Elizabeth Zelvin - Bruce Kohler 04 - Death Will Save Your Life (2 page)

“Fine,” he grumbled. “All right, I’ll do it. Now will you stop nagging?”

“It’s only one workshop,” she said.

“I said all right. I won’t deny he’s thought up a few good tricks. But you can tell your brother that if he tries to make a monkey out of me, he’ll be sorry.”

Brother? Mel? Could the soulful Feather have been born a Markowitz? I could hardly wait to tell Jimmy and Barbara.

I am not a morning person. I like to wake to some natural New York sound, like a jackhammer in the street or six hundred school children screaming. I could have done without the chorus of chirps and caws that started at the crack of dawn. My fingers scrabbled around the floor beside my bed. No cigarettes. No smoking. Enjoy an invigorating, pollution-free environment at Woo-Woo Farm. Four-letter words, with feeling.

Brisk footsteps tramped across the room. The roommate. Last night, he’d been a hump under the covers and a couple of Louis Vuitton bags slumming in the cramped closet.

“Good morning!” Relentlessly cheery voice. “Rise and shine, it’s a beautiful day.”

I dragged my bones through the series of postures necessary to achieve a sitting position and snarled what grizzly bears might have called a greeting.

“George Custer.” Oh, great, the cavalry. Galloping off in all directions before breakfast. “But call me Jojo, dear, everybody does. It’s going to be a fabulous day. The mist is rising from the cornfields, and the red-tailed hawks are circling the mountains.”

I visualized toothpicks and propped my eyelids open.

“Bruce,” I grunted.

Jojo had wavy brown hair expensively coifed and a well-toned body decked out in Adidas and tennis whites. Like his luggage, not very Aquarian.

“Your first time here?” I asked.

“Heavens, yes. I’m Melvin Markowitz’s agent. One of my biggest clients.” He lowered his voice to a tone suitable for cozy confidences. “Actually, I drove up with his ex-wife, Annabel Clay.”

He paused. I grunted again. He looked disappointed.

“The power behind the throne, dear. If you’ve seen Melvin Markowitz on Oprah, you’ve seen a work of art created by Annabel Clay. If these walls could speak!” He looked around the room at the unprepossessing plasterboard. “Well, not these walls, but you know what I mean. He’s up here with the
trophy
wife, so I felt I had to give the dear girl some support.”

“My friends signed up for the Markowitz workshop,” I said.

“Oh, the man’s a genius. Being a celebrity is an art, I always say. Nothing to do with being a person. They’ll have a stimulating time, I promise. And you, dear? Brushing up on our ecstatic dancing, are we?”

“I just came to keep them company. Maybe try some, um, tai chi.” I was damned if I’d say “wellness.” “How about you?”

“Not I, dear, no, thank you. A brisk walk before breakfast, a little tennis with Annabel because she’ll kill me if I don’t, and then a hammock by the lake for me. I brought a pile of manuscripts to read. Long experience tells me that most of them will be soporific.”

Napping in a hammock sounded more like it. Maybe there was even someplace in this hippie-happy nature preserve where I could smoke. I was about to ask when a horrendous blare split the silence.

“Breakfast,” Jojo said. “They blow on a giant conch. Charming, isn’t it?”

“They can play Yankee Doodle on a penny whistle if they want,” I said. “I’m starving.” Please, I begged my Higher Power as I swung my legs to the floor and fumbled for my pants, don’t let the vegetarians screw up breakfast.

When I arrived at the dining hall, breakfast was in full swing. Aquarians swarmed like ants around the buffet. Harried-looking workers bustled back and forth through swinging doors to a hidden kitchen. The vast rustic porch rang with wide-awake voices. I had to admit the view was spectacular, a lush lawn falling away to a crazy quilt of flowers and, beyond it, the mountains.

“Bruce! Over here!” Barbara hailed me from a crowded table against the outer railing. “We saved you a front row seat.”

I threaded my way over.

“How ya doing, city boy?” I greeted Jimmy.

Jimmy groaned and shook his head. No sidewalks and no Internet are his idea of hell.

Barbara gave me a hug and marching orders.

“Go get some food. Stay on the right—the left side is all veggie.”

“Don’t bother with the coffee,” Jimmy said. “It’s unleaded.”

“Don’t panic,” Barbara said. “I brought a thermos.”

“Queen of my heart.”

I filled a tray with scrambled eggs from hens, decent-looking home fries, slabs of homemade bread slathered with organic peanut butter and strawberry jam, and sausages. The sausages were made from tofu, but they smelled okay.

Barbara’s real coffee slid down my throat like a luge at the Olympics. When I’d emptied the mug, I was ready to say good morning.

“These folks are all in our workshop,” Barbara said. “This is Honey on your left. She’s married to Melvin Markowitz, so she’ll be there helping him.”

So her name really was Honey. She gave me a shy nod and a quarter smile. She’d pulled herself together. Her hair gleamed like amber and smelled of lavender. She wore a halter top the color of lilacs that made the most of her smooth, pale skin and a long purple skirt. We snuck sidelong peeks at each other while Barbara introduced the rest: all couples, blended to a politically correct T. Jewish guy with Asian woman. Blonde Valkyrie with African-American guy. Irish lesbian with freckles, a shaved head, and long earrings and her butch partner, whose olive skin, majestic nose, and cropped black hair might have come from anywhere around the Mediterranean. (“Hi, we’re Wiccans.”)

Breakfast disposed of, all the couples started gathering their belongings.

“Oh, you’re all leaving.” Honey set down the herbal muck she was drinking.

“I’m not,” I said. “You aren’t leading this thing, are you?”

“Oh, no.”

“So relax.” I grinned. “Drink some more of your weeds there. What’s the worst that’ll happen if you’re late? He’ll give you detention?”

She shook her head. Barbara frowned at me. She thinks a card-carrying codependent has a license to matchmake. I could tell she wanted to remind me that Honey was married and I wasn’t ready. But how did you reach the point of having a sober relationship if not the same way you get to Carnegie Hall? You practice and you practice. Besides, Honey’s husband was a world-class jerk.

“What?” I asked Honey as Barbara trotted off. “Does he give you a hard time?”

“It’s probably my fault. His first wife, Annabel, helped him develop the whole curriculum. He always says they were equal partners.”

“Tactless of him.”

Jojo, who was Annabel’s friend, had referred to Honey as a trophy wife. It had never occurred to me that it’s not much fun being the trophy. Her full lower lip and round chin trembled, and her eyes filled with tears. I looked around for something for her to mop her eyes with, but at the Farm, they didn’t kill trees for paper napkins. Honey’s skimpy top didn’t offer a square inch of excess cloth.

“Use your skirt. That’s better. Hey, easy does it.”

“That’s what my father says.” She smiled and drew a wobbly breath.

“Really? He isn’t a recovering alcoholic, by any chance, is he?”

“That’s amazing. How did you know?”

“Personal experience, I’m afraid.” I couldn’t believe I was telling her. I had gotten sick of everybody knowing I was a drunk. “Is your family in New York?”

“Oh, no. They’re all back in Nebraska—all my family and friends.”

“Wow. I never knew anybody from Nebraska before.”

That made her smile.

“Yeah, it can get kind of lonely. My dad’s been in AA for a long time. It’s a small town, and we’re like a big family. I go to meetings too—ACOA.”

Adult children of alcoholics. Everyone said I needed to wait a year or two for those.

“How did you end up with him?” I blurted. Trophy wife, indeed. She was just a sweet kid. “Sorry, never mind.”

“No, that’s okay. I guess I thought I’d found another dad. My dad’s been sober most of my life. We’ve always been close. I met Melvin at a workshop he gave for singles. You know, how to find a healthy relationship. He was very charming and charismatic. He can be, honestly.”

Narcissistic, I thought. Manipulative. Honey deserved better. Yeah, yeah. None of my business.

“I’d better go,” Honey said. “Don’t you have to get somewhere?”

“Nope. I figure if I have to watch the clock, I’m not getting what I came for anyway. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Oops, gotta rush, I’ll be late for meditation.” I got to see her luminous smile again. It transformed her rather anxious face. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your workshop.”

We strolled down the winding path. We passed a few elves raking new-cut grass and weeding flowerbeds. The still air carried the distant drumming I’d been told accompanied the ecstatic dancers.

Rounding a curve, we came face to face with Jojo and a tall, confident-looking woman with a hard jaw and expensively streaked hair. Both she and Jojo wore whites and carried rackets. I felt Honey tense beside me.

“Oh, hi, Jojo.”

“My man Bruce. The roommate,” he explained to his companion.

“Annabel,” Honey said in a wisp of a voice.

“Well, well.” Annabel bared her teeth. “What a surprise.” She made a drama out of looking at her watch. The band, a narrow circle of diamonds, flashed in the sun. It suited Annabel: expensive and harder than carborundum. Cuts glass and subsequent wives. “How lovely to see you, dear.” Her tone was as sweet as honey spiked with cyanide.

“How are my friends with the braids and tie-dye doing in the couples group?” I asked over a lunch that would have made Bambi and Thumper a lot happier than it made me. “The seekers with the phony names?”

“Madhusudhana,” Barbara said. “It’s a name for Krishna. She told us. But they call him Madhouse.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “He seems like a guy with no safety catch to me.”

“She said it was because of his karmic energy,” Barbara said. “And she’s Feather.”

“Melvin Markowitz called her Arlene,” Jimmy said.

“Of course,” I said. “It’s Woo-Woo Farm, where Feathers rise from the ashes of Arlenes.”

Jimmy took a swig of overpriced sports water, chock full of electrolytes. I’d tried a mouthful. It tasted like human sweat.

“The guy is good,” he said.

“He already fixed everybody’s relationship problems?”

“Nope, but everybody already hates him, so all the couples are standing shoulder to shoulder in self-defense.”

“You are so clever.” Barbara beamed at him. “Do you think it was a paradoxical intervention?”

Barbara’s a counselor and loves to trot out the lingo. Her day job pays her to poke her nose in people’s business, which she’d do anyway. Efficient.

“Naw, he’s just a prick.” Jimmy rocked his chair onto its two back legs and took another swig of sweat water.

“What did he do?” I asked.

“He’s got a knack for picking up on people’s hot spots,” Barbara said.

“For instance? What was yours?”

Barbara and Jimmy looked at each other. Jimmy’s shoulders twitched. Barbara’s lips tightened.

“Having kids,” Barbara said.

“Jeez.”

That was too serious to tease them about. Barbara’s biological clock was ticking, and Jimmy came from four generations of alcoholism. It wasn’t a hot spot; it was a raging volcano.

“How come Markowitz is so successful,” I asked, “if he’s such an SOB?”

“Good question,” Jimmy said.

“Never mind about that now,” Barbara said. “I’m taking Bruce to Shangri-La.”

“Who, me? Where?”

“The wellness center,” Barbara said. “Just say yes.”

I just said yes.

“Jimmy, are you sure you don’t want me to sign you up for a massage?”

Jimmy shuddered. He’s Irish Catholic on both sides. Nobody sees him naked.

“I’m going down to the lake,” he said. “Someone told me you can sometimes get a signal up on the lifeguard chair.”

Cell phones didn’t work at the Farm, except for an occasional patch in which a signal would mysteriously go through. You could see people wandering around at all hours like diviners with their dowsing rods, looking for those spots.

“Internet withdrawal?” I asked.