17. What Scares Us

“We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us.”
—Pema Chödrön

The living room looked dark and eerie as Jen walked back inside, alone in Michigan for the first time. It was early, just about seven o’clock according to the clock hanging on the wall, though the sun outside looked like it had risen hours ago. She tried to decide how she would spend the fifteen hours before it would be acceptable to go back to sleep. Her stomach lurched and her familiar queasiness escalated to a level she hadn’t experienced so far. She sat down heavily on the couch, with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands, and stared at the wall across from her.

She felt the strong urge to climb back under the covers on her wobbly bed and postpone the decision. No one would notice if she slept in, or in fact, if she slept all day. Nobody here knew her and nobody was expecting her to be doing anything. This was total freedom, she realized, trying to psyche herself up for the unplanned day ahead, but it seemed more like utter senselessness, and she wondered whether she had been entirely misguided all the times when she had longed for a life without obligation.

Now, granted that thing that she had so often longed for, a day with truly nothing that she needed to do, Jen hastened to fill it with plans. In her head, she began to make a list of activities for the day; then, spotting a notepad that Becky had left on the coffee table, she sat down to write the list down on paper. It was satisfying to see the list grow and that her plans, documented in this physical way, would fill over half a page:

Go to the co-op.
Get tea and breakfast.
Maybe ask the cashier about yoga classes. (Since this would be the first time that she would stand in line to pay for her own drink.)
Buy Mid-Northern-Central Michigan University t-shirts. (If she was going to be living here, she might as well try to fit in.)
Go to Snail Plant and spy on secret army.
Come home.
Do yoga in the yard.
Cook healthy dinner. (Using the array of healthy ingredients that Becky had stocked the kitchen with before she left).
Read before bed.

It sounded pretty full when she wrote everything out like that. Still, she realized that these activities actually added up to rather a sparse day. She couldn’t possibly spend much more than an hour at the co-op, and she would be lucky to fill an entire half-hour snooping around the Snail Plant.

Then she had an idea, and she added one more item to the top of her list, above all the others: “WALK TO TOWN,” it said, in large letters.

This new aspect of her plan made her almost excited. Walking would be an adventure, and would take up the entire day; if she walked all the way into town, and then to the Snail Plant, and then back, it would definitely be dark by the time she got home. It was the sort of thing that she always fantasized about doing in Los Angeles, spending a whole day just walking. But in LA it would be seen as impossibly weird to walk anywhere more than a few blocks away, and anyway there would be nothing to look at as she walked; just blocks after block of broad boulevards lined with identical buildings and palm trees. Here there was a lot to see, a whole new landscape of forest and Midwestern suburb that was unlike anything Jen had ever experienced on either of the coasts where she had lived.

If she was going to walk, she needed to eat some food first, she decided, feeling proud of herself for her practical planning and self-care. It would be nice to make a little breakfast and some tea. Mint tea would be good for her queasiness, which had already subsided a bit, and then she could get some black tea later at the co-op to keep her alert through her long day. She would go upstairs and choose a book from the bookshelf, a first book that would set the tone of her stay here, and sit and read and drink tea. It sounded so pleasant, so civilized, that some of her dread lifted and she became excited about the morning ahead of her.

She walked towards the back of the house to the kitchen to figure out what to eat. There was bread in the freezer, and peanut butter in the refrigerator; that would be a nutritious breakfast for a long walk. She pried two slices off of the frozen loaf and dropped them into the battered old toaster on the counter, which looked tiny compared to the six-slice deluxe model she was used to using at her house.

The cupboard with the tea was now stocked with a number of exotic varieties that Becky had picked out. Jen rummaged through the different medicinal teas—for throat problems, stomach problems, “women’s” problems, and cleansing—and assorted varieties of chai, before choosing the same licorice-spearmint blend that had been left in the cabinet earlier by Paula’s family. She grabbed her mug, the same one she’d been using all week, from the side of the sink, filled it with water, and carried over to the microwave.

But looking at the slick black door of the microwave oven, her tea enthusiasm cooled. In her pleasant-morning-fantasy, the tea would not be heated in a microwave; it would be poured from a steaming kettle. She looked over at the stove, hoping to see a kettle there, but the crooked burners, circled in black where the white enamel had chipped away, were bare.

They must have a kettle here, she thought to herself, opening the cupboard below the microwave. She lowered herself to her knees, shifting stacks of pots and metal bowls around to see what was behind them. She peered into the far dusty recesses near the back wall, but there was no kettle.

She searched the two other low cabinets, which contained a promising assortment of cooking vessels—large stock pots, frying pans, plastic bowls and Tupperware containers—but no kettle.

Looking frantically around the kitchen, she spotted some high cabinets near the ceiling on the sides of the sink. She dragged a chair over from the dining table and climbed onto it. She reached above her head, then winced and drew her right arm back down as the stretch agitated her broken rib. It was almost painless now, after four weeks; Becky had said that broken bones were supposed to heal fully in six. Still, every so often she would get a piercing reminder that her body was not fully intact, and that she needed to be careful with it.

She lifted her arms again, this time more gingerly, opened the cabinet, and reached up to feel around inside of it. She pulled out a few odd items: a kitchen timer, a coffee grinder, and a small crock pot. She crouched on the chair and placed them on the counter one by one. Still no kettle, she thought in frustration, as she patted her hand around the back of the cupboard, finally hitting the rear wall without finding anything else. She moved the chair over and tried the other two ceiling cabinets, but they were empty, except for a phone book from 1994.She began to panic. She wanted tea, not-from-the microwave tea. She would have to buy a kettle, but she would be on foot today, so she’d have to carry it with her all the way back from town, and meanwhile she would have to drink her tea from the microwave. She sat down on the chair she had jut been standing on, crossing her arms sullenly across her chest. Ugh, the microwave, she thought to herself, staring resentfully at it. It was awful, entirely violating the aesthetic of the rustic morning she had planned for herself.

She felt her breathing speeding up to match her annoyance. She hated feeling like this, helpless, allowing one small problem to ruin her whole day. She wondered what Becky would tell her to do, or that substitute yoga teacher who always spouted all the philosophy. Don’t let frustration cloud your thinking, she told herself. Focus. She thought of an affirmation she had read on a poster in Becky’s room: “Persevere patiently until the end.” She took a deep, slow breath and cleared her thoughts. Focus, she told herself. Persevere. Where, she asked herself, with new attentiveness, would Paula’s mother keep the kettle?

Visually, she scanned the kitchen one last time, looking for spots she hadn’t checked. She counted the cabinets, high and low; she had searched every one. Then she began to look at appliances—could it be on top of the refrigerator? She stood on her tiptoes to look; nothing up there. What about the oven? There was a possible spot: the old, rickety oven looked like it might have one of those strange metal drawers built in below it. She walked over to the oven and kneeled to examine it. The bottom section, below the oven door, had a handle. The drawer stuck a little when she pulled on it, until its contents shifted and resettled with a loud clinking noise, allowing it to slide open. Inside she found a number of dirty metal cooking utensils, wedged forcefully together like an incorrectly assembled puzzle, all covered in a thick layer of dark grease. There was a muffin tin, several baking sheets, a stainless steel bowl, and then, stuck in the very back of the drawer, an old, dinged-up kettle.

Jen sighed loudly in relief, and for a moment she collapsed pleasantly onto the floor, exhausted from the effort of her search. Then she felt something sticky on her arm, and realized that she was lying on a dirty kitchen floor; she sat back up and tried to figure out how to remove the kettle from its revealed hiding place.She tried at first to yank it out clumsily, but then decided to do things properly, to set a good precedent for her new life in this kitchen. One by one, she loosened each pan and stacked it neatly on the floor next to her. The kettle, which was the farthest back, emerged last, sticky with grime and dust, and darkened by funny splotches of black and yellow. She placed the other pans neatly back into the oven drawer and closed it with a loud clatter.

In her past life, the filthy coating of the kettle would have immediately ruled it out as too disgusting to use. Now, though, she was so excited to have found it that it didn’t matter what condition it was in; she could work with it. In fact, she welcomed the challenge. I will make this kettle functional, she thought, and then I will really appreciate my tea.

She brought the kettle to the sink and set it down while she waited for the water from the hot tap to warm up. Next to the sink was an old dish sponge. She picked it up, but then saw something better: a little silver ball of steel wool. She doused it with dish soap and began rubbing it over the rounded side of the kettle. It was pleasing to see the black grease break up, to watch the silver color return to the kettle's smooth sides. Even though the grime was thick, it didn’t take very long to dissolve; in few minutes, the kettle was perfectly clean and presentable.

The ease with which she resuscitated the kettle surprised Jen. It wasn’t like she never washed dishes; at home, she often prepared her own tea or breakfast and then rinsed her plate before putting it in the dishwasher. She wasn’t completely inept at normal household tasks, she thought with satisfaction, comparing herself to Chase, who had a live-in housekeeper and a personal chef who did absolutely everything for him. Still, cleaning a filthy kettle was a new height of practicality; in LA, she would have just thrown it out and bought a new one. But with not much effort at all, this former piece of garbage was usable again. It’s really a cute little kettle, thought Jen, pleased with her work.

Rinsing the inside and outside of the kettle one last time, Jen filled it with water and placed it on one of the front burners on the stovetop. Then, looking at the microwave, she made a decision.
She walked over to it, pulled it forward, and reached around the back to unplug it. Lifting it awkwardly from the counter, she carried it into the hall and set it down right in front of the inconspicuous door that led to the basement. She opened the door and switched on the light, illuminating the tangle of cobwebs that Paula had never swept from the staircase. It was difficult to carry the microwave down, with its bulk blocking her vision so that she had to feel each step tentatively with the ball of her foot before she committed to it.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she set down her heavy load and surveyed the basement. Unlike her finished basement in LA, it was dirty and mildew-smelling, and filled with boxes, paint cans, and other assorted junk stacked in messy piles. One corner of the basement angled upwards towards what appeared to be a trap door to the yard; the space underneath was littered with bits of dirt and small rocks that had fallen through from above. There was no furniture at all. She hoped there wouldn’t be too many tornadoes so she wouldn’t have to spend much time down here.

It was obvious where the microwave should go: with the discarded television sets and kitchen appliances against one wall. She felt sad for it as she set it down in its electronic graveyard, buried alive while it was still in functioning condition. But it also seemed appropriate to leave it down there, where she wouldn’t be tempted to use it, to submit to the ease of speed and convenience rather than doing things the proper way. As she climbed the stairs again, she resolved to dust the spider webs herself, as soon as she had a day to spend around the house—maybe the next time it rained, which, she had heard, actually happened during the summer here.

Shutting the basement door behind her, she felt satisfied. Now that she thought about it, she wondered how she could have used a microwave oven for so long. She didn’t even know how it worked, this magical box that heated up food and liquids without ever getting hot inside. She had some vague idea: “microwaves” infiltrated the food and heated up the water molecules inside of it. Or something like that. But what were microwaves? Did they come out of those little holes in the plastic lining of the box? What were they made of? What generated them? She had absolutely no idea, but whatever it was seemed like it had to be pretty unwholesome.

She could hear the tea kettle whistling in the kitchen; she resolved to turn it off in just a moment. First, she climbed the narrow staircase to the room that was now her bedroom and stood across from the tall bookshelf, looking for the book that she would read during her breakfast, the book that she would carry with her into town so that she could sit and read while she ate her lunch at the co-op after she talked to her cashier for the first time. The first book, her foundational Michigan text.

Her unarticulated plan was to read one of the Zen books from the spirituality shelf. Ever since she had first examined the bookshelf, this had been her unspoken intention. While she hated to admit being curious about anything associated with Skipper, she couldn’t help but be intrigued by his professed belief system. During this first, difficult week in Michigan, his words had resonated in her head many times: “That’s the central paradox of human life: acceptance versus desire.” It hadn’t fully made sense to her when he said it, but increasingly she was thinking of this paradox throughout her day, as she tried to decide what it was exactly that she wanted and whether she could accept what it was that she had. Here she was in this new town and this new life, and she knew that she wanted something, wanted it horribly, but she didn’t know yet what it was.

She scanned the top bookshelf looking for books about Zen. The book about Zen and sexuality was a little too much for her right now, plus it would be embarrassing to be seen reading that in town. There was another called Ancient Zen Texts. She pulled it out and let it fall open to a page somewhere in the middle. The page was discussing various scholarly interpretations of a particular letter of the Japanese alphabet. All the scholars agreed that the repeated use of this character in the words of a particular Zen text was symbolic, but they could not agree on what the symbolism entailed. One author was certain it represented “the spirit that imbues all living organisms,” while another believed that it extended not only to organisms but to all organic materials such as dirt and rocks. A third author believed that the character symbolized energy that travels between two bodies, such as magnetism or electricity, or, by further metaphorical extension, sexual tension.

Jen flipped through the rest of the book, scanning for something more illuminating for her own state of mind, but it mostly looked similar to that first page. She placed it on the bed as a possibility and continued looking for something more promising.

She didn’t see any other books on the spirituality shelf that interested her, at least not right now; maybe she would like to learn about the Kabala or Central American tribal religions someday, but right now she felt that it was Skipper’s philosophy that she wanted to understand. It’s okay, she told herself; she could buy something suitable at the bookstore once she walked into town. She just needed to find something on this bookshelf to tide her over until then.

She squatted to search the books on the very lowest shelf, Paula’s shelf. She needed to pull the books out to see what they were, since the titles were worn off of all their spines. She grabbed three thin books in one handful and spread them like playing cards.

She was startled to discover that she had found exactly what she was looking for. In her hands, aligned like a perfect straight flush, were three books by the same author, all with the same cover design, and all on the topic of Zen. One, Zen for Relationships, was clearly not the right choice. She put it back on the shelf and looked at the other two. One was called Zen for Everyday Living. The other was called Zen for Times of Crisis.

She wondered which one better applied to her current state. Logically, she felt that “everyday living” was more apt. It was, after all, a perfect description of what she needed help with; she did not know what her everyday life here would entail, what she would spend her time doing. And yet emotionally, she felt drawn to the book on “crisis,” even though there was no clear reason why this term would apply to her current situation. Maybe her divorce, or that thing with Skipper, or when she broke her rib—those had been acute traumas that called for immediate action. Now things were just…new. New and scary, if she thought about it, but if she didn’t think about it then everything was fine. “This isn’t a crisis,” she said aloud to herself, scornfully. “This is just life.”

She held one book in each hand, judging their weight against each other like a scale. Finally, she put Everyday Living on the floor and examined the back of Crisis.

In place of a blurb, the book had several expert testimonials as to its quality. “Thomas Fo is a national treasure,” the first one said. It was attributed to a professor from the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “His authority on the fundamentals of Zen philosophy is unquestionable, and his ability to convey these precepts to the common reader is unparalleled.”

Hmm, thought Jen. With that description, she imagined the book could go one of two ways: it could be a useful beginner’s guide or a trashy self-help book. She read the next testimonial, which came from a woman described as a “paranormal expert and life coach.” Already this seemed to be a clear sign pointing towards trashy.

“Fo’s perceptive analyses and practical strategies are a must-read for every person facing one of those pivotal moments of decision that make us human.”

Although Jen found this description to be distastefully on the self-help end of the spectrum, it did sound like what she was going through. A pivotal moment of decision; if that’s what a crisis was, then she was in one. She was definitely leaning towards this as her first bookshelf-book.

There was one final testimonial: “I have been a great fan of Fo’s work for many years. His teachings have informed all of my most difficult decisions and helped me find my own personal path to success.”

This one came from Nicolai Snail, who was described simply as a “mogul.”

Jen was fascinated now. She rose up from the floor and sat down on the shaky bed. She could hear the neglected kettle still whistling downstairs; just a minute more, she told herself.

She opened to the first page of the introduction. It started with a story about the author’s life:

“Eleven years ago, I was deeply engaged in that most despicable of careers: acting. I appeared in over seventy television commercials, endorsing products that I had no interest in or even knowledge of: electric razors, amusement parks, batteries. I did a few plays at night, weird student-project types of things that paid almost nothing and never had more than a few people in the audience, friends of the playwright. Every week I went to auditions, trying to get a big break in a sitcom; I got called back a few times, but I never quite got the job. As soon as I raised enough money, I planned to move to Los Angeles, where the real jobs were.

“What was this prize that I was seeking, the sitcom job? Sure, it was steady work, a regular paycheck, an end to the horrible ordeal of auditions. But if a reliable income was my goal, surely there were easier ways to get there than by acting on a television show. So it must have been something else I was after. If you had asked me at the time, I would have said it was artistic expression, the honing of my craft. But what was this craft? Where was the artistic merit in mimicking a stereotype so familiar it was devoid of all meaning, feeding a passive audience the same comfortable, received ideas that the television had taught them since childhood, contributing to the buzzing swirl of half-formed ideas that is the American pop consciousness?”

Jen found herself nodding; she had often felt the same way about her work, the hopelessness of contributing to an already saturated media with yet more distracting fluff. It was a truly depressing feeling, and she completely understood why the author might characterize it as a crisis.

“One evening, after a long, stressful week, I was at a party with a few actor ‘friends,’ trying to relax. I was talking to a woman I had known for a few months, and she was telling me a story about an audition. As I listened to her story, I tried to appear involved: I nodded attentively, laughed at ‘funny’ spots, made a sympathetic face when I felt the story called for it. And yet, I had the distinct feeling that all of these reactions were feigned, that I was still ‘acting.’ I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. I would think to myself, ‘Don’t act! Be sincere!’ Then I would envision what a sincere person would look like, and I would shape my facial expression to look like that.

“I realized, with horror, that I no longer knew who I was. I was so caught up in trying to be a successful actor that my life had become a performance. I tried to figure out how I felt about the story she was telling me, and I realized that I had no idea if I was amused, or sympathetic, or annoyed. I knew how to display the façade of emotion, but not how to feel my own, true feelings.”

Jen looked up from the book and remembered that the kettle had been whistling for quite a while, at least fifteen minutes. Reluctantly, she closed the book and carried it downstairs to the kitchen.

When she turned off the stove and poured water for her tea, the kettle was light to lift, and she felt stupid to have boiled away all her water after all that work to find the proper heating vessel. Still, there was just enough left to fill her cup to the top. The minty steam pouring invitingly from her mug validated her choice of the kettle over the microwave; her microwaved tea had never smelled half this good.

Her toast, still sitting in its slots in the toaster, was cold, but she didn’t mind. She put it on a plate and spread peanut butter on it. She licked the peanut butter from the knife and realized, as her stomach growled aggressively at her, that she was ravenously hungry. Dipping the knife back into the jar (after all, she rationalized, I am the only person who will be eating it), she spread a bit of extra peanut butter on the toast, and even added some honey from the squeezy-bear that she had seen in the tea cupboard.

With her feast prepared, she sat down at the table, where she had left her book. It was a nice place to sit. The table was in front of one of the windows, allowing the morning sun to enter and warm her chair, and giving her a dazzling view of the lake sparkling in the daylight. Still, she was more excited to get back to reading than to enjoy the scenery. She opened the book, flipped to the second page, and propped it awkwardly open using salt and pepper shakers as weights. She continued reading where she had left off, with Thomas Fo’s realization of the shallowness of his life as an actor.

“I realized then that I needed a change. I needed to escape from this false existence while I was still conscious enough to recognize its falseness. So I did something a bit drastic, something that many would say is only possible when a person is very young, or very foolish, or very desperate. (I was all three).

“I sold all my possessions except for a small suitcase of clothes and a small box of books, moved out of my apartment, disconnected my phone number, and traveled to a Zen monastery in a small island town off the coast of Canada.”

Wow, thought Jen, looking up from the book for a moment as she became aware of something, some strange association like déjà vu in the opposite direction, like recognizing something that you were going to see again in the future. The sun was shining right into her eyes now, and the light reflecting off the lake was blindingly bright. She turned her head back down towards the book. The introduction was almost over. Jen read the final two paragraphs:

“This book chronicles those difficult years—as an actor and as a student of Zen Buddhism—and the lessons I learned from those years of struggle and study.

“The greatest lesson I have learned is this: Always be honest with yourself, and don’t engage in behaviors or mechanisms that you can’t explain. Resist the false consciousness of consumer culture. Do not act if you can be. Do not drive if you can walk. Complex amenities make us stupid to easy solutions. Simplify your life and face each challenge honestly, with unclouded vision.”

Jen was in awe as she read these final lines. It seemed a bizarre coincidence: so many of the principles that Fo was describing constituted the very project she was currently engaged in. She had given up acting and moved away from her home. This morning, she had decided to walk to town rather than driving. And just minutes ago, she had rejected her microwave because she could not understand how it worked. She and this Thomas Fo must be kindred spirits of some sort, she thought. She was anxious to turn to the first chapter, but decided to save it for after the first leg of her walk; she was even more anxious to get started with her day’s adventure, which this book would now become a part of.

She picked up the book from the table and closed it pensively, holding it between her two hands for a moment. Then she carried it into the living room and placed it on the coffee table, next to the notepad she had written on earlier. She tore off her day’s to-do list, folded it in half, and shoved it between the pages of the book. This would be the first item to go into the backpack she would carry into town.

Half an hour later, she left the house, her backpack filled with water, a jacket, and her book and to-do list. She was wearing her baseball cap and sunglasses, but she knew people would recognize her, anyway. Still, she was excited to experience this journey on foot, which so far she had only undertaken in the rental car and Paula’s mother’s SUV. As she walked down the long driveway and into the shade of the uncleared forest, she thought about the tea kettle, and how upset she had been when she believed she would not find it. It occurred to her that she could have just heated water in one of the numerous pots she had found in the cabinets; that would have worked just as well.

That guy Fo is right, she thought: stupid to easy solutions.

Chapter 18:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2009/01/18-ordinary-meanings.html

16. Exactly Through the Motions

“The function of the wrestler is not to win; it is to go exactly through the motions which are expected of him.” —Roland Barthes

After that first day in North Middleton, things fell into a comfortable routine. Every morning, Becky, Paula and Jen would drive into town and have breakfast and drinks at the co-op. Jen continued drinking black tea instead of herbal. She decided that it would be safe to indulge in this one, small vice for the time being; without the caffeine to maintain her edge of alertness, she was afraid that her brain would become as slow and sleepy as her life in this town.

Jen’s cashier was at his same register each day. Becky always stood in line to pay for the drinks and food, but he always made a special point to turn and smile at Jen as she sat with Paula at their table by the window.

“That guy’s pretty star-struck,” said Paula, on their third day at the co-op, as he turned back towards his computer monitor after flashing his shy smile at them. “He should give it a rest.”

“You really think he recognizes me?” asked Jen. Her hair was short and black now; Becky had brilliantly replicated the spiky look on the box of hair dye. No one had given Jen a second glance since she arrived in North Middleton. She was starting to really believe that she might live unnoticed here, just like a normal person.

Paula nodded. “He must,” she said, “the way he keeps looking over here.”

Although she didn’t usually argue with people, especially over silly, unprovable things, Jen couldn’t stop herself from retorting. “Maybe he’s just friendly,” said Jen.

“Or he’s the only person in this town whose head isn’t so far up his ass that he can’t see what’s in front of him,” said Paula.

She let Jen mull the image over for a moment, sipping her drink, then added, “He must not be from here.”

While Paula and Becky chatted over their pastries, Jen surreptitiously watched the cashier scanning boxes and punching numbers into his computer. He always wore tidy, dark-colored jeans and flat-bottomed sneakers under the black half-apron all the cashiers wore around their waists. And his t-shirts were nice, soft-looking and well-fitted, showing off his muscular shoulders.

Jen studied the designs on the shirts, trying to learn something about him. One day there was a picture of Bruce Lee on the front. Another day, the shirt had some kind of Asian writing on it. Jen thought Becky or Paula might be able to identify the language, but she didn’t want to ask them about it and draw attention to her fascination with the cashier.

A few days into the week, he finally wore a shirt with English writing on it. Jen thought it was more of the mysterious Asian lettering, but as she stared longer she realized that the English words were simply in an Oriental-looking font. Even so, she had to squint to read them across the distance and through the funny embellishments. “Master Park’s Academy of Tae Kwon Do,” they spelled out. Oh, thought Jen, it’s like Paula was saying. They’re into karate. That explained the other t-shirts, the Asian writing and kung fu heroes. She felt a thrill of success run through her; she had figured something out about him, just from his clothes!

This guy, Jen realized, would be the perfect person to ask about a yoga school. He would be sure to know. As soon as Becky and Paula leave, she thought, I’ll ask him if there’s one in town. Jen was collecting little plans like these, to enact once her friends had left: find out about a yoga class, walk into town from the house in Cone, visit the Snail Plant. They weren’t much—she couldn’t fill a full day with them all together—but they gave her a sense of what her routine might be in the strange, empty days ahead. And now she could add one more: have a conversation about yoga with the cashier.

After breakfast each day, Becky, Paula and Jen wandered around the Mid-Northern-Central Michigan University campus. It was tiny compared to the sprawling university where Jen had done her two-and-a-half years of college. You could walk from one end of campus to the other in ten minutes, and the low, rectangular buildings looked like trailers.

For the first two days after Jen died her hair, the three of them walked through the campus unnoticed, popping into buildings to look at the different departments and use the bathrooms. They visited a student art gallery filled with glazed ceramic vases and bowls. And on one day, they even sat unnoticed in the back of a lecture hall, observing a class about Buddhism, after Paula saw that the students milling around in the hall before class were carrying a book called Psychology and Eastern Philosophy. Jen was worried that the professor would notice them and demand that they leave, especially since they were conspicuously over ten years older than most of the students in the room, and the only ones who weren’t scribbling furiously in notebooks as he stood on stage behind a music stand acting as a podium, reading his lecture in a distant, droning voice off of tattered sheets of yellow notepad paper.

“Ugh,” said Paula, the moment they were out of the classroom. “I’m glad I’m not in college anymore. That was awful.” She covered her mouth abruptly as the professor walked right past them, but he didn’t show any sign that he had heard her.

Their daily schedule ended up with Becky and Paula cooking dinner back at the house, and then two hours later, yoga in the upstairs loft. It was a quaint little routine, and Jen began to get excited about how sweet and plain and unobserved her time in Michigan would be.

But on the third day of Jen’s black hair, things changed in North Middleton. Jen first noticed it when they arrived at the food co-op. As she walked across the colorful sculpture garden with Becky and Paula, a woman crossing their path stopped abruptly and stared. Jen felt a jolt of irritation and self-consciousness. But she reminded herself not to be self-centered; the woman might have had some other reasons for stopping. Maybe she just remembered that she forgot to buy something she needed, Jen thought.

Inside the co-op, they walked past the cash registers and over to the café to pick out their drinks and pastries, just like they had for the past three days. But this time, as they passed by, the people in the line stopped mid-motion, froze in place, and turned their heads to stare as though Jen were a car accident. She turned and caught a woman openly pointing at her, talking to a friend; the embarrassed woman lowered her finger and looked away as Jen met her gaze.

“I think they finally recognize you,” said Becky, her tentative tone suggesting that she found the sudden change in their environment as jarring as Jen did.

“You must have been on the news or something,” said Paula. “They were never going to figure it out on their own.”

They walked over to the espresso counter and ordered Jen’s tea, Becky’s black coffee, and Paula’s cappuccino. Jen was starting to feel queasy, and the pastries in the case, which usually never looked particularly appetizing to Jen, suddenly appeared downright grotesque. She could see the oil glinting on the surface of her usual bran muffin, the hard crust forming on the top of the cheese Danish that Paula would most certainly order. Jen didn’t want to get anything, but she had promised Becky, and herself, that she would eat; she didn’t want Becky to worry that she would starve herself as soon as her friends left town. She decided on a plain bagel. As anticipated, Paula got the pastry with the crusty cheese. Becky ordered the bran muffin, then went off to pay, while Jen and Paula carried the drinks and food to the seating area.

On the way over to their usual table, Paula grabbed an abandoned newspaper off of an empty table. When they were seated, she plunked it down in front of Jen and began rummaging through the disorganized sections, scanning the front pages.

“Aha!” she announced triumphantly, yanking one crumpled section out of the pile and holding it in the air like a trophy. She unfurled it so that Jen could see the front page of what turned out to be the entertainment section. Most of the page was taken up by a picture of a cartoon robot, evidently the lead character in a movie that had opened the previous weekend; Jen had been too distracted to keep up with any of that. But on one of the side columns, Jen saw a photograph of herself, her heart-shaped face framed with jagged black locks; it had evidently been taken in the last two days. “Actress Seen Vacationing in North Middleton,” the headline read.

“Where am I?” asked Jen, grabbing the paper from Paula’s hand and bringing it closer to her face. She hadn’t seen any photographers anywhere. Studying the picture, she realized that it must have been taken right where she was sitting, in the co-op. She could see the edge of the window frame, with its vibrant blue paint, just above her head, and the side of Paula’s face, which had been cropped out of the picture, leaving just a blurry bit of her cheek and shoulder.

“It was taken right here,” she said to Paula, pointing at the evidence in the picture. “I didn’t see anyone taking pictures.”

“Me neither,” said Paula. “But it was pretty crowded in here yesterday. They probably used a distance lens. And we were here at the same time every day, so it would be easy to find you.”

Paula thought for a moment, twisting her dreadlock around her finger. Jen put down the newspaper and sipped her tea, trying not to be agitated. She had expected people to recognize her in North Middleton. But now that she had gotten used to the luxury of anonymity, to have it taken away from her felt like an assault.

“Someone in here must have recognized you,” said Paula, allowing her hair to drop from her finger. “Someone who knew that you were coming in here every day.”

Paula turned her head and rotated her eyes towards the cashier. Becky had finally made her way to the front of the line, and she appeared to be chatting pleasantly with him. Jen could see his impressive shoulder muscles moving under his shirt, which featured more Asian writing on the back, this time above a yin-yang symbol.

“No,” said Jen, taken aback at Paula’s implied accusation of her new best-friend-to-be. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know; don’t they give you money for that kind of tip-off?” She was still absently playing with her hair, sending the now-familiar sandalwood smell in Jen’s direction.

“I don’t think so,” said Jen, although truthfully she had no idea of the pay scale for celebrity espionage. “It doesn’t seem newsworthy enough to pay for.”

“I’m sure it’s the most exciting thing to happen in North Middleton for the last year,” said Paula. Turning her head to scan the occupants of the co-op, she added, “Maybe ten years.”

“How could that be?” said Jen, pointing at the newspaper lying on the table between them. “There’s a whole newspaper full of news. I’m not even on the front page. I only made the entertainment section.”

“This,” said Paula, lifting the paper up with both hands and pulling the top of the page taught for emphasis, “is the Cadillac newspaper,” she said. “You made the entertainment section from seventy miles away.”

Paula pulled the article in front of her and scanned through it half-aloud, muttering incomprehensible phrases here and there, until she read, “North Middleton, best known for housing Mid-Northern-Central Michigan University, is a normally sleepy town.” She slapped the paper back down on the table. “See,” she said triumphantly, her point made, “People in Cadillac don’t even know where North Middleton is.”

Becky arrived at the table and pulled up the third empty chair, just in time to hear Paula’s statement. She looked down at the newspaper inquisitively.

“I didn’t know Cadillac was a town,” said Becky.

“Exactly,” said Paula.

That afternoon, to avoid any further gawking, they decided to skip their campus walk and do yoga by the lake instead. They didn’t use mats; instead they practiced right on the back lawn, which had been warmed by the afternoon sun.

Becky led them silently through the familiar sequence of postures. Even though it was difficult to balance on the uneven ground, Jen liked hearing the sounds of birds and feeling the grass under her bare feet. This was a real spring, Jen thought, admiring the buds and blossoms on the trees overhead as she twisted her face up towards the sky. Everything was fecund and blooming and green. Even the swampy smell of the lake reminded her of burgeoning new life.

After they had risen from their final pose, the corpse, lying dead and flat on the ground, they continued to sit cross-legged in the grass, enjoying the perfect weather and the tranquil scenery of the lake.

“It’s really beautiful back here,” said Becky, raising her bony knees to her chest and resting her chin on them. “We haven’t spent any time by the lake at all.”

“It’s a good thing Jen was in that newspaper,” said Paula.

Becky laughed, but Jen groaned; after the tranquility of the yoga, she had almost forgotten.

“You know,” said Paula, “this would be a great day to go swimming.”

“Oh, good idea!” said Becky, lowering one hand to the ground and then jumping to her feet. “Let’s go get the bathing suits.

“I’ll wait here,” said Jen, not wanting Becky to go searching through the luggage for her bathing suit. Jen hated swimming, precisely because of having to wear a bathing suit. She wasn’t sure which one Becky had packed, and she looked fine in all of them, she supposed. But in LA or San Diego or Mexico or Hawaii, wearing a bathing suit was an invitation to unflattering photos of some invisible-ink cellulite that only appeared under the magic camera lenses of the paparazzi, photos that would appear three days later on the covers of the trashiest tabloids but only on the inside pages of the classier ones.

Jen recognized that the odds of any photographers appearing in this secluded back yard were pretty low. Still, after her unexpected appearance in the newspaper, she felt awfully exposed. She couldn’t bear the thought of putting on a bikini right now.

“Oh, come on,” said Becky, who knew about Jen’s aversion to bathing suits. Becky had no such aversion; she was one of those people who enjoyed going to spas where people walked around naked, and she was as comfortable in her underwear as in a winter parka. “No one will see you back here.”

“I just don’t like swimming,” said Jen plaintively, wishing Becky would drop it. It was embarrassing enough that she didn’t like wearing a bathing suit; she didn’t need Becky to talk about it.

Paula must have deduced the reason for Jen’s hesitation. “This isn’t the beach,” she said, rising from the grass and brushing dirt off of her behind. “This is a lake. You can wear whatever you want.”

Jen wasn’t sure what Paula’s comment was supposed to mean. No, you can’t wear whatever you want, Jen thought, imagining diving into the lake in the stretchy sweatpants she was wearing for yoga. They would get so waterlogged, she would probably sink, she thought.

“What are you going to wear?” she asked Paula. Although Becky and Paula were both standing, ready to go change, Jen was still sitting obstinately on the ground.
“Shorts,” said Paula simply, as though this were the only reasonable thing to wear for swimming.

“You have some shorts in the suitcase,” said Becky. “And there’s an old t-shirt. Why don’t you swim in that? You can put it on over your bathing suit.”

“Fine,” said Jen resignedly, standing to join them. Her tone was grudging, but she actually felt enthused about the novel idea of swimming in shorts. Now that she thought about it, she realized that she actually liked swimming—it was peaceful to be surrounded by water, and it gave her time to think. It was really only the bathing suit that she disliked. Still, she had just said that she didn’t like swimming, and she wasn’t ready to admit her lie.

“You guys are always forcing me to do stuff,” she said petulantly, as she followed them up to the house.

Twenty minutes later, Jen was floating peacefully on her back in the middle of the lake. She had waded in behind Paula and Becky through the forest of reeds and algae by the shore. This far out, though, the water was murky but unobstructed by plant life. Paula and Becky were having a contest to see who could swim out the farthest. Jen followed them out until her feet could no longer touch the bottom; then she stopped and floated.

She stared at the sky above her. It was a deep, healthy blue, filled with puffy clouds. She could feel the t-shirt swishing around her body as she leaned slightly to one side and then the other to stay afloat. It made her feel like a beautiful sea plant, swaying with the flow of the water. She couldn’t remember ever having felt more content.

She heard splashing off to her side. She turned and saw Paula swimming towards her, her soggy hair flapping up behind her with each stroke. Jen turned her body upright and began to tread water.

“Pretty, huh,” said Paula, panting a little as she stopped next to Jen. The two of them were facing the same direction, looking at the thick wall of trees off to one side of the lake. In this direction, the lake seemed to extend into the trees, past what could be seen of it. The water was reflecting the light of the sky, like a smooth, sparkling mirror between the shady green of the forest.

“Mm-hmm,” said Jen.

“It’s really brave of you to stay out here,” said Paula.

“I’m not scared of swimming,” Jen said, struggling a little to get out a full sentence without sinking.

Paula began to either laugh or speak; either way, it caused her to swallow a gulp of lake water and begin to choke. After she was done coughing, she said, “No, I mean in Michigan. It’s brave of you to stay out here.”

Jen wasn’t sure what to say. Was it brave? If so, that meant that there was something here to be frightened of. She knew what that something was: boredom and loneliness. She didn’t want to think about it.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I just want you to know,” Paula continued, stopping every few words to take in a deep breath through her nose, “that I’ll take care of Becky.”

“What’s wrong with Becky?” said Jen, turning to face Paula. She suddenly remembered Chase’s strange behavior, how quiet and irritable he had been just before Jen left, how she had worried that Becky was sick. And Becky had been acting strangely, with all the vitamins and odd foods. Jen felt the blood in her feet go cold with worry. If Becky was having a problem, any kind of problem, Jen couldn’t stay here; she would need to go back to Los Angeles with Becky.

“Oh, no, nothing’s wrong,” said Paula, hastily. “I just meant, you know, so she wouldn’t be lonely without you.”

“Oh,” said Jen, not sure if she really believed Paula. “Thanks,” she added, uncertainly. She’d have to make sure that everything was okay with Becky before she left; otherwise Jen was going straight back home.

Jen stayed by herself, floating and thinking, long after Paula had swum back to shore. It was probably nothing, like Paula had said. Becky would tell her if something was wrong. Wouldn’t she? Things had been strained between them for the last few months, but that didn’t change their long history together or their unspoken vow that they would be each others’ family forever, no matter what happened, till death did them part.

As she thought about Becky, she stared into the distance, floating on her back, her head and feet tracing a skewed circle as the current turned her gently. Mostly she saw trees in the distance, but from one angle she saw houses, familiar houses, the houses across from the one she would be staying in. She recognized the balcony of the old, green house directly across the lake from hers. And there, on the balcony, was the same distant figure, sitting and staring straight back at her.

For the rest of the week, they decided to stay home and enjoy the lake. Becky went to the co-op by herself and bought enough food to stock the kitchen, she said for the week, but Jen thought it was enough to last her a month. Every morning Becky and Paula would cook breakfast while Jen sat in the nearby living room and read. The food was always healthy and tasty and abundant, and Jen wondered how she would manage once they were gone.
Becky must have wondered, too, because she took to quizzing Jen during each meal about her dietary plans for the future.

“So what will you eat for breakfast?” asked Becky, scooping up scrambled eggs with a warm tortilla.

“Oatmeal,” said Jen, dutifully. “With soy milk. Cereal. Eggs.” She took a large bite of her own eggs to confirm her healthy appetite.

“What about for lunch?” Becky asked.

Jen found the exercise embarrassing, but she knew she had earned it through her failure to eat properly in the past. That, coupled with her inability to cook, might give even the most reasonable and non-controlling best friend a reason to question her. She would have to learn how to cook, she resolved, healthy things with fresh vegetables in them. That would give her a reason to go to the co-op more often. They even sold cookbooks there.

But for the first time in many years, it was not only Becky who was watching out for Jen’s well-being. During these final few days together, Jen observed Becky carefully, looking for signs that something was wrong. Becky seemed pretty healthy and content; she was eating normally, even more than usual, and had even gained a little weight around her waist. She kept herself busy cleaning up around the house and unpacking Jen’s clothes, which Jen would have just kept in the suitcase otherwise, arranging them neatly in the upstairs dresser and closet. Each afternoon they did yoga and went swimming, and Becky’s vigorous energy didn’t seem to wane through any of it.

Jen wanted to find a time to talk to Becky, to make sure that everything was all right, but there never seemed to be a good opportunity. Paula was always around, and Jen didn’t want to reveal that Paula had alarmed her with her comment while they were swimming. Even when Jen did get a moment alone with Becky, Becky was so busy grilling her about her plans, her food, and her daily routine that Jen couldn’t figure out how to interrupt her.

On Saturday morning, a week after they arrived, they woke early so that Becky and Paula could drive the rental car back to the Detroit airport. While Paula packed her duffel bag in the other room, Becky busied herself organizing Jen’s things for a final time.

“Your socks are in this drawer now,” Becky was saying, pointing at the bottom of the dresser. Her skin looked green and pale, and her forehead was beaded with sweat. She turned toward the closet, but Jen could see her bring her hand to her mouth as though she were about to vomit.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jen. “You haven’t been feeling well.”

“We’ll talk once you get settled in,” said Becky, turning back to face Jen and smiling weakly. She gave Jen a comforting and resigned pat on the arm that Jen recognized from movies. Oh my god, she thought; Becky’s sick. She had thought it before, when Becky first started acting funny, but now she felt sure. What else would Becky need to talk to her about? Becky was sick, and now she was waiting to tell Jen because she didn’t want to ruin her trip. And it was probably Jen’s fault that she was sick in the first place—she had caused Becky all that stress, and they had been so disconnected, and now Jen was abandoning her right when Becky needed help and couldn’t ask for it.

“Tell me now,” said Jen, grabbing Becky’s hand. It felt warm and sweaty.

“There’s nothing to tell,” said Becky. “Not yet,” she added. “I promise I’ll tell you if anything comes up.”

Jen tried to feel relieved, but she couldn’t. Becky’s vagueness was too disconcerting. There was no way she was going to let Becky leave with this secret hanging unsettled between them.

“You don’t have cancer, right?” said Jen.

Becky laughed at the panic in Jen’s voice. Jen felt a little relieved, but not entirely convinced.

“No,” said Becky. “No cancer.” She looked straight at Jen, and for the first time in months, Jen saw none of the stress, the distance, that had colored their recent interactions. “Really, you don’t need to worry. There’s nothing wrong.”

With her face so close to Jen’s, Becky looked for a moment just like the little girl that Jen had befriended so many years ago. Jen wanted to cry thinking of how that girl had grown up with her, through so many stages and changes in life, so that now they were both grown women. She couldn’t remember why they had been so distant now; she loved Becky, she remembered.

She put her arms around Becky and gave her a long, warm hug. Becky’s body felt stiff and protective; then it buckled and softened against her, so that Jen felt she was holding Becky up from falling. Jen’s eyes filled with tears, which slid down her cheek towards Becky’s shoulder. She wondered how she was going to survive here by herself, and whether Becky was going to be all right.

They stood like that for a long time, until Paula came into the room and told them it was time to go. Then Paula and Becky gathered up their bags, threw everything into the rental car, hugged Jen goodbye, and drove away down the long dirt path. Jen stood in the driveway, shivering in her t-shirt, and watched the blue sedan until it rounded the corner and disappeared behind the dense wall of forest.

Chapter 17
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/12/17-what-scares-us.html