Paradise Park (15 page)

Body, I thought, somewhat ruefully, since that was the facet Wayne and I had got stuck on. I was standing there on the sidelines, in my dress that I had worn for the occasion, which was one of those tank-top T-shirt dresses; basically a tank top that extended down to the floor, and was the color of orange sherbet.

“Pass out the affirmations,” Harrison told me. “Yoo hoo, Sharon?”

All of a sudden I woke from my reverie and passed out all the photocopied affirmations. And I thought, “Please” would be nice. I thought, Jeez. But I did understand that Harrison had to focus on trying to get these folks to rethink their whole entrenched attitude about each other. “Turn toward your partner,” Harrison instructed. “Look at each other. Really look. Look as if you are seeing each other for the first time.” And he turned toward Margo and he took her hand and looked deeply into her eyes.

So everyone turned toward his or her partner. For a long long time everyone looked deeply into each other’s eyes. Then a few minutes passed. Then a few more. People couldn’t help stealing some looks up front, but Harrison hadn’t moved. He was still gazing at Margo. So everyone kept on gazing, and some people took each other’s hand. And some people tried to hold both hands, but then they had to put their affirmations on their laps, so they settled for just one hand the way Harrison did it.

And Harrison read, “When I love you, I love the whole you.”

“When I love you, I love the whole you,” the couples echoed back.

“Not just part of you, but all of you.”

“Not just part of you, but all of you.”

Then Harrison paused for another long pregnant pause. There was actually a beautiful silence in the ballroom, and I looked up at the modern chandelier and saw it throwing these neat prism rainbows on the walls, and I looked at the carpet and saw the pattern was hibiscus flowers, bloodred flowers and green leaves. What startled me was suddenly Harrison broke the silence and said in this firm, yet totally loving and compassionate voice, “You are a hole.”

“You are a hole,” the husbands and wives said to each other.

And I thought, Huh? Because I’d handed out all the affirmation sheets and hadn’t kept one for myself. But what I found out later was they were all saying, “You are a whole.”

All around the room, the husbands and wives were gazing at each other so earnestly. I tried to imagine gazing at anyone that way. Just knowing anyone that well—so you’d look and look and you’d never burst out laughing. I looked from one couple to the next and they were all perfectly serious, and their eyes so earnest—tender and unblinking. It was such a landscape of commitment I felt like I’d traveled to a completely different place. The Land of Eyes.

Working in small groups turned out to be the killer. Once talking was permitted again, peace, serenity, and wordless love went out the window. Three to four couples clustered their chairs together and discussed the values Margo put out to them, and I had to walk around and not just hand out supplies, but comfort people as well, because the rules were everyone had to be totally honest—so naturally that opened up some floodgates. Like, for example, when they had to work with these open-ended statements that began, “Sometimes I feel …” and one wife would say, “Some
times I feel like a maid,” or something like that. And then there would be countercharges and recriminations and lots of tears, and I’d have to help with hugging. There was so much honesty in that room that Harrison and Margo couldn’t spread themselves around fast enough. At one point I thought there was a pair that was going to come to blows. It was a case where it got to be the husband’s turn and he was this ornery old guy and he said to his wife right there in front of his small group, his face getting redder and redder, “Sometimes I feel that you make me come to these things to punish me.” And he got up and said he was going to walk out.

And his wife, whose name was Barbara, started screaming bloody murder and pulling him back, and then he turned on her and yelled into her face. “Damn it all, I’m getting some fresh air!”

And Barbara said to the small group, “You see the way he talks to me?” and she was crying.

Margo came over and she knelt down next to Barbara and I handed out the tissues, and Margo told Barbara we had to let John, who was the husband, go and have some cooling-off time, and that this had happened before, but there wasn’t any reason to panic, because it was just that the emotions were sometimes so strong. Sharon would be a stand-in for John, and Barbara should take all the time she wanted and vent to me.

So I ended up having to play the part of John for a therapeutic exercise. And I had to listen to Barbara vent at me for half an hour and I couldn’t say a word, because those were the rules. And I mean, I tried not to take it personally, but I couldn’t say a thing to defend myself while this woman hurled invective and curses on my head!

T
HE
next morning I got up real early, just around dawn, and I put on my new bikini, which was crocheted of turquoise string. I took a bath towel and my suntan lotion and padded down to the beach. The only guy down there was a Filipino groundsman who was raking the sand. I spread my towel and lay down on my stomach and just zoned with my eyes closed. Not exactly asleep, but at rest, and with my mind free of voices, I listened to all the little early-morning sounds. The mynah birds calling to each other, and the rumbling sound of the ice machine at the poolside bar. I was actually almost in a meditative state when suddenly freezing cold drops of water started falling on my legs. “Hey!” I yelled. I
looked over and saw Harrison standing there in his wet swim trunks. “You’re dripping on me!”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Harrison stepped back and dried off and shook himself like a wet dog.

“How’s it going?” he asked me.

“Well,” I said, “the small groups were rough, but they made me reflect a lot.”

“On what?” he asked.

“Just on life. Just the way two spirits can drift apart. How can you avoid that? When your soul is going one place and your partner’s soul is off somewhere else? It’s communication, right? That’s the key.”

He’d knelt down next to me, and I guess he was looking at my back, because he said, “I can see exactly how far you could reach with the lotion.”

“Really?” I had a thing about getting an even tan. I had my bikini top untied so I wouldn’t have a line across my back.

“You can see on your back how far your fingertips could stretch,” he said. So then just to help out he rubbed on some more lotion, and I guess at the time I thought he was doing a pretty thorough job, but what’s some Tropic Sun between friends? He gave me a pretty terrific back rub.

“Wow,” I said, and I propped myself up on my elbows, and I said, “You’re good!” and that was when he slid his hands around the front of me, and to my breasts. And I said, “Whoa!” because I didn’t know what to think—I mean, not being a prude in any way or feeling uncomfortable with my body, or with his, but in the context of the situation, I have to say a little warning bell went off inside my brain. I said, “Um. Harrison! Um. Wait!” and I pushed him off and flopped down with my chest against the towel and said, “Don’t you see just a little tiny contradiction here? Since we’re here like counseling married people? I mean, since you and your wife are here doing that?”

And then, you aren’t going to believe this. He laughed at me. And that really pissed me off. And I just stood right up and wrapped my towel around me, and picked up my bikini top and my lotion and I said to him, “Harrison, you’d better apologize.”

And he said in his southern velvety yet ever so slightly mocking voice, “Sharon, I’m deeply sorry.”

And I looked at him and I said, “Yeah, well, you really are a hole.” But I don’t think he got it.

Of course, I was going to tell Margo, but frankly, this being her husband we were talking about, I was worried about how she’d take it. She might believe him over me if he denied the incident; or she might just turn on me, assuming the whole thing had to be my fault. So I just thought very briefly about running to Margo. I admit, I wanted badly to get paid for my week’s work, and that was mercenary. I felt like a worm. And a disillusioned worm at that! Because I mean, what was really going on here? What was happening at this so-called workshop? We had this couple of so-called counselors in front, a lecherous male sociologist, and a psychology prof—who was also a clinical psychologist on the side—and these guys had either some pretty major deceptions going on in their marriage, or some massive cynical scam going on, I didn’t know which. Then there were all these people from the Mainland who’d read the book and had come out here to learn from these total marriage gurus. And suddenly I began to wonder, as I walked around holding people’s hands and passing out dittos and values-clarification worksheets, was I participating in a genuine attempt at understanding that was actually leading people somewhere? Or was I actually engaged in highway robbery? I couldn’t figure it out at all. The only slightly encouraging thing was that about three quarters of the couples seemed to be really making strides in the togetherness arena.

By Saturday night when we had the luau and evening show, a lot of the couples—with some notable exceptions like Barbara and John, who were barely on speaking terms—were sitting at their tables under the tiki torches, and touching each other, and making eye contact, and even wearing matching outfits they’d bought. Muumuus and short-and-shirt cabana sets all made out of the same wild aloha-wear material. Brown-and-green block print designs. Or white and orange. So they weren’t just husbands and wives vacationing together; they were like theme couples. And I couldn’t help looking at all of them and noticing that I was alone, not even part of a dysfunctional pair. I couldn’t imagine any boyfriend of mine, not even Wayne, wearing matching clothes with me, let alone holding my hands and making goo-goo eyes at me at a luau. The hands, maybe,
or
the eyes. But not both. Did Brian ever do all this stuff with Imo? I’d never seen the two of them stare deeply at each other. Of course, why would they do that in front of me? Brian was far too sensible, and Imo—I just couldn’t picture her melting at all. She was way too prickly. Still, they had each other, in ways I’d never know.

At the buffet I stood in line behind Harrison and watched his back. I’d come to the retreat so optimistic, but now I felt like the only one without a date at the prom, or like some modern-day Cinderella in a story where Prince Charming would be happy to feel you up. The end.

I loaded up my plate and ate like a pig. I tried to cheer up, since the food was so good. I drank a couple of chi-chis. Just slurped them up like milkshakes. But then lights went down for the show. Tears pricked my eyes. This luau show was the one Kekui had worked when he was putting himself through college as a fire-eater. And I thought I’d been lonely then, losing Kekui to his mom and his girlfriend and his whole extended family. But now, sitting there with all the married couples and the luau feast glowing in the light of all those citronella candles—now I could have put on my own workshop in the art of loneliness. I was so sad. And I was so angry at myself for coming on the retreat in the first place, thinking it might be some sort of twofer: learning plus a resort vacation; contemplation together with all that extra cash. If I’d come with someone else we would have laughed. The whole thing might have been an adventure, or at least a humorous scam. Alone, I couldn’t help noticing that my motives were crummy, and the whole retreat so phony—despite the sincerity of the couples in it. I put down my drink. And that was when it hit me. God was not here. On the whale-watching boat I’d felt his presence. In the water I’d sensed him, through the ocean and the whale, through my own imagination. But not here. So I skipped out to catch the Upper Manoa bus. I figured I’d go hear the message at Greater Love.

This was in the days when the Saturday-night services at Greater Love Salvation Church were just beginning. Pastor McClaren got the idea, I think, from the popularity of the Easter sunrise service, where the congregation would stay up all night praying, almost in a vigil, and then celebrate Christ’s rising with the sun. Well, once a month Mc-Claren had a service at night that was really for the young bloods in the congregation, and for the people with potential who had not yet been saved, like me. And in fact he called it his revival service. There was a fervency about it that was just catching. Everyone prayed harder, and everyone sang louder, and everyone stayed longer too. I had come once before at night, and been moved by the experience, and especially the singing and the stomping. Still, that time before was nothing like this night when I came in, because this time I was aching in my heart.

There was a crowd inside—more people than I’d ever seen in church. There weren’t even enough seats for everyone and I had to stand in the back, because it turned out Pastor McClaren was doing a special Christmas-week sermon. McClaren was standing up in front at the pulpit and he was already speaking, and not from notes, not once looking down, just preaching and exhorting, as if he were inspired. His eyes were just shining behind his wire-rimmed glasses. Our pastor McClaren was a local guy, despite his name. He was Scotch-Irish-Hawaiian-Japanese-Portuguese, and he had dark skin and longish straight black hair, and Oriental eyes, and a sharp hook nose that along with his glasses gave him a scholarly look. I stood in the back, and I craned my neck, because a lot of other people were standing too. But the craziest thing was, as he spoke, he wasn’t just talking to the group, all those maybe three hundred people crowding around at his feet and up the aisles and in the back—no, he was actually talking directly to me. It was like he was saying, “Sharon! Listen up!” Of course he didn’t really use my name, but he spoke to me.

Pastor McClaren was saying, “Why? Why do we spend our time involved with things that are not right? Why do we spend all our days around people who are not people of God? Why? There’s a very simple reason, and his name is Satan. Now, you folks say to yourselves, ‘Not! Satan neva’ live on my shoulder. Satan neva’ live ova’ here. Satan is some kine haole guy.’” Everybody chuckled, hearing Pastor speak in pidgin. “‘He live over dere, bra. He live on da Mainland, far away from here.’”