Nine Perfect Strangers (15 page)

15

 

Lars

“What the actual fuck?”

Lars sat up, his heart hammering. A figure stood at the end of his bed shining a small flashlight in his face like a nurse doing hospital rounds.

He switched on his bedside lamp.

His “wellness consultant,” the delectable Delilah, stood next to his bed holding up the Tranquillum House dressing gown with one hand. She didn't speak. She lifted one finger and beckoned, as if he would just obediently and silently follow her instructions.

“I'm not going anywhere, sweetheart,” he said. “It's the middle of the night and I like my sleep.”

Delilah said, “It's the starlight meditation. It's always on the first night. You don't want to miss it.”

Lars lay back in bed and shielded his eyes. “I do want to miss it.”

“You'll like it. It's really beautiful.”

Lars removed his hand from his eyes. “Did you even knock before you came in to my room without permission?”

“Naturally I knocked,” said Delilah. She held up the dressing gown again. “Please? I'll lose my job if you don't come down for it.”

“You will not.”

“I might. Masha wants all the guests there for it. It only takes half an hour.”

Lars sighed. He could refuse on principle, but it was such a first-world, privileged principle he couldn't be bothered. He was awake now anyway.

He sat up and held out his hand for his dressing gown. He slept naked. He could have just leaped from the bed in all his glory to make the point that this was what happened when you woke your sleeping guests in the middle of the night, but he was too well mannered. Delilah averted her eyes as he threw back the sheet, although he didn't miss the quick downward flick. She was only human.

“Don't forget the silence,” she said as she stepped into the corridor.

“How could I forget the beautiful noble silence?” said Lars.

She put her finger to her lips.

*   *   *

It was a clear night, the stars were out in force, and a perfect half-moon illuminated the garden with silvery light. The balmy air was a soft caress against his skin after the hot day. It was, he had to admit, all very pleasant.

Nine yoga mats had been placed in a circle and guests wearing the Tranquillum House dressing gowns lay with their heads facing the center of the circle, where their striking leader Masha sat cross-legged on the grass.

Lars saw there was only one empty yoga mat. He was the last guest to arrive. He wondered if he'd made the most fuss about being dragged from his bed. He never ceased to be amazed by the obedience of people at these places. They allowed themselves to be dipped in mud, wrapped in plastic, starved and deprived, pricked and prodded, all in the name of “transformation.”

Of course, Lars did too, but he was prepared to draw the line when necessary. For example, he drew the line at enemas. Also, he did not want to ever, ever discuss his bowel movements.

Delilah led Lars to a mat in between the lady who got the giggles when Lars said, “Gesundheit!” earlier and the giant lump of a man who had complained about his contraband being confiscated.

There was something familiar about the big guy with the contraband. It had been hard not to stare at him through dinner. Lars couldn't shake the irritating feeling that he knew him from somewhere, but he couldn't work out where.

Was he one of the husbands? If he was one of the husbands, would he recognize Lars and come after him, like that time he was boarding a plane and a guy in the economy line saw Lars and went nuts? He shouted, “YOU! You're the reason I'm flying cattle class!” Lars had taken extra pleasure in his Perrier-Jou
ë
t on that flight (and walked briskly off the plane toward the priority queue at customs). The big guy didn't
look
like one of the husbands, but Lars knew he knew him from somewhere.

He wasn't good with faces. Ray was great with them. Every time they started a new series Lars would sit up on the couch, point at the screen, and say, “
Her!
We know her! How do we know her?” Ray normally had it within seconds: “
Breaking Bad
. The girlfriend. Walt let her die. Now shut up.” It was a real skill. On the rare occasions that Lars worked it out before Ray he got very excited and demanded high fives.

Lars lay down on the mat between the big guy and the giggling lady. She reminded Lars of one of Renoir's women: small-faced and round-eyed with curly hair piled on top of her head, creamy-skinned, plump, and bosomy, possibly a little vacuous, but he thought they would probably get on. She looked like a fellow hedonist.

“Namaste,” said Masha. “Thank you for leaving your beds for tonight's starlight meditation. I am grateful to you for your flexibility, for opening your hearts and minds to new experiences. I am proud of you.”

She was
proud
of them. How condescending. She didn't even know them! They were her clients. They were paying for this. And yet Lars
felt a sense of satisfaction in the garden, as if everyone wanted Masha to be proud of them.

“The retreat you are about to undertake combines ancient Eastern healing wisdom and herbal treatments with the latest cutting-edge advances in Western medicine. I want you to know that although I am not a practicing Buddhist, I have incorporated certain Buddhist philosophies into our practices here.”

Yeah, yeah, East meets West, never heard that before
, thought Lars.

“This won't take very long. I'm not going to say much. The stars will do the talking for me. Isn't it funny how we forget to look up at the stars? We scurry about like ants in our day-to-day lives and look, just
look
, what's up above our heads! All your life you look down. It's time to look up, to see the stars!”

Lars looked at the sky emblazoned with stars.

The big guy on his left gave a chesty cough. So did the busty blonde on his right. Jesus. He should be wearing some sort of sanitation mask. If he came back from this thing with a cold, he wouldn't be happy.

Masha said, “Some of you may have heard of the word
koan
. A koan is a paradox or puzzle that Zen Buddhists use during meditation to help on their quest toward enlightenment. The most famous one is this:
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
”

Oh Lord. The website had given the impression that this place leaned more toward
luxury
wellness. Lars had a daily yoga and meditation practice, but he preferred his health retreats to avoid too much embarrassing cultural appropriation.

“While you look at the stars tonight I want you to reflect on two koans. The first one is this:
Out of nowhere the mind comes forth
.” Masha paused. “And the second:
Show me your original face, the one you had before your parents were born.
”

Lars heard the big guy next to him make a wheezy exhalation that caused him to start rolling about coughing.

“Do not struggle to find answers or solutions,” said Masha. “This is not a quiz, my people!” She chuckled a little.

The woman really was quite a strange mix of charismatic leader and enthusiastic nerd. One moment a guru, the next the newly appointed CEO of a telecommunications company.

“There is no right or wrong answer. Simply look at the stars and reflect without straining for a solution. Just breathe. That's all you need to do. Breathe and watch the stars.”

Lars breathed and watched the stars. He did not think of either of the koans. He thought of Ray, and how, early on in their relationship, Ray had convinced him to go camping with him (never again). They had lain together on a beach, holding hands and looking at the stars, and it had been beautiful, but something had built up and up in Lars's chest until he couldn't take it anymore and he'd jumped up and run into the ocean,
whooping
and tearing off his clothes, pretending he was the type of guy who whooped, the type of guy who didn't think about sharks or the temperature of the ocean in October. He smiled a bit, because he knew he couldn't get away with that now. Ray knew about his shark phobia.

Ray had asked if he could join him on this retreat. Lars couldn't work out his motivation. He'd never wanted to come to one before. Lars did a couple of retreats a year, but Ray always said they sounded hellish. Why did he suddenly want to come along on this one?

Lars thought of Ray's face when he said he'd rather go alone. There was a micro-moment when it looked like Lars had slapped him, but then Ray shrugged, smiled, and said that was fine, he was going to eat lasagne every night while Lars was gone and watch nothing but sports on TV.

Ray's lifestyle was already squeaky clean and incorporated vegetable juices and smoothies and protein shakes. It wasn't necessary for him to come along to this. Lars needed his time alone.

Did he
want
Lars to feel like shit? Was it somehow related to the text Ray's sister, Sarah, had sent earlier today:
Can you at least think about it?

She must have sent it without Ray's knowledge. Lars was sure Ray
had accepted that his decision about children was final. It wasn't like he hadn't been up-front about his lack of interest in having a family. He had never said otherwise.

“Did I ever say otherwise?” he'd said to Ray, and he'd come close to raising his voice, which was not something he could countenance. He could not be in a relationship with the crassness and indignity of raised voices. It made him shudder to think of it. Ray knew this.

“You never said otherwise,” Ray had responded evenly, and he didn't raise his voice. “You never misled me. I'm not saying that. I guess I just hoped you might change your mind.”

Sarah, all shiny-eyed and sincere, had offered to help them have a baby. Ray's family was so liberal and lovely and loving. It was fucking annoying.

Lars had recoiled, literally physically recoiled, at the thought. “God no,” he'd said to Ray and his sister. “Just … no.” He'd felt terrified and suffocated by the thought of all the earnest love he'd have to endure if they had a baby. There would be no escaping it. All those family functions! Ray's mother would never stop crying.

It was not happening. Never.
Out of nowhere the mind comes forth
.

A Zen koan.
Give me strength.

If Ray really wanted to be a father, should Lars let him go be one with someone else? But wasn't that up to Ray? If Ray couldn't live without children, then he was free to leave. They weren't married. The house was in both their names, but they were both financially secure and sufficiently intelligent people to work all that out. Obviously Lars could handle a fair division of property.

Was it the only way forward? Had their relationship reached an impossible impasse because, either way, one of them had to make an impossible sacrifice? Whose sacrifice was worse?

But Ray had stopped asking! He'd accepted it. Lars felt that Ray wanted something
else
from him. What was it? Permission to leave? He didn't want Ray to leave.

Something tumbled in the sky. A falling star, for God's sake. How
had Masha managed that? Lars heard everyone exhale with the wonder of it.

He closed his eyes and all of a sudden it came to him exactly how he knew the big guy on his left and he wished Ray was here so he could tell him,
I got it, Ray, I got it!

16

 

Jessica

The author, Frances Welty, who lay on the yoga mat next to Jessica, was fast asleep. She wasn't snoring but Jessica could tell she was asleep by the way she breathed. Jessica considered giving her a gentle nudge with her foot. She'd just missed seeing a falling star.

On reflection, Jessica decided not to bother her. It was the middle of the night. People her age really needed their sleep. If Jessica's mother had a bad night's sleep the bags under her eyes made her literally look like something from a horror movie, though she just laughed when Jessica tried to teach her about concealer. It wasn't
necessary
to look that bad. It was stupid. If Jessica's dad left her for his PA, Jessica's mother would have no one to blame but herself. Under-eye concealer was invented for a reason.

Jessica rolled her head and looked at Ben on the other side of her. He was staring up at the stars with a glazed expression, as if he were considering those Zen riddles, when really he was probably just counting down the hours until he could get out of here and back behind the wheel of his precious car.

He turned his head and winked at her. It made her heart lift, as if her crush had winked at her in the classroom.

Ben looked back up at the stars and Jessica touched her face with her fingers. She wondered if her skin looked bad without makeup in the moonlight. There had been no time to put on foundation. They were just dragged from their beds. They could have been having sex when that girl came into their bedroom, with just the gentlest knock on their door and without even waiting for them to say, “Come in,” before she marched on in and shone a light in their eyes.

They hadn't been having sex. Ben had been asleep and Jessica had been lying next to him in the darkness, unable to sleep, missing her phone so badly it felt like she'd had something amputated. When she couldn't sleep at home she simply picked up her phone and scrolled through Instagram and Pinterest until she got tired.

She looked at her scarlet toenails in the moonlight. If she had her phone with her right now she would have photographed her feet, together with Ben's feet, and tagged it #starlightmeditation #healthretreat #learningaboutkoans #wejustsawafallingstar #whatisthesoundofonehandclapping.

That last hashtag would have made her look quite intellectual and spiritual, she thought, which was good, because you had to be careful not to come across as superficial on your socials.

She couldn't shake the feeling that if she didn't record this moment on her phone then it wasn't really happening, it didn't count, it wasn't real life. She knew that was irrational but she couldn't help it. She literally felt
twitchy
without her phone. Obviously she was addicted to it. Still, better than being addicted to heroin, though these days no one was sure about Ben's sister's most recent drug of choice. She liked to “mix it up.”

Jessica sometimes wondered if all their problems led back to Ben's sister. She was always there, a big black cloud in their blue sky. Because, apart from Lucy, honestly, what did they have to worry about? Nothing. They should have been as happy as it was possible to be. Where had they gone wrong?

Jessica had been so
careful
, right from day one. What was that stupid thing her mother said? “Oh, Jessica, darling—this sort of thing can ruin people.”

She said that, all frowny-faced, on what should have been the most spectacular day of Jessica's life. The day that split her life in two.

It was two years ago now. A Monday evening.

Jessica had come home from work in a hurry because she was going to try to make the 6:30
P.M.
spin class. She rushed into the tiny kitchen with its ugly laminate countertops to fill her water bottle and there was Ben sitting on the floor, his back up against the dishwasher, his legs splayed, phone held limply in his hand. His face was dead white, his eyes glassy. She got down on the floor next to him, her heart pounding, barely breathing, hardly able to speak. The uppermost thought in her mind was, “Who? Who?” Her first thought was Lucy, of course. Ben's sister flirted with death on a daily basis. But something told her it wasn't Lucy. He seemed too shocked and Lucy's death was never going to come as a surprise.

He said, “Do you remember how Mum sent us that card?”

Jessica's heart contracted because she thought it must have been his mother who had died and she loved Ben's mum.

“How?” she said. “How did it happen?” How was it
possible
that Donna had died? She played tennis twice a week. She was healthier and fitter than Jessica. It was probably the stress over Lucy.

“You remember the card she sent?” Ben repeated obliviously. “Because we were so upset about the robbery?”

Poor Ben. He was obviously mad with grief and for some reason he was clutching on to this memory.

“I remember the card,” she said gently.

It came in the mail. It had a cute puppy on the front with a speech bubble coming out of his mouth, saying, “Sorry to hear you're feeling low,” and a lottery ticket inside. Donna's message said,
You two deserve some good luck
.

Ben said, “The ticket won.”

Jessica said, “What's happened to your mum?”

“Nothing. Mum is fine,” said Ben. “I haven't told her yet.”

“You haven't told her what?” Jessica's brain couldn't seem to keep up with the words she was hearing and she was suddenly angry. “
Ben
. Has anybody died or not?”

Ben smiled. “Nobody has died.”

“You're sure?”

“Everybody is in perfect health.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, good.” As the adrenaline left her body she was suddenly exhausted. She didn't think she could do her spin class now.

“The ticket won. The ticket that Mum gave us after the robbery. That was the lottery office. We won the grand prize. We just won twenty-two million dollars.”

She said tiredly, “Don't be stupid. We did not.”

He turned to look at her, and his eyes were red and watery and fearful. He said, “We have.”

If only they'd known in advance: you're going to win the lottery tomorrow. Then they might have acted like proper lottery winners. But it took a long while for it to feel like a fact. Jessica checked and double-checked the numbers on the internet. She called the lottery office back herself to confirm.

It became more real with each phone call they made to their family and friends, and then they finally started doing the screaming and jumping and crying and laughing expected of lottery winners and invited everyone over to celebrate with the most expensive champagne they could find in the liquor store.

They toasted those pathetic thieves, because if it wasn't for the robbery, they would never have won the lottery!

Ben's mother couldn't get over it. “It would never even have crossed my mind to buy you a lottery ticket! That's the first lottery ticket I've ever bought in my life! I had to ask the lady at the newsagent how it worked!” She seemed to want to make sure that no one forgot that she
bought the ticket. She didn't want a share in the prize (although obviously they ended up giving her money), she just wanted everyone to know of her crucial role in this glorious event.

It was like a better version of their wedding day. Jessica felt special. The center of attention. She smiled so much her cheeks ached. The money made her instantly more intelligent and beautiful and stylish. People treated her differently because she
was
different. When she looked at her own face in the bathroom mirror that night, she could already see it: she glowed with money. Instant wealth was like the best facial ever.

But even on that first night, even while Ben and his brothers argued drunkenly over which luxury cars to buy, Jessica could sense Ben's fear growing.

“Make sure it doesn't change us,” he slurred, just before they fell asleep that night, and Jessica thought,
What are you talking about? It's already changed us!

Then there was Jessica's mother, who acted as if the win were a catastrophe.

“You have to be
so
careful, Jessica,” she said. “This kind of money can send people off the rails.”

It was true that there had been some unexpected difficulties with this new life. Some tricky situations they were still trying to unravel. Friendships they'd lost. One family estrangement. Two family estrangements. No. Three.

Ben's cousin, who thought they should have paid off his mortgage. They gave him a car. Jessica thought that was generous! Ben liked his cousin, but he barely saw him before the win. In the end, they
did
pay off his mortgage, but “the damage had been done.” For God's sake.

Jessica's younger sister. They gave her a
million dollars
but she kept asking for more, more, more. Ben said, “Just give it to her,” and they did, but then one day Jessica went out to lunch with her and didn't offer to pay the bill, and now they weren't talking. Jessica's heart
clenched as she thought about it. She always paid the bill. Always. It was the one time she didn't and supposedly that was unforgivable.

Ben's stepdad, because Ben's stepdad was a financial planner and he'd assumed that he'd manage all their finances now that they
had
finances—but Ben thought his stepdad was an idiot and didn't want him near their money, so that was awkward. Ben could have kept his opinions about his stepdad a secret forever if it wasn't for winning the lottery.

And of course, Ben's sister. How could they give her money? How could they not give her money? Ben and his mother had agonized over what to do. They tried to do it all the right way, the careful way. They set up a trust fund. They never gave her cash, but cash was all she wanted. When they bought her a car she sold it within two weeks. She sold anything they bought her. She screamed ugly words at poor Ben:
You rich prick with your fancy car, you won't even help out your own family.
They spent thousands and thousands on expensive rehab programs that Ben's mother had once dreamed about, assuming those exclusive programs would be the answer, if only they had the money. But once they had the money they found out that those weren't the answer. It just went on and on. Ben kept thinking there had to be a solution. Jessica knew there was no solution. Lucy didn't want help.

And it wasn't just their immediate family who thought Ben and Jessica should give them money. Every day they were contacted by long-lost relatives and friends, and friends of friends, asking for “loans” or a “helping hand” or wanting Ben and Jessica to support their favorite charity, their local school, their kids' soccer club. Family members they hadn't seen in years got in touch. Family members they didn't know existed got in touch. The requests often had a passive-aggressive edge: “Ten thousand dollars is probably small change to you but it would mean a
huge
amount to us.”

“Just give it to them.” That was Ben's constant refrain, but sometimes it got Jessica's back up. The
nerve
of these people.

It was bewildering to Jessica that she and Ben fought more about
money now that they had an abundance of it. It was impossible to even imagine they'd once felt so upset about the arrival of unexpected bills.

Becoming instantly wealthy was like starting a really stressful, glamorous job for which they had no qualifications or experience, but still, it was a pretty great job. It was hardly something to complain about. There was no need to
ruin
it, as Ben seemed intent on doing.

She sometimes wondered if Ben regretted winning the money. He told her once that he missed working. “Start your own business then,” she said. They could do anything! But he said he couldn't compete with Pete, his old boss. He was like his sister; he didn't want a solution to his problems.

He said that he didn't like their “snooty new neighbors” and Jessica pointed out that they didn't even know them and offered to invite some of them over for drinks, but Ben looked horrified at the idea. It wasn't like they'd really known their neighbors back at the old flat. Everyone worked full-time and kept to themselves.

He enjoyed the luxury holidays they took, but even the travel didn't truly make him happy. Jessica remembered a night watching the sun set in Santorini. It was incredible, gorgeous, and she'd just bought a stunning bracelet for herself, and she'd looked across at Ben, who was deep in what seemed like profound thought, and she said, “What are you thinking about?”

“Lucy,” he answered. “I remember she used to talk about traveling to the Greek islands.”

It made her want to scream and scream because
they could afford to send Lucy to Santorini
and put her up at a great hotel, but that wasn't possible because Lucy preferred to stick needles in her arms. So fine, let her ruin her own life, but why did she have to ruin their lives as well?

The car was the one thing about the lottery win that made him happy. He didn't really care about any of the other things—not the beautiful house in the best part of Toorak, the concert tickets, the
designer labels, the travel. Only the car. His dream car. God, how she hated that car.

Jessica realized with a start that people were standing, straightening their unflattering gowns, suppressing yawns.

She got to her feet and looked at the starry sky one last time, but there were no answers up there.