From Comfortable Distances (34 page)

“A monk on leave isn’t
encouraged to reach out to his brothers while he’s discerning vows. I think
they fear it would cause an epidemic. I’ve spoken to my abbot and he’s assured
me that Father Demetrius is alive and well,” Neal said.

“What did Father
Demetrius think of your leaving the monastery?” Tess said.

“He assured me that we
all had our moments of doubt. He believed that strength and renewed conviction
was what waited for us once we got past our doubts. He told me that if he’d
given in to his doubts, he would never have survived cancer three times. The
Benedictines view doubt as a sickness. Our belief is a faith that surpasses
understanding. To doubt is to—”

“To show that you’re
human,” Tess said.

The pigeon hopped away
from Tess, but didn’t yet take flight.

“Everyone talks about
having faith in things outside of you—religion, your friends, your spouse, the
universe—but no one ever stresses how important it is to have faith in
yourself,” Tess said. When she finished talking, she realized that she had been
watching the pigeon as it took flight.

“Oh,” she said,
squatting.

“What is it?” Neal said.

The pigeon skimmed the
surface of the water. It strained its head in her direction before it flapped
its wings and soared higher.

She shook her head.

In a moment, Neal was on
his feet. “We should go back. You have to get ready for work,” he said.

Tess nodded in what felt
to her like slow motion, and he clasped her hands, pulling her to her feet.

He looked into her eyes,
searching, and Tess saw the little boy in him. It made her feel helpless,
incredibly helpless and what she wanted more than anything at that moment was
to move inside his mind, his heart, his body. To know him from the inside out.
To hold him beyond the physical realm, to reach him. She didn’t believe she had
ever felt that way before with a man, with anyone.

She draped her arms
around his neck, gently nudging his head into the safety of her shoulder. She
felt his breaths against her and fell in line with them, rubbing her ear and
chin into his flesh, like a mother tending her cub. She felt him loosen, melt
into her. He was so fragile, so vulnerable, and silently she promised to be
good to him, to care for him, her sweet boy, her Neal.

When he lifted his head
from her shoulder, she took all of him in, a smile overcoming her. He lingered,
his eyes intent on her, and then they were moving, making their way back.

“Look who showed up for
work this afternoon,” Michael said from his office as Tess passed by. He was
drinking iced coffee and jiggling the ice around in the plastic container.

“And how are you, today,
Michael?” Tess said.

“Rough morning with the
monk?” he said.

“Thanks, I’m great,” Tess
said.

“Is the affair at the hot
and heavy stage?” he said.

Tess backtracked and
walked into his office, putting her briefcase down on his chair. She bit her
bottom lip.

“Ah, Tess is nervous.
Have I struck a chord?”

“What’s that supposed to
mean?” she said.

“You only bite your
bottom lip when you’re nervous,” he said.

“It’s funny, in all the
years I’ve known you, I never knew how jealous you were.  It doesn’t become
you,” she said.

“Jealous? I don’t think
so.” Michael slurped down the rest of his ice coffee. “Look, I know you only
come in late if it has to do with sex.”

“Oh really?” she said.

“Are you forgetting our
adulterous mornings?” he said.

“Now you’re comparing our
relationship to mine and Neal’s?” she said.       

“See, I knew you were
involved with him. Platonic my arse, my dear. I know you Tess Rose. Don’t
forget that. Just answer me this one question: are you sleeping with him on the
bed we shared?” he asked.

Tess shook her head and
forced out a grunt-laugh. “You are too much.” She picked up her briefcase. “If
you remember, this is still an office, and while we’re here, we work,” she
said. She nodded at the folders piled up in his inbox. “No time for coffee
breaks, buddy. Looks like you got a lot to do.”

“That’s my girl. Always
the boss lady. If you’re back to business so quickly, the sex couldn’t have
been that fulfilling,” he said.

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Ah, I touched a nerve,”
he said.

“I don’t have time for
your interrogations. Excuse me while someone here gets to work.”

“I think all of the yoga
has made you lose your mind,” he said.

“Have a great day,
Michael,” Tess said on her way out.

Tess plopped down in her
office chair, took a deep breath, and let it go. She felt as if she were a
balloon losing air. There were folders scattered all over her desk with post its
on them—
please review — pending sale. Can we talk about this ASAP
?
Sometimes she felt as if her agents were her children: all needy, all the time.
When she glanced at the list of messages in her phone log, she realized that
she had left her reading glasses in her car. Michael waved to her with his
Ronald McDonald smirk as she walked past his office on her way out.

She searched the
passenger seat, and then under her seat: no glasses. There was a car idling
next to her—she held up her hand—she would be out of the way for the person to
pull into the adjacent spot in a moment. The car beeped. She held up her hand
again. Damn, can’t a person wait a second? Another beep. Asshole! Tess stood
up, saw the blue Toyota, and thought immediately,
her
, Neal’s mom. Mrs.
Clay stared at Tess, her hands gripping the steering wheel and Tess stared back
at her. Was she supposed to wave? Was she supposed to walk over to the car?

Mrs. Clay leaned over and
opened the passenger door.

“Get in,” she said.

Tess looked around.

“Get in the car,” Neal's
mother repeated. Neal’s mother beeped her horn. “I won’t stop beeping until you
get in.”

Tess looked up at her
office window and then at Michael’s. The coast was clear. Her heart was racing.
The last thing she wanted to do was get in the car with the raving lunatic, but
if she didn’t, there was the possibility Mrs. Clay would keep beeping; the possibility
that Michael would come to the window to investigate the commotion. Mortified
by the possibility of a scene in front of her office—the embarrassment! —she
made her way over to the car and got in.

Mrs. Clay drove off, her
eyes straight ahead.

“Would you like to tell
me what it is you think you're doing?” Mrs. Clay asked, her voice calm and
weighted, so that it made Tess feel as if she were sinking.

Tess cleared her throat. “Excuse
me?”  Sweat began to pool on her upper lip. She flipped the air conditioner
vent up and down. No air.

“Aren't you ashamed of
yourself? You seduce my son and then you go off to play at work with your
ex-husband.”

“Stop the car,” Tess
said.

Mrs. Clay kept driving.

Tess braced her hands on
the dashboard. “This is kidnapping. Stop the car.”

Mrs. Clay glanced at her
and then back on the road. Her glare—insistent, deranged—made Tess sprout
gooseflesh.

“You realized that you've
destroyed Neal,” Mrs. Clay said. She spoke matter-of-factly now, clinical.

How in the world was she
so stupid as to get in her car? Tess opened the car door while the car was in
motion and Mrs. Clay stopped short.

“Are you crazy?” Mrs.
Clay said.

Tess caught her breath,
her insides pulsing. “Are you?” Tess said.

“Close that door,” she
snapped. “You’ll get us hit,” she said, reaching over Tess to close the door,
so that Tess pushed her away.

 “Keep your hands on the
steering wheel!” Tess screamed and closed the door. “Are you trying to get us
killed?” A car swerved around them, beeping.

Mrs. Clay was in her
zombie-driving trance again.

“Look, I have a son, too,”
Tess said. “I'm sure that this is a lot for you—your son coming home and
meeting me. I’m sorry if you think that I’m this evil woman who’s corrupted
your son's life. That's not the case. I was doing fine on my own. I didn't want
to be bothered with anyone, quite frankly. You were the one who pushed him on
me that first time you brought him over to my house.”

“Not on your life, missy.
Neal told me that he wanted to go to your house,” Mrs. Clay said.

“I never invited him
over,” Tess said.

“Hah! You think I was
born yesterday? You seduced him and then you better believe he did whatever you
told him to do. Neal follows orders well.”

“You should know,” Tess
said.

Mrs. Clay pressed her
foot to the gas, her neck disappearing into her shoulders so that she looked
like a hunched-back witch.

“Stop this car!” Tess
said, her body damp now, her adrenaline flowing so that she had to fight to
take slow, steady breaths. She was not going to have a heart attack over this
woman.
Slow and steady
she told herself.

“Mrs. Clay, I did not
seduce him and I did not tell Neal what to do and if you don’t slow down you’re
going to cause a wreck.”

“So now you’re pleading
innocent?” Mrs. Clay said.

“I’m not guilty of
anything,” Tess said. Mrs. Clay had driven around in a circle. They were making
their way back towards her office.

“Things would not have
just
happened
had you let him be,” Mrs. Clay said.

“Trust me, the last thing
I need is to chase a man. I’m a successful, independent woman.”

“Who happened to have
multiple husbands. I’m sure according to your calendar, it was about time for
your next husband.”

Tess kept her eyes on the
road; ahead, there was a four-way stop.

“For the grace of God,
how could you have let things progress between the two of you once you knew he
was discerning his vows? Twenty-three years in a monastery and some slut who
has had God knows how many relationships, decides to seduce him. Haven't you
done enough harm in your lifetime? Do you realize how confused Neal is?”

“Stop,” Tess screamed,
her hands pointing to the stop sign before she braced the dashboard and Mrs.
Clay slammed the brakes, looking left then right before she moved forward.

“If anyone is confused,
it’s you. Neal, for your information, is happy,” Tess said. “Or are you too
blind to see that in his face?”

“You're having sex with a
man who is married to God,” she said.

They were four blocks
from Best Realty. Tess opened the car door again. “Pull over,” she said. “Now!
I’ll call the cops on you for God’s sake.”

Mrs. Clay made her way to
the curb.

“You're corrupting Neal,”
she said, her voice faint.

Tess swallowed and
smoothed the creases in her blazer jacket, biting her bottom lip before she
turned to Mrs. Clay, whose eyes faced straight ahead. Tess moved closer to her,
lowering her voice.

“You're obviously a
miserable old hag who's desperate to control everything and everyone in your
life. But you know what, Mrs. Clay? You can't control me. I won't play your
games.”

“You'll be sorry. You
wait and see how sorry you’ll be,” Mrs. Clay said.

“No,” Tess said, bracing
herself to get out of the car, feeling her face flushed. “I won't be. You'll
be. A mother should always support her son, no matter what he chooses. If you
can't accept Neal and stop trying to control him, you're the one who'll be
sorry.”

Tess slammed the car door
shut and walked away without looking back. She was wearing sling-back
stilettos:
perfect
walking shoes. For a moment, she froze, imagining
Mrs. Clay following her back to work and then coming inside her office and
causing all sorts of havoc in front of her employees. This was ridiculous. Tess
would not run scared from this crazy woman. How idiotic could she have been to
get into her car! Tess waited for the light to turn green, and crossed the
street. She practiced her ujayi breaths: one slow inhale followed by a slow
exhale. She imagined that she looked as if she was preparing to give birth.
Composure. Calm. She sighed. Mrs. Clay was nowhere in sight. Tess sighed and
moved faster now. He was a grown man, monk or not. A grown man with a mind of
his own. She made her way back towards her office, where she saw her car in the
parking lot, the driver side door swung open. There, on the floor, under the
door, were her glasses.

Tess sat up and stretched tall in her
bed. 5:56. She had set her alarm for 4:30. Her plan was to get up early and
meditate, read a bit before the morning work rush. She supposed she needed the
sleep, although tinges of regret gripped her. Lost time was simply that: lost.
In the early morning sunlight that pierced her room in two, dust particles
danced about. When she was a young girl, she had thought of the particles as
secrets floating all about. She certainly had her share of secrets these days.
She fell back into bed and smiled, last night coming back to her. In the week
since she and Neal had first made love, he had come to visit her three times.
That had become their unofficial code word, “If you’re around tonight, I’d like
to visit,” he would say during their morning walks. Yesterday she had asked him
if he wanted to visit her in the evening. She glanced over at the pillow a few
feet from her own and could still make out the indent of his head. As they had
cuddled in bed well past 10:00 pm, she had pleaded with him to stay the night,
playful at first—she understood that he would have to deal with his mother if
he didn’t show up at her house—but she surprised herself when she felt the
longing in her voice when she asked him again. That was silly night talk
though. At least now it seemed as such. It suited her just fine that he went
home and that she settled in and got a good night’s sleep and woke up alone in
her bed, in her house, the way she liked it. Quiet. She reached for his pillow
and pulled it tight against her so that her insides rushed for a moment; she
could smell his clean soapy scent on it if she held it close. It was a
masculine smell to her. He made her feel sexy and alive and desirable. Mmm, she
said aloud, her body tingling thinking about his body.

It was time to get up. Tess put on
her gray zip up sweatshirt that was on the floor beside her bed and searched
for her panties on the floor. She peeked down the stairs to check if Neal had
locked up the front door as he said he would, and peering back at her at the
bottom of the stairs was a glistening pair of eyes that sprang up the stairs
when they met her gaze. In a moment, Buddhi was there beside her in the
kitchen, rubbing up against her, doing a long downward facing dog while she
scratched his back. He was becoming more of a housecat in these weeks. When she
opened the door for him, giving him the option to leave, he would sniff the
outdoor air, and then run away from the door and up the stairs. His favorite
spot was sitting on the living room windowsill. He would move from side to side
as if he was clocking how long it took people outside to walk from one end of
Tess's house to the next.

She microwaved some hot water—it was
faster that way—and then sipped her tea at the kitchen table, opening up
Charlotte Joko Beck's
Everyday Zen.
For the past few days, she had taken
to opening it up to a random page, fixing her eyes on a sentence, and letting
that be her mantra of the day. It had been a game she had played when she was
growing up—she would pick a book from mother's collection, close her eyes, open
it up to a random page, and whatever sentence her eyes would focus on she would
let be the theme of her day.

We refuse to see the truth that's all
around us. We don't really see life at all. Our attention is elsewhere. We are
engaged in an unending battle with our fear about ourselves and our existence.

Tess thought for a moment about this
here and now of her life and wondered if she was in fact refusing to see the
truth that was all around her. Was she somehow deceiving herself by becoming a
yoga teacher while working her hectic pace at Best, and having some fun with
Neal? She imagined that in some way she was, but for the first time in a long
time, she was enjoying living and not worrying about what was right or wrong,
not worrying about the consequences—if there were any at all. Was her attention
elsewhere? She believed that her attention was where it needed to be—in each
moment of her life as she lived it. She was beginning to let go of her fears and
letting someone get to know her without putting on a show, which didn't mean
that new fears wouldn’t spring up. She closed the book and yawned deep and
loud, her hands reaching for the ceiling. 

Buddhi made his way up on the table
and plopped himself down on
Everyday Zen
. He sniffed at the steam rising
from her tea, then feeling the wetness, wrinkled his nose and shook his head,
resting it back down on the table.

When the phone rang, both she and
Buddhi jumped. 6:15 a.m. Her heart sank—it was too early to deal with Neal's
mother. She took a deep breath and cleared her throat.

“Hello?”

“Hello Mother.”

“Prakash,” Tess said. “What are you
doing awake? Didn’t you just get home from your Mexican retreat?”

“Yes. I couldn't sleep.”

“Are you okay?” Tess said.

“Is there something you need to tell
me, Mother?”

“I appreciate your calling me Mother.”

“Michael told me you’re in a
relationship with the monk,” Prakash said.

“Michael has a big mouth,” Tess said.

“Please tell me he’s wrong. After our
talk in Woodstock, I thought you were done with all of that.”

“Prakash, I am done with the
marriages.”

“You told me that you had to fall in
love with yourself first.”

“Kash, nothing has changed. Why are
you so upset? What’s going on?”

“Michael seems like a mess, Mom. He still
loves you.”

“Please don’t listen to Michael. He
feels sorry for himself. It will pass.”

“I just don’t want you to go through
this again.”

“I am not going through anything
again, Kash. I promise that I am not getting married.”

“Michael said he’s a weirdo.”

“He reminds me of your grandmother.
He’s unique.”

“No one is going to be able to take
the place of grandma.”

“No one,” Tess said. “So, did you
meet the woman of your dreams in Mexico?”

“I did yoga and meditated and hiked,”
he said. “Perfect getaway.”

“You’ll meet her yet,” Tess said.

“Mom, marriage is not on my mind.”

“No, but some amazing girl is going
to love you and you are not going to be able to resist her.”

“What I love about you, Mom, is that
you’re the eternal romantic. No matter that marriage was not all fun and games
for you. You still believe in it.”

“Marriage is a beautiful thing when
there’s honesty in it,” Tess said.  “Oh—know who I saw last weekend at yoga
teacher training?” Tess asked.

“Who?”

“Luke from Woodstock,” Tess said.

“What was he doing in New York City?”

“Giving a lecture on Patajanali's
Yoga
Sutras
. Apparently he knows one of the mentors of the teacher-training
program. He took some classes somewhere with one of them.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, Kash?”

“Don’t go and get married again.”

“Your wedding is the only one I’ll be
attending any time soon,” Tess said. “Get some sleep. And do not listen to
Michael’s ranting. Just because he thinks he knows it all, he does not.”

Tess surveyed her bedroom from the
doorway: she moved toward Neal’s side of the bed and picked up the photograph
that he had brought to show her last night and left behind. There was Neal, in
his faded black robe, dead center. All of the monks were smiling. The skies
were a vibrant blue, the fields beyond them a lush green. Tess traced Neal in
the picture. His robe reminded her of a dyed potato sack. A monk. There was a
blankness in his eyes—as if he was looking beyond the picture. Yet there was an
earnestness in his expression that Tess had never witnessed. She studied it for
a few moments longer before she moved to counter of her bureau and picked up a
picture of herself with hands spread, motioning
ta da
in front of her
Best Reality office. There were grand opening banners in the window.  So many
years ago. So many Tess’s ago. People changed. Tess changed. If she did, it was
possible Neal did, too. She placed Neal’s picture beside her own.
That was
then
, she supposed the title for the pictures could be. She wasn’t sure
what photos would go under the caption:
this is now
.

She made up the bed, letting the flat
sheet air out before she fastened it onto the mattress, tucking the corners in
first and then the sides. She folded the blanket down just right, smoothing it
before she fluffed up the pillows and set them up against the bed board. She
liked that sometimes order was easy to attain.

As the shower’s hot spray slithered
all over her body, she sighed. There were mornings that starting over again
appealed to Tess. There were other days, however, such as this one, in which
the thought of putting on makeup and doing her hair and picking out clothes to
wear seemed like impossible tasks to accomplish. How nice it would be to lounge
around and relax in bed, read. She laughed. Is that what liking a man, feeling
content, did to her? She wondered what her days would consist of if she took a
leave of absence, like Dale. But no, it wouldn’t suit her not to work at all.
She liked to work. Just sometimes she longed for a break. Heck, even Neal was
taking a break. Sure he was busy baking his cookies and writing and discerning
his vows, but basically he was on an extended vacation. Michael had once told
her that she was the only person he knew that didn’t need a vacation and her
response had been that if you love what you do, your whole life is like a
vacation, only now she wasn’t so sure of that. Was her life like a vacation? Or
was it so heavily cloaked in work that she was disconnected from what she
really felt or believed? The skin on her fingers began to prune—Tess turned off
the water.

Drying off she started to run over
the things she had to do that day at work—she knew that there were some
closings she had to review. She moved to the kitchen in her robe and pulled out
her blackberry. Thirty-two things spanned her to-do list. Michael had emailed
her over a dozen times already from what she could tell as she scrolled down
her inbox. There was Max who was making noise about the commission on the deal
he was in the middle of closing and the house on Strickland Avenue to show and
the house over on Indiana Drive that she needed to check out. So much movement
all the time. She felt the tumult rising up in her. It was too much for her
sometimes—too much to think about, to do. She pulled out her orange post it pad
and began to write herself notes—call Mr. Distifano and confirm time for
showing house on Strickland. In parentheses she put down Mr. Nelson—she could
see him as being interested if the price was right. Couldn’t hurt to call him
about it.

She was in the bathroom blow drying
her hair and then blending moisturizer and concealer—the best way to even out
her face and cover her freckles – when she heard her cell phone ringing.
Michael. Where was she? He was waiting for her. They needed to go over some
contracts. Story of her life. She paced her bedroom, listening to Michael
reading from the contracts, giving his input. Her eyes were stuck on Neal’s
monk picture. It seemed ridiculous, all of it—what Michael was saying, Neal
being a monk, having to put on mascara and pick out an outfit. Absolutely ridiculous,
and yet it was her life.

“Are you listening to me?” Michael
said.

“No,” she said. “I’m not.”

“Well that’s nice. I’m glad that
you’re otherwise occupied.”

“I wish you didn’t feel you had the
right to share my business with my family,” she said.

“Prakash called. That’s what your
attitude is about,” Michael said.

She could hear the smugness in his
voice.

“Yes, Prakash called. I like how you
assume you know what’s going on between me and Neal.”

“Whatever you do with your freak
boyfriend is your business.”

She laughed and breathed out deeply
into the phone.

“I’m glad that you have a sense of
humor about it.”

“I never knew that jealousy could
make you pathetic,” she said.

“That’s a lovely comment,” Michael
said. “Now I’m jealous and pathetic. Anything else?”

“You assume you know what is going on
with Neal, but you’re wrong,” Tess said.

“I know when you’re having sex,” he
said.

She laughed again. “Do you realize
how absurd you sound sometimes? You know when I’m having sex. Uh oh, can’t get
one by you, Michael. What are you the sex psychic or something?”

“I can tell by your mood. You’re
spunkier when you’re having sex,” he said.

“Okay, conversation over. You’re
boring me. I’m getting ready, and I’ll be there in a bit and then we can
discuss whatever work stuff you need to discuss with me,” she said. “I am not
discussing my personal life with you. Bye now.”

She flipped her phone closed. She
picked out a navy suit—simple, appropriate—and a crisp white button down.
Michael would tell her that she looked like a flight attendant. She didn’t
care. Right then she was craving simplicity. Dressed, she dabbed on some
mascara and fixed up her lashes with a Q-tip. She adjusted her hair with her
fingers, pulling a curl this way and that. The wind would do its thing with her
hair. She wished she had more patience, or discipline, to blow dry it straight,
only it seemed like too much work for too little reward, especially with the
humidity that was sure to attack her when she set foot outside. She grabbed her
orange post it, stuck it on her blackberry. Why she didn’t use her blackberry
as her phone was beyond him, Michael liked to say, but Tess wasn’t big on
having everything in one due to the dependency factor. Yoga breaths. That’s
what she told herself, but she didn’t feel like yoga breaths. Her mood was all
over the place, a mixture of everything and nothing. Life sometimes. As she
drove down 66
^th
street, doing a good 15-miles per hour faster than
the 35 mph limit, she slammed her brakes when the yellow light turned red at
the Avenue U intersection. There, at the bus stop shelter, her smiling face
stared back at her, wrinkles and all. Best Reality. Who
,
she wondered,
was Tess Rose minus Best Reality, minus her fancy suits and Mercedes and
blackberry and cell phones? Stripped of everything that she defined herself by,
who was she?