Amie Barrodale - You Are Having a Good Time

“Cute,” she said, and spooned rice into his bowl.

He lifted two fingers to indicate he’d had enough, and furrowed his brow. She spooned three more shovels of rice in his bowl. “Cute,” she said. “Cute, yes, I see your fucking fingers. How incredibly amazing.”

She went to the next woman, and she was at the third when Bill placed a hand on her shoulder.

“What happened?” he asked outside.

When she told him, he explained that they had been singing one of Milarepa’s songs. Ema, in Tibetan, meant “How wonderful.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have trust issues. I get these panic attacks, so if I seem weird, that’s why. This is kind of like a nightmare to me, and I think maybe I should just—”

Sloane Newam walked up and put a hand on her shoulder. “Babe, it’s why we chant. We chant each morning, ‘May my confusion dawn as wisdom.’ That’s why.”

Ema sat on a bench. As she began to put her shoes on, the tears started. She got up and walked back to Bill and Sloane.

“I’m having an anxiety attack,” she said. “I’m having a breakdown.” Her face twitched as she spoke, folding in at her cheeks, and the color rose up past her forehead, shading into her hairline. She knew when that happened that she looked like a samurai at the height of emotion in a kabuki play, and — in speaking the words — she had begun to cry harder. Sloane said, “Okay — okay,” in a soft voice.

Bill said, “You go.”

“It’s only going to get worse,” Ema said. “I know myself. I can’t do it, so you guys better figure something out. I can’t be here. I need to go away.”

She went down to the women’s changing room, where she sat in a plastic chair and, for a little over ten minutes, cried.

It was close to five, and almost dark outside. She got her cell phone from the pocket of her coat and turned it on. The house was quiet. It was empty. Everyone was in the shrine room, watching the time-delayed simulcast of the ceremony in Asia. In the dining room the tables were pushed against the wall. Lights floated in goblets of colored water, and globe-shaped paper lanterns were strung from the ceiling.

In the main office, two recent arrivals were looking around. One was in her late sixties. She was tall, healthy, and trim. She was tidy and debonair. The other was a man in his late thirties. He was handsome, with even features, large sympathetic eyes, and a beard that was just going gray. The office was spread with their baggage. They looked lost.

“Have you been checked in?” Ema asked.

“No.” The woman was angry. “We’ve been standing here alone.”

“I’ll go and get someone,” Ema said. “I wish I could help you, but I’m just a program participant, and I’m having a personal problem. I’m sorry, if you’ll wait here — they’re all — watching this thing. One minute.”

“No,” the woman said. She held up a piece of paper. “We’re checked in.”

“Oh.” Ema was confused. “What are your names?”

“I am Alida and this is Francisco.”

“Then I’m going to go and make a phone call.”

In the parking lot it was possible sometimes to get cell phone reception. It took several attempts before she reached him. She cried, and she tried to tell him what had happened. She said, “They have some big ceremony. They’re all in the shrine room. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I just—”

“Ema, what are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“What are you doing? You hate New Age and you hate nature and you hate amateurs. But you’ve set yourself up with all three for a month, and you wonder why you’re feeling bad.”

“Oh God,” she said. “It’s good to hear an ordinary person. Sloane Newam is here. She’s turned into some kind of contortionist know-it-all. She’s the worst! And then there’s a blind lady who does reiki.”

“I’ve been reading her, too. You’re right, she’s a bit convoluted. But I’m glad you brought some good books to that place.”

“No, for chrissake, she’s HERE!” She started crying again. It was dark, and the parking lot’s packed-sand surface was almost like asphalt. Ema tried to tell the married man about the real Sloane Newam, but the cell phone cut out. It went dead, and then it began playing a three-note error tone.

Sloane seemed to manifest from the darkness. She came to a stop several inches closer than a friend would, and she said hello.

“Could you hear what I was saying?” Ema asked.

“I heard, ‘Dee-dee-deep. Dee-dee-deep.’” She imitated the phone’s error tone several more times.

“I was talking to the married man. It was a conversation I wouldn’t want anyone else to hear.”

“That’s what married men are for,” Sloane Newam said.

“What ever happened with yours?” Ema asked. “I mean, I read your novel.”

Sloane Newam said, “I never wanted to do the obvious thing. It seemed to me like we had two choices. I would either ask him to get a divorce or I would leave him. I didn’t see another option, but I didn’t want to do the thing everyone does, so I didn’t do either, and then he died.”

Ema crumpled in a ball and clutched her knees. She said, “I hate this. I hate everything. I can’t handle any more.”

Sloane Newam touched her head. She said, “Think of the benefits of renunciation. Or if you prefer, contemplate the illusory nature of samsara, and appreciate that you have nothing to renounce.”

“What?”

“Be skillful and practice whichever works for you at this very moment.”

“At this very moment,” Ema said, “I wish that I were dead. I’m heartbroken, and if I had a gun I would use it.”

“Suicide is no escape. You must follow your karma.”

“I would shoot you,” Ema said. “And then I would go in there to that shrine room, and I would shoot Bill.”

When she said that, it was so outrageous, she couldn’t help feeling a little better. She said, “Then I’d shoot the blind lady.”

“Eve.”

“Yes, I’d shoot Eve. Thank you. I’d shoot Eve in the chest.”

He did not look like our ordinary client at Seibu. He was about fifty years old, and although his shirt was nicely pressed, his pants sat low under his stomach, with deep creases in a triangle around his lap area. It was early in the afternoon and the floor was almost empty, but the members of my sales staff were avoiding the client, pretending not to see him. This goes against our policy. For this reason, although it is not within my job description, I approached the client and offered him assistance. I prefer to lead by example.

“Can I help you find anything?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m finding everything okay.”

He had a Southern gentleman’s accent, and I could tell from the way he spoke that he was gay. Also, I couldn’t help noticing that his teeth had plaque in the spaces between them, so that it looked like they were fusing into one tooth.

“I’ll be just over here,” I said. “Let me know if you need some assistance.”

I had begun to walk away when he addressed me—“What price is this?”—and I turned to find him holding a Kuriki Tatsusuke tea bowl from the Gray collection.

“I don’t know offhand,” I said. “Would you like me to go and have a look?”

He indicated that he would, and so I said, “I’ll just be one moment to check that price for you.” All of our prices are kept on an inventory file. I had begun to cross the floor to access that file from Mr. Ito’s station when the client said, “What’s the point of it?”

“Sir?”

“The bowl.” He flipped it to examine its bottom. “What do you use it for?”

“Oh, actually, it’s a cup. For water or tea.”