s so clear to me. I can tell the difference. I feel like I just swallowed a superhero pill. I can do this. I set my lips in a tight line.

“Fine? That’s how you’re going to play this?” I swivel in the chair, away from him, and say to the hypnotist, “I think we can stop the session now.”

She startles. “Are you sure?”

I keep my back turned to him but speak loudly. “He needs to hear this more than I need to say it.”

“Dammit.”

I swivel until I’m facing him again. He closes his eyes and leans back in the recliner. “You win,” he says.

I can hardly believe this is happening. My mouth is dry and I have a million questions, but I’m laser-clear in my heart. “John Robberson, you’re in the wrong place and we both know it. You need to explain yourself to Kay, and you can’t get to her because you’re attached to Eric. Am I right?”

“Except she won’t listen so it don’t matter.”

“It matters. You know it matters.” I lean in, soften my tone. “Or you wouldn’t try so hard to communicate with her. Am I right?”