Since You Left Me (11 page)

“Did this whole family wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” Mom says.

That’s when the toilet flushes down the hall. A door opens and shuts followed by footsteps.

“What the hell?” I say, and I jump up.

The guru walks into our living room. Today, he’s wrapped in bright orange robes and a turban.

“Mom!” Sweet Caroline screams, jumping behind her for protection.

“Sat nam
, Zuckerman family,” the guru says. He looks at our surprised expressions. “Was I not expected?”

“I was trying to tell them,” Mom says.

“Who the hell is that?” Sweet Caroline says.

“This is my guru,” Mom says. “He’s come all the way from India to spend time with us.”

My
guru? When did he become her personal guru?

Mom smiles and opens her arms wide, like she’s presenting us with a gift.

Sweet Caroline looks at me, concerned. I nod.
This is the one I was telling you about
.

“Guru, you remember Sanskrit,” Mom says.

“I seem to have a habit of shocking him,” the guru says with a smile.

“You keep showing up where you’re not wanted,” I say. “That’s pretty shocking.”

“Sanskrit!” Mom says.

“No, no. He has a point,” the guru says. “It’s not easy to open your heart to a stranger.”

“It’s not my heart. It’s my bathrooms that are off limits.”

I’d like to see the guru lose his temper, but I’m not sure he has one. No matter what I say he grins and looks calm. I was right. He’s definitely got Barry Goldwasser syndrome.

“Who is this lovely creature?” the guru says, referring to my sister.

“This is my youngest, Sweet Caroline,” Mom says.

“An apt name. I can feel the sweetness in your aura, little one,” the guru says.

Obviously, his powers of perception leave something to be desired.

Sweet Caroline smiles. I hope she’s not falling for it, but she’s been known to succumb to compliments, especially from men.

“What’s he doing in our house?” I say.

“He needed someplace to stay,” Mom says.

“Where did he sleep?” I say.

“Sanskrit. That’s rude,” Mom says.

“I understand why you would be concerned,” the guru says. “I slept right here.”

He points to the meditation area in our living
room. He smiles at me. Which only makes me hate him more.

“He’s a visitor,” Mom says. “What does your religion say about visitors, Sanskrit?”

“You mean
our
religion,” I say.

“My point is he’s come a long way,” Mom says, “and it’s our responsibility to offer him hospitality.”

“That’s why they have hotels,” I say.

“He’s a guru,” Mom says.

“Gurus like hotels. When the Dalai Lama comes, he stays at a suite in the Ritz Carlton,” I say.

“No, he doesn’t,” Mom says.

“It’s true,” Sweet Caroline says. “I read it in the
L.A. Times
.”

“See that?” I say.

“I don’t think that’s the truth,” Mom says.

“Actually, his Holiness stays at the Montage,” the guru says. “He has a lot more money than I have.”

“I thought Buddhists took a vow of poverty,” I say.

“Individually, yes. But his organization raises money to spread the word of the dharma.”

I think about Rabbi Silberstein pushing High Holy Days tickets. Maybe Tibet and Brentwood aren’t so different.

“Why doesn’t
your
organization have money?” I say.

“We have nothing to spread. If people want what we have, they will find us. That’s what we believe. Therefore, money is not needed.”

“You can’t live without money,” I say. “Everyone knows that.”

“Dad lives without money,” Sweet Caroline says.

“Zadie had money,” I say. “You barely remember because you were so young.”

“I remember,” she says.

“I do not want to talk about your zadie,” Mom says. “Not when we have such interesting
living
people in the room.” She sits down at the table. “Let’s have breakfast and get to know each other.”

The three of us look at her.

“You can’t just push a guru on us at breakfast,” I say. “Right, Sweet Caroline?”

She sits down.

Traitor.

The guru and I stay standing, looking at each other.

“May I join you, Sanskrit?” the guru asks.

I can see what he’s doing. Trying to give me space, trying to win me over by being deferential. I’m not falling for it.

“You can eat, but then you have to go,” I say.

“Sanskrit!” Mom says.

“What? We don’t have enough space as it is. Much less enough food.”

Mom tenses like she’s about to get into it with me, then, just as quickly, she lets the anger drain from her. She makes one of those motions like she’s pulling an
invisible string from her chest. She takes a deep breath, and her voice softens.

“It’s strange to have a new person here. I understand.”

“You don’t understand,” I say.

The guru and I are still standing, looking at each other.

“Can we just have breakfast like civilized people?” Mom says.

“Since when are we civilized?” I say.

I look to Sweet Caroline for support. I don’t get any.

“Please have breakfast with us,” Mom says. “I got you some organic breakfast bars. I know you like those.”

I look at the guru, all wrapped up in flowing orange robes. The man who believes in nothing, yet has followers wherever he goes.

He’s not going to add me to his list.

“I changed my mind,” I say. “I’m not hungry.”

I grab my backpack and storm out of the house.

“They will find us.”

That’s what the guru said earlier. The people who want what he has will find him. Is that what happened with Mom? She was looking for something, anything, and this is what she found?

The thought makes me sick inside. The idea that my mother is one of those people who jumps at any trend, believing she’s found the answer to life’s questions.

That gets me thinking about Herschel.

He’s at shul right now, sitting with everyone and praying. I consider going there to join him. I remember what that used to be like, the sound of voices in unison, calling out to God. The feeling of sitting in a group of believers. We would go as a family sometimes, drive to Zadie’s house, park the car, then walk from his place because he wouldn’t use the car on Shabbat. We’d show up at Zadie’s synagogue and everyone would greet him, pinch my cheeks, say how happy they were to see us and make space for
us to sit down. Sometimes I’d even feel happy to be there.

I could go to shul with Herschel now, but it wouldn’t be the same. I’d just be taking up space because I don’t believe.

So I walk.

It’s a warm Saturday in April, and I walk down San Vicente west towards Santa Monica. The exercisers are out en masse. There are runners, bikers, speed walkers, uniformed teams of cyclists. It seems like when you turn forty in Brentwood you have to join a cycling team, put on one of those skin-tight colored uniforms, and wear funny shoes that click when you walk into the coffee shop.

I move in the same direction as the exercisers, west, towards the ocean. I read somewhere that there is a high rate of suicide in California because people who are trying to escape their lives head west, and when they get here and find that nothing has changed, that they’ve run out of choices, they jump into the ocean or drive off Pacific Coast Highway.

It’s an interesting theory, but what happens if your life starts here?

Where do you go?

“On your right!” a cyclist shouts, and goes flying by me, so close that I feel the wind blow the hairs on my arm.

“Watch it!” another one says.

I’ve wandered too close to the bike lane, and a riding team is shouting at me, territorial, ready to mow me down.

I jump to get out of one’s way, and I end up in front of another. I dodge that one and the next one comes. One cyclist after another shouts rude things at me. It’s like a hyena attack on one of those nature shows where they surround some defenseless animal and hound it until it collapses.

I’m that animal.

It seems to go on forever, the shouts and the wind and the rushing bikes. Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I gather my courage, let out a roar, and spin around to face the pack.

But they’re gone.

There are no bikes. They’ve all passed me by.

I’m alone on the median on San Vicente, ready to fight something that’s not there.

“You’re off balance, Sanskrit.”

That’s what Mom says when I walk back into the house an hour later.

“I’m not off balance,” I say. I look around. The guru is gone. His stuff is out of the living room. “In fact, I’m feeling very balanced right now.”

“What do you call your little outburst this morning?” Mom says.

“I’d say that was an appropriate reaction upon finding a strange man in your kitchen.”

“Not so strange. You’d met him before.”

“Not in my kitchen.”

“First of all, it’s not
your
kitchen. You don’t pay the bills in this family.”

A dead man pays the bills in this family. At least the tuition bills. But I don’t say that to Mom.

“Forget it,” Mom says. “I’m not having this fight again.”

Mom unfurls a yoga mat and lies on it on the living room floor.

Her answer to everything. Kundalini.

“Join me,” she says. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Please, Sanskrit.”

“It’s not a matter of
please
, Mom. I just don’t feel like it.”

“Why not?”

“I had a big breakfast. I don’t want to be upside down right now.”

“Where did you eat?”

“At Starbucks. I had a breakfast sandwich with extra bacon.”

Mom makes a face. I call it her meat wince. She pretends she doesn’t care that I eat meat, that it’s my own personal choice and her only job is to inform me so I can make a good decision. But if I dare to walk in the house with an In-N-Out Burger bag, she can’t control her reaction. It’s like a beefy form of Tourette’s.

“You can’t do one little posture with me?” Mom says.

“I cannot. I am incapable of it.”

Mom pushes up into a headstand. Now we’re looking at each other eye to ankle. It’s like a docking maneuver on the space shuttle. I imagine Mom and me lost in space together. I wonder what it would be like to be alone with Mom, nobody to interrupt us.

“Are you on drugs?” Mom says out of the blue.

“Are you kidding?”

“You’re not addicted to bath salts?”

“What are bath salts?”

“My yoga blog talked about it in their Parent Corner. All the kids are doing it now.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“Well, everyone else is.”

“Something else I can feel bad about. I’m not on drugs, Mom. They’re not even popular in our school. Kids are more worried about Israeli politics than getting high.”

Mom examines me upside down, trying to determine if I’m lying. “I made an appointment for you with Dr. Prem,” she says.

Dr. Prem is not really a doctor. He’s Mom’s chiropractor.

“No!” I say, even though I like Dr. Prem. He’s just weird like everyone else Mom knows.

“I’m trying to help you.”

“How does getting my back cracked help me?” Mom pinches her fingers together and gestures from her toes to her head. “Flow,” she says. “I don’t want to flow.”

“It’s already done. Two o’clock today. Your father is going to take you.”

“Why aren’t you taking me?” I say.

“I’m giving the guru a tour of the city,” Mom says.

“Like you gave him a tour of your bedroom?”

Mom opens her mouth to respond, then takes a calming breath instead.

“You don’t think I’m doing a good job as a parent?” she says.

I feel a drop of sweat pooling on my forehead. It hangs there for a moment before rolling down the side of my face.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you’ve brought it up,” Mom says. “A few times now.”

I wipe my forehead with my sleeve.

“Don’t wipe your head like that,” Mom says. “It stains the fabric.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t appreciate what I do for you. I bought you that shirt.”

“I know you did.”

“Dr. Prem is expensive. So is your sister’s doctor.”

“I know.”

“I’m trying to keep this family’s head above water. I’m killing myself to build up the Center. I’m working all the time. You think I like being away from my children so much?”

“No,” I say, even though I think the answer is yes.

“I even invited you to teach a class with me.”

I stare at the floor.

“I’m doing my best, and you have the nerve to stand here and criticize me when I’m trying to help
you. And maybe have a life of my own at the same time.”

“Sorry,” I say.

Mom drops out of her headstand and her feet whack the floor hard.

“Now you’ve got me disturbed, Sanskrit. I have to find my center again.”

Mom breathes deeply, stretches, breathes again. She rubs her forehead, upset. I hate it when she’s upset.

“I’ll go to Dr. Prem and get adjusted,” I say.

“You will?” Mom says.

“Anything you want.”

“Anything?”

“Of course.”

“Give me a kiss,” Mom says.

“Gross.”

“Not gross. I’m your mother.”

She takes my head in her hands and plants a big, wet kiss on my cheek.

“My son,” she says. “I’m feeling better now.”

“I’m glad,” I say.

Mom always feels better when she gets her way. And honestly, it’s easier for everybody involved.

“Busy. Always very busy.”

That’s what Dad says when I climb into the car later and ask him how he’s doing. I have to clear a foot of junk off the passenger seat before I can even sit down.

“Busy with what?” I say.

“I could tell you,” he says. “But then I’d have to kill you.”

He chuckles like this is funny.

It’s not. Child Protective Services would not take kindly to jokes like this. It’s not like I would call them, but we’re on their radar after Sweet Caroline got sick of Mom’s tempeh stew a few years ago and told her teacher Mom was serving us dog food. The teacher took her seriously and called the hotline, and when the social workers showed up one night during dinner, they took a look at our plates and thought she might be telling the truth. Mom’s tempeh stew was brought to a lab for testing, and we spent the night at juvenile hall eating bologna sandwiches and spicy Fritos.