The Way We Bared Our Souls (7 page)

“Listen, Kaya,” I said. “I’m sorry to barge in here like this. I know that we’ve . . . drifted apart. But there are only a few people I can trust at this point, and you’re one of them.”

Kaya had never been judgmental. I used to open up to her about every crazy thought and feeling that passed through my brain, and she’d just roll with all of it even when she couldn’t relate. I tried to do the same for her. I missed that about us. But standing here in front of her now, I suddenly felt as if my success with Thomas had been pure luck. I was supposed to pitch Kaya some story about a magical coyote and a mesmerizing forest gypsy and a five-person sacred ritual, and she was supposed to jump on board without asking too many questions. None of which I could answer, of course. I was about to call to order a wing-and-a-prayer sort of meeting, and I didn’t have any words. Where to begin exactly?
So this coyote .
 . . ? I decided to skip the preliminaries.

“I’ve got a major problem.”

Kaya looked at me skeptically. I didn’t blame her. How could she know anything was wrong behind the shiny veneer of Agua wishing-well happiness I usually exuded at school?

“That makes two of us,” Kaya said.
Touché
. And it was true. Kaya had problems that even her mother didn’t know about. I knew from personal experience that she could be . . . reckless with her anesthetized body. Years ago, right around the time Kaya and I stopped hanging out every day, she told me that sometimes she cut herself at night, hoping that she’d find out what pain was. I all but freaked out when she showed me the fresh lacerations, all jagged from the serrated steak knife she’d used.

I shuddered involuntarily at the memory. I couldn’t handle any more knife imagery that evening. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and breathed deeply.
TranquiLo.
For an extended second the perfume of Kaya’s bedroom brought back memories of sleepovers, late-night psychic readings, intimate secrets, and laughter that erupted volcanically whenever we were together.

“It sucks that we’re not friends anymore,” I said suddenly.

“We’re not friends anymore?” said Kaya innocently. “Then what am I supposed to do with all the bracelets I made you at summer camp?”

We both smiled. We had always shared a borderline cheesy sense of humor.

“I’m serious,” I said.

Kaya shrugged. “My current lifestyle doesn’t exactly support a wide social circle. By the way, did my mom happen to frisk you when you came in?”

“Nah,” I said. “She only asked to neutralize the three grenades I was packing.”

At that moment Kaya’s mom knocked on the door, and we both started giggling. Mrs. Johnson had obviously been creeping because we hadn’t heard her approach across the aged floorboards.

“Kaya?” she said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Kaya said. Then, quietly to me, “Ugh.” We heard footsteps retreat reluctantly down the hall.

“Man,” I said. “You’d think one of us would’ve sensed her presence. Aren’t we supposed to have psychic powers?”

Kaya and I used to visit a psychic once a week. Santa Fe was full of people eager to read our palms, predict our rosy futures, and above all take our allowance money. Kaya liked all that pseudo-mystical stuff. And for my part, I just found what psychics had to say more interesting than what Mom’s favorite Catholic priest intoned on Sunday mornings. (For-give the sacrilege.)

“What?” said Kaya. “You didn’t know she was out there? I did.”

“I was too busy, um, reading your next-door neighbor’s mind. Chester isn’t sure how to tell his wife that he’s leaving her for his llama trainer.”

“Makes sense,” said Kaya. Her tone was flat, and I got the feeling she was done joking around.

“So you’ve got a problem, huh?” she said. Maybe I was psychic after all. “Not that you don’t deserve every happiness,” she continued, “but most girls, as you must know, would kill for your problems. Which span the spectrum of midfielder to point guard to quarterback.” I wasn’t sure if I deserved all that, but Kaya was allowed to be hurt that I hadn’t been around. I hadn’t tried hard enough to hold on to my friend.

“I wish,” I said, ruing the lack of boyfriends I’d actually had, despite appearances. Boys and I always seemed to break off at the friend mark. Or at least at first base. “I don’t think my life was ever
that
idyllic. In any event, it’s kind of a shitshow now.”

“Yeah, well, like I said before, I can relate,” Kaya said. She shuffled some oversized tarot cards on her desk, and I decided to change the subject.

“So I take it your mom is as . . . involved as ever,” I said.

“Actually, she’s been trying to give me a looser rein. I talked to her about it. She’s even letting me have a birthday party next Friday night, out at Shell Rock? You know, the picnic area out there? A band is going to play and everything. I’m really excited.” I must have looked hurt, because then Kaya backtracked. “I hadn’t invited you because. . . . Well, you’re invited now. If you want to come.”

“Sure,” I said. Kaya smiled. She hadn’t had a birthday party in years. I guess you could only be so festive when you were essentially isolated from anyone with nails and teeth. “I’d love to come,” I said. “You should be celebrated, Kaya.”

She shrugged her shoulders again and nervously began tapping the tarot cards on her desk.

“Let’s read each other’s fortunes,” I said. “Like old times.”

Kaya smiled. “Okay,” she said, nostalgia overcoming us both.

“You first.” I took the tarot deck from her and began shuffling the cards.

“Don’t cut them like you used to,” Kaya said. “I mean, I’m older now. I don’t need you to baby me.”

“You knew about that?” I said. In junior high I used to hand-pick the cards so Kaya always got feel-good images like the Magician and the High Priestess. Then I’d interpret them as positively as possible. I shouldn’t have cheated, but she was already feeling gloomy about her life and her future, and I’d wanted to give her something to look forward to.

People should always play tarot with friends. You get better fortunes that way.

“Ask your question,” I said. “But don’t tell me what it is.” Kaya closed her eyes, trying to commune spiritually with the cards as I spread them on the desk. This time I didn’t cheat, and I drew Death first.

“See?” I said, troubled but trying to hide it. “This is precisely why I’m bad at this game.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kaya said. “Sometimes the Death card can mean something positive. You know, like transformation, regeneration, et cetera. Or, I’ll get run over by a steamroller tomorrow. Hard to say.”

“Let’s stick with transformation,” I said. “Next.” I drew another card. The Hanged Man in reverse. “Okay, granted I’m a little rusty, but I think this means you’re about to let go of something you’ve been clinging to, like maybe a feeling or a relationship. Orrr . . . ,” I said, “in the spiritual realm, I think it means something like beliefs from your childhood are going to come back to . . . sort of . . . haunt you. Also, you should eat more vegetables.”

“What an excellent reading, Lo,” Kaya said. “I wonder how the cards knew about the cupcake diet I’ve been on lately.”

“Magic,” I said.

“Amazing,” Kaya said. “Uncanny. Your turn.”

She expertly shuffled the cards and then closed her eyes before she chose one.

“Okay,” she said, “is your question about love, money, health, spirituality, or what?” I thought for a second. Some-how I felt that my current crisis transcended my physical health. That it affected my soul, like Jay had told me.

“All of the above.”

Kaya laid the card face up on her desk. “The Ace of Swords,” she said. “Interesting. That means you need to be brave.” She drew another card. “I see you riding a horse,” she said. “Like a warrior.” I fingered the turquoise horse in my pocket. I’d automatically grabbed it off my dresser that morning—for some reason, it felt good to have it with me. Kaya placed a Devil card on the desk. “This card means—let’s see—that you’re going to find freedom. From what, I don’t know. But it’s going to come at great expense. . . .”

“Where do you see that?” I said, suddenly feeling panicky. “How great?”

“That’s what the Devil card means, Lo,” Kaya said with composure. “It also implies some form of self-bondage. Like, to an idea, maybe. A belief that is preventing you from growing.” Kaya had always known more about the tarot than I did. Now it seemed she was an expert.

“Freedom,” I said. “Go back to that. Do you really see freedom in my future?” I wondered if that meant freedom from suffering. I wondered if that meant death. I began to tear up.

“Lo, what on earth is going on?” Kaya said, interrupting her reading. “Why are you here, really? I know it’s not to get your fortune read.”

“I . . . I’m sorry, Kaya. I came here because, well, to be honest, I think I might have multiple sclerosis. And I wanted to talk to you about it since . . . it’s a neurological disease. Sort of like yours.”

“Oh my god,” Kaya said. “Are you serious?”

She listened attentively as I told her about my symptoms and my appointment with Dr. Osborn. The more I talked, the more I calmed down. Kaya had always been a great listener.

“It’s really not so bad,” I said. “Some aches and pains in the morning. Nothing a few ibuprofen can’t fix.” Kaya had never even had to take an aspirin. “But I’m especially worried because it runs in families, and my aunt died of it. . . .”

“Karine died?” said Kaya. “Oh my god, Lo. No one told me. When?”

“Late July.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know she was sick . . .”

“I . . . thought you knew,” I said.

“No! I would have.. . . .”

“Please don’t worry about it,” I said with finality. I couldn’t think about Karine on top of everything else. Kaya shrunk back into her cushy desk chair with its rounded arms.

“It’s weird,” she said thoughtfully, “because I made you a painting not long ago. Before I knew. It must have been right around the time that she died.” She rummaged in a plastic container under her round desk and pulled out a scroll of paper. “You can look at it later,” she said with embarrassment as I began to unroll it. I pouted but didn’t open it any further. “So what are you going to do?”

I took a deep breath and told her about Jay’s ritual.

“That’s the story,” I said. “Thomas Kamara and I are meeting Jay tomorrow at sunset. What do you think?”

Kaya looked at me, seemingly enraptured with the idea of experiencing something new and quite possibly dangerous. “I’ll do it,” she said.

“Kaya, thank you. You have no idea what this means to me,” I said. “Let me throw your cards again. I think I did it wrong last time.”

As I shuffled, I noticed for the first time that on many of Kaya’s cards, blood stained the white space around the images. I looked more closely at her hands. Her cuticles were torn to pieces, as if she’d stuck her fingertips in a blender. I remembered something else Kaya had said in
People
: “Sometimes I don’t really consider my condition the absence of pain. I consider it the presence of something else. Something magic.”

ON SATURDAY MORNING I AWOKE
at dawn more nervous than I’d ever been in my life. It wasn’t just the prospect of investing my future in Jay’s ritual, and it wasn’t just my physical condition that made my nerves feel tattered. It was that I was about to see Thomas again. I kept remembering how good it had felt to lean against him in the hot-air balloon, hunting knife and all.

But I had to stay focused. Knock on wood, I was going to be responsible for a group of four (if the wild-card candidate I’d decided to approach that morning agreed) burdened kids who didn’t really know each other. With the exception of Thomas and Kit, I was the only tie that bound us. And I wasn’t even sure I could get them all to show up. But the day was bright and beautiful, and I felt hopeful despite my poor odds of success.

My wild card? Ellen Davis. Though frankly I was pissed that she of all people was making decisions that even a lobotomized goldfish wouldn’t consider, I also genuinely hurt for her. I had to think that she could come back into the drug-free fold and be her sweet, cheeky self again.

And okay, maybe I wasn’t just pissed at Ellen. Maybe I was furious. But I also knew that I needed to try to understand where she was coming from or I’d get nowhere.

I knew where she would be that morning. Lately she’d been forsaking our Agua group’s weekend routine of making up silly biographies about Plaza tourists and trying to sneak into rock shows in favor of hanging with her boyfriend, Meth-Head Mike, and his dropout friends in a fractured parking lot behind the abandoned chili canning factory on St. Bonaventura Drive. Gross.

During my drive to St. Bonaventura I thought about what to say. It would be easier if Ellen hadn’t been so volatile lately; I had no idea how she would react to my proposal. Or what state she’d be in when I proposed it.

Where the road and the railroad tracks intersected, a weather-worn billboard advertised a holistic medical retreat in nearby Abiquiú. New Mexico was supposedly a place with magical healing properties, a place where a hundred years ago tuberculosis patients traveled in droves, like gold prospectors in covered wagons, thinking the dry mountain air would cure them. If you had a creak in your knee or a head full of phlegm, you came west. New Mexico was the place where all of one’s earthly problems would disappear—a spiritual and therapeutic epicenter. I tried not to consider the irony as my head throbbed relentlessly.

I turned into the cannery parking lot and saw Ellen’s car before I saw her. Her new BMW, the second one she’d been given in her sixteenth year, was parked across the lot from a group of kids I didn’t recognize. They were talking and laughing around a nucleus of lit cigarettes. Ellen wasn’t standing with them, so I pulled up alongside her car. Then I saw her combat boots twitching on the sill of the open window. She lay alone in the backseat, staring blankly through her sunroof. I walked around to her top half.

“Hey, Ellen,” I said as amiably as possible.

It took her an eon to crane her neck back far enough to see me. She even blinked in slow motion.

“Ah,” she said, “if it isn’t Hula Girl herself.” That smarted. She’d always teased me for liking to hula-hoop, even before she got on drugs. That was just how she was. Superficially abrasive. Rough on the outside, soft on the inside. At least I hoped she was still soft somewhere in there.

“In the flesh,” I said, determined not to let her get to me. There were more important battles to fight right now than the one for my ego. “Can I come in?”

“
May
I come in,” Ellen corrected me, using her best imitation-mom voice. I guess drugs make some people sticklers for proper grammar. Or maybe, to her, I was some Goody Two-shoes with impeccable syntax. Well, I do read a lot of books. Another trait inherited from my favorite (and only) aunt.

I opened the passenger-side door and slid inside Ellen’s car. She sat up slightly and lit a cigarette. The breeze whisked the smoke through all four open windows in turn.

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

“Hit me,” Ellen said in a faintly robotic tone. “Wait,” she said with more gusto. “If we’re going to talk for real, I need a cigarette.”

“You already have one,” I said, already exasperated. Ellen looked at the cigarette she held as if it were a number 2 pencil and she was about to take a test.

“So I do,” she said, marveling. Her eyelids started settling into sleep position.

“Please, Ellen.” I twisted my body further around so I could look her full in the face. All my muscles seemed to creak from the effort. Ellen peered at me through one eye only.

“We’ve been friends a long time,” I said. “Since we were twelve. Like, when we both had braces and reputations for being super dorks. And what I’m about to tell you cannot—I repeat, cannot—leave this vehicle. I don’t care if you’re high. I don’t care if you’re, like, drunk on truth serum. That’s the rule.”

“Bitch, I don’t even think
I
can leave this car right now, let alone smuggle your big, important secret with me.” She sank even further into the seat cushion, if that were even possible. I’d never seen a car seat more closely resemble a patch of quicksand.

“Listen, Ellen,” I said, “try to concentrate. Have you heard of MS? Multiple sclerosis?”

Her eyes rolled laterally from the sunroof cavity to the back of my seat. This was an improvement. Then her eyes began to close again. I snapped my fingers. “Please focus,” I said.

“MS,” she said. “Sure. When your brain starts attacking itself and you start having seizures and you can’t hold your pee.” Wow. She was like some kind of druggie savant. The mysterious meth phenom of Santa Fe. “Isn’t that what your aunt had?” Had. This was the first time Ellen had acknowledged Karine’s sickness. Her death. My aunt who’d been so kind to her when she’d visited from California last fall. My aunt who’d taken us both out for long, confidential chats over virgin margaritas. My eyes welled up.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s what Karine had.” I quickly wiped my tears away. I didn’t want to exhibit any weakness that Ellen could pounce on. But she was barely cognizant.

“I’m sleepy,” she said.

“Because you’re on a barrelful of drugs,” I snapped.

“How insightful,” she said. Then she giggled. “A barrel. Like fish. Or pickles.” She tossed the remainder of the cigarette behind her head, and it sailed onto my nearby car, streaking ash across my rusty paint job. “Remind me why you called this meeting?” A note of irritation had crept into her voice. I had to move fast, before either she passed out or I lost my temper.

“I might be sick with it, too,” I said. “I could have MS. Maybe the super-bad kind. Like what my aunt had.”

Ellen was quiet. I fiddled with the metallic Mardi Gras necklaces snaking around her gear shift, not knowing how to interpret her silence.

“Sucks,” she said eventually. Then she started laughing, a dry cackle that quickly advanced into hysterical territory. She started kicking her legs in the air like an upside-down insect trying to right itself. “Look, Lo, I’m hula-hooping upside down! I’m going to break your world record for dorkiness!” She laughed harder, but I soldiered on.

“I met this guy on Thursday,” I said. “A sort of medicine man. He said that he could help me. Help us, I mean. Me and four friends. He knew I was sick before I even told him, Ellen. He seemed . . . wise. Soulful.”

Now Ellen started laughing even harder, and I knew I was losing her.
Focus, Lo. You can still get through.

“Look, Ellen. I know you don’t believe in that shit, and I don’t either. Not necessarily. But I don’t have a choice at this point. I’m sort of at the end of my rope here. There’s no cure for what I . . . might have. But this guy, Jay, said he could heal me and four friends. Four. And I’ve already got three.” I decided to give her the optimistic number. “I just need one more.”

She was nodding off again in the backseat.

“Don’t you want help?” I said. “Don’t you want to be free from . . . this? Your addictions?”

“
Psssssssshhhhh
,” went Ellen, like she was a balloon letting out air. She seemed to have moved into some stratosphere where only hollow sounds made sense.

“Great,” I said, as her dirtbag boyfriend, Mike, suddenly materialized in the parking lot and slid into the driver’s seat.

“We’re going for a ride, babe,” he said. Ellen reached carelessly for his heinously tattooed arm—Was that a sexy Little Mermaid riding a motorcycle across his bicep? How could she even work the pedals?—and her fingers landed in the console’s overflowing ashtray instead. A swing and a miss.

“You,” Mike said to me, pressing one dirty finger into my left shoulder. “Out.”

He smelled like burnt hot dogs. “My pleasure,” I responded.

Ellen rolled over, revealing pink boy shorts under her sundress. I felt a sudden urge to cover her up, tuck her into bed, bring her a glass of milk, and read her a storybook—like we used to do with her little sister when I’d spend the night at the Davis mansion. I cracked open the car door and put one foot on the pavement, leaving my butt in the seat so Mike wouldn’t drive away.

“Aren’t you at least going to prop her up?” I said. “Make sure she’s buckled?” Mike laughed and muttered something that sounded like “buckled to my dick.” It took everything I had not to smack him.

“Strap yourself down, babe,” he shouted into the rearview mirror at Ellen. “You’re in for a bumpy ride.” Then he stomped on the accelerator with the engine in neutral. He was either trying to scare me into jumping from the car completely, or his attempt at murdering me was foiled by forgetting how to drive a manual. I jumped out of the car and slammed the door behind me, and they sped away.

So much for Ellen. For a few minutes I stood seething next to the black skid marks that Mike had left behind.

“Yo!” shouted someone in the group of smokers at the other end of the parking lot. “You need a hit, girl?”

I shook my head and walked toward my car, bone-weary all of a sudden. I didn’t need a hit. I needed Ellen. And she needed me, even if she didn’t know it yet. I was still determined to convince her of our mutual necessity, before it was too late.

• • •

I pulled up to Thomas’s house at four
P
.
M
. on the nose. I was planning to make three stops, so I was surprised to see not one but two boys waiting for me on the Dents’ front stoop. Kit was with Thomas! After my initial glee, I was momentarily disappointed that I wouldn’t have Thomas all to myself—which is of course why I chose to pick him up first—but then I reconciled myself to Kit’s dour expression. This was a dream come true, and I knew it was a big step for him to join us.

They made their way to my car. Thomas’s face didn’t betray any of the extreme emotions from the airfield the day before.

“What’s up, Lo?” Kit said.

“Hey!” I said brightly. “Does this mean you’re coming with us?”

“I guess so, unfortunately. Kamara was a pretty good recruiter. Says I could use some help and shit. Plus, I’m crashing with him for a while, and I figured I’d better do what he says.”

“Really?” I said. “You’re staying here?”

“My mom and I aren’t exactly getting along these days.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’m really glad you came.” I squeezed Kit’s hand in the backseat. I might have imagined it, but I felt that Thomas’s blank eyes lingered a beat too long on my platonic gesture. I smiled at him in the front seat.

“Thanks, Thomas,” I said. “This means a lot.” It was pretty much the sweetest thing he could’ve done on my behalf. (With the exception of falling madly in love with me. Or single-handedly curing my MS. My Severity. My Separation.
Focus, Lo.
)

Thomas shrugged his shoulders but was otherwise nonresponsive to my gratitude. I shifted my car into gear.

“Next stop, Johnson residence,” I said. Now I had Kit in addition to Thomas and Kaya. Only one point of Jay’s star of burdens remained to be filled.

• • •

“Lo, didn’t you say we need five people?” Kaya said as she climbed delicately into the backseat, checking first for foreign objects. “There are only four of us.”

“I know,” I said. “Ellen Davis is our fifth.”

“No way,” she said. And part of me was just as incredulous. But my estranged Agua friend was our only shot. I would beg and plead with her to join us. I would get down on my hands and knees if I had to. I would turn a blind eye to her fury. Whatever it took. This ritual could potentially save our lives.

“Well, we can probably find her shooting up heroin on the railroad tracks right now,” Kit said. I glared at him. “Jesus, Lo,” he said. “I was joking. Wait, unless she’s actually on heroin. Last I heard it was meth. I can’t begin to tell you how sick I am of rich kids who do hella drugs and expect everyone to feel sorry for them because they’re so misunderstood. The world is dangerous enough without taking more risks.”

“Sorry, Lo,” Kaya said, “but I can’t see Ellen consenting to do this with us.” Or maybe she didn’t
want
Ellen to do this with us. I remembered then that Ellen had at one point been the ringleader of Kaya’s bullies in middle school. She was the one who’d nicknamed her “Kaya No-Feel-Um.” I’d given Ellen hell for it at the time, and now I privately vowed to make sure that she played nice on this occasion. “How are you going to get her on board?”

“I’m still working on it,” I said. “But I have an idea. And I’m going to need help from all of you.”

• • •

Ten minutes later we were parked in front of Ellen’s house.

“Okay, guys,” I said. “You know what to do. Remember that I don’t want to hurt her. And if she really puts up a fight, I guess we just have to let it go. But Ellen needs this. Just make sure that you stress it’s for her own good.”

“Roger, boss,” Kit said. “Kidnapping is a go.” Thomas nodded, then the boys hopped out of my car and jogged up Ellen’s front walk, side by side.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Kaya said.

“Nope,” I said. “Not by a long shot.”

We waited in silence, listening for I don’t know what from Ellen’s house. Shouting? Gunfire? A wall-shaking recording of the Beatles’ “Help!”? Or, god forbid, “Helter Skelter”?