Mrs. Weinberg came to her door in tight jeans and motorcycle boots and seemed unsurprised to see me. Mr. Weinberg was in his studio, she explained. The parrot liked to hang out with him there. The dog was asleep on the planked floor. Mrs. W. set a mug in my hands.
I told her about Rick and Taz.
“Well, what fuckers,” she said. “How dare they.”
I wanted to push against this to see if it held. “But then I went and lost my virginity to a guy I don’t even talk to. And I’ve made some bad decisions since then.”
“Well, of course.”
She had enormous eyes, lashed like a cartoon.
“Of course?”
“Sure. You’re devastated. They stole your self-respect and ruined your sense of boundaries. It’s natural to take some time to get those things back.”
I sipped my tea. It had a complicated taste, like a burned garden. “How long, do you think?”
She watched me. She’d considered it a good sign that I had shared what had happened, but now she was seeing chaos.
“I think it can take a long time. But I also think there are things you can do to help yourself.”
I waited.
“You need to take care of yourself, Lacy,” she said.
“I don’t know how to do that.”
She smiled. “First of all. Where are you going to school next year?”
“I’m going back,” I said quickly.
She smooshed up her lips in a fierce, quizzical smirk.
“No, it’s best. Really. I have one year left, I have friends, I have a boyfriend.” I knew better than to mention college applications, because Mrs. Weinberg wouldn’t have cared about those the way my family did.
“I can’t imagine you won’t find those things somewhere else.”
Helpless, I told her, “There is nowhere else.”
“I see. Well, then, you’re going to have to get a bit creative, aren’t you?”
I thought of the Tom Robbins books—which were silly, I knew they were, but they enveloped me in a fantastical trance that allowed me to think, for a period of time afterward, that the world was wider and sparklier and less threatening than I knew it to be. I could coast for an hour or longer after a good run of pages. Was this what she meant?
“I’m doing an independent study project with a teacher I really like.”
She nodded. “Tell me about the boyfriend.”
“Oh, Scotty.” As though he were a known quantity in the world. “Well, he’s really sweet. Mellow. He used to go out with my close friend, but she left the school, and we just kind of came together.”
“More tea?”
I was failing her. The elixir was too strong—she was offering me a form of care I could not yet accept. And I was beginning to have the strange sense that I was betraying my mother by being here. I didn’t share this stuff with Mom. I did not think there was any way I could.
“And he knows? The boyfriend?”
“About what happened? Yes. Well, the bare bones of it, yes.”
She nodded again. “The school must have been flat-out stunned when they heard those assholes got you sick. I bet that shocked them, huh?”
I didn’t want to admit the truth, which until now I had not considered—that no, actually, Mr. Matthews hadn’t seemed shocked at all.
“Yeah,” I said faintly.
“So. How are you going to get through?”
I said I didn’t really know, but that I was sure I’d be fine.
“Are you reading?”
“Yes. A lot.”
“Journaling?”
No. My own voice was to be avoided in all forms.
“Praying?”
Um.
“Meditating?”
I shook my head.
“Energy work? Dream work?”
I set down my mug.
“Hang on,” she said, tapping the kitchen table. “Be right back.” I was left with the old sashed windows. The farm was fallow but the fields hadn’t yet given way to subdivisions, so the wavy glass revealed two blocks of color, land and blue. The birds over the fields were starlings. Phoenix had told me this when we were younger.
Mrs. Weinberg returned with a few dog-eared paperback books. Her bracelets and boot buckles rattled. I’d never seen Manhattan and I didn’t read Vogue, so I didn’t know what to make of her clothes or buzzed hair. She might have been an assassin.
“You know, I’m kind of a hippie,” she said. “And this is a little bit woo-woo, but if you’re going to go back there, you’re going to have to find some faith.” She set the books on the table.
“Carlos Castaneda,” I read, mispronouncing the name.
She corrected me.
“Sorry.”
She touched my arm. “You’re not always supposed to know.”
“Okay.”
“Ever met a shaman?”
I shook my head.
“You sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Borrow these. If they work, great. If not, just set them aside. But I’ve found some of the ideas here to be very helpful at times.”
When she said at times I thought I heard the memory of cancer. I wondered for a moment if it pained her to give away these books, even if she trusted me to return them. Might she need them for her own daughter? Or had my old friend Fee already transcended these sorts of challenges, finished her growing up?
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Very sure.” The bright tulip smile. “Take your time. Enjoy them.”
She had a set of clear beads on a string around her wrist, and she was rolling and smacking these softly as she considered me.
