of fantasy: me standing next to an enormous glacier in Alaska, with its ruts and turns and chipped-away floes, with a green Bic lighter and a dumb level of optimism.
“And if they don’t?” I whisper.
“We encase them in ice blocks like that David Blaine guy and make them a fabulous art déco performance art centerpiece in the reception hall.” My love gave my hand a squeeze. It was probably the first time I genuinely smiled all night. I couldn’t remember. “Mothers on Ice…sounds like an ice skating special on TV, doesn’t it?”
Only Anthony could make reference to a figure skating show and still impress me with his virility. I needed him bad right now. “Hey, A,” I said with a dash of suggestion in my voice. “Can you find someplace to pull over?”
His look turned to concern. “You going to be sick?”
I took a moment to let a mischievous smile grow across my lips. “Nope.”
Tires screeching, we pulled into the back end of a crowded parkway rest stop parking lot. And got a pair of Starbucks white chocolate mochas and a Mrs. Field’s brownie to split when we were finished.
Chapter 5
“She’s burning that incense crap again,” Anthony waved his hand in front of his face once we’d pushed open my apartment door, forcing it with all four of our hands to fight the weather strip the landlord had put across the bottom edge. Rather than get us a door that doesn’t have a two-inch gap on the bottom, she stapled on some insulation stripping. Now every time we try to enter my home, it’s an upper-body workout.
My roommate, Leah, had lit not one, not two, not three, but four sticks of patchouli incense. Thick swirls of smoke rose up from the coffee table, and over the entire top half of the room hovered a cloud so dense it resembled one of those old French bordello and dance halls. Leah was nowhere to be found.
I looked up and saw the familiar plastic shower cap covering the smoke detector in the living room, and shook my head. “A, could you open the screen door?”
Shaking his head but with a half smile, Anthony assumed his usual task. Air circulation.
“Leah?” I called out through the place, but received no answer.
“Sorry, I can’t take your call right now. I’m reading my aura and consulting with my past selves. But if you’d like to leave a message at the beep…” Anthony teased, helping himself to a Corona out of my refrigerator. He has his own shelf in there…Coronas, string cheese, and V-8 Splash. If I’d been a stranger behind him in a supermarket checkout line, the inevitable analysis of his food choices would leave me no answer as to his sexuality.
“Stop teasing,” I nudged him, helping myself to an iced tea from my own shelf. All woman, it is. Yogurt, hummus, Dasani water, carrot sticks, and a roll of Pillsbury cookie dough. And my undereye concealer in the egg compartment.
Anthony just shrugged as if to say but she makes it so easy! And she does. I’ll be the first one to admit it.
Leah’s heart broke open last summer, after her fiancé left her almost at the altar. Actually it was the rehearsal dinner. And he left her for what we think might have been a man. Tall woman, large hands, hairy knuckles, and either a thyroid problem or a definite Adam’s apple. Bright red hair, matching red lipstick and too pale skin, went by the name of Kiki and listed her occupation (says Leah’s P.I.) as exotic waitress. We’re not sure if that means exotic dancer, or if she was trying to jazz up her position as a waitress in a Thai restaurant as something a little bit more enticing. We saw nothing enticing about her when she broke into Leah’s rehearsal dinner with dark mascara tears running down her face, leaping across a chair to dive into Leah’s fiancé’s arms, crying out in broken English, “Don’t marry her, she’s too short!”
I remember I had a mouthful of carrot cake at the time, which I promptly choked out almost through my nose. As did everyone else, with various sprays of red wine, water, beer, and potato-leek soup flying out of their noses or in sprays out of their lips, or just shooting down the wrong pipes. And there was poor Leah, standing there in her designer navy blue wrap dress, her hair up, her nails done for the next day, drained white, speechless, and at one moment so obliterated that I swore she looked translucent.
Her fiancé (whose name we don’t utter) took the lowdown ego boost and ran from the room with Kiki, leaving the truly good woman behind. It’s not exactly how it goes in all the best romantic movies. John Cusack would never run off with Kiki. John Cusack would have started off with Kiki, then found his spine and run off with Leah.
Fast forward through Leah’s six months of isolation, mourning, daytime television, quitting her job (she says), and a trip to France to find herself, and what returned to us was a glassy-eyed shell of what she used to be. And the glassy-eyed shell called Leah had discovered Eastern arts. Feng shui. Mysticism. Native American rituals.
I didn’t ask about colonic cleansing, because I have to use that bathroom too.
She flirted briefly with changing her name to Amaya Feather Lighthorse, upon the advice of a Native American healer she’d bunked up with in New Mexico, done the sweat lodges naked with, and embarked on vision quests. But she stayed with the name Leah for professional reasons. And also because as lost as she was, as much as she turned to Eastern philosophy to answer questions she’d never be able to answer with straight logic and common sense, she wasn’t completely gone. She just needed this magical thinking to give her some kind of sense, some sense of control in her life. She’d left it up to chance and trust before…now she was going to partner with the universe for meaning and fate to come to her with an engraved invitation from the forces that be.
I found it harmless for now. It gave her some semblance of control. And while it was amusing to onlookers, it really was harmless. Plenty of people believe in feng shui. Corporations pay feng shui consultants to come in and move their furniture around, hang up mirrors and red banners where they can redirect the energies of the space, and all of a sudden their lives were in balance and their balance sheets had some life to them. Don’t knock it, Leah says. Feng shui is real.
Our apartment has been rearranged, by Leah. Tables moved, mirrors hung or removed, bamboo shoots in glass bowls bring luck to her Personal Growth corner, a trickling fountain (that I really enjoy, actually) brings renewed energy to her money corner. And this being my apartment too, hey, maybe the good luck charms will swing some extra accounts my way.
Anthony has some trouble with this, of course. He doesn’t like being one of her icons. Apparently, a feng shui book told Leah to fill the Love and Romance corner of the house with images that would attract true and everlasting love for her. Heart-shaped pink quartz stones, pairs of candles (always pairs, never single anything!), and framed photos of Anthony and me as the symbols of the kind of love she wants. I find it harmless, but Anthony doesn’t like to be on anyone’s altar.
Leah has added a crystal figure of two bodies entwined sensually, plus flower seeds. I don’t ask. Must be a fertility thing.
Whatever she’s discovered, she’s been happier. She has a new interest other than replaying her fiancé’s departure over and over in her head and refusing to use words with “ki” or “key” in them. That’s why she didn’t sign up for reiki classes. I don’t even know what reiki is, so no explanations are necessary.
“Leah?” I called again, and her door pulled open. No smoke in her room. “Hey, it’s so smoky in here,” I waved my hands in front of me, while Anthony used a magazine to sweep some of the fog out of the room.
“Sorry, I was on the phone inside,” Leah apologized and shrugged sheepishly. She wore a pink tank top with a white sports bra underneath, at my suggestion weeks ago because the no bra look wasn’t working for me and Anthony, and gray boxer shorts. Her hair was up and braided.
“Try to light just one, okay?” I suggested. “The neighbors are going to think you’re smoking something in here.”
“I’m not smoking anything,” she defended herself. “But